the past year, that I do not venture to ask it. If however any one of the brethren intends to visit us, I hope hewill lay his plans so as to take your place. But I am only making myself ridiculous, if I should happen to be disappointed in my expectations. Yet trusting that the Lord will be with me, I speak of it as a certain event."1

Two or three weeks later he writes again to Farel: "Oh that I were permitted to pour my feelings confidingly into your bosom, and listen again to your counsel, so that we might be the better prepared! You have the best occasion for coming here, if our hopes concerning the marriage shall be realized, for we expect the young lady immediately after Easter. But if you give us the assurance that you will be present, the marriage shall be postponed until your arrival, for we have yet time enough to inform you of the day. First, then, I ask of you, as the greatest favor, that you will come, and secondly that you write that you will come. For it is necessary in any case that some one of you be here to add your blessing to the marriage; but I prefer you to any one else. Consider therefore whether I seem to you worthy of the trouble of this journey." Another letter to the same individual, shows that the day was appointed, and Farel informed of it, but no bride appeared: "I fear," he says, "if you wait for my nuptials, it will be long before you come. The bride is not yet found, and I doubt whether I shall seek further."

Calvin finally married sometime during this year (1540), Idelette de Bures, the widow of a man in Strasburg, whom he had rescued from the errors of the Anabaptists, a woman worthy to walk by the reformer's side amidst the storms of life. Bezą speaks of her as a person possessed of much natural dignity and nobleness, and also as highly cultivated.3 Calvin, according to the custom of the time, wished the wedding to be as joyous and festive as was consistent with moderation. He accordingly invited the consistories of Neufchatel and Valenciennes to be present at the festival, and they complied by sending representatives. There are not many documents existing, showing specifically the domestic relations and enjoyments of Calvin during the nine years of his married life, yet expressions are found scattered here and there through his letters, which show conclusively that the union was a most happy one, and that the man who has been represented as devoid of all the sympathies which sweeten life,' Genevan Manuscripts. 2 MSS. Gen. Feb. 26, 1540.

3 He calls her "gravis, honestaque foemina," and also “lectissima.”

1845.]

Death of the Wife of Calvin.

525

was a most delicate, tender and affectionate husband. Many of the passages which best show this, cannot be quoted, as they owe their charm to the incidental connection in which they are found. In a letter written soon after his nuptials, giving the details of a distressing illness, he says: "In order that my marriage may not bring too much joy with it, the Lord has checked our happiness, and so restrained it that it shall not exceed measure."i One little expression of Calvin, who was sparing in his praises, and never spoke without meaning, is a good testimony to his appreciation of his wife: She was a woman of rare excellence, "singularis exempli foemina."

"

Idelette de Bures had several children by her first marriage, but by the second one son only, who died soon after birth. Many of the catholics who falsely deny that Calvin had any children, represent it as a judgment from God, "lest the life of so infamous a man should be propagated."2 Calvin's reply to the reproaches of Balduin is as simple and touching as it is dignified. “Balduin," he says, "reproaches me as childless. God gave me a little son,-he took him "3 away." Soon after the death of this son, Calvin writes to Viret: Salute all the brethren, your aunt also and your wife, to whom my wife gives many thanks for her kind and Christian condolence. She is unable to write except by means of an amanuensis, and dictating would be burdensome to her. The Lord has indeed inflicted a deep and painful wound upon us by the death of our little son. But he is a father, and knows what is best for his children. Again farewell. The Lord be with you. I wish that you could be with us, I would gladly spend half of the day in talking with you."

Calvin's letters during his wife's protracted sickness, often contain allusions which bear not less positive witness to the tenderness, faithfulness and solicitude of the husband at the side of the meek sufferer's couch, than do his other writings to his fidelity and constancy, as an admonisher of the disobedient and erring, But we have only room for extracts from some letters bearing date after her death.

To Viret, April 7th, 1549, he writes: "Although the death of my wife has been a sore affliction to me, yet I strive as much as possible to overcome my sorrow, and my friends endeavor to excel each other in their exertions to console me. It is true, both their and my efforts have failed to accomplish all that is desirable; 2 Brietius, Jesuita, Tom. VII. p. 192.

1 MSS. Gen. Oct. 12, 1840.

3 Dederat mihi Deus filiolum, abstulit. VOL. II. No. 7. 45

but however small it may be, it is nevertheless a consolation greater than I can express. Knowing as you do the sensibility or rather weakness of my heart, I need not say, that it required the most vigorous exertion of mind in alleviating my anguish, to prevent me from sinking. And truly the cause of my sorrow is not small. I am deprived of the best partner of my life, optima socia vitae, who, had it been necessary, would have been my willing companion not only in banishment and want but in death itself. During her life she was a true helper in my official duties. She never in the least thing opposed me. She had no anxiety about her circumstances, and during her whole sickness, was careful to hide from me any anxiety she felt for her children. But fearing that this silence might aggravate her solicitude, three days before her death, I introduced the subject and promised to do all that should be in my power for them. She immediately replied, that she had committed them to God,' and on my saying that that was no reason why I should not care for them, she answered: 'I am confident that you will not forsake children thus committed to God.' I also learned yesterday, that when she was advised by a female friend to speak with me about the children, she said: The only thing necessary is that they fear God and be religious. There is no need to ask my husband to promise to bring them up in the fear of God and with good discipline. If they are pious, he will be a father to them, unasked, and if they are not, they do not deserve the request.' Be assured, this greatness of soul was more effective with me than all entreaties could have been." Four days later Calvin wrote to Farel a letter in the same spirit, giving most interesting details of the last days of his wife.1

