Raulin, John

, a French divine, was born at Toul in 1443, of a good family. He studied at Paris, and | rereived the degree of doctor of divinity in 1479, having before given proof of his learning and talents, by a commentary on the logic of Aristotle; and his pulpit oratory. In 1481 he vvas chosen grand master of the college of Navarre, and performed the duties of that office in a manner which procured him universal esteem. In 1497 he fancied he had a special call to leave the world, and therefore relired to the abbey of Cluny, the order of which he vvas commissioned to reform by cardinal D'Amboise; and here too he was a very frequent preacher. He died Feb. 6, 1514, in his seventy-first year. Major mentions an anecdote much to the credit of Raulin. When he was only a licentiate, some ecclesiastics who were filling their pockets by the stile of indulgences, offered to pay all the expences of taking his doctor’s degree, if he would join them and preach up their trade, which he rejected with indignation. Many iarge volumes ofRaulin’s sermons were printed after his death, composed in a miserably bad taste, which, however, was the taste of his age. It is perhaps a sufficient character of them, that Rabelais took some of his ludicrous stories from them. The only useful publication of RauSin is his volume of correspondence, “Epistolse,” Paris, 1529, 4to, which, like most collections of the kind, throws some light on the literature of the age. ¹