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Title: Books Fatal to Their Authors

Author: P. H. Ditchfield

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOKS FATAL
TO THEIR AUTHORS ***

BOOKS FATAL TO THEIR
AUTHORS

By P. H. Ditchfield
To The Memory Of John Walter, Esq., M.A., J.P.,
Of Bearwood, Berks,
This Volume Is Respectfully And Affectionately Dedicated.

PREFACE.
TO THE BOOK-LOVER.

To record the woes of authors and to discourse de libris fatalibus seems
deliberately to court the displeasure of that fickle mistress who presides
over the destinies of writers and their works. Fortune awaits the aspiring
scribe with many wiles, and oft treats him sorely. If she enrich any, it is but
to make them subject of her sport. If she raise others, it is but to pleasure
herself with their ruins. What she adorned but yesterday is to-day her
pastime, and if we now permit her to adorn and crown us, we must to-
morrow suffer her to crush and tear us to pieces. To-day her sovereign
power is limited: she can but let loose a host of angry critics upon us; she
can but scoff at us, take away our literary reputation, and turn away the
eyes of a public as fickle as herself from our pages. Surely that were hard
enough! Can Fortune pluck a more galling dart from her quiver, and dip the
point in more envenomed bitterness? Yes, those whose hard lot is here
recorded have suffered more terrible wounds than these. They have lost
liberty, and even life, on account of their works. The cherished offspring of
their brains have, like unnatural children, turned against their parents,
causing them to be put to death.
Fools many of them—nay, it is surprising how many of this illustrious
family have peopled the world, and they can boast of many authors' names
which figure on their genealogical tree—men who might have lived happy,
contented, and useful lives were it not for their insane cacoethes scribendi.
And hereby they show their folly. If only they had been content to write
plain and ordinary commonplaces which every one believed, and which
caused every honest fellow who had a grain of sense in his head to exclaim,
"How true that is!" all would have been well. But they must needs write
something original, something different from other men's thoughts; and
immediately the censors and critics began to spy out heresy, or laxity of
morals, and the fools were dealt with according to their folly. There used to
be special houses of correction in those days, mad-houses built upon an
approved system, for the special treatment of cases of this kind; mediaeval

dungeons, an occasional application of the rack, and other gentle
instruments of torture of an inventive age, were wonderfully efficacious in
curing a man of his folly. Nor was there any special limit to the time during
which the treatment lasted. And in case of a dangerous fit of folly, there
were always a few faggots ready, or a sharpened axe, to put a finishing
stroke to other and more gentle remedies.
One species of folly was especially effective in procuring the attention of
the critics of the day, and that was satirical writing. They could not tolerate
that style—no, not for a moment; and many an author has had his cap and
bells, aye, and the lining too, severed from the rest of his motley, simply
because he would go and play with Satyrs instead of keeping company with
plain and simple folk.
Far separated from the crowd of fools, save only in their fate, were those
who amid the mists of error saw the light of Truth, and strove to tell men of
her graces and perfections. The vulgar crowd heeded not the message, and
despised the messengers. They could see no difference between the
philosopher's robe and the fool's motley, the Saint's glory and Satan's hoof.
But with eager eyes and beating hearts the toilers after Truth worked on.

"How many with sad faith have sought her?
How many with crossed hands have sighed for her?
How many with brave hearts fought for her,
At life's dear peril wrought for her,
So loved her that they died for her,
Tasting the raptured fleetness
Of her Divine completeness?"

In honour of these scholars of an elder age, little understood by their
fellows, who caused them to suffer for the sake of the Truth they loved, we
doff our caps, whether they jingle or not, as you please; and if thou thinkest,
good reader, that 'twere folly to lose a life for such a cause, the bells will
match the rest of thy garb. The learning, too, of the censors and critics was
often indeed remarkable. They condemned a recondite treatise on
Trigonometry, because they imagined it contained heretical opinions
concerning the doctrine of the Trinity; and another work which was devoted
to the study of Insects was prohibited, because they concluded that it was a
secret attack upon the Jesuits. Well might poor Galileo exclaim, "And are
these then my judges?" Stossius, who wrote a goodly book with the title
"Concordia rationis et fidei," which was duly honoured by being burnt at

Berlin, thus addresses his slaughtered offspring, and speculates on the
reason of its condemnation: "Ad librum a ministerio damnatum.

"Q. Parve liber, quid enim peccasti, dente sinistro. Quod te discerptum
turba sacrata velit? R. Invisum dixi verum, propter quod et olim,
Vel dominum letho turba sacrata dedit."

But think not, O Book-lover, that I am about to record all the race of fools
who have made themselves uncomfortable through their insane love of
writing, nor count all the books which have become instruments of
accusation against their authors. That library would be a large one which
contained all such volumes. I may only write to thee of some of them now,
and if thou shouldest require more, some other time I may tell thee of them.
Perhaps in a corner of thy book-shelves thou wilt collect a store of Fatal
Books, many of which are rare and hard to find. Know, too, that I have
derived some of the titles of works herein recorded from a singular and rare
work of M. John Christianus Klotz, published in Latin at Leipsic, in the
year 1751. To these I have added many others. The Biographical Dictionary
of Bayle is a mine from which I have often quarried, and discovered there
many rare treasures. Our own learned literary historian, Mr. Isaac Disraeli,
has recorded the woes of many of our English writers in his book entitled
"The Calamities of Authors" and also in his "Curiosities of Literature."
From these works I have derived some information. There is a work by
Menkenius, "Analecta de Calamitate Literatorum"; another by Pierius
Valerianus, "De Infelicitate Literatorum"; another by Spizelius, "Infelix
Literatus"; and last but not least Peignot's "Dictionnaire Critique,
Littéraire et Bibliographique, des Livres condamnés au Feu" which will
furnish thee with further information concerning the woes of authors, if
thine appetite be not already sated.
And if there be any of Folly's crowd who read this book—of those, I
mean, who work and toil by light of midnight lamp, weaving from their
brains page upon page of lore and learning, wearing their lives out, all for
the sake of an ungrateful public, which cares little for their labour and
scarcely stops to thank the toiler for his pains—if there be any of you who
read these pages, it will be as pleasant to you to feel safe and free from the
stern critics' modes of former days, as it is to watch the storms and tempests
of the sea from the secure retreat of your study chair.

And if at any time a cross-grained reviewer should treat thy cherished
book with scorn, and presume to ridicule thy sentiment and scoff at thy style
(which Heaven forfend!), console thyself that thou livest in peaceable and
enlightened times, and needest fear that no greater evil can befall thee on
account of thy folly in writing than the lash of his satire and the bitterness
of his caustic pen. After the manner of thy race thou wilt tempt Fortune
again. May'st thou proceed and prosper! Vale.
I desire to express my many thanks to the Rev. Arthur Carr, M.A., late
Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, for his kind assistance in revising the
proofs of this work. It was my intention to dedicate this book to Mr. John
Walter, but alas! his death has deprived it of that distinction. It is only
possible now to inscribe to the memory of him whom England mourns the
results of some literary labour in which he was pleased to take a kindly
interest.
P. H. D.

BARKHAM RECTORY,
November, 1894.

CONTENTS
PREFACE.
DETAILED CONTENTS.
BOOKS FATAL TO THEIR AUTHORS.
CHAPTER I. THEOLOGY.
CHAPTER II. FANATICS AND FREE-THINKERS.
CHAPTER III. ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC.
CHAPTER IV. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER V. HISTORY.
CHAPTER VI. POLITICS AND STATESMANSHIP.
CHAPTER VII. SATIRE.
CHAPTER VIII. POETRY.
CHAPTER IX. DRAMA AND ROMANCE.
CHAPTER X. BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS.
CHAPTER XI. SOME LITERARY MARTYRS.

DETAILED CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THEOLOGY.
Michael Molinos—Bartholomew Carranza—Jerome Wecchiettus—Samuel
Clarke—Francis David—Antonio de Dominis—Noël Bède—William
Tyndale—Arias Montanus—John Huss—Antonio Bruccioli—Enzinas—
Louis
Le Maistre—Caspar Peucer—Grotius—Vorstius—Pasquier Quesnel—Le
Courayer—Savonarola—Michael Servetus—Sebastian Edzardt—William
of
Ockham—Abélard.
CHAPTER II.
FANATICS AND FREE-THINKERS.
Quirinus Kuhlmann—John Tennhart—Jeremiah Felbinger—Simon
Morin—Liszinski—John Toland—Thomas Woolston—John Biddle—
Johann
Lyser—Bernardino Ochino—Samuel Friedrich Willenberg.
CHAPTER III.
ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC.

Henry Cornelius Agrippa—Joseph Francis Borri—Urban Grandier—Dr.
Dee—Edward Kelly—John Darrell.
CHAPTER IV.
SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
Bishop Virgil—Roger Bacon—Galileo—Jordano Bruno—Thomas
Campanella—De Lisle de Sales—Denis Diderot—Balthazar Bekker—Isaac
de
la Peyrère—Abbé de Marolles—Lucilio Vanini—Jean Rousseau.
CHAPTER V.
HISTORY.
Antonius Palearius—Caesar Baronius—John Michael Bruto—Isaac
Berruyer—
Louis Elias Dupin—Noel Alexandre—Peter Giannone—Joseph Sanfelicius
(Eusebius Philopater)—Arlotto—Bonfadio—De Thou—Gilbert
Génébrard—Joseph Audra—Beaumelle—John Mariana—John B. Primi—
John
Christopher Rüdiger—Rudbeck—François Haudicquer—François de
Rosières—Anthony Urseus.
CHAPTER VI.
POLITICS AND STATESMANSHIP.
John Fisher—Reginald Pole—"Martin
Marprelate"—Udal—Penry—Hacket—Coppinger—Arthington—
Cartwright
—Cowell—Leighton—John Stubbs—Peter Wentworth—R. Doleman—J.
Hales—
Reboul—William Prynne—Burton—Bastwick—John Selden—John
Tutchin—
Delaune—Samuel Johnson—Algernon Sidney—Edmund Richer—John de
Falkemberg—Jean Lenoir—Simon Linguet—Abbé Caveirac—Darigrand—
Pietro
Sarpi—Jerome Maggi—Theodore Reinking.
CHAPTER VII.
SATIRE.
Roger Rabutin de Bussy—M. Dassy—Trajan Boccalini—Pierre
Billard—Pietro Aretino—Felix Hemmerlin—John Giovanni
Cinelli—Nicholas Francus—Lorenzo Valla—Ferrante Pallavicino—
François

Gacon—Daniel Defoe—Du Rosoi—Caspar Scioppius.
CHAPTER VIII.
POETRY.
Adrian Beverland—Cecco d'Ascoli—George Buchanan—Nicodemus
Frischlin—Clement Marot—Gaspar Weiser—John
Williams—Deforges—Théophile—Hélot—Matteo Palmieri—La Grange—
Pierre
Petit—Voltaire—Montgomery—Keats—Joseph Ritson.
CHAPTER IX.
DRAMA AND ROMANCE.
Sir John Yorke and Catholic Plays—Abraham Cowley—Antoine
Danchet—Claude Crébillon—Nogaret—François de Salignac Fénélon.
CHAPTER X.
BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS.
The Printers of Nicholas de Lyra and Caesar Baronius—John Fust—
Richard
Grafton—Jacob van Liesvelt—John Lufftius—Robert Stephens
(Estienne)—Henry Stephens—Simon Ockley—Floyer Sydenham—
Edmund
Castell—Page—John Lilburne—Etienne Dolet—John Morin—Christian
Wechel—Andrew Wechel—Jacques Froullé—Godonesche—William
Anderton.
CHAPTER XI.
SOME LITERARY MARTYRS.
Leland—Strutt—Cotgrave—Henry Wharton—Robert Heron—Collins—
William
Cole—Homeric victims—Joshua Barnes—An example of unrequited
toil—Borgarutius—Pays.
INDEX

BOOKS FATAL TO THEIR AUTHORS.

CHAPTER I. THEOLOGY.
Michael Molinos—Bartholomew Carranza—Jerome Wecchiettus—
Samuel Clarke—Francis David—Antonio de Dominis—Noël Bède—
William Tyndale—Arias Montanus—John Huss—Antonio Bruccioli—
Enzinas—Louis Le Maistre—Gaspar Peucer—Grotius—Vorstius—
Pasquier Quesnel—Le Courayer—Savonarola—Michael Servetus—
Sebastian Edzardt—William of Ockham—Abélard.
Since the knowledge of Truth is the sovereign good of human nature, it is
natural that in every age she should have many seekers, and those who
ventured in quest of her in the dark days of ignorance and superstition
amidst the mists and tempests of the sixteenth century often ran counter to
the opinions of dominant parties, and fell into the hands of foes who knew
no pity. Inasmuch as Theology and Religion are the highest of all studies—
the aroma scientiarum—they have attracted the most powerful minds and
the subtlest intellects to their elucidation; no other subjects have excited
men's minds and aroused their passions as these have done; on account of
their unspeakable importance, no other subjects have kindled such heat and
strife, or proved themselves more fatal to many of the authors who wrote
concerning them. In an evil hour persecutions were resorted to to force
consciences, Roman Catholics burning and torturing Protestants, and the
latter retaliating and using the same weapons; surely this was, as Bacon
wrote, "to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in
the shape of a vulture or raven; and to set, out of the bark of a Christian
Church, a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins."
The historian then will not be surprised to find that by far the larger
number of Fatal Books deal with these subjects of Theology and Religion,
and many of them belong to the stormy period of the Reformation. They
met with severe critics in the merciless Inquisition, and sad was the fate of a
luckless author who found himself opposed to the opinions of that dread
tribunal. There was no appeal from its decisions, and if a taint of heresy, or
of what it was pleased to call heresy, was detected in any book, the doom of
its author was sealed, and the ingenuity of the age was well-nigh exhausted

in devising methods for administering the largest amount of torture before
death ended his woes.

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.