In 1556, after seven years, we find him cherishing the same tender regard for the memory of the chosen companion of his life. For he thus writes to Richard de Valleville, preacher of the French church at Frankfort, on the death of his wife: “I feel in my heart how painful and agonizing this wound must be, which the death of your excellent companion has caused, remembering my own grief seven years ago. I call to mind how hard it was for me to gain the mastery of my sorrow. But you know very well what means we must use for restraining our immoderate grief, and it only remains for me to pray that you will make use

1 See Henry, I. 422, and also a Translation of this letter into English in the Bib. Repert. Vol. XIII. p. 80.

of them. It is not one of the least of your grounds of consolation, (although our earthly part is thereby the more cast down,) that you have spent a portion of this life with a companion, whose society you joyfully hope to regain, when you are done with earth. Remember also that your companion has left you the example of a happy death.But if our chief consolation is in the providence of God, through which our troubles conduce to our happiness, and if he only separates us from those we love, in order to unite us with them again in his heavenly kingdom,-then your religion will lead you to acquiesce entirely in his will.-May the Lord alleviate the pain of your loneliness by the grace of his Spirit, guide you and bless your labors."

ARTICLE V.

PLATO AND THE PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY.

By Prof. T. D. Woolsey, Yale College.

Plato against the Atheists, or the tenth book of the Dialogue on Laws, accompanied with critical notes and followed by extended dissertations, etc. By Tayler Lewis, LL. D., professor of the Greek Language and Literature in the University in the City of New York. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1845.

It seems strange, if we take into view the intrinsic value of Plato's Laws and the difficulties attending upon the text and explanation of this work, that so little labor has been bestowed upon it by scholars. Ast's, we believe, is the only separate edition since the invention of printing; and the editors of the general text of

1 Published in 1814 at Leipsic. It is well known that this same learned man in his Platon's Leben und Schriften, published in 1816, after his study upon the Laws was over, maintained and endeavored to show that this treatise was not written by Plato, although quoted as such by Aristotle (e. g. in Politics 2.3). We must own that such an opinion, setting aside this strong historical evidence, seems to us astonishing. The style indeed is peculiar-far removed from the artistic elegance of Plato's most finished works, although somewhat like that of Sophista and Politicus; some of the opinions and modes of presenting truths may be peculiar also; but he who can doubt, after reading the work and receiving the general impression of it into his mind, that it is Platonic and that it is Plato's own, must, we think, be far gone in literary skepticism.

Plato furnish us either with no commentary or with a very brief one. Nor are we much better off in regard to translations. Schleiermacher went no further than the Republic; and we know of no other translator, besides Cousin, who unites scholarship, a philosophical spirit and familiarity with the Platonic dialogues to such a degree as to secure confidence in his interpretations.

The relation between the Republic of Plato and the Laws is one about which not a little difference of opinion has existed. A speaker in Cicero's treatise De Legibus, near the beginning, uses the following language: "quoniam scriptum est a te de optimo reipublicae statu, consequens esse videtur ut scribas tu idem de legibus: sic enim fecisse Platonem illum tuum, quem tu admiraris, quem omnibus anteponis, quem maxime diligis." The opinion involved in these words that the object of the Republic was to show the best form of polity is implied also in the prevalent Greek title zorɛía, and is embraced by many writers of note. If we take this ground it must be supposed either that Plato changed his views before composing the Laws, or what is more natural and is usually believed, that he regarded the form of polity in the Republic as of hopeless attainment on account of its perfection, and intended in his later work to bring down his scheme of government to the level of ordinary human nature. The one would thus be a Eutopia; the other an improvement on the Cretan and Lacedemonian legislation. Others hold that the views of government in the Republic were never meant to be realized and were introduced only to illustrate the nature of politics. Mr. Lewis goes so far as to say, in his first Excursus, that "a misconception of the end and scope of the Republic, or as it should be more properly styled, the dialogue on the nature of right and righteousness (7ɛgì dizaíov), has subjected the name of Plato to great reproach. He has been charged with maintaining in the fifth book of that dialogue, sentiments which, if carried out, would result in the utter overthrow of all the domestic relations. A defence, had we space for it here, might be derived from the peculiar parabolical or allegorical nature of that work, and from the evident absence of any design that it should serve as the model of any actual existing polity."

In our judgment this view expressed by Mr. Lewis is not entirely defensible. We believe him to be in the right against those who, like Cicero, consider the best polity to be the end of the Republic. Its true aim, as we conceive of it, is to set forth the nature of righteousness, whether in the individual or in the State,