SEHVKTUS AND CALVIN. 49 



the glue still stuck to it, and when dry, the hairs were as hard and 

 compact as ever. Mint tried to saw it off., but Llewellyn protested 

 against this operation with such heart-piercing shrieks, that the car- 

 penter, much as he loathed the goat, felt compelled to desist. The 

 creature pined hourly, and in less than a fortnight expired, not from 

 want of nourishment (for everybody tried to make him eat from the 

 hand), but to all appearance broken-hearted. Boys as we were, 

 Master Nicholas and I, one stormy night, dug a grave for him be- 

 neath an old yew-tree, in the consecrated ground surrounding a 

 village church, and, to this day, I bitterly regret having had act or 

 part in glueing his beard. 



SERVETUS AND CALVIN. 



MICIIAL SERVETUS, a celebrated Spaniard, after having published a 

 theological system, under the title of Ckristianu'imi Restitutio, while 

 proceeding to Naples, imprudently took his way through Geneva, 

 where Calvin, who indulged against him the full bitterness of theological 

 hate, induced the magistrates to arrest him on a charge of blasphemy 

 and heresy, brought forward by a person who had been a servant in 

 Calvin's family. In order to insure his condemnation, his various 

 writings were rifled for accusations, and as a proof of the malignity 

 and ID justice which he encountered, one of the charges was extracted 

 from his edition of Ptolemy's Geography, in which he asserted that 

 Judea had been falsely extolled for its beauty and fertility ; modern 

 travellers having found it both sterile and unsightly. As he refused 

 to retract his opinions, he was condemned to the flames, and his 

 sentence was carried into execution the 27th October 1553, in the 

 44th year of his age ; he remained in the fire more than two hours, 

 the wind blowing the flame in a contrary direction, and Awhile his 

 most horrid torments were being prolonged, he cried out, t( Misera- 

 ble man that I am, cannot I die in these flames ? Could you not, with 

 the 200 pieces of gold, and the rich collar you took from me when I 

 was sent to prison, purchase wood enough to consume me ?" 



While imprisoned, his condition, judging from three autograph 

 letters, of which we subjoin tranlations, appears to have been truly 

 pitiable. 



LETTER I. 



" MOST HONOURED LORDS, I most humbly entreat you to be pleased to 

 bring me immediately to trial, or to set me at liberty. You see that Calvin 

 does not know what answer to make, and merely for his satisfaction I am 

 left to rot in prison. Vermin devour me alive, my nether garments are all in 

 tatters, and I have no means of changing them; neither have I coat, nor a 

 shirt, except a very bad one. I had presented a petition to you once before, 

 a religious one (la quiele cstoyt selon Zh'ew.) In order to destroy its effect 

 Calvin has quoted Justinian. This is very harsh on his part to produce 

 tilings against me in which he does not believe. He does not and cannot 

 place any faith in what Justinian has asserted, De sacrosanclis ecclesiis et de 

 episcopis et clericis, and other things in matters of religion. He knows that 

 at that period the church was alreadv corrupted. It is a great shame, on his 



M.M. No. 91. "H 