Liberty of conscience was a thing unknown in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries; and while we prize that liberty as a priceless
possession, we can but admire the constancy and courage of those who
lived in less happy days. We are not concerned now in condemning or
defending their opinions or their beliefs, but we may at least praise their
boldness and mourn their fate.
The first author we record whose works proved fatal to him was Michael
Molinos, a Spanish theologian born in 1627, a pious and devout man who
resided at Rome and acted as confessor. He published in 1675 The Spiritual
Manual, which was translated from Italian into Latin, and together with a
treatise on The Daily Communion was printed with this title: A Spiritual
Manual, releasing the soul and leading it along the interior way to the
acquiring the perfection of contemplation and the rich treasure of internal
peace. In the preface Molinos writes: "Mystical theology is not a science of
the imagination, but of feelings; we do not understand it by study, but we
receive it from heaven. Therefore in this little work I have received far
greater assistance from the infinite goodness of God, who has deigned to
inspire me, than from the thoughts which the reading of books has
suggested to me." The object of the work is to teach that the pious mind
must possess quietude in order to attain to any spiritual progress, and that
for this purpose it must be abstracted from visible objects and thus rendered
susceptible of heavenly influence. This work received the approval of the
Archbishop of the kingdom of Calabria, and many other theologians of the
Church. It won for its author the favour of Cardinal Estraeus and also of
Pope Innocent XI. It was examined by the Inquisition at the instigation of
the Jesuits, and passed that trying ordeal unscathed. But the book raised up
many powerful adversaries against its author, who did not scruple to charge
Molinos with Judaism, Mohammedanism, and many other "isms," but
without any avail, until at length they approached the confessor of the King
of Naples, and obtained an order addressed to Cardinal Estraeus for the
further examination of the book. The Cardinal preferred the favour of the
king to his private friendship. Molinos was tried in 1685, and two years
later was conducted in his priestly robes to the temple of Minerva, where he

was bound, and holding in his hand a wax taper was compelled to renounce
sixty-eight articles which the Inquisition decreed were deduced from his
book. He was afterwards doomed to perpetual imprisonment. On his way to
the prison he encountered one of his opponents and exclaimed, "Farewell,
my father; we shall meet again on the day of judgment, and then it will be
manifest on which side, on yours or mine, the Truth shall stand." For eleven
long years Molinos languished in the dungeons of the Inquisition, where he
died in 1696. His work was translated into French and appeared in a Recueil
de pièces sur le Quiétisme, published in Amsterdam 1688. Molinos has
been considered the leader and founder of the Quietism of the seventeenth
century. The monks of Mount Athos in the fourteenth, the Molinosists,
Madame Guyon, Fénélon, and others in the seventeenth century, all
belonged to that contemplative company of Christians who thought that the
highest state of perfection consisted in the repose and complete inaction of
the soul, that life ought to be one of entire passive contemplation, and that
good works and active industry were only fitting for those who were toiling
in a lower sphere and had not attained to the higher regions of spiritual
mysticism. Thus the '[Greek: Aesuchastai]' on Mount Athos contemplated
their nose or their navel, and called the effect of their meditations "the
divine light," and Molinos pined in his dungeon, and left his works to be
castigated by the renowned Bossuet. The pious, devout, and learned
Spanish divine was worthy of a better fate, and perhaps a little more
quietism and a little less restlessness would not be amiss in our busy
nineteenth century.
The noblest prey ever captured by those keen hunters, the Inquisitors,
was Bartholomew Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, in 1558, one of the
richest and most powerful prelates in Christendom. He enjoyed the favour
of his sovereign Philip II. of Spain, whom he accompanied to England, and
helped to burn our English Protestants. Unfortunately in an evil hour he
turned to authorship, and published a catechism under this title:
Commentarios sobre el Catequismo Cristiano divididos en quatro partes las
quales contienen fodo loque professamor en el sancto baptismo, como se
vera en la plana seguiente dirigidos al serenissimo Roy de España
(Antwerp). On account of this work he was accused of Lutheranism, and his
capture arranged by his enemies. At midnight, after the Archbishop had
retired to rest, a knock was heard at the door of the chamber. "Who calls?"
asked the attendant friar. "Open to the Holy Office," was the answer.

Immediately the door flew open, for none dared resist that terrible
summons, and Ramirez, the Inquisitor-General of Toledo, entered. The
Archbishop raised himself in his bed, and demanded the reason of the
intrusion. An order for his arrest was produced, and he was speedily
conveyed to the dungeons of the Inquisition at Valladolid. For seven long
years he lingered there, and was then summoned to Rome in 1566 by Pius
V. and imprisoned for six years in the Castle of St. Angelo. The successor of
Pope Pius V., Gregory XIII., at length pronounced him guilty of false
doctrine. His catechism was condemned; he was compelled to abjure
sixteen propositions, and besides other penances he was confined for five
years in a monastery. Broken down by his eighteen years' imprisonment and
by the hardships he had undergone, he died sixteen days after his cruel
sentence had been pronounced. [Footnote: Cf. The Church of Spain, by
Canon Meyrick. (National Churches Series.)] On his deathbed he solemnly
declared that he had never seriously offended with regard to the Faith. The
people were very indignant against his persecutors, and on the day of his
funeral all the shops were closed as on a great festival. His body was
honoured as that of a saint. His captors doubtless regretted his death,
inasmuch as the Pope is said to have received a thousand gold pieces each
month for sparing his life, and Philip appropriated the revenues of his see
for his own charitable purposes, which happened at that time to be
suppression of heresy in the Netherlands by the usual means of rack and fire
and burying alive helpless victims.
A very fatal book was one entitled Opus de anno primitivo ab exordia
mundi, ad annum Julianum accommodato, et de sacrorum temporum
ratione. Augustae-Vindelicorum, 1621, in folio magno. It is a work of
Jerome Wecchiettus, a Florentine doctor of theology. The Inquisition
attacked and condemned the book to the flames, and its author to perpetual
imprisonment. Being absent from Rome he was comparatively safe, but
surprised the whole world by voluntarily submitting himself to his
persecutors, and surrendering himself to prison. This extraordinary humility
disarmed his foes, but it did not soften much the hearts of the Inquisitors,
who permitted him to end his days in the cell. The causes of the
condemnation of the work are not very evident. One idea is that in his work
the author pretended to prove that Christ did not eat the passover during the
last year of His life; and another states that he did not sufficiently honour

the memory of Louis of Bavaria, and thus aroused the anger of the strong
supporters of that ancient house.
The first English author whose woes we record is Samuel Clarke, who
was born at Norwich in 1675, and was for some time chaplain to the bishop
of that see. He was very intimate with the scientific men of his time, and
especially with Newton. In 1704 he published his Boyle Lectures, A
Treatise on the Being and Attributes of God, and on Natural and Revealed
Religion, which found its way into other lands, a translation being published
in Amsterdam in 1721. Our author became chaplain to Queen Anne and
Rector of St. James's. He was a profoundly learned and devout student, and
obtained a European renown as a true Christian philosopher. In controversy
he encountered foemen worthy of his steel, such as Spinosa, Hobbes,
Dodwell, Collins, Leibnitz, and others. But in 1712 he published The
Scriptural Doctrine of the Trinity, which was declared to be opposed to the
Christian belief and tainted with Arianism. The attention of Parliament was
called to the book; the arguments were disputed by Edward Wells, John
Edwards, and William Sommer; and Clarke was deprived of his offices. The
charge of heterodoxy was certainly never proved against him; he did good
service in trying to stem the flood of rationalism prevalent in his time, and
his work was carried on by Bishop Butler. His correspondence with
Leibnitz on Time, Space, Necessity, and Liberty was published in 1717, and
his editions of Caesar and Homer were no mean contributions to the study
of classical literature.
In the sixteenth century there lived in Hungary one Francis David, a man
learned in the arts and languages, but his inconstancy and fickleness of
mind led him into diverse errors, and brought about his destruction. He left
the Church, and first embraced Calvinism; then he fled into the camp of the
Semi-Judaising party, publishing a book De Christo non invocando, which
was answered by Faustus Socinus, the founder of Socinianism. The Prince
of Transylvania, Christopher Bathori, condemned David as an impious
innovator and preacher of strange doctrines, and cast him into prison, where
he died in 1579. There is extant a letter of David to the Churches of Poland
concerning the millennium of Christ.
Our next author was a victim to the same inconstancy of mind which
proved so fatal to Francis David, but sordid reasons and the love of gain
without doubt influenced his conduct and produced his fickleness of faith.

Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, was a shining light of the
Roman Church at the end of the sixteenth century. He was born in 1566,
and educated by the Jesuits. He was learned in history and in science, and
was the first to discover the cause of the rainbow, his explanation being
adopted and perfected by Descartes. The Jesuits obtained for him the
Professorship of Mathematics at Padua, and of Logic and Rhetoric at
Brescia. After his ordination he became a popular preacher and was
consecrated Bishop of Segni, and afterwards Archbishop of Spalatro in
Dalmatia. He took a leading part in the controversy between the Republic of
Venice and the Pope, and after the reconciliation between the two parties
was obliged by the Pope to pay an annual pension of five hundred crowns
out of the revenues of his see to the Bishop of Segni. This highly incensed
the avaricious prelate, who immediately began to look out for himself a
more lucrative piece of preferment. He applied to Sir Dudley Carleton, the
English Ambassador at Venice, to know whether he would be received into
the Church of England, as the abuses and corruptions of the Church of
Rome prevented him from remaining any longer in her communion.
King James I. heartily approved of his proposal, and gave him a most
honourable reception, both in the Universities and at Court. All the English
bishops agreed to contribute towards his maintenance. Fuller says: "It is
incredible what flocking of people there was to behold this old archbishop
now a new convert; prelates and peers presented him with gifts of high
valuation." Other writers of the period describe him as "old and corpulent,"
but of a "comely presence"; irascible and pretentious, gifted with an
unlimited assurance and plenty of ready wit in writing and speaking; of a
"jeering temper," and of a most grasping avarice. He was ridiculed on the
stage in Middleton's play, The Game of Chess, as the "Fat Bishop." "He was
well named De Dominis in the plural," says Crakanthorp, "for he could
serve two masters, or twenty, if they paid him wages."
Our author now proceeded to finish his great work, which he published in
1617 in three large folios—De Republicâ Ecclesiasticâ, of which the
original still exists among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford. "He exclaims," says Fuller, "'in reading, meditation, and writing, I
am almost pined away,' but his fat cheeks did confute his false tongue in
that expression." In this book he shows that the authority of the Bishop of
Rome can easily be disproved from Holy Scripture, that it receives no
support from the judgment of history and antiquity, that the early bishops of

that see had no precedence over other bishops, nor were in the least able to
control those of other countries. He declares that the inequality in power
amongst the Apostles is a human invention, not founded on the Gospels;
that in the Holy Eucharist the priest does not offer the sacrifice of Christ,
but only the commemoration of that sacrifice; that the Church has no
coercive power, that John Huss was wrongfully condemned at the Council
of Constance; that the Holy Spirit was promised to the whole Church, and
not only to bishops and priests; that the papacy is a fiction invented by men;
and he states many other propositions which must have been somewhat
distasteful to the Pope and his followers.
James rewarded De Dominis by conferring on him the Mastership of the
Savoy and the Deanery of Windsor, and he further increased his wealth by
presenting himself to the rich living of West Ilsley, in Berkshire.
In an unfortunate moment he insulted Count Gondomar, the Spanish
Ambassador, who determined to be revenged, and persuaded the Pope to
send the most flattering offers if he would return to his former faith. Pope
Gregory XV., a relative of De Dominis, had just ascended the Papal throne.
The bait took. De Dominis, discontented with the non multum supra
quadringentas libras annuas which he received in England, and pining after
the duodecim millia Coronatorum promised by the Pope, resolved to leave
our shores. James was indignant. Bishop Hall tried to dissuade him from his
purpose. "Tell me, by the Immortal God, what it is that can snatch you from
us so suddenly, after a delay of so many years, and drive you to Rome? Has
our race appeared to you inhospitable, or have we shown favour to your
virtues less than you hoped? You cannot plead that this is the cause of your
departure, upon whom a most kind sovereign has bestowed such ample gifts
and conferred such rich offices." The Archbishop was questioned by the
Bishops of London and Durham, by order of the king, with regard to his
intentions, and commanded to leave the country within twenty days. He was
known to have amassed a large sum of money during his sojourn in
England, and his trunks were seized, and found to contain over £1,600. De
Dominis fled to Brussels, and there wrote his Consilium Reditûs, giving his
reasons for rejoining the Roman Church, and expecting daily his promised
reward—a cardinal's hat and a rich bishopric. His hopes were doomed to be
disappointed. For a short time he received a pension from Gregory XV., but
this was discontinued by Urban VIII., and our author became dissatisfied
and imprudently talked of again changing his faith. He was heard to

exclaim at supper on one occasion, "That no Catholic had answered his
book, De Republicâ Ecclesiasticâ, but that he himself was able to deal with
them." The Inquisition seized him, and he was conveyed to the Castle of St.
Angelo, where he soon died, as some writers assert, by poison. His body
and his books were burned by the executioner, and the ashes thrown into the
Tiber. Dr. Fitzgerald, Rector of the English College at Rome, thus describes
him: "He was a malcontent knave when he fled from us, a railing knave
when he lived with you, and a motley particoloured knave now he is come
again." He had undoubtedly great learning and skill in controversy,
[Footnote: His opinion with regard to the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan
over suffragan bishops was referred to in the recent trial of the Bishop of
Lincoln.] but avarice was his master, and he was rewarded according to his
deserts. [Footnote: Cf. article by the Rev. C. W. Penny in the Journal of the
Berks Archaeological Society, on Antonio de Dominis.]
The lonely fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel saw the end of a bitter
controversialist, Noël Bède, who died there in 1587. He wrote Natalis
Bedoe, doctoris Theol. Parisiensis annotationum in Erasmi paraphrases
Novi Testamenti, et Jacobi Fabri Stapulensis commentarios in Evangelistas,
Paulique Epistolas, Libri III., Parisiis, 1526, in-fol. This work abounds in
vehement criticisms and violent declamations. Erasmus did not fail to reply
to his calumniator, and detected no less than eighty-one falsehoods, two
hundred and six calumnies, and forty-seven blasphemies. Bède continued to
denounce Erasmus as a heretic, and in a sermon before the court reproached
the king for not punishing such unbelievers with sufficient rigour. The
author was twice banished, and finally was compelled to make a public
retractation in the Church of Notre Dame, for having spoken against the
king and the truth, and to be exiled to Mont-Saint-Michel.
Translators of the Bible fared not well at the hands of those who were
unwilling that the Scriptures should be studied in the vulgar tongue by the
lay-folk, and foremost among that brave band of self-sacrificing scholars
stands William Tyndale. His life is well known, and needs no recapitulation;
but it may be noted that his books, rather than his work of translating the
Scriptures, brought about his destruction. His important work called The
Practice of Prelates, which was mainly directed against the corruptions of
the hierarchy, unfortunately contained a vehement condemnation of the
divorce of Catherine of Arragon by Henry VIII. This deeply offended the
monarch at the very time that negotiations were in progress for the return of

