*D'AUI3IGNE, JEAN HENRI MERLE, Church historian and theologian, was born at Geneva iu Switzerland in 1794, the third son of Louis Merle, a merchant of that city, who again was the grandson of Aimd Merle, who had married a Mademoiselle D'Aubigne, of a distinguished French Protestant family. The historian's name there fore is Merle; D'Aubignd being an addition of honour from the grandmother's side, assumed according to a not uncommon Swiss custom. Educated first at Geneva and then at Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Neander on Church History, D'Auhignd settled for a time as pastor of a French church lu Hamburg. Thence he removed to Brussels, where he was very popular as a preacher. In 1830 he returned to Geneva, where he has resided since as Professor of Church History in a. theological college fouoded by the ' Evangelical Society of Geneva.' Of D'Aubign6's great work, the ' History of the Reformation of the 16th Century,' the first portion appeared in Paris in 1835; the other volumes have appeared at intervals since that time. The work achieved an immediate and immense popularity in
Britain and America, chiefly on account of blenoing its French vivacity and picturesqueness of style with evangelical religious senti ments; and several Enslish trsos:ations of it have appeared ou both sides of the Atlantic. Ilia subsequent works, among which may be mentioned ' The Protector (Cromwell); a Vindication,' 1847, and a volume entitled 'Germany, Euglend, and Scotlaud : Recollectioas of a Swiss Minister,' 1848, have also, for the same reason, been more popular among British and American Protestants than oa the Conti nent. Dr. D'Aubigu6 is also the author of many theological and ecclesiastical tracts, which have been translated into English. His sympathies with British, and especially with Scottish Evangelical Protestantism, have lel him to pay frequent Oahe to this country ; and during his last visit (1856) he received the freedom of the city of Edinburgh.