270 Notes of a Miscellaneous Reader. [Srer. 
sons. She need fear no eclipse from them! Jeanne d’Albret partook 
still’ moré strongly than her son of the peculiarities of the Béarnais ; her 
father, Henri d’Albret, was, as I have said, a Béarnais to thé back-bone. 
He’ was quite a John Bull in nationality. He ae no idea of * new- 
trified, and coarsely patriotic—almost as “Squire Wester hitnself. But, 
at*the same time, he possessed intellectual powers, which, if not first- 
rate, were at all events, strong, sound, and serviceable, and gained” ex- 
trinsic consideration and dignity from the manner in which they were ex- 
erted, and the matters and persons on which they were brought to bear. 
He lived, indeed, in the most stirring age recorded in the history of man- 
kind. The sudden burst of light which streamed over the world at the 
revival of letters, had had fine to become condensed upon some of the 
most important and agitating themes which were ever yet disputed 
between man and man. The invention of printing preceded and pro- 
duced the revival of learning—the two combined gave scope for a suc- 
cessful reformation! It has been usual to ascribe this apparent coin- 
cidence of time to chance; it was—it could be—no such thing. Wick- 
liffe, ‘and Huss, and Jerome of Prague (the first especially) were 
reformers of as vigorous and active minds as Luther; their scriptural 
learning was, probably, as great as his was at the beginning ; theirtempera- 
ments were more sober; and their conduct less exposed to the charge 
of versatility. But there did not exist in their days that engine which 
makes the minds’ of the wise, and the acquisitions of the learned, almost 
omnipresent ; which scatters their seeds over every soil at once; which 
communicates; by the connecting wire of intelligence, simultaneously to 
many the electricity produced by the genius of one. The art of printing 
was then unknown: hence Wickliffe’s followers were never very nu- 
merous; and have no longer any separate existence ; hence John Huss, 
and Jerome his fellow-labourer, are the martyrs, without being the 
apostles, of the reformation. But now, the minds of men had received 
an ‘impetus, the force of which has ever since been proceeding in a 
ratio equally rapid and suprising. The riches and physical wonders of 
the New World were announced to the old one as fast as they became 
known. The emancipation of the minds and souls of men from the 
trammels and the impurities of priestcraft and superstition, had now a 
means) which, in any other instance, would have been equal to the 
end—of) propagating and completing their religious release from re- 
ligious slavery. Men were now no longer the ‘born thralls’ of the 
servus servorum Dei.* The dawn, sudden and brilliant as that of a 
tropic day, was but the forerunner of an orb of tropical radiance, and 
more than tropical fertility. The sun of intellect had risen ; and though 
spots have been cast upon its disk, and clouds have obscured its 
brightness,—it never has set, it never will set, it never can set again! 
‘But what has all this to do with Henri d’Albret, and Henri Quatre’? 
Much—every thing. Henri’s glories were won in fighting Bevis ils reli- 
gious oppression, or rather oppression committed in religion’s name. 
fought for freedom—he won it—he gave it. At that time, a man nid 
lave been a block, a stock, a stone, not to have felt the sap within’ his 
heart rise) and his mind send forth its shoots ; and where was there ever 
one who united mind and heart like Henri Quatre? ‘More commanding 
} 
.™ It was by this humble title thatthe Popes, by way of antithesis Tsuppose,. were 
svont to style themselves. It must have been pleasant. to haye seen the Emperor 
acting as groom-boy to “ the servant of the servants of God! vi 
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