Note 34 — LAST MOMENTS OF PHILIP MELANCTHON.[34]

Melancthon was born at Brette, a village of the Palatinate, on the 16th of February, 1497. In his childhood he made an astonishing progress in the acquisition of languages. Luther, and his doctrines, appeared about this time, and Melancthon stood forward as one of their most strenuous supporters; indeed the Lutheran system was in a great measure planned by him, and the famous instrument by which it was publicly declared, called the Confession of Augsburg, was the production of his pen. Melancthon was the intimate friend of Erasmus, and Erasmus the patron of Holbein. This connection will account for his appearance in a Collection of Portraits, drawn by Holbein, of the principal personages in the Court of Henry the Eighth, though Melancthon never was in this country. An engraving of him is among the Holbein Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine, and there is a full-length portrait of this great Reformer, with a fac-simile of his writing, in his Life, published by the Rev. F. A. Cox, London, 1815, 8vo.