Tyndale to his native shores from Antwerp, and he declared that he was
"very joyous to have his realm destitute of such a person." The Practice of
Prelates was partly written in answer to the Dialogue of Sir Thomas More,
who was commissioned to combat the "pernicious and heretical" works of
the "impious enemies of the Church." Tyndale wrote also a bitter Answer to
the Dialogue, and this drew forth from More his abusive and scurrilous
Confutation, which did little credit to the writer or to the cause for which he
contended Tyndale's longest controversial work, entitled The Obedience of
a Christian Man, and how Christian Rulers ought to govern, although it
stirred up much hostility against its author, very favourably impressed King
Henry, who delighted in it, and declared that "the book was for him and for
all kings to read." The story of the burning of the translation of the New
Testament at St. Paul's Cross by Bishop Tunstall, of the same bishop's
purchase of a "heap of the books" for the same charitable purpose, thereby
furnishing Tyndale with means for providing another edition and for
printing his translation of the Pentateuch, all this is a thrice-told tale. Nor
need we record the account of the conspiracy which sealed his doom. For
sixteen months he was imprisoned in the Castle of Vilvoord, and we find
him petitioning for some warm clothing and "for a candle in the evening,
for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark," and above all for his Hebrew
Bible, Grammar, and Dictionary, that he might spend his time in that study.
After a long dreary mockery of a trial on October 16th, 1536, he was
chained to a stake with faggots piled around him. "As he stood firmly
among the wood, with the executioner ready to strangle him, he lifted up his
eyes to heaven and cried with a fervent zeal and loud voice, 'Lord, open the
King of England's eyes!' and then, yielding himself to the executioner, he
was strangled, and his body immediately consumed." That same year, by
the King's command, the first edition of the Bible was published in London.
If Tyndale had confined himself to the great work of translating the
Scriptures, and had abandoned controversy and his Practice of Prelates, his
fate might have been different; but, as Mr. Froude says, "he was a man
whose history has been lost in his work, and whose epitaph is the
Reformation."
Another translator, whose fate was not so tragic, was the learned Arias
Montanus, a Spaniard, who produced at the command of King Philip II. the
famous Polyglot Bible printed at Antwerp in nine tomes. He possessed a
wonderful knowledge of several languages, and devoted immense labour to

his great work. But in spite of the royal approval of his work his book met
with much opposition on the part of the extreme Roman party, who accused
him to the Pope and made many false charges against him. The Pope was
enraged against Montanus, and he was obliged to go to Rome to plead his
cause. He at length obtained pardon from the Pope, and escaped the
"chariots of fire" which bore the souls of so many martyred saints to
heaven. It is a curious irony of fate that Montanus, who was one of the chief
compilers of the Index Expurgatorius, should live to see his own work
placed on the condemned list.
The story of the martyrdom of John Huss is well known, and need not be
here related, but perhaps the books which caused his death are not so
frequently studied or their titles remembered. His most important work was
his De Ecclesiâ, in which he maintained the rigid doctrine of predestination,
denied to the Pope the title of Head of the Church, declaring that the Pope is
the vicar of St. Peter, if he walk in his steps; but if he give in to
covetousness, he is the vicar of Judas Iscariot. He reprobates the flattery
which was commonly used towards the Pope, and denounces the luxury and
other corruptions of the cardinals. Besides this treatise we have many others
—Adv. Indulgentias, De Erectione Crucis, etc. He wrote in Latin,
Bohemian, and German, and recently his Bohemian writings have been
edited by K. J. Erben, Prague (1865). His plain speaking aroused the fury of
his adversaries, and he knew his danger. On one occasion he made a strange
challenge, offering to maintain his opinions in disputation, and consenting
to be burnt if his conclusions were proved to be wrong, on condition that his
opponents should submit to the same fate in case of defeat. But as they
would only sacrifice one out of the company of his foes, he declared that
the conditions were unequal, and the challenge was abandoned. When at
last he was granted a safe conduct by the Emperor Sigismund, and trusted
himself to the Council of Constance, his fate was sealed. Even in his
noisome prison his pen (when he could procure one) was not idle, and Huss
composed during his confinement several tracts on religious subjects. At
length his degradation was completed; a tall paper cap painted with hideous
figures of devils was placed upon his head, and a bishop said to him, "We
commit thy body to the secular arm, and thy soul to the devil." "And I,"
replied the martyr, "commit it to my most merciful Lord, Jesus Christ."
When on his way to execution he saw his Fatal Books being burnt amidst

an excited crowd, he smiled and remarked on the folly of people burning
what they could not read.
Another translator of the Bible was Antonio Bruccioli, who published in
Venice, in 1546, the following edition of the Holy Scriptures: Biblia en
lengua toscana, cioë, i tutti i santi libri del vecchio y Novo Testamento, in
lengua toscana, dalla hebraica verita, e fonte greco, con commento da
Antonio Bruccioli. Although a Roman Catholic, he favoured Protestant
views, and did not show much love for either the monks or priests. His bold
comments attracted the attention of the Inquisition, who condemned his
work and placed it on the Index. The author was condemned to death by
hanging, but happily for him powerful friends interceded, and his
punishment was modified to a two years' banishment. He died in 1555,
when Protestant burnings were in vogue in England.
Enzinas, the author of a Spanish translation of the New Testament
entitled El Nuevo Testamento de N. Redemptor y Salvador J. C. traduzido
en lengua castellana (En Amberes, 1543, in-8), dedicated his work to
Charles V. But it caused him to be imprisoned fifteen months. Happily he
discovered a means of escape from his dungeon, and retired to safe quarters
at Geneva. In France he adopted the nom-de-plume of Dryander, and his
History of the Netherlands and of Religion in Spain forms part of the
Protestant martyrology published in Germany. The author's brother, John
Dryander, was burnt at Rome in 1545.
The Jansenist Louis Le Maistre, better known under the name of de Sacy,
was imprisoned in the Bastille on account of his opinions and also for his
French translation of the New Testament, published at Mons, in 1667, and
entitled Le Nouveau Testament de N.S.J.C., traduit en français selon
l'édition Vulgate, avec les différences du grec (2 vols., in-12). This famous
work, known by the name of the New Testament of Mons, has been
condemned by many popes, bishops, and other authorities. Louis Le
Maistre was assisted in the work by his brother, and the translation was
improved by Arnaud and Nicole. Pope Clement IX. described the work as
"rash, pernicious, different from the Vulgate, and containing many
stumbling-blocks for the unlearned." When confined in the Bastille, Le
Maistre and his friend Nicolas Fontaine wrote Les Figures de la Bible,
which work is usually attributed to the latter author. According to the
Jesuits, the Port-Royalists are represented under the figure of David, their

antagonists as Saul. Louis XIV. appears as Rehoboam, Jezebel, Ahasuerus,
and Darius. But these fanciful interpretations are probably due to the
imagination of the critics.
The fate of Gaspar Peucer enforces the truth of the old adage that "a
shoemaker ought to stick to his last," and shows that those men court
adversity who meddle with matters outside their profession. Peucer was a
doctor of medicine of the academy of Würtemberg, and wrote several works
on astronomy, medicine, and history. He was a friend of Melanchthon, and
became imbued with Calvinistic notions, which he manifested in his
publication of the works of the Reformer. On account of this he was
imprisoned eleven years. By the favour of the Elector he was at length
released, and wrote a History of his Captivity (Zurich, 1605). A curious
work, entitled A Treatise on Divination, was published by Peucer at
Würtemberg, written in Latin, in 1552. He ranks among the most learned
men of Germany of the sixteenth century.
There were many Fatal Books in Holland during the famous controversy
between the Arminians and the Gomarists, which ended in the famous
Synod of Dort, and for vehemence, bigotry, and intolerance is as
remarkable as any which can be found in ecclesiastical history. The learned
historian Grotius was imprisoned, but he wrote no book which caused his
misfortune. Indeed his books were instrumental in his escape, which was
effected by means of his large box containing books brought into the prison
by his wife. When removed from the prison it contained, not the books, but
the author. Vorstius, the successor of Arminius as Professor of Theology at
Leyden, was not so happy. His book, Tractatus de Deo, seu de naturâ et
attributis Dei (Steinfurti, 1610, in-4), aroused the vengeance of the
Gomarists, and brought about the loss of his professorship and his
banishment from Holland; but any injustice might have been expected from
that extraordinary Synod, where theology was mystified, religion disgraced,
and Christianity outraged. [Footnote: Cf. Church in the Netherlands, by
P.H. Ditchfield, chap. xvii.]
Few books have created such a sensation in the world or aroused so
prolonged a controversy as Les Réflexions Morales of Pasquier Quesnel,
published in 1671. The full title of the work is Le Nouveau Testament en
Français, avec des réflexions morales sur chaque verset (Paris, 1671, i vol.,
in-12), pour les quatre Evangiles seulement. Praslard was the publisher. In

1693 and 1694 appeared another edition, containing his réflexions morales,
not only on the Gospels, but also on the Acts and the Epistles. Many
subsequent editions have appeared. Not only France, but the whole of the
Western Church was agitated by it, and its far-reaching effects have hardly
yet passed away. It caused its author a long period of incarceration; it
became a weapon in the hands of the Jesuits to hurl at the Jansenists, and
the Papal Bull pronounced against it was the cause of the separation of a
large body of the faithful from the communion of the Roman Church. Its
author was born at Paris in 1634, and was educated in the congregation of
the Oratory. Appointed director of its school in Paris, he wrote Pensées
Chrétiennes sur les quatre Evangiles, which was the germ of his later work.
In 1684 he fled to Brussels, because he felt himself unable to sign a
formulary decreed by the Oratorians on account of its acceptance of some
of the principles of Descartes to which Arnauld and the famous writers of
the school of Port-Royal always offered vehement opposition.
A second edition of Réflexions Morales appeared in 1694 with the
approval of De Noailles, then Bishop of Châlons, afterwards Archbishop of
Paris. But a few years later, by the intrigues of the Jesuits, and by the order
of Philip V., Quesnel was imprisoned at Mechlin. In 1703 he escaped and
retired to Amsterdam, where he died in 1719. But the history of the book
did not close with the author's death. It was condemned by Pope Clement
XI. in 1708 as infected with Jansenism. Four years later an assembly of five
cardinals and eleven theologians sat in judgment upon it; their deliberations
lasted eighteen months, and the result of their labours was the famous Bull
Unigenitus, which condemned one hundred and one propositions taken
from the writings of Quesnel.
The unreasonableness and injustice of this condemnation may be
understood from the following extracts:—
Proposition 50.—"It is in vain that we cry to God, My Father, if it is not
the Spirit of love that cries."
This is described as "pernicious in practice, and offensive to pious ears."
Proposition 54.—"It is love alone that speaks to God; it is love alone that
God hears."
This, according to the cardinals, "is scandalous, temerarious, impious,
and erroneous."

The acceptance of the Bull was a great stumbling-block to many
churchmen. Louis XIV. forced it upon the French bishops, who were
entertained at a sumptuous banquet given by the Archbishop of Strasbourg
and by a large majority decided against the Quesnelites. It is unnecessary to
follow the history of this controversy further. France was long agitated by
it, and the Church of Holland was and is excommunicate from Rome
mainly on account of its refusal to accept the Bull Unigenitus, which was
called forth by and so unjustly condemned Quesnel's famous book.
In connection with the history of this Bull we may mention the work of
one of its most vehement opponents, Pierre François le Courayer, of the
order of the canons regular of St. Augustine, who wrote a book of great
interest to English churchmen, entitled Dissertation sur la validité des
Ordinations Anglicanes (Bruxelles, 1723, 2 vols., in-12). This book was
condemned and its author excommunicated. He retired to the shelter of the
Church whose right of succession he so ably defended, and died in London
in 1776.
Few authors have received greater honour for their works, or endured
severer calamities on account of them, than the famous Florentine preacher
Savonarola. Endowed with a marvellous eloquence, imbued with a spirit of
enthusiastic patriotism and intense devotion, he inveighed against the vices
of the age, the worldliness of the clergy, the selfish ease of the wealthy
while the poor were crying for bread in want and sickness. The good
citizens of Florence believed that he was an angel from heaven, that he had
miraculous powers, could speak with God and foretell the future; and while
the women of Florence cast their jewels and finery into the flames of the
"bonfire of vanities," the men, inspired by the preacher's dreams of
freedom, were preparing to throw off the yoke of the Medicis and proclaim
a grand Florentine Republic. The revolution was accomplished, and for
three years Savonarola was practically the ruler of the new state. His works
were: Commentatiuncula de Mahumetanorum secta; Triumphus crucis, sive
de fidei Christianae veritate in four books (1497), de Simplicitate vitae
Christianae in five books, and Compendium Revelationis (1495), and many
volumes of his discourses, some of which are the rarest treasures of
incunabula.
[Footnote: At Venice in the library of Leo S. Olschki I have met with
some of these volumes, the rarest of which is entitled:—

PREDICHE DEL REVERENDO
PADRE FRATE HIERONYMO

Da Ferrara facie lanno del. 1496
negiorni delle feste, finito che
hebbe la quaresima: & prima
riposatosi circa uno mese
ricomincio eldi di Scõ
Michele Adi. viii di
Maggio. MCCCC
LXXXXVI.

