in 1568. Pierre was educated at the universities of Sedan and Cambridge (at the latter university he spent four years). He became Professor of Philosophy at Leyden in 1595, and from 1599 to 1620 Pasteur of Charenton. In 1611 he had an opportunity of returning the hospitality enjoyed in Scotland by his father. Andrew Melville had been banished to France, and Du Moulin welcomed him to his house and society. Dr Du Moulin visited London in 1615, and was the guest of King James. The last thirty-eight years of his life he spent at Sedan as Professor of Theology, and died in 1658. He was an eloquent and lucid preacher, and a very vigorous and learned author and disputant. His writings on Protestantism and against the Jesuits were almost innumerable. His “Anatomy of the Mass” is well-known and highly prized in its English dress. His epitaph was written by his son and namesake:—
Qui sub isto marmore quiescit olim fuit
PETRUS MOLINOEUS.
Hoc sat, viator! Reliqua nosti, quisquis es
Qui nomen inclytum legis.
Laudes, Beati gloria baud desiderat,
Aut sustinet modestia.
Obiit Sedani, ad 6 Non : Mart : 1658, aet. 90.
The younger Peter Du Moulin was born in 1600, he was D.D. of Leyden, afterwards incorporated in Cambridge, and on 10th October 1656 at O.xford. As a refugee he first appears in Ireland, where during some years of the Commonwealth he was under the patronage of Richard, Earl of Cork. Next he acted as tutor in Oxford to Charles Viscount Dungarvan and Hon. Richard Boyle. He had taken orders in the Church of England, and constantly preached at Oxford in the church of St Peter-in-the-East. He became famous through his contact with the great name of Milton, whom he violently assailed in his Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad coelum adversus parricidas Anglicanos; the little book was anonymous, but was acknowledged by the author in course of time. In 1657 he trafficked in calm waters, and published a long treatise On Peace and Contentment of Mind, which reached a third edition. At the Restoration he was made a Royal Chaplain; and being installed as Prebendary of Canterbury, he resided in that city till his death, at the age of 84, in October 1684. His sermons and other writings were admired in their day, and he was an honour to his name.
Another son[1] of the great Du Moulin was Louis Du Moulin, born in 1603. He was a Doctor of Physic of Leyden, and incorporated in the same degree at Cambridge (1634) and at Oxford (1649). Under the Parliamentarian Commissioners he was made Camden Professor of History in the University of Cambridge. But the royalist commissioners turned him out soon after 1660, and he retired to Westminster. He had adopted the Independent theory of church government, and he worshipped with the Nonconformists. He is described as of a hot and hasty temper, no doubt aggravated by the intolerance with which he was treated by the ruling powers in Church and State, and even (it is said) by his own brother, the Prebendary. Otherwise he was a sociable and agreeable member of society, especially of literary society. In 1678 Rou met him in London, and describes him as a d’un caractère tout singulier; he said that he had translated Rou’s Chronological Tables into English, and that a nobleman would be at the expense of engraving and publishing them, if Rou consented. That consent was refused (very unwisely, for afterwards they were pirated and appeared as the production of a Dr Tallents.) At a much earlier date Louis Du Moulin got into controversy with Richard Baxter, publishing under the pseudonym of Ludiomaeus Colvinus, instead of his Latinised name, Ludovicus Molinaeus. Baxter concludes his account of these contests by declaring, “all these things were so far from alienating the esteem and affection of the Doctor, that he is now at this day one of those friends who are injurious to
- ↑ There were three sons; the other was Cyrus Du Moulin, who married Marie de Marbais, and died in Holland before 1680; his daughter was married in 1684 to Jacques Basnage.
