proached to arrogance; his courage in asserting them, to rashness; his firmness in adhering to them, to obstinacy; and his zeal in confuting his adversaries, to rage and scurrility. Accustomed himself to consider every thing as subordinate to truth, he expected the same deference for it from other men; and, without making any allowances for their timidity or prejudices, he poured forth against such as disappointed him in this particular, a torrent of invective mingled with contempt. Regardless of any distinction of rank or character when his doctrines were attacked, he chastised all his adversaries indiscriminately, with the same rough hand neither the royal dignity of Henry VIII, nor the eminent learning and abilities of Erasmus, screened them from the same gross abuse with which he treated Tetzel or Eckius. "But these indecencies of which Luther was guilty, must not be imputed wholly to the violence of his temper. They ought to be charged in part on the manners of the age. Among a rude people, unacquainted with those maxims, which, by putting constraint on the passions of individuals, have polished society, and rendered it agreeable, disputes of every kind were managed with heat, and strong emotions were uttered in their natural language without reserve or delicacy. At the same time, the works of learned men were all composed in Latin; and they were not only authorized, by the example of eminent writers in that language, to use their antagonists with the most illiberal scurrility; but, in a dead tongue, indecencies of every kind appear less shocking than in a living language, whose idioms and phrases seem gross, because they are familiar. "In passing judgment upou the characters of men, we ought to try them by the principles and maxims of their own age, not by those of another. For, although virtue and vice are at all times the same, manners and customs vary continually. Some parts of Luther's behaviour which to us appear most culpable, gave no disgust to his contemporaries. It was even by some of those qualities which we are now apt to blame, that he was fitted for accomplishing the great work he undertook. To rouse mankind, when sunk in ignorance or superstition, and to encounter the rage of bigotry armed with power, required the utmost vehemence of zeal, as well as a temper daring to excess. A gentle call would neither have reached, nor have excited those to whom it was addressed. A spirit more amiable, but less vigorous than Luther's, would have shrunk back from the dangers which he braved and surmounted. Toward the close of Luther's life, though without any perceptible diminution of his zeal or abilities, the infirmities of his temper increased upon him, so that he grew daily more peevish, more irascible, and more impatient of contradiction. Having lived to be a witness of his own amazing success; to see a great part of Europe embrace his doctrines; and to shake the foundation of the papal throne, before which the mightiest monarchs had trembled, he discovered, on some occasions, symptoms of vanity and self-applause. He must have been, indeed, more than man, if, upon contemplating all that he actually accomplished, he had never felt any sentiments of this kind rising in his breast." His works were collected after his death, and printed at Wittemberg in seven volumes folio. Catherine de Bore survived her husband a few years, and continued the first year of her widowhood at Wittemberg, though Luther had advised her to seek another place of residence. She went from thence in 1547, when the town was surrendered to the emperor Charles V. Before her departure, she had received a present of fifty crowns from Christian III. king of Denmark; and the elector of Saxony, and the counts of Mansfelt, gave her good tokens of their liberality. With these additions to what Luther had left her, she was enabled to maintain herself and her family handsomely. She returned to Wittemberg, when the town was restored to the elector, where she lived a very devout and pious life, till the plague obliged her to leave it again in 1552. She sold what she had at Wittemberg, and retired to Torgau, with a resolution to end her life there. An unfortunate mischance befel her in her journey thither, which proved fatal to her. The horses growing unruly, and attempting to run away, she leaped out of the vehicle, and had a fall, of which she died about a quarter of a year after, at Torgau, Dec. 20, 1552. She was buried there in the great church, where her tomb and epitaph are still to be seen; and the university of Wittemberg, which was then at Torgau because the plague raged at Wittemberg, made a public programma concerning the funeral pomp. Lutheranism has undergone some alteration since the time of its founder. Luther rejected the epistle of St. James, as inconsistent with the doctrine of St. Paul, in relation to justification; he also set aside the Apocalypse; both which are now received as canonical in the Lutheran church. Luther reduced the number of sacraments to two, viz. baptism, and the eucharist; but he believed the im panation, or consubstantiation: that is, that the matter of the bread and wine remain with the body and blood of Christ; and it is in this article, that the main difference between the Lutheran and English churches consists. Luther maintained the mass to be no sacrifice; he exploded the adoration of the host, auricular confession, meritorious works, indulgences, purgatories, the worship of images, &c. which had been introduced in the corrupt times of the Romish church. He also opposed the doctrine of free-will; y maintained predestination; asserted that we are necessi tated in all we do; that all our actions done in a state of sin, and even the virtues themselves of heathens, are crimes; that we are justified only by the merits and satisfaction of Christ. He also opposed the fastings in the Roman church, monastical vows, the celibacy of the clergy, &c.' LUTTI (BENEDICT), an Italian artist, was born at Flo. rence, in 1666. He was the disciple of Dominico Gabbiani, and at twenty-four his merit was judged equal to that of his master. He afterwards studied at Rome, under the patronage of the grand duke, and hoped to have profited by the instructions of Ciro Ferri; but on his arrival he had to regret the death of that master. He now, however, pursued his studies with such success, that his works became much valued in England, France, and Germany, The emperor knighted him, and the elector of Mentz sent with his patent of knighthood, a cross set with diamonds, Lutti was never satisfied with his own performances, and though he often retouched his pictures, yet they never appeared laboured; he always changed for the better, and his last thought was the best. There were three much-admired public works of his at Rome, viz. a Magdalene in the church of St. Catharine of Siena, at Monte Magna Napoli; the prophet Isaiah, in an oval, St, John de Lateran; and St. Anthony of Padua, in the church of the Holy Apostles; and at the palace Albani was a miracle of St. Pio, which some reckon his master-piece. Fuseli speaks of his "Cain, flying from his murdered bro Melchior Adam.-Seckendorff's Hist. of Lutheranism.-Dupin.-Gen. Dict. -Robertson's History of Charles V.-Roscoe's Life of Leo.-Mosheim and Milner's Church History, &c. &c. ther," which he says has something of the sublimity and the pathos that strike in the Pietro Martyre of Titian; and his "Psyche," in the gallery of the capitol, breathes refinement of taste and elegance. His death is said to have been hastened by a fit of chagrin, owing to his not having been able to finish a picture of St. Eusebius, bishop of Vercelli, designed for Turin, for which he had received a large earnest, and promised to get it ready at a set time. But several disputes happening between him and those who bespoke the picture, brought on a fit of sickness, of which he died at Rome, in 1724, aged fifty-eight, and the picture was afterwards finished by Pietro Bianchi, one of his disciples. Lutti is blamed for not having placed his figures advantageously, but in such a manner as to throw a part of the arms and legs out of the cloth. This fault he possesses' in common with Paul Veronese and Rubens, who, to give more dignity and grandeur to the subject they treated, have introduced into the fore-ground of their pictures, groups of persons on horseback, tops of heads, and arms and legs, of which no other part of the body ap pears. Lutti was lively in conversation; he had a politeness in his behaviour, which, as it prompted him to treat every body with proper civility, so it also procured him a return of esteem and respect. He spoke well in general of all his contemporary painters, but contracted no particular acquaintance with any, though he was principal of the academy of St. Luke; nor did he court the protection of the great, whom he never visited, and who very seldom visited him; convinced that the true protection of a painter is his own merit. I D'Argenville, vol. I.—Strutt, and Pilkington. |