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BIOGRAPHICAL

SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR.

THE life of a contemporary man of letters, a simple minister in the church of Geneva, can, of course, afford no spirit-stirring events. Nor, in default of materials for political or historical interest, is the biographer at liberty to reveal those secret chronicles of the mind, to record those mighty, mysterious strifes and triumphs on the heart's silent battle field, the narrative of which is often more thrilling far, and more instructive, than a nation's annals or the doom of heroes; discretion must draw her veil over the bosom-feelings of one who lives amongst us. Yet, when works have fascinated the attention, a natural desire is felt to know something of their author; curiosity and gratitude are alike excited respecting one who has increased our intellectual store; soothed, perhaps, the languor of disease, or charmed our grief away; and, if fact be not at hand to show the moral portraiture we demand, fancy will do her sober sister's task, and embody our vague conjectures and presentiments in a form of her own. The present slight sketch offers, therefore, no apology for its meagreness and monotony; it comes in response to a pressing appeal for correct information respecting the author of "The Preacher and the King," "The Priest and the Huguenot," works which have captivated a public not often seduced to bestow its favor on foreign candidates for literary fame.

LAURENCE LOUIS FELIX BUNGENER was born at Marseilles, the 29th of September, 1814, the eventful year which, by banishing the Corsican to Elba, was to begin for France a new era of peace and prosperity. Though his cradle was thus set on one of the high places of voluptuousness and bigotry, happily for him it was rocked by parents, whose

Protestant principles and purity of life guarded him from such noxious influences; and the young Provençal, soul-inspired but not soul-subdued, drew unharmed his witching natal air. From his father, a native of Heddesdorf, near Neuwied, in Rhenish Prussia, he has inherited the contemplative habits, the depth of feeling, the steadfastness and honesty of purpose eminently German; from his mother, a Swiss Vaudoise, the shrewd sense and contempt for conventionalities which characterize her countrymen.

"The child was father to the man," and, doubtless, many interesting indications of the early bias of his mind might be gathered, did not the silence of death sit on his parents' lips, and modest reserve seal his own. This much, however, is known, that the poetry of nature was not unfelt, and that the voice of the deep, whether heard in the hoarse roar of the surge, lashing the shore in its fury, or in the gentle murmur of the wave dying at his feet, had more charms for the meditative boy, than the gay sports of his comrades. The wild rock scenery of Marseilles was also his delight, and to the remembrances of his long, solitary rambles amid its drear magnificence, may surely be ascribed some of the finest passages of "The Priest and the Huguenot."

The consecration of a new Protestant church in 1825, was the spark which finally kindled into flame the latent energies of the eleven years old lad; he composed a sermon on 1 Corinthians, viii. 6, One God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him. It providentially fell into the hands of his pastor, M. Mouchon, of Geneva, whose discerning eye hailed in it the premature spring of a fruitful and glorious year. That venerable man strongly urged upon the Protestant consistory, the duty of enabling a youth of promise so rare to prosecute the studies from which he would otherwise be debarred by his parents' scanty means. The consistory accordingly resolved on defraying young Bungener's expenses at the College of Marseilles, and thus, to their honor be it said, laid the foundation-stone of the noble Protestant beacon and bulwark since erected by this able controversialist.

From 1826 to 1832, he remained in his native city, yearly carrying off from that "mistress of education," as Pliny styled her, the highest prize, (le prix d'excellence,) the reward of merit, which is adjudged in each class to the student most distinguished for general conduct and progress.

In 1832, he was sent to study for the ministry in the far-famed metropolis of continental Protestantism, and exchanged the blue Mediterranean and its romantic shores for the blue Leman and its banks, no less fair in their different style of beauty. Two years were devoted at the University of Geneva to the preparatory study of philosophy, mathematics, and the sciences, previous to entering on his course of theology, which he terminated in 1838.

He had studied as a Frenchman, and under the idea of exercising his holy office in his native land; but on the eve of taking orders there, it was discovered that, owing to the omission in their due time of certain formalities, he was not entitled to the rights of a French citizen. He accordingly returned to Geneva, and was ordained there in 1839.

