is no extraordinary thing, but the common effect of a moderate piety. But for a queen to grant her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them, to preserve them from the flames prepared for them, to furnish them with a subsistence, liberally to relieve the troubles and inconveniences of their exile, is an heroical magnanimity, which has hardly any precedent. It is the effect of a superiority of reason and genius, which very few can reach to: it is the knowing how to pity the misfortune of those who err, and admire at the same time their constancy to the dictates of their conscience: it is the knowing how to do justice to their good intentions, and to the zeal they express for the truth in general: it is the knowing that they are mistaken in the hypothesis, but that in the thesis they conform to the immutable and eternal laws of order, which require us to love the truth, and to sacrifice to that love the temporal conveniences and pleasures of life: it is, in a word, the knowing how to distinguish, in one and the same person, his opposition to particular truths which he does not know, and his love for truth in general; a love which he evidences by his great zeal for the doctrines that he believes to be true.

Such was the judicious distinction the queen of Navarre was able to make. It is difficult for all sorts of persons to arrive at this science; but more especially difficult for a princess like her, who had been educated in the communion of Rome, where nothing has been talked of for many ages but faggots and gibbets for those who err. Family prejudices strongly fortified all the obstacles which education had laid in the way of this princess; for she entirely loved the king her brother, an implacable persecutor of those they called Heretics, a people whom he caused to be burnt without mercy, wherever the indefatigable vigi

lance of informers discovered them. I cannot conceive by what method the queen of Navarre raised herself to so high a pitch of equity, reason, and good sense; it was not through an indifference as to religion, since it is certain she had a great degree of piety, and studied the scriptures with a singular application. It must therefore be the excellency of her genius, and the greatness of her soul, that discovered a path to her, which scarcely any one else knew. It will be said, perhaps, that she needed only consult the primitive and general ideas of order, which most clearly show that involuntary errors hinder not a man who entirely loves God, as he has been able to discover him after all possible enquiries, from being reckoned a servant of the true God, and that we ought to respect in him the rights of the true God, I might immediately answer, that this maxim is of itself subject to great disputes. So far is it from being clear and evident, that these primitive ideas hardly ever appear to our understanding without limitations and modifications, which obscure them a hundred ways, according to the different prejudices contracted by education. The spirit of party, the attachment to a sect, and even zeal for orthodoxy, produce a kind of ferment in the humours of our body; and hence the medium through which reason ought to behold those primitive ideas, is clouded and obscured. These are infirmities which will attend our reason, as long as it shall depend on the ministry of organs. It is the same thing to it, as the low and middle region of the air, the seat of vapours and meteors. There are but very few persons who can elevate themselves above these clouds, and place themselves in a true serenity. If any one could do it, we must say of him what Virgil did of Daphnis:

Candidus insuetum miratur lumen Olympi,
Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera Daphnis.
VIRGIL, Eclog. V, ver. 56.

Daphnis, the guest of heaven, with wondering eyes,
Views, in the milky way, the starry skies:
And far beneath him, from the shining sphere,
Beholds the moving clouds and rolling year.

DRYDEN.

a

And he would not have so much the appearance of man, as of an immortal being, placed upon a mountain above the regions of winds and clouds, &c. There is almost as much necessity for being above the passions, to come to the knowledge of some kind of truths, as to act virtuously. This mountain is the emblem of a good man, whom no passion can withdraw from the paths of justice:

Sed ut altus Olympi

Vertex, qui spatio ventos hiemesque relinquit,
Perpetuum nulla temeratus nube serenum,
Celsior exsurgit pluviis, auditque ruentes
Sub pedibus nimbos, et rauca tonitrua calcat :
Sic patiens animus per tanta negotia liber
Emergit, similisque sui; justique tenorem
Flectere non odium cogit, non gratia suadet.

CLAUDIAN, de Mallii Theod. Consulatu, pag. m. 6, col. 2.

But as Olympus' tow'ring summit knows,

Nor discomposing storms, nor hoary snows,

And in superior region is seen

Far above clouds, eternally serene;

While at its steady foot the rushing rain,

And rattling thunder spend their force in vain :
So, the just man, disclaiming all controul,
In perfect peace preserves his constant soul;
Always himself, enjoys his seat above,
Nor chill'd by hatred, uor inflam'd by love.

I think I have given a fine view of the queen of Navarre's heroism.-Art. NAVarre.

MAROT.

(His version of the Psalms.)

I shall relate some curious things concerning his

version of the fifty psalms of David. Florimond de Remond affirms that Marot, after his return from Ferrara into France, was exhorted by Vatablus to turn the Psalms of David into French verse, and that, following his advice, he published a version of thirty Psalms, and dedicated it to Francis I. It was censured by the faculty of divinity at Paris, who moreover made some remonstrances and complaints of it to that monarch. "The king, who loved Marot for the fineness of his wit, made use of delays, and said, that he had approved the first draughts, and desired to see the rest. Upon which account the poet sent him this epigram :

Puis que voulez que je poursuive, ô sire,
L'œuvre royal du Psautier commencé,
Et que tout coeur ayant Dieu le desire,
D'y besongner me tiens pour dispensé :
S'en sente donc qui voudra offensé :
Car ceux à qui un tel bien ne peut plaire,

Doivent penser si jà ne l'ont pensé,

Qu'en vous plaisant, me plaist de leur deplaire.

Since you desire it, sire, I can't refuse

To clothe in metre David's royal muse.

Let those then, whom the work displeases, know,
If you're my friend, I care not who's my foe.

Nevertheless the publication, after many_remonstrances made to the king, was forbidden. But

Des hommes plus la chose est desirée,
Quand plus elle est aux hommes prohibée,

We value most what is forbidden us.

They could not be printed so fast as they were sold off. They were not then set to music, as they are now, to be sung in churches; but every one gave them such a tune as he thought fit, and commonly that of a ballad. Each of the princes and courtiers took a psalm for themselves. King Henry II loved this psalm, "Ainsi qu'on oyt le cerf bruire,-like as

the hart doth breathe and bray;" and took it for his own in hunting. Madame de Valentinois, whom he loved, took this, "Du fond de ma pensée ;-Lord, to thee I make my moan;" and made choice of it for herself. The queen chose the psalm, "Ne vueillez pas ô Sire,-Lord, in thy wrath reprove me not;" which she sang to a merry tune. Antony, king of Navarre, took the psalm, "Revange moi, prens ma querelle,-judge, and revenge my cause, O Lord;" which he sang to the tune of a dance of Poitou, and so did the rest. In the mean time Marot, fearing lest he should be sent to prison a second time, because he could not hold his tongue, fled to Geneva, where he continued his version as far as fifty psalms. Beza put the remaining hundred psalms into verse, and the psalms, which he rhymed in imitation of Marot's, were received by all men with as much applause as ever any book had. Not only all the Lutherans, but Catholics also, took pleasure in singing them; because they were pleasant, easy to learn, and fit to be played upon the violin, and musical instruments. Calvin took care to put them in the hands of the best musicians in Christendom; and among the rest, he pitched upon Goudimel, and another called Bourgeois, to set them to music. After this, ten thousand copies of the Psalms in rhime, set to music, were dispersed every where. Then every one begun, even the Catholics, to carry them about, and sing them as spiritual songs, thinking there was no hurt in doing it. They were not yet, nor until some years after, a form of religious worship among the Calvinists; but afterwards they were appointed to be sung in their assemblies, being divided into small sections; which was done in the year 1553, to serve as a resting place, where they might take breath, after so long a devotion as theirs is; for the singing of Psalms at church, for the most part, lasts half a quarter of an hour. After they were bound up