Calvin is a coquettish student, who loves to parade his reading and his memory. His work is a gallery, open to all the modern and ancient glories of literature, whom the commentator calls to his aid, often for the elucidation of a doubtful passage. The young rhetorician glorifies his country, and when upon his march he encounters some historic name, by which his idea can be illustrated, he hastens to proclaim it, with all its titles to admiration. He there salutes Bude in magnificent terms: "Bude, the glory and pillar of human learning, thanks to whom, at this day, France can claim the palm of erudition." The portrait which he draws of Seneca is the production of a practised pen: "Seneca, whose pure and polished phrase savors, in some sort, of his age; his diction florid and elegant; his style, without labor or restraint, moves on, free and unembarrassed." It may be seen that the student had the honor to study under Mathurin Cordier and to attend the lectures of Alciati; but, after all, his book is but a defective allegory; for what reader could have divined that the writer designed to represent Francis I, under the name of Nero, as addressed by the Cordovan? The treatise could produce no sensation, and, like the work of Seneca, must be shipwrecked in that sea of the passions which, at the two epochs, raged around both writers. Calvin experienced much trouble in having his Latin commentary printed; he was in need of funds, and the revenues of his benefice of Pont l'Eveque were insufficient to defray the expense of printing. How could he apply to the Mommor family? Moreover, he was in dread that his book should prove a failure and thereby injure his budding reputation. All these alarms of a maiden author are set forth in various letters which he addressed on this subject to the dear friends of his bosom. "Behold my books of Seneca concerning clemency, printed at my own expense and labor! They must now be sold, in order that I may again obtain the money which I have expended. I must also watch that my reputation does not suffer. You will oblige me, then, by informing me how the work has been received, whether with favor or indifference." The whole anxiety of the poor author is to lose nothing by the enterprise; his purse is empty; it needs replenishing; and he urges the professors to give circulation to the treatise; he solicits one of his friends at Bourges, a member of the university, to bring it forward in his lectures; and appeals to the aid of Daniel, to whom he sent a hundred copies. Papire Masson was mistaken: the commentary on clemency did not first appear, as he supposes, under the title of _Lucius Calvinus, civis Romanus_, but under that of _Calvinus_, a name ever after retained by the reformer.