To no single cause, perhaps, is Geneva more indebted for the general diffusion of knowledge and its intellectual activity, than to the readiness which its eminent men have ever shown, in communicating to the public their literary and scientific treasures, in series of lectures, that are eagerly attended by old and young. M. Bungener followed the custom of the country, and gave, in the winter of 1839-40, a course of lectures, subsequently published under the title of "Essay on Modern Poetry." Of this production the author is wont to speak in terms of disparagement his friends ill can brook. If it do not exhibit the critical acumen and the brilliancy of its successors, still it evinces a high moral and religious sense, as well as much delicacy of discrimination. If it open no new path for thought, it is serviceable by clearing the old ones, and rendering them more easy of access.

It was the ardent wish of the pious woman to whom he was soon after united, that her husband should especially devote himself to ministerial duties, with a view to obtaining a pastoral charge. But M. Bun

gener, though ever disposed to preach, considered his vocation as more literary than clerical, and accepted in 1843 the office of head master of the college, for which his extensive classical studies had eminently fitted him. He continued at this arduous post till the close of 1848, when the new Radical Government thought proper to dismiss him and several other professors for the high crime and misdemeanor of conservatism. The injustice was keenly felt at the time; since, however, M. Bungener has been led to consider it as a special boon, by the leisure thus afforded him for the prosecution of his own immediate literary and religious studies.

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'Literary studies," says a great French critic, "by necessitating the solution of problems the most diverse, form admirable intellectual gymnastics. Fortified by this trial, our faculties apply themselves with success to every department of science. The mind, fashioned by them to command language, finds in language itself an auxiliary to the development and analysis of thought; for it must not be forgotten that the art of writing and speaking does not serve solely to express the ideas we have conceived, but to define those which are still confused, barely sketched in our consciousness, and which have not yet acquired complete evidence in our own eyes." Sensible of this, M. Bungener has studied his native tongue with an impassioned perseverance which recalls the Petrarchan fervor that burned in medieval research. To the philologer's erudition and the sagacity of the philosopher, he has added the poet's imagination. He has examined the subject in all its length, breadth, and depth; not a shadow or variation of turning has escaped an eye, vigilant alike to signalize an etymological discovery, a new image, or a moral truth. To borrow one of his own fine metaphors, he has sought in the recesses of the tomb where they lie in all their glory, and borne off triumphant the giant armor of the mighty masters of language. Of them he has learned to conciliate number and precision, - a difficul ty greater far than is generally imagined. Too often precision is purchased at the expense of number, or number at the expense of pre

cision. To round a period without effacing the outline of thought, the art of writing must have been deeply studied; and deeply has he studied it in the classics of every age and clime, but chiefly in those immortal productions of the seventeeth century which are most akin to his genius.

As a professor, M. Bungener had early felt the importance, the imperative necessity of never uttering a thought but in its precisest form, and his oral teaching is remarkable for its fulness of subject matter and terseness of style. His words, of which none are idle, remain graven, as it were, in the memory. As a preacher he has ever been highly valued by those who ask only for their understanding to be enlightened, their conscience to be convinced, and care not to be emotionized. He never seeks after eloquence, but it, not unfrequently, meets him on the way as the companion of truth. So imbued is he with the principles set forth in this volume, and so complete is his mastery of thought and language, that it is often impossible to perceive whether he is improvising, or reciting from memory a written discourse.

At a time when the detestable doctrines of the French Socialists were actively insinuating themselves among the lower classes in the insidious shape of romance, M. Bungener delivered a sermon, which created a great sensation, on Proverbs xxii. 2, "The rich and poor meet together, the Lord is the Maker of them all." To this sermon, with another on Peace, was awarded, in 1850, the prize offered by a French Society (the funds of which are chiefly supplied from English sources) for the best popular religious publications.

It was not, however, till the month of March of 1853, that his talent as a preacher was thoroughly revealed, by that rare union of regularity in the construction and freedom in the development of the plan, which is the grand problem of pulpit eloquence. The occasion has been explained by his own pen in the Preface to the volume of Conferences published in the May following.

"The attacks on Protestantism and its principles have assumed,

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