was, in the language of Bayle, one of the best Latin poets of his time in Germany, and held a very honourable rank among the learned men of his day. Accordingly, being enlisted under the banners of Camerarius and Melancthon, he gave his share of such splendour and support to the reformation also, as literary talent then idolized was wonderfully calculated to bestow. It would be wrong to set the elegiac verse of Micyllus on a level in taste and in beauty with the writings of his Italian contemporaries. But viewed in another light, that of the testimony which the whole of his Sylva bears to the moral character of the good people of his country, amongst whom the reformed religion was so dearly che rished, that collective volume of his Quos igitur cultus, aut quos pietatis honores Micyllus, having put it as an objection that fortune had denied to her the gifts of splendid beauty and elevated birth, proceeds very happily thus to describe her person. He afterwards asserts the respectability of her family. Heu miseros homines, superi si talia curent, Sed tamen hæc si quis nonnullâ in parte locanda, Tu quoque, quam par est, referes hoc nomine laudem, Non vultus Helenæ, nec erant tibi corpora Ledæ, Quanquam etiam hæc licito nonnullos traxit amore, Illa autem generis quis nescit nomina vestri, Quoque fuit mater prædita, quoque pater, &c. &c. In a very dissimilar tone to all this, the general strain of Italian Latin verse at that day ran pretty much in the old style, Vide Sotheby's Catalogue, hereafter mentioned, p. 318, No. 4,499. Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus. And it is chiefly indeed by way of exception to the rule, that Dr. Jortin (Erasmus, i. 90.) said of the amiable and benevolent Sadolet, he "writes with as much piety as purity," or that of Flaminio, though he too once lived at the gay luxurious court of Leo X., Mr. Roscoe had occasion to testify, "in Flaminio we have the simplicity and tenderness of Catullus without his licentiousness."* More immediately for the purpose of this hasty sketch, let me pass on to the accomplished Balthasar Castiglione; whose house at Urbino for a short time, be it remembered, entertained Flaminio as its guest. That nobleman has left on record what I fear must be regarded as a very un common offering from the Italian muse, an offering to affection strictly virtuous, to chaste and conjugal love. It is a poem contained in the Selecta Poemata Italorum (vid. the enlarged and well illustrated edition, Oxford, 1808.) and it bears the title, Hippolyte Balthasari Castilioni Conjugi, or more explicitly, Elegia in quá fingit Hippolyten suam ad se ipsum scribentem. Balthasar, at the time of writing this Elegy (about 1519), was in Rome as Ambassador from Mantua; and had recently from Hippolyta received a plaintive letter, to say, that in his absence all her happiness was to hear from him, to think of him, and with their little son Camillo, to be reminded of him-while looking at his portrait by Raffaele. Sola tuos vultus referens, Raphäelis imago At quicunque istinc ad nos accesserit hospes, Sed nisi jam captum blanda hæc te vincla tenerent, Now, if it be true, as Bayle tells us, that the critics found abundance of faults in the verses of Micyllus, and even faults against quantity, such faultiness was the case more or less with Cis-Alpine scholars also; nor will the beautiful lines above quoted from the pen of Castiglione, bear the ordeal of very rigorous criticism. Upon the whole, therefore, and after a candid review of the Latin poetry, which Germany produced at that period when with the spread of classical learning the cause of the reformation was so advantageously blended, I do not scruple to claim for the German writers of Latin verse (especially for Micyllus) a higher consideration on the score of historical value in what they record, and even of freedom * Vide Archdeacon Wrangham's very pleasing edition of Select Poems of MarcAntonio Flaminio, imitated by E. W. Barnard, p. xxii. and real amenity in the composition, than the eclat of their Italian contemporaries has hitherto in this country allowed them to enjoy. A far grander and wider basis, how ever, has the fame of MELANCTHON to rest upon. The variety of his own attainments in every branch of science and literature, the benefits of knowledge unceasingly conferred on others by his writings and by his lectures, and above all, the service which he was thus enabled to render to the cause of the reformation from the admiration paid to his talents, and the love entertained for his personal virtues at home and abroad, may well place the name of Melancthon in the list of excellent men, the indefatigable instructors of mankind. The mildness of his nature, the gratia quædam fatalis, as Erasmus most aptly terms it (Jortin, i. 515), may not be considered as the mere idiosyncrasy of human constitution, but as the same blessed gift, and from the same Source as that temperament which so marked the beloved disciple of our Lord. Equally remote from the "timid prudence" of Erasmus as from the "roughness and fiery courage" of Luther his friend and colleague, even in those difficult and dangerous times, his conduct, if impartially tried, not on the principles put forth by other persons, but on the actual and professed convictions of his own mind, defies the charge of having ever betrayed or injured the great cause by one act of irresolute weakness. And the historian of Charles the Fifth, when in the affair of the Interim he accuses Melancthon of having been "seduced into unwarrantable concessions," reminds one of that Presbyterian bitterness against every thing Erastian (so called), which was hardly to be expected from the moderate Dr. Robertson. Dr. Cox, in his Life of Melancthon (1815), pp. 482-93, has very ably shewn, from his reply to the Interim, that the impressions unfavorable to his character on that ground will not stand the test of fair examination. The perusal of that explicit answer is quite necessary, if one would form a just estimate of his deliberate creed on the question of matters then called indifferent. And the Life of Melancthon by Camera rius (in the edition Halæ, 1777, preferable to all others), contains, amongst the documents, No. xvIII. an epistle (in 1549) from him to the pastors of the church at Hamburgh, in which he pleads his own defence with great frankness and pointed address. How delicately does he there touch those persons, who, at a safe distance from the scene of action, did nothing but talk loudly against him who in every debate bore the burden and heat of the day! "Quod cum ita sit, aliquanto majora odia et pericula subimus, quam illi qui inter applausores suos in tuto nobis convitiantur." Again he emphatically says, "De magnis rebus pugnamus. Id judicamus utilius esse quam de vestitu aut re simili rixari, ubi sapientes clamitant nos tantum stultâ morositate aut contumaciâ adversari gubernatoribus, alere dissidia, attrahere peregrinas gentes." And much more to the same purpose in justification of his conduct; so that any consistent divine of the church of England will be very reluctant to condemn the part, "in quæstionibus non necessariis, pro pace Ecclesiasticâ," in that critical day sustained by Melancthon. If any excuse be required for thus calling the attention of your readers to the memory and merits of the most amiable of the reformers, sufficient reasons for so doing at this time exist in the catalogue, lately published, of books and manuscripts once belonging to Melancthon; which, along with the other collections forming the library of Dr. Kloss, are advertised for sale by Mr. Sotheby in the course of next month. The highly interesting publication in which those valuable articles are described, exhibits incidentally, as at pp. 282, 309, 330, 331, fresh illustration of that singular acuteness, tact, and perseverance in Mr. Ottley of the British Musenm; by which he has been enabled, from tracing nice circumstances, however minute, yet essentially interwoven with points of importance, to detect what had escaped the sagacity of other eyes. The unfeigned tribute of a scholar's thanks is here tendered to Mr. Ottley for the service rendered to paleography in his recent work on the Astronomical Poem |