The text commences "CREDITE IN Dño Deo uestro & securi eritis." In
the cell of Savonarola at the Monastery of St. Mark is preserved a MS.
volume of the famous preacher. The writing is very small, and must have
taxed the skill of the printers in deciphering it.]
The austerity of his teaching excited some hostility against him,
especially on the part of the monks who did not belong to his order—that of
the Dominicans. He had poured such bitter invective both in his books and
in his sermons upon the vices of the Popes and the Cardinals, that they too
formed a powerful party in league against him. In addition the friends of the
Medicis resented the overthrow of their power, and the populace, ever fickle
in their affections, required fresh wonders and signs to keep them faithful to
their leader. The opportunity of his enemies came when Charles VIII. of
France retired from Florence. They accused Savonarola of all kinds of
wickedness. He was cast into prison, tortured, and condemned to death as a
heretic. In what his heresy consisted it were hard to discover. It was true
that when his poor, shattered, sensitive frame was being torn and rent by the
cruel engines of torture, he assented to many things which his persecutors
strove to wring from him. The real cause of his destruction was not so much
the charges of heresy which were brought against his books and sermons, as
the fact that he was a person inconvenient to Pope Alexander VI. On the
23rd of May, 1498, he met his doom in the great piazza at Florence where
in happier days he had held the multitude spell-bound by his burning
eloquence. There sentence was passed upon him. Stripped of his black
Dominican robe and long white tunic, he was bound to a gibbet, strangled
by a halter, and his dead body consumed by fire, his ashes being thrown
into the river Arno. Such was the miserable end of the great Florentine
preacher, whose strange and complex character has been so often discussed,
and whose remarkable career has furnished a theme for poets and romance-

writers, and forms the basis of one of the most powerful novels of modern
times.
Not only were the Inquisitors and the Cardinals guilty of intolerance and
the stern rigour of persecution, but the Reformers themselves, when they
had the power, refrained not from torturing and burning those who did not
accept their own particular belief. This they did not merely out of a spirit of
revenge conceived against those who had formerly condemned their fathers
and brethren to the stake, but sometimes we see instances of Reformers
slaughtering Reformers, because the victims did not hold quite the same
tenets as those who were in power. Poor Michael Servetus shared as hard a
fate at the hands of Calvin, as ever "heretic" did at the hands of the
Catholics; and this fate was entirely caused by his writings. This author was
born in Spain, at Villaneuva in Arragon, in 1509. At an early age he went to
Africa to learn Arabic, and on his return settled in France, studying law at
Toulouse, and medicine at Lyons and Paris.
But the principles of the Reformed religion attracted him; he studied the
Scriptures in their original languages, and the writings of the fathers and
schoolmen. Unhappily his perverse and self-reliant spirit led him into
grievous errors with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. In vain the gentle
Reformer Oecolampadius at Basle reasoned with him. He must needs
disseminate his opinions in a book entitled De Trinitatis Erroribus, which
has handed the name of Servetus down to posterity as the author of errors
opposed to the tenets of the Christian Faith. Bucer declared that he deserved
the most shameful death on account of the ideas set forth in this work. In
his next work, Dialogues on the Trinity and A Treatise on the Kingdom of
Christ, Servetus somewhat modified his views, and declared that his former
reasonings were merely "those of a boy speaking to boys"; but he blamed
rather the arrangement of his book, than retracted the opinions he had
expressed.
He also annotated Pagnini's Latin version of the Sacred Scriptures,
entitled Biblia sacra latina ex hebraeo, per Sanctum Pagninum, cum
praefatione et scholiis Michaelis Villanovani (Michel Servet). Lugduni, a
Porta, 1542, in-folio. This edition was vigorously suppressed on account of
the notes of Servetus.
After sojourning some time in Italy, he returned to France in 1534, and
settled at Lyons, where he published a new and highly esteemed edition of

the Geography of Ptolemy, inscribing himself as Michael Villanovanus,
from the name of his birthplace. His former works had been published
under the name of Reves, formed by the transposition of the letters of his
family name. In Paris he studied medicine, and began to set forth novel
opinions which led him into conflict with other members of the faculty. In
one of his treatises he is said to have suggested the theory of the circulation
of the blood. In 1540 he went to Vienne and published anonymously his
well-known work De Restitutione Christianismi. This book, when its
authorship became known, brought upon him the charge of heresy, and he
was cast into prison. Powerful friends enabled him to escape, and his
enemies were obliged to content themselves with burning his effigy and
several copies of his books in the market-place at Vienne. Servetus
determined to fly to Naples, but was obliged to pass through Geneva, where
at the instigation of the great Reformer Calvin he was seized and cast into
prison. It is unnecessary to follow the course of Servetus' ill-fated history,
the bitter hostility of Calvin, the delays, the trials and colloquies. At length
he was condemned, and the religious world shuddered at the thought of
seeing the pile lighted by a champion of the Reformation and religious
freedom. Loud and awful shrieks were heard in the prison when the tidings
of his sentence were conveyed to Servetus. Soon the fatal staff was broken
over his head as a sign of his condemnation, and on the Champel Hill,
outside the gates of Geneva, the last tragic scene took place. With his brow
adorned with a crown of straw sprinkled with brimstone, his Fatal Books at
his side, chained to a low seat, and surrounded by piles of blazing faggots,
the newness and moisture of which added greatly to his torture, in piteous
agony Servetus breathed his last, a sad spectacle of crime wrought in
religion's name, a fearful example of how great woes an author may bring
upon himself by his arrogance and self-sufficiency. The errors of Servetus
were deplorable, but the vindictive cruelty of his foes creates sympathy for
the victim of their rage, and Calvin's memory is ever stained by his base
conduct to his former friend.
The name of Sebastian Edzardt is not so well known. He was educated at
Würtemberg, and when Frederick I. of Prussia conceived the desire of
uniting the various reformed bodies with the Lutherans, he published a
work De causis et natura unionis, and a treatise Ad Calvanianorum
Pelagianisinum. In this book he charged the Calvinists with the Pelagian
heresy—a charge which they were accustomed to bring against the

Lutherans. It was written partly against a book of John Winckler, Arcanum
Regium de conciliandis religionibus subditorum diffidentibus, published in
1703 in support of the King's designs. In the same year he published
Impietas cohortis fanatica, expropriis Speneri, Rechenbergii, Petersenii,
Thomasii, Arnoldi, Schutzii, Boehmeri, aliorumque fanaticorum scriptis,
plusquam apodictis argumentis, ostensa. Hamburgi, Koenig, 1703, in-4.
This work was suppressed by order of the senate of Hamburg. Frederick
was enraged at Edzardt's opposition to his plans, ordered his first book to be
burnt, and forbade any one to reply to it. Nor was our author more
successful in his other work, Kurtzer Entwurff der Einigkeit der
Evangelisch-Lutherischen und Reformirten im Grunde des Glaubens: von
dieser Vereinigung eigentlicher Natur und Beschaffenheit, wherein he
treated of various systems of theology. This too was publicly burnt, but of
the fate of its author I have no further particulars.
The last of the great schoolmen, William of Ockham, called the
"Invincible Doctor," suffered imprisonment and exile on account of his
works. He was born at Ockham in Surrey in 1280, and, after studying at
Oxford, went to the University of Paris. He lived in stirring times, and took
a prominent part in the great controversies which agitated the fourteenth
century. Pope John XXII. ruled at Avignon, a shameless truckster in
ecclesiastical merchandise, a violent oppressor of his subjects, yet obliged
by force of circumstances to be a mere subject of the King of France. The
Emperor Ludwig IV. ruled in Germany in spite of the excommunication
pronounced against him by the Pope. Many voices were raised in support of
Louis denouncing the assumptions of the occupant of the Papal See.
Marcilius of Padua wrote his famous Defensor Pacis against Papal
pretensions, and our author, William of Ockham, issued his still more
famous Defence of Poverty, which startled the whole of Christendom by its
vigorous onslaught on the vices of the Papacy and the assumptions of Pope
John. The latter ordered two bishops to examine the work, and the
"Invincible Doctor" was cast into prison at Avignon. He would certainly
have been slain, had he not contrived to effect his escape, and taken refuge
at the court of the German emperor, to whom he addressed the words, "Tu
me defendas gladio, ego te defendam calamo." There he lived and wrote,
condemned by the Pope, disowned by his order, the Franciscans, threatened
daily with sentences of heresy, deprivation, and imprisonment; but for them
he cared not, and fearlessly pursued his course, becoming the

acknowledged leader of the reforming tendencies of the age, and preparing
the material for that blaze of light which astonished the world in the
sixteenth century. His works have never been collected, and are very scarce,
being preserved with great care in some of the chief libraries of Europe. The
scholastic philosophy of the fourteenth century, the disputes between the
Nominalists and the Realists, in which he took the part of the former, the
principle that "entities are not to be multiplied except by necessity," or the
"hypostatic existence of abstractions," have ceased to create any very keen
interest in the minds of readers. But how bitterly the war of words was
waged in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries! And it was not only a war
of words; one who witnessed the contests wrote that "when the contending
parties had exhausted their stock of verbal abuse, they often came to blows;
and it was not uncommon in their quarrels about universals, to see the
combatants engaged not only with their fists, but with clubs and swords, so
that many have been wounded and some killed." These controversies have
passed away, upon which, says John of Salisbury, more time had been
wasted than the Caesars had employed in making themselves masters of the
world; and it is unnecessary here to revive them. Ockham's principal works
are: Quaestiones et decisiones in quatuor libros sententiarum cum
centilogio theologico (Lyons, 1495), [Footnote: I have met with a copy of
this work amongst the incunabula in the possession of M. Olschki, of
Venice. The printer's name is John Trechsel, who is described as vir hujus
artis solertissimus.] Summa logicae (Paris, 1483), Quodlibeta (Paris, 1487),
Super potestate summi pontifia (1496). He died at Munich in 1343.
The Introductio ad Theologiam of the famous Abélard, another
schoolman, was fatal to him. Abélard's name is more generally known on
account of the golden haze of romance which surrounded him and the fair
Heloise; and their loving letters have been often read and mourned over by
thousands who have never heard of his theological writings. At one time the
famous Canon of Notre Dame at Paris had an enthusiastic following;
thousands flocked to his lectures from every country; his popularity was
enormous. He combated the abuses of the age and the degeneracy of some
of the clergy, and astonished and enraged many by the boldness of his
speech and the novelty of his opinions. His views with regard to the
doctrine of the Trinity expressed in his Introductio (Traité de la Trinité)
were made the subject of a charge against him, and certainly they cannot be
easily distinguished from Sabellianism. The qualities or attributes of the

Godhead, power, wisdom, goodness, were stated to be the three Persons.
The Son of God was not incarnate to deliver us, but only to instruct us by
His discourses and example. Jesus Christ, God and Man, is not one of the
Persons in the Trinity, and a man is not properly called God. He did not
descend into hell. Such were some of the errors with which Abélard was
reproached. Whether they were actually contained in his writings, it is not
so evident. We have only fragments of Abélard's writings to judge from,
which have been collected by M. Cousin—Ouvrages inédits d'Abélard—
and therefore cannot speak with certain knowledge of his opinions. At least
they were judged to be blasphemous and heretical by the Council of
Soissons, when he was condemned to commit his books to the flames and
to retire to the Convent of St. Denys. Some years later, when he had
recovered from the horrible mutilation to which he had been subjected by
the uncle of Heloise, and his mind had acquired its usual strength, we find
him at Paris, again attracting crowds by his brilliant lectures, and pouring
forth books, and alas! another fatal one, Sic et Non, [Footnote: Petri
Abelardi Sic et Non (Marburgi, Sumptibus Librariae; Academy Elwertianae,
1851). The best edition of Abélard's letters is P. Abaelardi et Heloisae
conjugis ejus Epistolae, ab erroribus purgatae et cum codd. MSS. collatae
cura Richardi Rawlinson, Londini, 1718, in-8. There is also an edition
published in Paris in 1616, 4to, Petri Abelardi et Heloisae conjugis ejus,
opera cum praefatione apologetica Franc. Antboësii, et Censura doctorum
parisiensium; ex editione Andreae Quercetani (André Duchesne).] which
asked one hundred and fifty-eight questions on all kinds of subjects. The
famous champion of orthodoxy, St. Bernard, examined the book, and at the
Council of Sens in 1140 obtained a verdict against its author. He said that
poor Abélard was an infernal dragon who persecuted the Church, that Arius,
Pelagius, and Nestorius were not more dangerous, as Abélard united all
these monsters in his own person, and that he was a persecutor of the faith
and the precursor of Antichrist. These words of the celebrated Abbot of
Clairvaux are more creditable to his zeal than to his charity. Abélard's
disciple Arnold of Brescia attended him at the Council, and shared in the
condemnations which St. Bernard so freely bestowed. Arnold's stormy and
eventful life as a religious and political reformer was ended at Rome in
1155, where he was strangled and burnt by order of the Emperor Frederick,
his ashes being cast into the Tiber lest they should be venerated as relics by
his followers. St. Bernard described him as a man having the head of a dove

and the tail of a scorpion. Abélard was condemned to perpetual silence, and
found a last refuge in the monastery of Cluny. Side by side in the graveyard
of the Paraclete Convent the bodies of Abélard and Heloise lie, whose
earthly lives, though lighted by love and cheered by religion, were clouded
with overmuch sorrow, and await the time when all theological questions
will be solved and doubts and difficulties raised by earthly mists and human
frailties will be swept away, and we shall "know even as also we are
known."

