Philip was the son of a respectable engineer named Schwartzerde, that is, Black-earth, a name which he Grecised at a very early age, as soon as his literary tastes and talents began to display themselves,—assuming, in compliance with the suggestion of his distinguished kinsman Reuchlin or Capnio, and according to the fashion of the age, the classical synonyme of Melancthon. He was born at Bretten, a place near Wittemberg, February 16, 1497. He commenced his studies at Heidelberg in 1509; and after three years was removed to Tubingen, where he remained till 1518. These circumstances are in this instance not undeserving of notice, because Melancthon gave from his very boyhood abundant proofs of an active and brilliant genius, and acquired some juvenile distinctions which have been recorded by grave historians, and have acquired him a place among the ‘Enfans Célèbres’ of Baillet. During his residence at Tubingen he gave public lectures on Virgil, Terence, Cicero, and Livy, while he was pursuing with equal ardour his biblical studies; and he had leisure besides to furnish assistance to Reuchlin in his dangerous contests with the monks, and to direct the operations of a printing-press. The course of learning and genius, when neither darkened by early prejudice nor perverted by personal interests, ever points to liberality and virtue. In the case of Melancthon this tendency was doubtless confirmed by the near spectacle of monastic oppression and bigotry; and thus we cannot question that he had imbibed, even before his departure from Tubingen, the principles which enlightened his subsequent career, and which throw the brightest glory upon his memory. In 1518 (at the age of twenty-one) he was raised to the Professorship of Greek in the University of Wittemberg. The moment was critical. Luther, who occupied the theological chair in the same University, had just published his ‘Ninety-five Propositions against the Abuse of Indulgences,’ and was entering step by step into a contest with the Vatican. He was in possession of great personal authority; he was older by fourteen years, and was endowed with a far more commanding spirit, than his brother professor; and thus, in that intimacy which local circumstances and similarity of sentiments immediately cemented between these two eminent persons, the ascendancy was naturally assumed by Luther, and maintained to the end of his life. Melancthon was scarcely established at Wittemberg when he addressed to the Reformer some very flattering expressions of admiration, couched in indifferent Greek iambics; and in the year following he attended him to the public disputations which he held with Eckius on the supremacy of the Pope. Here he first beheld the strife into which he was destined presently to enter, and learned the distasteful rudiments of theological controversy.