"I call accessory, the state of things in this frail and fleeting life. I call principal, the spiritual government in which the providence of God shines forth with sovereign lustre."-BEZA.

W. G. BLACKIE AND CO., PRINTERS, GLASGOW.

ENGLISH TRANSLATOR'S

PREFACE.

THE work of which a new translation is now presented to British readers, is already so widely known and highly appreciated, that praise from me is altogether superfluous. An excellent estimate of it will be found in the preface to the Netherlands edition, to which this is indebted for many valuable Notes. I may advert, however, to some circumstances which make it desirable that M. Merle d'Aubigné's history should be still more extensively read amongst us, and to some of the objections, also, that have been brought against it.

We are manifestly deficient in good Church histories, and feel this the more, from the number and excellence of works of that nature, devoted mainly or exclusively to civil affairs. Various causes may be assigned for this defect, but there can be no valid reason for not endeavouring to supply it, by naturalising foreign if we cannot find native works of equal excellence. As protestants, we are not educated by a sacerdotal or monastic caste, ever seeking to enhance their pretensions to respect and authority by pointing to the marvellous and the magnificent in the past annals of what they call "the church;" and in our ordinary religious instructions, Scriptural history and doctrines naturally and properly occupy so large a space, that the records of times subsequent to the completion of the sacred canon, are apt to be undervalued and neglected. Were authentic church history to occupy an equal space in protestant teaching with the legends of saints in the papal communion, doubtless that department of popular literature would not be so defective as it is.

A single glance at our previous resources shows how much reason we have to hail the work of M. Merle d'Aubigné. Fox, Fuller, Burnett and some others of our older church historians, are either quaint or prosaic, and are at the same time both bulky and incomplete. Others, also, who have written more lately, have confined themselves to particular parts only of the ground which they might have traversed, and have superadded the faults of partiality and partizanship. Mosheim and Milner stand pre-eminent in respect of the compass they embrace, and the spirit in which they have executed their task; but

1 Modern church history is taught, it appears, in the public schools of Prussia, to all the youth of that country.

their volumes are not written in a popular style, and extend over too vast a period to admit of sufficient justice being done to all its parts. Not that either of those authors is superficial, for much solid learning and valuable criticism are to be found in both: but they necessarily partake of the nature of epitomes, and so far fall under lord Bacon's censure when he speaks of these as "the moths and corruptors of history." This has also contributed to make them unpopular, particularly to the present generation of readers, which, as I shall afterwards have to remark, considers minuteness of historical delineation as essential to interest, and all but essential to truth. Mere epitomes, such as we have in Bossuet's Universal history, or such as are so often to be found in the periodical literature of the day, may be animated and even captivating, but will always be found to owe these qualities more to the genius of the writer than to the events he introduces. Genius may place a few detached facts in bold relief, and throw a splendid colouring over them, but this is neither rightly to appreciate past events, nor to learn the proper lessons of history.

The very charms of our secular historians have done much to throw church history and historians into the shade. In childhood we are fascinated with the spirit-stirring annals of Greece and Rome, and as we advance in years, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, &c. tend to confirm the illusion that while secular events form the staple of history, the memorials of that body to which all worldly things are subordinated in the Divine counsels, and which is destined to surpass all earthly empires in duration and glory, are merely adventitious and episodical. Some of our histories of particular periods and churches, and many of our ecclesiastical biographies, are admirable of their kind. But, neither together nor separately, do they supply the place of more extensive works. No where do we find so long and important a period as the sixteenth century, treated with the fulness which it receives in the pages of this Genevan historian.

If any be prejudiced against this work because written by a foreigner, be it remembered that this very circumstance is attended with peculiar advantages. Residing at one time in Germany, at another in Belgium, settling finally at Geneva, and frequently visiting France, the author has had manifest facilities for collecting his materials, and by familiarity with some of the most important scenes of the Reformation, he has been enabled to describe these with much of the animation and graphic power of an eye-witness.