CHAPTER II. FANATICS AND FREE-
THINKERS.
Quirinus Kuhlmann—John Tennhart—Jeremiah Felbinger—Simon
Morin—Liszinski—John Toland—Thomas Woolston—John Biddle—
Johann Lyser—Bernardino Ochino—Samuel Friedrich Willenberg.
The nympholepts of old were curious and unhappy beings who, while
carelessly strolling amidst sylvan shades, caught a hasty glimpse of some
spirit of the woods, and were doomed ever afterwards to spend their lives in
fruitlessly searching after it. The race of Fanatics are somewhat akin to
these restless seekers. There is a wildness and excessive extravagance in
their notions and actions which separates them from the calm followers of
Truth, and leads them into strange courses and curious beliefs. How far the
sacred fire of enthusiasm may be separated from the fierce heat of
fanaticism we need not now inquire, nor whether a spark of the latter has
not shone brilliantly in many a noble soul and produced brave deeds and
acts of piety and self-sacrifice. Those whose fate is here recorded were far
removed from such noble characters; their fanaticism was akin to madness,
and many of them were fitter for an asylum rather than a gaol, which was
usually their destination.
Foremost among them was Quirinus Kulmanus (Kuhlmann), who has
been called the Prince of Fanatics, and wandered through many lands
making many disciples. He was born at Breslau in Silesia in 1651, and at an
early age saw strange visions, at one time the devils in hell, at another the
Beatific Glory of God. His native country did not appreciate him, and he
left it to wander on from university to university, publishing his ravings. At
Leyden he met with the works of Boehme, another fanatic, who wrote a
strange book, entitled Aurora, which was suppressed by the magistrates.
The reading of this author was like casting oil into the fire. Poor Kuhlmann
became wilder still in his strange fanaticism, and joined himself to a
pretended prophet, John Rothe, whom the authorities at Amsterdam
incarcerated, in order that he might be able to foretell with greater certainty
than he had done other things when and after what manner he should be

released. Kuhlmann then wrote a book, entitled Prodromus Quinquennii
Mirabilis, and published at Leyden in 1674, in which he set forth his
peculiar views. He stated that in that same year the Fifth Monarchy or the
Christian Kingdom was about to commence, that he himself would bring
forth a son from his own wife, that this son by many miracles would found
the kingdom, and that he himself was the Son of God. On account of these
mad ravings he was exiled by the Chief of the United Provinces of the
Netherlands, and expelled with infamy from the University of Leyden. But
his strange mission did not cease. He wandered for some time in France and
England, where he printed at his own expense several small books in 1681
and 1682, amongst others one piece addressed to Mahomet IV., De
Conversione Turcarum. The following passage occurs in this fantastic
production: "You saw, some months ago, O great Eastern Leader, a comet
of unusual magnitude, a true prognostic of the Kingdom of the Jesuelites,
that is, of the restoration of all people to the one-three God. O well is thee,
that thou hast turned thy mind before God, and by proclaiming a general
fast throughout thy empire, hast begun to fulfil the words of the Lord to the
prophet Drabicius." He declares that if the Christians refuse to perform his
will in destroying the kingdom of Antichrist, the Turks and Tartars shall do
it, to the disgrace of the Christians, which will be a horror to angels and to
men.
He then proceeded to Turkey on his mission, and presented himself to the
Sultan. Although ignorant of the language of the country, he persuaded
himself that he could speak in any tongue; but when they led him into the
presence of the Sultan he waited in vain for the burning words of eloquence
to flow. The Turks dealt with him according to his folly, and bestowed on
him a sound thrashing. Thence he proceeded to Russia, and when he was
about to marry a second wife, his former spouse being left in England, the
Patriarch of the Russian Church condemned him to be burnt at Moscow in
1689. A follower of Kuhlmann's, named Nordermann, who also wrote a
book on the Second Advent of Christ, shared his fate. Kuhlmann also wrote
a volume of verses, entitled The Berlin and Amsterdam "Kuhl-festival" at
the Gathering of Lutherans and Calvinists, which sufficiently attests his
insanity. The following is a specimen of the lucidity of his works: "The
more I continued my doctrines, the more opposition I received, so that also
the higher world of light with which I am illuminated, in their light I was

enlightened, or shadowed, when I proceeded, and in their light lit I up
brighter lights."
A fitting companion to Kuhlmann was John Tennhart, a barber of
Nuremberg, born in 1662, who used to speak continually of the visions,
dreams, and colloquies which he had with God, and boasted that the office
of a scribe was entrusted to him by the Divine Will. He endeavoured to
persuade all men that the words he wrote were verily and indeed the words
of God. The world was not disposed to interfere with the poor barber who
imagined himself inspired, but in an evil hour he published a book against
the priests, entitled Worte Gottes, oder Tractätlein an den so genannten
geistlichen Stand, which caused its author great calamities. He was cast into
prison by order of the senate of the Nuremberg State. On his release he
again published his former work, with others which he also believed to be
inspired, and again in 1714 was imprisoned at Nuremberg. His incarceration
did not, however, last long, and Tennhart died while he was journeying
from the city which so little appreciated his ravings to find in Cassel a more
secure resting-place.
Amongst the fanatics of the seventeenth century may be classed Jeremiah
Felbinger, a native of Brega, a town in the Prussian State of Silesia, who
was an early advocate of the heresy of the Unitarians. For some years he
was a soldier, and then became a schoolmaster. He wrote Prodromus
demonstrationis, published in 1654, in which he attempted to prove his
Unitarian ideas. Shortly before this, in 1653, he wrote Demonstrationes
Christianae, and finally his Epistola ad Christianos, published at
Amsterdam in 1672. His strange views and perverted opinions first caused
his dismissal from the army, and his works upon the Unitarian doctrines
necessitated his removal from the office of teacher. He then journeyed to
Helmstadt, but there the wanderer found no rest; for when he tried to
circulate his obnoxious books, he was ordered to leave the city before
sunset. Finally he settled in Amsterdam, the home of free-thinkers, where
men were allowed a large amount of religious liberty; there printers
produced without let or hindrance books which were condemned elsewhere
and could only be printed in secret presses and obscure corners of cities
governed by more orthodox rulers. Here Felbinger passed the rest of his
miserable life in great poverty, earning a scanty pittance by instructing
youths and correcting typographical errors. He died in 1689, aged seventy-
three years.

The seventeenth century was fruitful in fanatics, and not the least mad
was Simon Morin, who was burnt at Paris in 1663. His fatal book was his
Pensées de Simon Morin (Paris, 1647, in-8), which contains a curious
mixture of visions and nonsense, including the principal errors of the
Quietists and adding many of his own. Amongst other mad ravings, he
declared that there would be very shortly a general reformation of the
Church, and that all nations should be converted to the true faith, and that
this reformation was to be accomplished by the Second Advent of our Lord
in His state of glory, incorporated in Morin himself; and that for the
execution of the things to which he was destined, he was to be attended by a
great number of perfect souls, and such as participated in the glorious state
of Jesus Christ, whom he therefore called the champions of God. He was
condemned by the Parliament of Paris, and after having done penance,
dressed in his shirt, with a rope round his neck and a torch in his hand,
before the entrance of Notre Dame, he was burnt with his book and
writings, his ashes being subsequently cast into the air. Morin had several
followers who shared his fantastic views, and these poor "champions of
God" were condemned to witness the execution of their leader, to be
publicly whipped and branded with the mark of fleur-de-lys, and to spend
the rest of their lives as galley-slaves.
Poland witnessed the burning of Cazimir Liszinski in 1689, whose ashes
were placed in a cannon and shot into the air. This Polish gentleman was
accused of atheism by the Bishop of Potsdam. His condemnation was based
upon certain atheistical manuscripts found in his possession, containing
several novel doctrines, such as "God is not the creator of man; but man is
the creator of a God gathered together from nothing." His writings contain
many other extravagant notions of the same kind.
A few years later the religious world of both England and Ireland was
excited and disturbed by the famous book of John Toland, a sceptical
Irishman, entitled Christianity not Mysterious (London, 1696). Its author
was born in Londonderry in 1670, and was endowed with much natural
ability, but this did not avail to avert the calamities which pursue indiscreet
and reckless writers. He wrote his book at the early age of twenty-five
years, for the purpose of defending Holy Scripture from the attacks of
infidels and atheists; he essayed to prove that there was nothing in religion
contrary to sound reason, and to show that the mysteries of religion were
not opposed to reason. But his work aroused much opposition both in

England and Ireland, as there were many statements in the book which were
capable of a rationalistic interpretation. A second edition was published in
London with an apology by Toland in 1702. In Dublin he raised against
himself a storm of opposition, not only on account of his book, but also by
his vain and foolish manner of propagating his views. He began openly to
deride Christianity, to scoff at the clergy, to despise the worship of God, and
so passed his life that whoever associated with him was judged to be an
impious and infamous person. He proposed to form a society which he
called Socratia; the hymns to be sung by the members were the Odes of
Horace, and the prayers were blasphemous productions, composed by
Toland, in derision of those used in the Roman Church. The Council of
Religion of the Irish House of Parliament condemned his book to be burnt,
and some of the members wished to imprison its author, who after enduring
many privations wisely sought safety in flight. A host of writers arrayed
themselves in opposition to Toland and refuted his book, amongst whom
were John Norris, Stillingfleet, Payne, Beverley, Clarke, Leibnitz, and
others. Toland wrote also The Life of Milton (London, 1698), which was
directed against the authenticity of the New Testament; The Nazarene, or
Christianity, Judaic, Pagan, and Mahometan (1718); and Pantheisticon
(1720). The outcry raised by the orthodox party against the "poor
gentleman" who had "to beg for half-crowns," and "ran into debt for his
wigs, clothes, and lodging," together with his own vanity and conceit,
changed him from being a somewhat free-thinking Christian into an infidel
and atheist or Pantheist. He died in extreme poverty at Putney in 1722.
A fitting companion to Toland was Thomas Woolston, who lived about
the same time; he was born at Northampton in 1669, and died at London in
1733. He was a free-thinker, and a man of many attainments, whose works
became widely known and furnished weapons for the use of Voltaire and
other atheistical writers. In 1705 he wrote a book entitled The Old Apology,
in which he endeavoured to show that in the interpretation of the Holy
Scriptures the literal meaning ought to be abandoned, and that the events
recorded therein were merely allegories. In his book Free Gifts to the
Clergy he denounced all who favoured the literal interpretation as apostates
and ministers of Antichrist. Finally, in his Discourses on the Miracles
(1726) he denied entirely the authenticity of miracles, and stated that they
were merely stories and allegories. He thought that the literal account of the
miracles is improbable and untrustworthy, that they were parables and

prophetical recitations. These and many other such-like doctrines are found
in his works. Woolston held at that time the post of tutor at Sidney Sussex
College at Cambridge; but on account of his works he was expelled from
the College and cast into prison. According to one account of his life, he
died in prison in 1731. Another record states that he was released on paying
a fine of £100 after enduring one year's incarceration, and that he bore his
troubles bravely, passing an honest life and enduring reproaches with an
equal mind. Not a few able theologians set themselves the task of refuting
the errors of Woolston, amongst whom were John Ray, Stebbins, Bishop of
St. Davids, and Sherlock, whose book was translated into French. A Life of
Woolston has been written anonymously by some one who somewhat
favoured his views and supported his tenets. He may certainly be classed
among the leaders of Free Thought in the eighteenth century.
John Biddle was a vehement advocate of Socinian and Unitarian
opinions, attacking the belief in the Trinity and in the Divinity of our Lord.
The Holy Spirit was accounted by him as the first of the angels. His fatal
book was entitled The Faith of one God, who is only the Father, and of one
Mediator between God and man, who is only the man Christ Jesus; and of
one Holy Spirit, the gift, and sent of God, asserted and defended in several
tracts contained in this volume (London, 1691, in-4). This work was
publicly burnt and its author imprisoned. Biddle was born at Wotton-under-
Edge in 1615; he went to Oxford, and became a teacher at a grammar-
school at Gloucester. He underwent several terms of imprisonment on
account of the opinions expressed in his writings, and died in gaol in 1662.
Amongst the fanatics whose works were fatal to them must be enrolled
the famous advocates of polygamy, Johann Lyser, Bernardino Ochino, and
Samuel Friedrich Willenberg. Lyser was born at Leipsic in 1631, and
although he ever remained a bachelor and abhorred womankind,
nevertheless tried to demonstrate that not only was polygamy lawful, but
that it was a blessed estate commanded by God. He first brought out a
dialogue written in the vernacular entitled Sinceri Wahrenbergs kurzes
Gespraech von der Polygamie; and this little work was followed by a
second book, Das Koenigliche Marck aller Laender (Freyburg, 1676, in-4).
Then he produced another work, entitled Theophili Aletaei discursus
politicus de Polygamia. A second edition of this work followed, which bore
the title Polygamia triumphatrix, id est, discursus politicus de Polygamia,
auctore Theoph. Aletoeo, cum notis Athanasii Vincentii, omnibus Anti-

polygamis, ubique locorum, terrarum, insularum, pagorum, urbium
modeste et pie opposita (Londini Scanorum, 1682, in-4). On account of the
strange views expressed in this work he was deprived of his office of
Inspector, and was obliged to seek protection from a powerful Count, by
whose advice it is said that Lyser first undertook the advocacy of polygamy.
On the death of his friend Lyser was compelled frequently to change his
abode, and wandered through most of the provinces of Germany. He was
imprisoned by the Count of Hanover, and then expelled. In Denmark his
book was burned by the public executioner. At another place he was
imprisoned and beaten and his books burned. At length, travelling from
Italy to Holland, he endured every kind of calamity, and after all his
misfortunes he died miserably in a garret at Amsterdam, in 1684. It is
curious that Lyser, who never married nor desired wedlock, should have
advocated polygamy; but it is said that he was led on by a desire for
providing for the public safety by increasing the population of the country,
though probably the love of notoriety, which has added many authors'
names to the category of fools, contributed much to his madness.
Infected with the same notions was Bernardino Ochino, a Franciscan, and
afterwards a Capuchin, whose dialogue De Polygamiâ was fatal to him.
Although he was an old man, the authorities at Basle ordered him to leave
the city in the depth of a severe winter. He wandered into Poland, but
through the opposition of the Papal Nuncio, Commendone, he was again
obliged to fly. He had to mourn over the death of two sons and a daughter,
who died of the plague in Poland, and finally Ochino ended his woes in
Moravia. Such was the miserable fate of Ochino, who was at one time the
most famous preacher in the whole of Italy. He had a wonderful eloquence,
which seized upon the minds of his hearers and carried them whither he
would. No church was large enough to contain the multitudes which flocked
to hear him. Ochino was a skilled linguist, and, after leaving the Roman
Church, he wrote a book against the Papacy in English, which was printed
in London, and also a sermon on predestination. He visited England in
company with Peter Martyr, but on the death of Edward VI., on account of
the changes introduced in Mary's reign these two doctors again crossed the
seas, and retired to a safer retreat. His brilliant career was entirely ruined by
his fatal frenzy and foolish fanaticism for polygamy.
The third of this strange triumvirate was Samuel Friedrich Willenberg, a
doctor of law of the famous University of Cracow, who wrote a book De

finibus polygamiae licitae and aroused the hatred of the Poles. In 1715, by
command of the High Court of the King of Poland, his book was
condemned to be burnt, and its author nearly shared the same fate. He
escaped, however, this terrible penalty, and was fined one hundred thousand
gold pieces.
With these unhappy advocates of a system which violates the sacredness
of marriage, we must close our list of fanatics whose works have proved
fatal to them. Many of them deserve our pity rather than our scorn; for they
suffered from that species of insanity which, according to Holmes, is often
the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. At any rate, they furnish an
example of that

"Faith, fanatic faith, which, wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last."

