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260
Hereditary Genius
greater part, to exceedingly noble characters. There are certainly a
few personages of very doubtful reputation, especially in the earlier
part of the work, which covers the turbid period of the Reformation;
such as Cranmer, “saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his
dealings, zealous for nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a
time-server in action, a placable enemy, and a lukewarm friend.”
(Macaulay.) Nevertheless, I am sure that Middleton's collection, on
the whole, is eminently fair and trustworthy.
The 196 subjects of Middleton's biographies may be classified as
follow:—22 of them were martyrs, mostly by fire; the latest of
these— Homel, a pastor in the Cevennes in the time of Louis XIV.—
was executed, 1683, under circumstances of such singular atrocity,
that, although they have nothing to do with my subject, I cannot
forbear quoting what Middleton says about them. Homel was
sentenced to the wheel, where “every limb, member, and bone of his
body were broken with the iron bar, forty hours before the
executioner was permitted to strike him upon the breast, with a stroke
which they call 'le coup de grace,' the blow of mercy—that death-
stroke which put an end to all his miseries.” Others of the 196
worthies, including many of the martyrs, were active leaders in the
Reformation, as Wickliffe, Zuinglius, Luther, Ridley, Calvin, Beza;
others were most eminent administrators, as Archbishops Parker,
Grindal, and Usher; a few were thorough-going Puritans, as Bishop
Potter, Knox, Welch, the two Erskines, and Dr. J. Edwards; a larger
number were men of an extreme, but more pleasing form of piety, as
Bunyan, Baxter, Watts, and George Herbert. The rest, and the
majority of the whole list, may be described as pious scholars.
As a general rule, the men in Middleton's collection had
considerable intellectual capacity and natural eagerness for study,
both of which qualities were commonly manifest in
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