extraordinary individual.

Though the birth of some great political character was supposed to be
heralded by this mysterious star, its prophetic meaning might with more
propriety apply to the extraordinary man who astonished his
contemporaries by discoveries in the heavens, and who forms the subject
of this lecture; or it poetically might apply to the brilliancy of the
century itself in which it appeared. The sixteenth century cannot be
compared with the nineteenth century in the variety and scope of
scientific discoveries; but, compared with the ages which had preceded
it, it was a memorable epoch, marked by the simultaneous breaking up of
the darkness of mediaeval Europe, and the bursting forth of new energies
in all departments of human thought and action. In that century arose
great artists, poets, philosophers, theologians, reformers, navigators,
jurists, statesmen, whose genius has scarcely since been surpassed. In
Italy it was marked by the triumphs of scholars and artists; in Germany
and France, by reformers and warriors; in England, by that splendid
constellation that shed glory on the reign of Elizabeth. Close upon the
artists who followed Da Vinci, to Salvator Rosa, were those scholars of
whom Emanuel Chrysoloras, Erasmus, and Scaliger were the
representatives,--going back to the classic fountains of Greece and
Rome, reviving a study for antiquity, breathing a new spirit into
universities, enriching vernacular tongues, collecting and collating
manuscripts, translating the Scriptures, and stimulating the learned to
emancipate themselves from the trammels of the scholastic philosophers.

Then rose up the reformers, headed by Luther, consigning to destruction
the emblems and ceremonies of mediaeval superstition, defying popes,
burning bulls, ridiculing monks, exposing frauds, unravelling
sophistries, attacking vices and traditions with the new arms of reason,
and asserting before councils and dignitaries the right of private
judgment and the supreme authority of the Bible in all matters of
religious faith.

And then appeared the defenders of their cause, by force of arms
maintaining the great rights of religious liberty in France, Germany,
Switzerland, Holland, and England, until Protestantism was established
in half of the countries that had for more than a thousand years
servilely bowed down to the authority of the popes. Genius stimulates
and enterprise multiplies all the energies and aims of emancipated