CHAPTER III. ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, AND
MAGIC.
Henry Cornelius Agrippa—Joseph Francis Borri—Urban Grandier—Dr.
Dee—Edward Kelly—John Darrell.
Superstition is a deformed monster who dies hard; and like Loki of the
Sagas when the snake dropped poison on his forehead, his writhings shook
the world and caused earthquakes. Now its power is well-nigh dead.
"Superstition! that horrible incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the
light, with all its racks and poison-chalices, and foul sleeping-draughts, is
passing away without return." [Footnote: Carlyle.] But society was once
leavened with it. Alchemy, astrology, and magic were a fashionable cult,
and so long as its professors pleased their patrons, proclaimed "smooth
things and prophesied deceits," all went well with them; but it is an easy
thing to offend fickle-minded folk, and when the philosopher's stone and
the secret of perpetual youth after much research were not producible, the
cry of "impostor" was readily raised, and the trade of magic had its
uncertainties, as well as its charms.
Our first author who suffered as an astrologer, though it is extremely
doubtful whether he was ever guilty of the charges brought against him,
was Henry Cornelius Agrippa, who was born at Cologne in 1486, a man of
noble birth and learned in Medicine, Law, and Theology. His supposed
devotion to necromancy and his adventurous career have made his story a
favourite one for romance-writers. We find him in early life fighting in the
Italian war under the Emperor Maximilian, whose private secretary he was.
The honour of knighthood conferred upon him did not satisfy his ambition,
and he betook himself to the fields of learning. At the request of Margaret
of Austria, he wrote a treatise on the Excellence of Wisdom, which he had
not the courage to publish, fearing to arouse the hostility of the theologians
of the day, as his views were strongly opposed to the scholasticism of the
monks. He lived the roving life of a mediaeval scholar, now in London
illustrating the Epistles of St. Paul, now at Cologne or Pavia or Turin
lecturing on Divinity, and at another time at Metz, where he resided some

time and took part in the government of the city. There, in 1521, he was
bereaved of his beautiful and noble wife. There too we read of his charitable
act of saving from death a poor woman who was accused of witchcraft.
Then he became involved in controversy, combating the idea that St. Anne,
the mother of the Blessed Virgin, had three husbands, and in consequence
of the hostility raised by his opinions he was compelled to leave the city.
The people used to avoid him, as if he carried about with him some dread
infection, and fled from him whenever he appeared in the streets. At length
we see him established at Lyons as physician to the Queen Mother, the
Princess Louise of Savoy, and enjoying a pension from Francis I. This lady
seems to have been of a superstitious turn of mind, and requested the
learned Agrippa, whose fame for astrology had doubtless reached her, to
consult the stars concerning the destinies of France. This Agrippa refused,
and complained of being employed in such follies. His refusal aroused the
ire of the Queen; her courtiers eagerly took up the cry, and "conjurer,"
"necromancer," etc., were the complimentary terms which were freely
applied to the former favourite. Agrippa fled to the court of Margaret of
Austria, the governor of the Netherlands under Charles V., and was
appointed the Emperor's historiographer. He wrote a history of the reign of
that monarch, and during the life of Margaret he continued his prosperous
career, and at her death he delivered an eloquent funeral oration.
But troubles were in store for the illustrious author. In 1530 he published
a work, De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum et Artium, atque
Excellentiâ Verbi Dei Dedamatio (Antwerp). His severe satire upon
scholasticism and its professors roused the anger of those whom with
scathing words he castigated. The Professors of the University of Louvain
declared that they detected forty-three errors in the book; and Agrippa was
forced to defend himself against their attacks in a little book published at
Leyden, entitled Apologia pro defencione Declamationis de Vanitate
Scientiarum contra Theologistes Lovanienses. In spite of such powerful
friends as the Papal Legate, Cardinal Campeggio, and Cardinal de la Marck,
Prince Bishop of Liège, Agrippa was vilified by his opponents, and
imprisoned at Brussels in 1531. The fury against his book continued to rage,
and its author declares in his Epistles: "When I brought out my book for the
purpose of exciting sluggish minds to the study of sound learning, and to
provide some new arguments for these monks to discuss in their assemblies,
they repaid this kindness by rousing common hostility against me; and now

by suggestions, from their pulpits, in public meetings, before mixed
multitudes, with great clamourings they declaim against me; they rage with
passion, and there is no impiety, no heresy, no disgrace which they do not
charge me with, with wonderful gesticulations—namely, with clapping of
fingers, with hands outstretched and then suddenly drawn back, with
gnashing of teeth, by raging, by spitting, by scratching their heads, by
gnawing their nails, by stamping with their feet, they rage like madmen, and
omit no kind of lunatic behaviour by means of which they may arouse the
hatred and anger of both prince and people against me."
The book was examined by the Inquisition and placed by the Council of
Trent on the list of prohibited works, amongst the heretical books of the
first class. Erasmus, however, spoke very highly of it, and declared it to be
"the work of a man of sparkling intellect, of varied reading and good
memory, who always blames bad things, and praises the good." Schelhorn
declares that the book is remarkable for the brilliant learning displayed in it,
and for the very weighty testimony which it bears against the errors and
faults of the time.
Our author was released from his prison at Brussels, and wrote another
book, De occulta Philosophia (3 vols., Antwerp, 1533), which enabled his
enemies to bring against him the charge of magic. Stories were told of the
money which Agrippa paid at inns turning into pieces of horn and shell, and
of the mysterious dog which ate and slept with him, which was indeed a
demon in disguise and vanished at his death. They declared he had a
wonderful wand, and a mirror which reflected the images of persons absent
or dead.
The reputed wizard at length returned to France, where he was
imprisoned on a charge of speaking evil of the Queen Mother, who had
evidently not forgotten his refusal to consult the stars for her benefit. He
was, however, soon released, and after his strange wandering life our author
ended his labours in a hospital at Grenoble, where he died in 1535. In
addition to the works we have mentioned, he wrote De Nobilitate et
Proecellentia Faeminei Sexus (Antwerp, 1529), in order to flatter his
patroness Margaret of Austria, and an early work, De Triplici Ratione
Cognoscendi Deum (1515). The monkish epigram, unjust though it be, is
perhaps worth recording:—

"Among the gods there is Momus who reviles all men; among the heroes
there is Hercules who slays monsters; among the demons there is Pluto, the
king of Erebus, who is in a rage with all the shades; among the philosophers
there is Democritus who laughs at all things, Heraclitus who bewails all
things, Pyrrhon who is ignorant of all things, Aristotle who thinks that he
knows all things, Diogenes who despises all things. But this Agrippa spares
none, despises all things, knows all things, is ignorant of all things, bewails
all things, laughs at all things, rages against all things, reviles all things,
being himself a philosopher, a demon, a hero, a god, everything."
The impostor Joseph Francis Borri was a very different character. He was
a famous chemist and charlatan, born at Milan in 1627, and educated by the
Jesuits at Rome, being a student of medicine and chemistry. He lived a wild
and depraved life, and was compelled to retire into a seminary. Then he
suddenly changed his conduct, and pretended to be inspired by God,
advocating in a book which he published certain strange notions with regard
to the existence of the Trinity, and expressing certain ridiculous opinions,
such as that the mother of God was a certain goddess, that the Holy Spirit
became incarnate in the womb of Anna, and that not only Christ but the
Virgin also are adored and contained in the Holy Eucharist. In spite of the
folly of his teaching he attracted many followers, and also the attention of
the Inquisition. Perceiving his danger, he fled to Milan, and thence to a
more safe retreat in Amsterdam and Hamburg. In his absence the Inquisition
examined his book and passed its dread sentence upon its author, declaring
that "Borri ought to be punished as a heretic for his errors, that he had
incurred both the 'general' and 'particular' censures, that he was deprived of
all honour and prerogative in the Church, of whose mercy he had proved
himself unworthy, that he was expelled from her communion, and that his
effigy should be handed over to the Cardinal Legate for the execution of the
punishment he had deserved." All his heretical writings were condemned to
the flames, and all his goods confiscated. On the 3rd of January, 1661,
Borri's effigy and his books were burned by the public executioner, and
Borri declared that he never felt so cold, when he knew that he was being
burned by proxy. He then fled to a more secure asylum in Denmark. He
imposed upon Frederick III., saying that he had found the philosopher's
stone. After the death of this credulous monarch Borri journeyed to Vienna,
where he was delivered up to the representative of the Pope, and cast into
prison. He was then sent to Rome, and condemned to perpetual

imprisonment in the Castle of St. Angelo, where he died in 1685. His
principal work was entitled La Chiave del gabineito del cavagliere G. F.
Borri (The key of the cabinet of Borri). Certainly the Church showed him
no mercy, but perhaps his hard fate was not entirely undeserved.
The tragic death of Urban Grandier shows how dangerous it was in the
days of superstition to incur the displeasure of powerful men, and how
easily the charge of necromancy could be used for the purpose of
"removing" an obnoxious person. Grandier was curé of the Church of St.
Peter at Loudun and canon of the Church of the Holy Cross. He was a
pleasant companion, agreeable in conversation, and much admired by the
fair sex. Indeed he wrote a book, Contra Caelibatum Clericorum, in which
he strongly advocated the marriage of the clergy, and showed that he was
not himself indifferent to the charms of the ladies. In an evil hour he wrote a
little book entitled La cordonnière de Loudun, in which he attacked
Richelieu, and aroused the undying hatred of the great Cardinal. Richelieu
was at that time in the zenith of his power, and when offended he was not
very scrupulous as to the means he employed to carry out his vengeance, as
the fate of our author abundantly testifies.
In the town of Loudun was a famous convent of Ursuline nuns, and
Grandier solicited the office of director of the nunnery, but happily he was
prevented by circumstances from undertaking that duty. A short time
afterwards the nuns were attacked with a curious and contagious frenzy,
imagining themselves tormented by evil spirits, of whom the chief was
Asmodeus. [Footnote: This was the demon mentioned in Tobit iii. 8, 17,
who attacked Sarah, the daughter of Raguel, and killed her seven husbands.
Rabbinical writers consider him as the chief of evil spirits, and recount his
marvellous deeds. He is regarded as the fire of impure love.] They
pretended that they were possessed by the demon, and accused the unhappy
Grandier of casting the spells of witchcraft upon them. He indignantly
refuted the calumny, and appealed to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Charles
de Sourdis. This wise prelate succeeded in calming the troubled minds of
the nuns, and settled the affair.
In the meantime the vengeful eye of Richelieu was watching for an
opportunity. He sent his emissary, Councillor Laubardemont, to Loudun,
who renewed the accusation against Grandier. The amiable cleric, who had
led a pious and regular life, was declared guilty of adultery, sacrilege,

magic, witchcraft, demoniacal possession, and condemned to be burned
alive after receiving an application of the torture. In the market-place of
Loudun in 1643 this terrible sentence was carried into execution, and
together with his book, Contra Caelibatum Clericorum, poor Grandier was
committed to the flames. When he ascended his funeral pile, a fly was
observed to buzz around his head. A monk who was standing near declared
that, as Beelzebub was the god of flies, the devil was present with Grandier
in his dying hour and wished to bear away his soul to the infernal regions.
An account of this strange and tragic history was published by Aubin in his
Histoire des diables de Loudun, ou cruels effets de la vengeance de
Richelieu (Amsterdam, 1693).
Our own country has produced a noted alchemist and astrologer, Dr. Dee,
whose fame extended to many lands. He was a very learned man and
prolific writer, and obtained the office of warden of the collegiate church of
Manchester through the favour of Queen Elizabeth, who was a firm believer
in his astrological powers. His age was the age of witchcraft, and in no
county was the belief in the magic power of the "evil eye" more prevalent
than in Lancashire. Dr. Dee, however, disclaimed all dealings with "the
black art" in his petition to the great "Solomon of the North," James I.,
which was couched in these words: "It has been affirmed that your
majesty's suppliant was the conjurer belonging to the most honourable privy
council of your majesty's predecessor, of famous memory, Queen Elizabeth;
and that he is, or hath been, a caller or invocater of devils, or damned
spirits; these slanders, which have tended to his utter undoing, can no
longer be endured; and if on trial he is found guilty of the offence imputed
to him, he offers himself willingly to the punishment of death; yea, either to
be stoned to death, or to be buried quick, or to be burned unmercifully." In
spite of his assertions to the contrary, the learned doctor must have had an
intimate acquaintance with "the black art," and was the companion and
friend of Edward Kelly, a notorious necromancer, who for his follies had his
ears cut off at Lancaster. This Kelly used to exhume and consult the dead;
in the darkness of night he and his companions entered churchyards, dug up
the bodies of men recently buried, and caused them to utter predictions
concerning the fate of the living. Dr. Dee's friendship with Kelly was
certainly suspicious. On the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, he foretold the
future by consulting the stars. When a waxen image of the queen was found
in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, which was a sure sign that some one was

endeavouring to cast spells upon her majesty, Dr. Dee pretended that he was
able to defeat the designs of such evil-disposed persons, and prevent his
royal mistress feeling any of the pains which might be inflicted on her
effigy. In addition his books, of which there were many, witness against
him. These were collected by Casaubon, who published in London in 1659
a résumé of the learned doctor's works.
Manchester was made too hot, even for the alchemist, through the
opposition of his clerical brethren, and he was compelled to resign his
office of warden of the college. Then, accompanied by Kelly, he wandered
abroad, and was received as an honoured guest at the courts of many
sovereigns. The Emperor Rodolphe, Stephen, King of Poland, and other
royal personages welcomed the renowned astrologers, who could read the
stars, had discovered the elixir of life, which rendered men immortal, the
philosopher's stone in the form of a powder which changed the bottom of a
warming-pan into pure silver, simply by warming it at the fire, and made
the precious metals so plentiful that children played at quoits with golden
rings. No wonder they were so welcome! They were acquainted with the
Rosicrucian philosophy, could hold correspondence with the spirits of the
elements, imprison a spirit in a mirror, ring, or stone, and compel it to
answer questions. Dr. Dee's mirror, which worked such wonders, and was
found in his study at his death in 1608, is now in the British Museum. In
spite of all these marvels, the favour which the great man for a time enjoyed
was fleet and transient. He fell into poverty and died in great misery, his
downfall being brought about partly by his works but mainly by his
practices.
Associated with Lancashire demonology is the name of John Darrell, a
cleric, afterwards preacher at St. Mary's, Nottingham, who published a
narrative of the strange and grievous vexation of the devil of seven persons
in Lancashire. This remarkable case occurred at Clayworth in the parish of
Leigh, in the family of one Nicholas Starkie, whose house was turned into a
perfect bedlam. It is vain to follow the account of the vagaries of the
possessed, the howlings and barkings, the scratchings of holes for the
familiars to get to them, the charms and magic circles of the impostor and
exorcist Hartley, and the godly ministrations of the accomplished author,
who with two other preachers overcame the evil spirits.

