amazing the students by the impudence and ineptitude with which they explained authors whom they did not understand. And how did the boy of fourteen conduct himself in this, to him, strange atmosphere? We need not trust the admiring or depreciative narratives of later men; but we may judge the lad by the friends he made.
Foremost among these stand the four Cops. The father, Guillaume Cop, the King's physician, correspondent of Reuchlin and friend of Erasmus, who praised him as of medicine the vindex et autistes, and as Musarum cultor, and the sons-Jean, who became a canon of the Church; Nicolas, who in 1530 became a professor of philosophy, and in 1533 delivered as Rector of the University an address which made both him and Calvin famous; and the youngest of the brothers, Michel, who followed Calvin to Geneva and became a Protestant pastor. Beside the Cops there stands another Erasmian, Guillaume Budé, of whom Calvin in his earliest work spoke as "primum rei literariae décus et columen, cuius bénéficia palmam eruditlonls hodie sibi vendicat nostra Gallia." One of the regents of the College de la Marche was Mathurin Cordier, an enthusiastic teacher who loved learning and learners, and whose keen eye saw the rich promise hidden in his new scholar. The relations of master and pupil were almost ideal. Calvin never ceased to regard Cordier with affection, dedicating to him in profound but reserved gratitude one of his commentaries; Cordier ever respected Calvin, and showed his respect by becoming, like him, a Protestant, and following him to Geneva, where he died, though thirty-two years Calvin's senior, in the same year as his quondam pupil.
And here, perhaps, we may most fitly glance at the commonest of all the charges brought against Calvin. He is said to have been even then austere, severe, harsh, intolerant, inaccessible to the softer emotions, well entitled to bear the name which the playful companions of his youth gave him, "the Accusative." But how stand the facts? There is no scholar of his time more distinguished by his willingness to serve friends or his power to attach and bind them to himself by bands of steel. Of the de Montmors, with whom he was educated, almost all, in spite of high ecclesiastical connexions and hopes, became Protestants, while to his old fellow-pupil, Claude, he dedicated the firstfruits of his literary genius. The Cops and Cordier have already been noticed; and, though Budé did not himself cease to be a Catholic, yet his wife and family all became Protestants, five of them on his death in 1549 seeking refuge in Geneva. Another early teacher whom Calvin deeply revered, expressing his reverence in one of his most characteristic dedications, was the Lutheran Melchior Wolmar, to whom he owed his introduction to the Greek language and literature. But if one would understand the young Calvin, one must study him as revealed in his letters to friends and companions like François Connan, whom he describes as the wisest and most learned of men, whom he trusts above all others, and whose advice he rejoices to
