The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-17

miC IS, denounces those "difformes reforma-
iSr-a" who sacked priests houses, aud, even
VII tSey had got by invitation preachers to
g., mind, turpvs ~non them ere long with
,roscnes and violence. N urn ValyInIs.
conviction and adoption, he eau plead LOT
Justice to the ecclesiastical order TO which es
felt himself still % obeeoRg though he had left
behind him the pspsl pale. Moral reform
was ,~ith him, and with all whom he calls
gems de bien, the end of all Gospel min
istries, and with this end, as he declares, he
made war, even to the knife, s'for the
preachers sgaiust the libertines. What
ever may be thought of the strife, Geneva
came forth from it such as we see her now.
We could hardly, indeed, expect to find Bon
inward more tolerant than his master Calvin
in the unhappy case of Servetus. A sixteenth
century Protestant was not likely to show
many signs of that tolerance which had as yet
but family appeared under the form of reli-
gious Indifference in Catholics of the Panta-
grnel school.
Nowhere is Bonnivard's intellectual temper
and cast of thought more characteristcally
displayed than in the curious little philologi-
cal treatise ''ll Advis ct Devils des Lsugdes,"
first printed by Nj. Border in the "Biblio-
theque de lEcolo des Charles" (1S4S-9, ser.
v, ptie. - II is by no meaus easy reading.
The writer's meaning is often clouded by the
verbose and pedantic erudition of the time.
Still, the critical temper and good sense of
Downward are such as will amply repay the
labor of going through it. Inferior, as, NJ.
Border allows. in scholarship to the
contemporary works of Ramus or
Henry Stephens, it may fail TO throw equal
light on the corruption of medieval Latin or
the origin of modern ideas. Yet Downward
is there in all his individuality, in many re
spects standing alone in the gallery of six
teeutb. century writer's. He spoke Italian as
as we'll as French, his mother tongue He
knew German WE'LL He was, in his quality
of Goctor utriusQue jHrts, well up In Latin
and Greek. The French in which he had to
express himself was, moreover, that of a
country situated opposite the France of
his cay, and by no means wanting in points
of primitive usage aud idiom. v These
varied elements, in the hands of a
writer of ability and wit, at time when the
language was in plastic and tran sltional
state, could not fail to issue in. kind of
literary mixture highly curious 70 analyze.
The work itself, the author states at the
outset, spraug out of the Ad0ts ct Deois de
MenSCnge, another quaint little essay printed
at the end of the controversial tract above
mentioned, in 1856, itself based upon st.
Augustine's De MendGcio, in which Bonui-
ward denounces the use of pious frauds and
got-up miracles, as well as all tarnpering with
serious truth. Anything simply foppish or
affe ected even fails to go down With the aastere
old CalYiDist: :A"Vouloir affermer que dun
plsisant muguet Sc faconne un fort ct valiant
home darlnes, est affesmer Impossible ct
mentir copsequemment." ~ ~ n '-'' 10
In An admirable notice in recent number
Of the journal des Soodnts M. Lttre brings
together several curious instances in which
the writings of Downward throw light upon
the growth and the progressive changes of
the language. They were the work Of his old
age, matured by careful study and observa-
ton. The Adofs ct Deois des Lengues in par
ticular shows that he had grasped the prob
lem of language by the roots, and was clear
by anticipation from many of those sources
of errer which we have so persstently
to denounce as 6arkening the popular ideas
of French philology. France and things
French were to his mind very far other than
what they are in modern parlance. He'could
have no idea OF wide centralized State in
which 'French" was spoken from the At
Iantio tothe Vosges, and from the Manehe to
the Pyrenees. He knew we'll the distinction
between France and Aquitaine, between the
Langue doc and the langue doll. The very
word French" was displeasing or unmeauing
to him. "Je ne dirais pas, he declares, ''le
Frapcais mais le Gaulois
Born at his fathers chateau of Lunes, in
the old Savoyard province of Bresse, incor-
porated later with Burgundy, Bonnivard ia
careful to speak of himself as ''Savoyen,"
not ''Savoisien. The latter is barbarous
form, the root-word being "Ssbaudia." His
style, though rade and what would now be
called prpvineial offers, like that of Rabelais,
store of peculiarities full of pathological
interest. . .-,- ,,-.',r,.
These writings abound with anecdotes, the
best of them perhaps favored with degree
of salt which somewhat units them for
modern palates. Sage and quiet counsel
alternates with lively humor, and scathlng
Irony or wit. We can promise throughout a
fund of enjoyment to those who have a love
and taste FOR the best kind of clear, terse,
and vigorous old French prose. Bonuivard
had made verses; in his yyoutn. His early
successes ia that line awoke in him vanity
enough to impel him to adopt, on a serious
public occasion in 1917, the title of "Prior
OF st. Victor and poet-leaureate." Such
fragments Of his poetry in Latin and French
as have come down to us are, however, de-
clared by bis editors, unworthy to appear in
print.
Most appropriate, though dictated it would
seem by lll-omened confidence or fondness,
was Bonnivards dedication to his wife Ca
Uterine Courtaronel, October IL, 1862, three
days after marriage, of his A5ed7Tigeree. or
treatise On Sin, printed in 1865. His domes-
tic experiences bad been more marked by
yarietyl atkanSzby happiness. SHe had been.
forced into orders at the earliest period "a a
consequence .of his uncle's presentation of
him at the age of fourteen, A. ID. 1910. to
the family prior of st. Victor. His claim 20
be reinstated in this benefice in 1913. after
openly adopting the Reformed faith, ia addi-s
ton to other compensations voted him after
his ( captivity, has been censured az
fer from compatible with his
1fo..~