Unfortunately for him, Harsnett, Bishop of Chichester, and afterwards
Archbishop of York, doubted the marvellous powers of the pious author, Dr.
Darrell, and had the audacity to suggest that he made a trade of casting out
devils, and even went so far as to declare that Darrell and the possessed had
arranged the matter between them, and that Darrell had instructed them how
they were to act in order to appear possessed. The author was subsequently
condemned as an impostor by the Queen's commissioners, deposed from his
ministry, and condemned to a long term of imprisonment with further
punishment to follow. The base conduct and pretences of Darrell and others
obliged the clergy to enact the following canon (No. 73): "That no minister
or ministers, without license and direction of the bishop, under his hand and
seal obtained, attempt, upon any pretence whatsoever, either of possession
or obsession, by fasting and prayer, to cast 'out any devil or devils, under
pain of the imputation of imposture, or cozenage, and deposition from the
ministry." This penalty at the present day not many of the clergy are in
danger of incurring.

CHAPTER IV. SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.
Bishop Virgil—Roger Bacon—Galileo—Jordano Bruno—Thomas
Campanella—De Lisle de Sales—Denis Diderot—Balthazar Bekker—Isaac
de la Peyrère—Abbé de Marolles—Lucilio Vanini—Jean Rousseau.
Science in its infancy found many powerful opponents, who, not
understanding the nature of the newly-born babe, strove to strangle it. But
the infant grew into a healthy child in spite of its cruel stepmother, and cried
so loudly and talked so strangely that the world was forced to listen to its
utterances. These were regarded with distrust and aversion by the
theologians of the day, for they were supposed to be in opposition to
Revelation, and contrary to the received opinions of all learned and pious
people. Therefore Science met with very severe treatment; its followers
were persecuted with relentless vehemence, and "blasphemous fables" and
"dangerous deceits" were the only epithets which could characterise its
doctrines.
The controversy between Religion and Science still rages, in spite of the
declaration of Professor Huxley that in his opinion the conflict between the
two is entirely factitious. But theologians are wiser now than they were in
the days of Galileo; they are waiting to see what the scientists can prove,
and then, when the various hypotheses are shown to be true, it will be time
enough to reconcile the verities of the Faith with the facts of Science.
To those who believed that the earth was flat it was somewhat startling to
be told that there were antipodes. This elementary truth of cosmology
Bishop Virgil of Salzbourg was courageous enough to assert as early as
A.D. 764. He wrote a book in which he stated that men of another race, not
sprung from Adam, lived in the world beneath our feet. This work aroused
the anger of Pope Zacharias II, who wrote to the King of Bavaria that Virgil
should be expelled from the temple of God and the Church, and deprived of
God and the Church, and deprived of his office, unless he confessed his
perverse errors. In spite of the censure and sentence of excommunication
pronounced upon him, Bishop Virgil was canonised by Pope Gregory XI.;
thus, in spite of his misfortunes brought about by his book, his memory was
revered and honoured by the Western Church.

If the account of his imprisonment be true (of which there is no
contemporary evidence) our own celebrated English philosopher, Roger
Bacon, is one of the earliest scientific authors whose works proved fatal to
them. In 1267 he sent his book, Opus Majus, together with his Opus Minus,
an abridgement of his former work, to Pope Clement IV. After the death of
that Pope Bacon was cited by the General of the Franciscan order, to which
he belonged, to appear before his judges at Paris, where he was condemned
to imprisonment. He is said to have languished in the dungeon fourteen
years, and, worn out by his sufferings, to have died in his beloved Oxford
during the year of his release, 1292. The charge of magic was freely
brought against him. His great work, which has been termed "the
Encyclopaedia and the Novum Organum of the thirteenth century,"
discloses an unfettered mind and judgment far in advance of the spirit of the
age in which he lived. In addition to this he wrote Compendium
Philosophiae, De mirabili Potestate artis et naturae, Specula mathematica,
Speculum alchemicum, and other works.
The treatment which Galileo received at the hands of the ecclesiastics of
his day is well known. This father of experimental philosophy was born at
Pisa in 1564, and at the age of twenty-four years, through the favour of the
Medicis, was elected Professor of Mathematics at the University of the
same town. Resigning his chair in 1592, he became professor at Padua, and
then at Florence. He startled the world by the publication of his first book,
Sidereus Nuntius, in which he disclosed his important astronomical
discoveries, amongst others the satellites of Jupiter and the spots on the sun.
This directed the attention of the Inquisition to his labours, but in 1632 he
published his immortal work Dialogo sopra i due Massimi Sistemi del
monda, Tolemaico et Copernicano (Florence), which was the cause of his
undoing. In this book he defended the opinion of Copernicus concerning the
motion of the earth round the sun, which was supposed by the theologians
of the day to be an opinion opposed to the teaching of Holy Scripture and
subversive of all truth. The work was brought before the Inquisition at
Rome, and condemned by the order of Pope Urban VIII. Galileo was
commanded to renounce his theory, but this he refused to do, and was cast
into prison. "Are these then my judges?" he exclaimed when he was
returning from the presence of the Inquisitors, whose ignorance astonished
him. There he remained for five long years; until at length, wearied by his
confinement, the squalor of the prison, and by his increasing years, he

consented to recant his "heresy," and regained his liberty. The old man lost
his sight at seventy-four years of age, and died four years later in 1642. In
addition to the work which caused him so great misfortunes he published
Discorso e Demonstr. interna alle due nuove Scienze, Delia Scienza
Meccanica (1649), Tractato della Sfera (1655); and the telescope, the
isochronism of the vibrations of the pendulum, the hydrostatic balance, the
thermometer, were all invented by this great leader of astronomical and
scientific discoverers. Many other discoveries might have been added to
these, had not his widow submitted the sage's MSS. to her confessor, who
ruthlessly destroyed all that he considered unfit for publication. Possibly he
was not the best judge of such matters!
Italy also produced another unhappy philosophic writer, Jordano Bruno,
who lived about the same time as Galileo, and was born at Nole in 1550,
being fourteen years his senior. At an early age he acquired a great love of
study and a thirst for knowledge. The Renaissance and the revival of
learning had opened wide the gates of knowledge, and there were many
eager faces crowding around the doors, many longing to enter the fair
Paradise and explore the far-extending vistas which met their gaze. It was
an age of anxious and eager inquiry; the torpor of the last centuries had
passed away; and a new world of discovery, with spring-like freshness,
dawned upon the sight. Jordano Bruno was one of these zealous students of
the sixteenth century. We see him first in a Dominican convent, but the old-
world scholasticism had no charms for him. The narrow groove of the
cloister was irksome to his freedom-loving soul. He cast off his monkish
garb, and wandered through Europe as a knight-errant of philosophy,
multum ille et terris jactatus et alto, teaching letters. In 1580 we find him at
Geneva conferring with Calvin and Beza, but Calvinism did not commend
itself to his philosophic mind. Thence he journeyed to Paris, where in 1582
he produced one of his more important works, De umbris idearum. Soon
afterwards he came to London, where he became the intimate friend of Sir
Philip Sidney. Here he wrote the work which proved fatal to him, entitled
Spaccio della bestia triomphante (The expulsion of the triumphing beast)
(London, 1584). [Footnote: The full title of the work is: Spaccio della bestia
triomphante da giove, effetuato dal conseglo, revelato da Mercurio, recitato
da sofia, udito da saulino, registrato dal nolano, divisa in tre dialogi,
subdivisi in tre parti. In Parigi, 1584, in-8.] This was an allegory in which
he combated superstition and satirised the errors of Rome. But in this work

Bruno fell into grievous errors and dangerous atheistic deceits. He scoffed
at the worship of God, declared that the books of the sacred canon were
merely dreams, that Moses worked his wonders by magical art, and
blasphemed the Saviour. Bruno furnished another example of those whose
faith, having been at one time forced to accept dogmas bred of superstition,
has been weakened and altogether destroyed when they have perceived the
falseness and fallibility of that which before they deemed infallible.
But in spite of these errors Bruno's learning was remarkable. He had an
extensive knowledge of all sciences. From England he went to Germany,
and lectured at Wittenberg, Prague, and Frankfort. His philosophy
resembled that of Spinosa. He taught that God is the substance and life of
all things, and that the universe is an immense animal, of which God is the
soul.
At length he had the imprudence to return to Italy, and became a teacher
at Padua. At Venice he was arrested by order of the Inquisition in 1595, and
conducted to Rome, where, after an imprisonment of two years, in order
that he might be punished as gently as possible without the shedding of
blood, he was sentenced to be burned alive. With a courage worthy of a
philosopher, he exclaimed to his merciless judges, "You pronounce sentence
upon me with greater fear than I receive it." Bruno's other great works were
Della causa, principio e uno (1584), De infinito universo et mundis (1584),
De monade numero et figura (Francfort, 1591).
The Inquisition at Rome at this period was particularly active in its
endeavours to reform errant philosophers, and Bruno was by no means the
only victim who felt its power. Thomas Campanella, born in Calabria, in
Italy, A.D. 1568, conceived the design of reforming philosophy about the
same time as our more celebrated Bacon. This was a task too great for his
strength, nor did he receive much encouragement from the existing powers.
He attacked scholasticism with much vigour, and censured the philosophy
of Aristotle, the admired of the schoolmen. He wrote a work entitled
Philosophia sensibus demonstrata, in which he defended the ideas of
Telesio, who explained the laws of nature as founded upon two principles,
the heat of the sun and the coldness of the earth. He declared that all our
knowledge was derived from sensation, and that all parts of the earth were
endowed with feeling. Campanella also wrote Prodromus philosophiae
instaurandae (1617); Philosophia rationalis, embracing grammar,

dialectics, rhetoric, poetry, and history; Universalis Philosophatus, a
treatise on metaphysics; Civitas solis, a description of a kind of Utopia,
after the fashion of Plato's Republic. But the fatal book which caused his
woes was his Atheismus triumphatus. On account of this work he was cast
into prison, and endured so much misery that we can scarcely bear to think
of his tortures and sufferings. For twenty-five years he endured all the
squalor and horrors of a mediaeval dungeon; through thirty-five hours he
was "questioned" with such exceeding cruelty that all his veins and arteries
were so drawn and stretched by the rack that the blood could not flow. Yet
he bore all this terrible agony with a brave spirit, and did not utter a cry.
Various causes have been assigned for the severity of this torture inflicted
on poor Campanella. Some attribute it to the malice of the scholastic
philosophers, whom he had offended by his works. Others say that he was
engaged in some treasonable conspiracy to betray the kingdom of Naples to
the Spaniards; but it is probable that his Atheismus triumphatus was the
chief cause of his woes. Sorbière has thus passed judgment upon this fatal
book: "Though nothing is dearer to me than time, the loss of which grieves
me sorely, I confess that I have lost both oil and labour in reading the empty
book of an empty monk, Thomas Campanella. It is a farrago of vanities, has
no order, many obscurities, and perpetual barbarisms. One thing I have
learned in wandering through this book, that I will never read another book
of this author, even if I could spare the time."
Authorities differ with regard to the ultimate fate of this author. Some say
that he was killed in prison in 1599; others declare that he was released and
fled to France, where he enjoyed a pension granted to him by Richelieu.
However, during his incarceration he continued his studies, and wrote a
work concerning the Spanish monarchy which was translated from Italian
into German and Latin. In spite of his learning he made many enemies by
his arrogance; and his restless and ambitious spirit carried him into
enterprises which were outside the proper sphere of his philosophy. In this
he followed the example of many other luckless authors, to whom the
advice of the homely proverb would have been valuable which states that "a
shoemaker should stick to his last."
The book entitled De la Philosophie de la Nature, ou Traité de morale
pour l'espèce humaine, tiré de la philosophie et fondé sur la nature (Paris,
Saillant et Nyon, 1769, 6 vols., in-12), has a curious history. It inflicted
punishment not only on its author, De Lisle de Sales, but also on two

learned censors of books who approved its contents, the Abbé Chrétien and
M. Lebas, the bookseller Saillant, and two of its printers. De Lisle was sent
to prison, but the severity of the punishment aroused popular indignation,
and his journey to gaol resembled a triumph. All the learned *men of Paris
visited the imprisoned philosopher. All the sentences were reversed by the
Parliament of Paris in 1777. This book has often been reproduced and
translated in other languages. De Lisle was exposed to the persecutions of
the Reign of Terror, and another work of his, entitled Eponine, caused him a
second term of imprisonment, from which he was released when the terrible
reign of anarchy, lasting eighteen months, ended.
The industrious philosopher Denis Diderot wrote Lettres sur les Aveugles
à l'usage de ceux qui voient (1749, in-12). There were "those who saw" and
were not blind to its defects, and proceeded to incarcerate Diderot in the
Castle of Vincennes, where he remained six months, and where he
perceived that this little correction was necessary to cure him of his
philosophical folly. He was a very prolific writer, and subsequently with
D'Alembert edited the first French Encyclopaedia (1751-1772, 17 vols.).
This was supposed to contain statements antagonistic to the Government
and to Religion, and its authors and booksellers and their assistants were all
sent to the Bastille. Chambers' Cyclopaedia had existed in England some
years before a similar work was attempted in France, and the idea was first
started by an Englishman, John Mills. This man was ingeniously defrauded
of the work, which owed its conception and execution entirely to him.
Perhaps on the whole he might have been congratulated, as he escaped the
Bastille, to which the appropriators of his work were consigned.
An author who dares to combat the popular superstitious beliefs current
in his time often suffers in consequence of his courage, as Balthazar Bekker
discovered to his cost. This writer was born in West Friezland in 1634, and
died at Amsterdam in 1698. He was a pastor of the Reformed Church of
Holland, and resided during the greater part of his life at Amsterdam, where
he produced his earlier work Recherches sur les Comètes (1683), in which
he combated the popular belief in the malign influence of comets. This
work was followed a few years later by his more famous book De
Betoverde Weereld, or The Enchanted World, [Footnote: Le Monde
enchanté, ou Examen des sentimens touchant les esprits, traduit du flamand
en français (Amsterdam, 1694, 4 vols., in-l2). One Benjamin Binet wrote a
refutation, entitled Traité historique des Dieux et des Démons du