In the scenic effect of many of his descriptions, and the dramatic turn which his narrative derives from a frequent use of the present tense, the author may offend the taste of many of his readers on this side of the Channel, and the same persons will probably complain that

I

1 This I have ventured very often to alter in the translation.

his style is occasionally too elaborate and ambitious; nay, they may object to those picturesque descriptions, and that occasionally romantic colouring which with others possibly constitute one of the grand charms of his work. I do not wonder at this. The extreme simplicity of the style of Herodotus has had many readers to admire, and many authors to perpetuate it in Britain. It may even be objected by some, who think they cannot extend the authority of holy Scripture too far, that the history of the Church ought to be written with the same unadorned simplicity that distinguishes the pages of inspiration. Putting the Bible out of view, I confess that the author's other writings, and the familiarity he must have contracted with the simple chroniclers of the sixteenth century, might have led us to expect somewhat more of the soberness of the Genevan style, and of the uncloying simplicity of the elder annalists of France; qualities which would have secured him, likewise, from the sneer that his work is a romance rather than a history.

But many valid considerations may have induced him so far to modify the form in which his labours are presented to the public, as to suggest the idea, that while in substance they are from the hand of a master, imbued with the tastes as well as familiar with the solid learning of a former age, in point of style they have received the elaboration of some artist, who, from being chiefly conversant with the literature of the present day, has been able to adapt them to the taste of the living generation, particularly in France. If his history differ in point of style from his other productions; if it do not all possess the chasteness and simplicity which unquestionably mark a great part of it; may it not be that by an innocent modification of his style, he has sought to allure to the impartial study of one of the most important eras in the history of the Church, a multitude of readers who might otherwise have treated his labours with contempt? It was of infinite consequence that that host of prejudices, which has hitherto enveloped the ecclesiastical proceedings of the sixteenth century, and disfigured both the men and the measures of that period in the minds of the vast reading population, especially of France, should be removed; but in order to this being done effectually, the historian behoved to consult, and, in point of taste, to make what he himself might deem concessions to the likings and dislikings of the persons who needed to be disabused of their prejudices. This service the late Dr. M'Crie rendered to the cause of the Reformation in his native country, and in Italy and Spain; he was engaged in attempting the same task with regard to Geneva and France, when taken from his labours to his rest; the taste which he needed to consult, he did consult, seeking to gain the public ear by a rare combination of that simple vigour and purity which were then more popular than now with British readers; and he lived to see the men whose prin

ciples and characters he sought to rescue from calumny and oblivion, occupy a new and honourable place in the judgments of all intelligent and candid men. But other qualities are now thought indispensable to the interest of history both in France and Britain. Our neighbours are accustomed to scenic representations from their infancy, and acquire an early relish for dramatic effect. This is not so with us, but a taste for the picturesque and romantic, and for having the scenes and events of history minutely delineated and brightly coloured prevails in both countries; and, accordingly, by some of those very peculiarities of style which have been blamed in the author's pages, there can be no doubt that he has obtained a reading from multitudes who would otherwise have slighted them. I do not see that this popularity has been improperly acquired, if the essential truth of history have been preserved, and it in no wise follows that that grand point has been sacrificed. The use of the present tense can mislead no one as to the time when the events related actually took place. There is such a thing, too, as the romance of real life, and this was pre-eminently the case in regard to many, both of the greater and lesser actors in the scenes of the Reformation. Many things, moreover, become picturesque, and to the taste of our age interesting, in the exact proportion that they are minutely and accurately described. Truth and fiction are not necessarily associated with certain peculiarities of manner and style. Defoe's fictions, though written with what seems the most artless simplicity, are not the less the pure creations of their author's fancy, and the truth of the history before us must be tested by the numerous references to authorities scattered throughout its pages, and by the author's faithfulness to those authorities, not by vague insinuations grounded on the mere peculiarities of his style.

1

In these views I am happy to find myself borne out by some very judicious remarks, occurring in a lately published criticism on the Pictorial History of England. In alluding to that alteration in the public taste, mainly referable, the author thinks, to the almost omnipotent influence of Sir Walter Scott, and according to which historians who have written "with a total absence of every thing like historical colour and costume in their portraits," have become so far unpopular, he admits that "in as far as picturesque effect, and the minute particularities which give colour to history and fiction are concerned, there is of course no ground for quarrel with this progressive change in the public taste, in as much as it is an advance towards truth." His fears spring from a different source. He dreads, and with reason too, that the minute accuracy of historical painting demanded by the taste of the present day, may lead to those general characteristics which are common to men in all circumstances, being lost sight of in

1 See Edinburgh Review, No. CL.