in which fooner or later all delufions muft end; how, I pray you, is it conceivable that this should be brought about and fecured, otherwife than by God's fpecial vouchfafement to this one book, exclufively, of that divine MEAN, that uniform and perfect middle way, which in all points is at fafe and equal distance from all errors whether of excess or defect? But again, if this be true-and what Proteftant Chriftian worthy of his baptifinal dedication will deny its truth? -if in the one book we are entitled, or even permitted, to expect the golden mean throughout;-furely we ought not to be hard and over-ftern in our cenfures of the mistakes and infirmities of thofe, who pretending to no warrant of extraordinary infpiration have yet been raised up by God's providence to be of highest power and eminence in the reformation of his Church. Far rather does it behove us to confider, in how many inftances the peccant humour native to the man had been wrought upon by the faithful ftudy of that only faultlefs model, and corrected into an unfinning, or at least a venial, predominance in the writer or preacher. Yea, that not feldom the infirmity of a zealous foldier in the warfare of Chrift has been made the very mould and ground-work of that man's peculiar gifts and virtues. Grateful too we should be, that the very faults of famous men have been fitted to the age, on which they were to act: and that thus the folly of man has proved the wifdom of God, and been made the inftrument of his mercy to mankind.

HOEVER has fojourned in Eifenach, will affuredly have vifited the Warteburg, interefting by fo many hiftorical affociations, which ftands on a high rock, about two miles to the fouth from the city gate. To this caftle Luther was taken on his return from the imperial Diet, where Charles V. had pronounced the ban upon him, and limited his safe convoy to one and twenty days. On the last but one of these days, as he was on his way to Waltershausen, a town in the duchy of Saxe Go

tha, a few leagues to the fouth-eaft of Eifenach, he was stopped in a hollow behind the castle Altenftein, and carried to the Warteburg. The Elector of Saxony, who could not have refused to deliver up Luther, as one put in the ban by the Emperor and the Diet, had ordered John of Berleptsch, the governor of the Warteburg, and Burckhardt von Hundt, the governor of Altenftein, to take Luther to one or the other of these castles, without acquainting him which; in order that he might be able, with fafe confcience, to declare, that he did not know where Luther was. Accordingly they took him to the Warteburg, under the name of the Chevalier (Ritter) George.

To this friendly imprisonment the Reformation owes many of Luther's most important labours. In this place he wrote his works against auricular confeffion, against Jacob Latronum, the tract on the abuse of maffes, that against clerical and monaftic vows, composed his expofition of the 22, 27, and 68 Pfalms, finished his declaration of the Magnificat, began to write his Church homilies, and tranflated the New Teftament. Here too, and during this time, he is said to have hurled his inkstand at the devil, the black spot from which yet remains on the ftone wall of the room he ftudied in; which, furely, no one will have visited the Warteburg without having had pointed out to him by the good catholic who is, or at least some few years ago was, the warden of the caftle. He muft

have been either a very fupercilious or a very incurious traveller if he did not, for the gratification of his guide at leaft, inform himself by means of his pen-knife, that the faid marvellous blot bids defiance to all the toils of the fcrubbing brush, and is to remain a sign for ever; and with this advantage over most of its kindred, that being capable of a double interpretation, it is equally flattering to the Proteftant and the Papift, and is regarded by the wonder-loving zealots of both parties, with equal faith.

Whether the great man ever did throw his inkstand at his Satanic Majefty, whether he ever boafted of the exploit, and himself declared the dark blotch on his ftudy wall in the Warteburg, to be the refult and relict of this author-like handgrenado,(happily for mankind he used his inkstand at other times to better purpose, and with more effective hostility against the arch-fiend)—I leave to my reader's own judgment; on condition, however, that he has previously perused Luther's Table Talk, and other writings of the same stamp, of fome of his most illuftrious contemporaries, which contain facts still more strange and whimfical, related by themselves and of themselves, and accompanied with folemn proteftations of the truth of their statements. Luther's Table Talk, which to a truly philofophic mind, will not be lefs interefting than Rouffeau's Confeffions, I have not myself the means of consulting at present, and cannot

therefore fay, whether this ink-pot adventure is, or is not, told or referred to, in it;* but many confiderations incline me to give credit to the ftory.

Luther's unremitting literary labour and his fedentary mode of life, during his confinement in the Warteburg, where he was treated with the greatest kindness, and enjoyed every liberty confiftent with his own safety, had begun to undermine his former unusually strong health. He fuffered many and most distreffing effects of indigestion and a deranged ftate of the digeftive organs. Melancthon, whom he had defired to confult the phyficians at Erfurth, fent him fome de-obftruent medicines, and the advice to take regular and fevere exercise. At first he followed the advice, fate and laboured lefs, and spent whole days in the chase; but like the younger Pliny, he ftrove in vain to form a tafte for this favourite amusement of the gods of the earth, as appears from a paffage in his letter to George Spalatin, which I translate for an additional reason; to prove to the admirers of Rouffeau, who perhaps will not be less affronted by this biographical parallel, than the zealous Lutherians will be offended, that if my comparison fhould turn out groundless on the whole, the failure will not have arifen either from the want of sensibility in our great reformer, or of anaverfion to those in high places, whom he re

gry

*It is not.-Ed.

garded as the oppreffors of their rightful equals. "I have been," he writes, " employed for two days in the sports of the field, and was willing myself to taste this bitter-fweet amusement of the great heroes: we have caught two hares, and one brace of poor little partridges. An employment this which does not ill fuit quiet leisurely folks for even in the midst of the ferrets and dogs, I have had theological fancies. But as much pleasure as the general appearance of the scene and the mere looking-on occafioned me, even fo much it pitied me to think of the mystery and emblem which lies beneath it. For what does this fymbol fignify, but that the devil, through his godless huntsmen and dogs, the bishops and theologians to wit, doth privily chafe and catch the innocent poor little beasts? Ah! the simple and credulous fouls came thereby far too plain before my eyes. Thereto comes a yet more frightful mystery: as at my earnest entreaty we had saved alive one poor little hare, and I had concealed it in the fleeve of my great coat, and had ftrolled off a short distance from it, the dogs in the mean time found the poor hare. Such, too, is the fury of the Pope with Satan, that he destroys even the fouls that had been faved, and troubles himself little about my pains and entreaties. Of fuch hunting then I have had enough." In another passage he tells his correspondent, “You know it is hard to be a prince, and not in some de-. gree a robber, and the greater a prince the more a robber." Of our Henry VIII. he fays, "I muft