paganisme, avec des remarques sur le système de Balthazar Bekker (Delft,
1696, in-l2).] in which he refuted the vulgar notions with regard to
demoniacal possession. This work created a great excitement amongst the
Hollanders, and in two months no less than four thousand copies were sold.
But, unfortunately for the author, it aroused the indignation of the
theologians of the Reformed Church, who condemned it, deprived Bekker
of his office, and expelled him from their communion. Bekker died shortly
after his sentence had been pronounced. A great variety of opinions have
been expressed concerning this book. Bekker was a follower of Descartes,
and this was sufficient to condemn him in the eyes of many of the
theologians of the day. The Jansenists of Port-Royal and the divines of the
old National Church of Holland were vehement opponents of Cartesianism;
consequently we find M.S. de Vries of Utrecht declaring that this fatal book
caused more evil in the space of two months than all the priests could
prevent in twenty years. Another writer states that it is an illustrious work,
and full of wisdom and learning. When Bekker was deposed from his
office, his adversaries caused a medal to be struck representing the devil
clad in a priestly robe, riding on an ass, and carrying a trophy in his right
hand; which was intended to signify that Bekker had been overcome in his
attempt to disprove demoniacal possession, and that the devil had
conquered in the assembly of divines who pronounced sentence on Bekker's
book. The author was supposed to resemble Satan in the ugliness of his
appearance. Another coin was struck in honour of our author: on one side is
shown the figure of Bekker clad in his priestly robe; and on the other is seen
Hercules with his club, with this inscription, Opus virtutis veritatisque
triumphat. Bekker also wrote a catechism, entitled La Nourriture des
Parfaits (1670), which so offended the authorities of the Reformed Church
that its use was publicly prohibited by the sound of bells.
The science of ethnology has also had its victims, and one Isaac de la
Peyrère suffered for its sake. His fatal book was one entitled Praeadamitae,
sive exercitatio super versibus xii., xiii., xiv., capitis v., epistolae divi Pauli
ad romanos. Quibus inducuntur primi homines ante Adamum conditi (1655,
in-12), in which he advocated a theory that the earth had been peopled by a
race which existed before Adam. The author was born at Bordeaux in 1592,
and served with the Prince of Condé; but, in spite of his protector, he was
imprisoned at Brussels, and his book was burnt at Paris, in 1655. This work
had a salutary effect on the indefatigable translator Abbé de Marolles, who

with extraordinary energy, but with little skill, was in the habit of translating
the classical works, and almost anything that he could lay his hands upon.
He published no less than seventy volumes, and at last turned his attention
to the sacred Scriptures, translating them with notes. In the latter he inserted
extracts and reflections from the above-mentioned book by Peyrère, which
caused a sudden cessation of his labours. By the authority of the Pope the
printing of his works was suddenly stopped, but probably the loss which the
world incurred was not very great. Peyrère seems to have foretold the fate
of his book and his own escape in the following line:—

Parve, nec invideo, sine me, liber, ibis in ignem.

Lucilio Vanini, born in 1585, was an Italian philosopher, learned in
medicine, astronomy, theology, and philosophy, who, after the fashion of
the scholars of the age, roamed from country to country, like the knight-
errants of the days of chivalry, seeking for glory and honours, not by the
sword, but by learning. This Vanini was a somewhat vain and ridiculous
person. Not content with his Christian name Lucilio, he assumed the
grandiloquent and high-sounding cognomen of Julius Caesar, wishing to
attach to himself some of the glory of the illustrious founder of the Roman
empire. As the proud Roman declared Veni, Vidi, Vici, so would he carry on
the same victorious career, subduing all rival philosophers by the power of
his eloquence and learning. He visited Naples, wandered through France,
Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and England, and finally stationed
himself in France, first at Lyons, and then in a convent at Toulouse. At
Lyons he produced his famous and fatal book, Amphitheatrum aeternae
providentiae divino-magicum Christiano-Physicum, nec non Astrologo-
Catholicum (Lugduni, 1616). It was published with the royal assent, but
afterwards brought upon its author the charge of Atheism. He concealed the
poison most carefully; for apparently he defended the belief in the Divine
Providence and in the immortality of the soul, but with consummate skill
and subtilty he taught that which he pretended to refute, and led his readers
to see the force of the arguments against the Faith of which he posed as a
champion. By a weak and feeble defence, by foolish arguments and
ridiculous reasoning, he secretly exposed the whole Christian religion to
ridicule. But if any doubts were left whether this was done designedly or
unintentionally, they were dispelled by his second work, De admirandis
naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis (Paris, 1616), which, published

in the form of sixty dialogues, contained many profane statements. In this
work also he adopted his previous plan of pretending to demolish the
arguments against the Faith, while he secretly sought to establish them. He
says that he had wandered through Europe fighting against the Atheists
wherever he met with them. He describes his disputations with them,
carefully recording all their arguments; he concludes each dialogue by
saying that he reduced the Atheists to silence, but with strange modesty he
does not inform his readers what reasonings he used, and practically leaves
the carefully drawn up atheistical arguments unanswered. The Inquisition
did not approve of this subtle method of teaching Atheism, and ordered him
to be confined in prison, and then to be burned alive. This sentence was
carried out at Toulouse in 1619, in spite of his protestations of innocence,
and the arguments which he brought forward before his judges to prove the
existence of God. Some have tried to free Vanini from the charge of
Atheism, but there is abundant evidence of his guilt apart from his books.
The tender mercies of the Inquisition were cruel, and could not allow so
notable a victim to escape their vengeance. Whether to burn a man is the
surest way to convert him, is a question open to argument. Vanini disguised
his insidious teaching carefully, but it required a thick veil to deceive the
eyes of Inquisitors, who were wonderfully clever in spying out heresy, and
sometimes thought they had discovered it even when it was not there.
Vanini and many other authors would have been wiser if they had not
committed their ideas to writing, and contented themselves with words
only. Litera scripta manet; and disguise it, twist it, explain it, as you will,
there it stands, a witness for your acquittal or your condemnation. This
thought stays the course of the most restless pen, though the racks and fires
of the Inquisition no longer threaten the incautious scribe.
We must not omit a French philosopher who died just before the outbreak
of the First French Revolution, Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is well known
that his work Emile, ou de l'Education, par J.J. Rousseau, Citoyen de
Genève (à Amsterdam, 1762, 4 vols., in-12), obliged him to fly from France
and Switzerland, in both of which countries he was adjudged to prison. For
many years he passed a wandering, anxious life, ever imagining that his
best friends wished to betray him. Of his virtues and failings as an author,
or of the vast influence he exercised over the minds of his countrymen, it is
needless to write. This has already been done by many authors in many
works.

CHAPTER V. HISTORY.
Antonius Palearius—Caesar Baronius—John Michael Bruto—Isaac
Berruyer—Louis Elias Dupin—Noel Alexandre—Peter Giannone—Joseph
Sanfelicius (Eusebius Philopater)—Arlotto—Bonfadio—De Thou—Gilbert
Génébrard—Joseph Audra—Beaumelle—John Mariana—John B. Primi—
John Christopher Rüdiger—Rudbeck—François Haudicquer—François de
Rosières—Anthony Urseus.
Braver far than the heroes of Horace was he who first dared to attack the
terrible Inquisition, and voluntarily to incur the wrath of that dread tribunal.
Such did Antonius Palearius, who was styled Inquisitionis Detractator, and
in consequence was either beheaded (as some say) in 1570, or hanged,
strangled, and burnt at Rome in 1566. This author was Professor of Greek
and Latin at Sienna and Milan, where he was arrested by order of Pope Pius
V. and conducted to Rome. He stated the truth very plainly when he said
that the Inquisition was a dagger pointed at the throats of literary men. As
an instance of the foolishness of the method of discovering the guilt of the
accused, we may observe that Palearius was adjudged a heretic because he
preferred to sign his name Aonius, instead of Antonius, his accuser alleging
that he abhorred the sign of the cross in the letter T, and therefore abridged
his name. By such absurd arguments were men doomed to death.
The Annales Ecclesiastici of Caesar Baronius, published in twelve folio
volumes at Rome (1588-93), is a stupendous work, which testifies to the
marvellous industry and varied learning of its author, although it contains
several chronological errors, and perverts history in order to establish the
claims of the Papacy to temporal power. The author of this work was born
of noble family at Sora, in the kingdom of Naples, A.D. 1538, and was a
pupil of St. Philip de Neri, the founder of the Congregation of the Oratory,
whom he succeeded as General of that order. In 1596 Pope Clement VIII.
chose him as his confessor, made him a cardinal and librarian of the
Vatican. On the death of Clement, Baronius was nominated for election to
the Papal throne, and was on the point of attaining that high dignity when
the crown was snatched from him by reason of his immortal work. In Tome
IX. our author had written a long history of the monarchy of Sicily, and

endeavoured to prove that the island rightfully belonged to the Pope, and
not to the King of Spain, who was then its ruler. This so enraged Philip III.
of Spain that he published an edict forbidding the tome to be bought or read
by any of his subjects. Two booksellers who were rash enough to have some
copies of the book on their shelves were condemned to row in the galleys.
When the election for the Papal throne took place, thirty-three cardinals
voted for Baronius, and he would have been made Pope had not the Spanish
ambassador, by order of the King, who was practically master of Italy at
that time, excluded the author of the Annals from the election. This
disappointment and his ill-health, brought on by hard study, terminated his
life, and he died A.D. 1607. The Annales Ecclesiastici occupied Baronius
thirty years, and contain the history of the Church from the earliest times to
A.D. 1198. Various editions were printed at Venice, Cologne, Antwerp,
Metz, Amsterdam, and Lucca. It was continued by Rainaldi and Laderchi,
and the whole work was published in forty-two volumes at Lucca 1738-57.
It is a monument of the industry and patience of its authors.
Another luckless Italian historian flourished in the sixteenth century,
John Michael Bruto, who was born A.D. 1515, and was the author of a very
illustrious work, Historia Florentina (Lyons, 1562). The full title of the
work is: Joh. Michaelis Bruti Historiae Florentinae, Libri VIII., priores ad
obitum Laurentii de Medicis (Lugduni, 1561, in-4). He wrote with
considerable elegance, judgment, and force, contradicting the assertions of
the historian Paolo Giovio, who was a strong partisan of the Medicis, and
displaying much animosity towards them.
This book aroused the ire of the powerful family of the Medicis, and was
suppressed by public authority. Bruto encouraged the brave citizens of
Florence to preserve inviolate the liberties of their republic, and to
withstand all the attempts of the Medicis to deprive them of their rights. On
account of its prohibition the work is very rare, for the chiefs of the
Florentines took care to buy all the copies which they could procure. In
order to avoid the snares which the Medicis and other powerful Italian
factions knew so well how to weave around those who were obnoxious to
them—an assassin's dagger or a poisoned cup was not then difficult to
procure—Bruto was compelled to seek safety in flight, and wandered
through various European countries, enduring great poverty and privations.
His exile continued until his death, which took place in Transylvania, A.D.
1593.

The Jesuit Isaac Joseph Berruyer was condemned by the Parliament of
Paris in 1756 to be deposed from his office and to publicly retract his
opinions expressed in his Histoire du Peuple de Dieu. The first part,
consisting of seven volumes, 4to, appeared in Paris in 1728, the second in
1755, and the third in 1758. The work was censured by two Popes, Benedict
XIV. and Clement XIII., as well as by the Sorbonne and the Parliament of
Paris. Berruyer seems to have had few admirers. He delighted to revel in the
details of the loves of the patriarchs, the unbridled passion of Potiphar's
wife, the costume of Judith, her intercourse with Holophernes, and other
subjects, the accounts of which his prurient fancy did not improve. His
imaginative productions caused him many troubles. The Jesuits disavowed
the work, and, as we have said, its author was deposed from his office.
The French ecclesiastical historian Louis Elias Dupin, born in 1657 and
descended from a noble family in Normandy, was the author of the
illustrious work La Bibliothèque Universelle des auteurs ecclésiastiques.
Dupin was a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, and professor of the College
of France; and he devoted most of his life to his immense work, which is a
proof of his marvellous energy and industry. He gives an account of the
lives of the writers, a catalogue of their works, with the dates when they
were issued, and a criticism of their style and of the doctrines set forth
therein. But the learned historian involved himself in controversy with the
advocates of Papal supremacy by publishing a book, De Antiqua Ecclesiae
disciplina, in which he defended with much zeal the liberty of the Gallican
Church. He lived at the time when that Church was much agitated by the
assumptions of Pope Clement XI., aided by the worthless Louis XIV., and
by the resistance of the brave-hearted Jansenists to the famous Bull
Unigenitus. For three years France was torn by these disputes. A large
number of the bishops were opposed to the enforcing of this bull, and the
first theological school in Europe, the Sorbonne, joined with them in
resisting the tyranny of the Pope and the machinations of Madame de
Maintenon.
Dupin took an active part with the other theologians of his school in
opposing this Unigenitus, and wrote his book De Antiqua Ecclesiae
disciplina in order to defend the Gallican Church from the tyranny of the
Bishop of Rome. In this work he carefully distinguishes the universal
Catholic Church from the Roman Church, and shows that the power of the
Papacy was not founded on any warrant of Holy Scripture, nor on the

judgments of the Fathers. He allows that the power of keys was given to St.
Peter, but not to one man individually, but to the whole Church represented
by him. The authority of the Pope extends not beyond certain fixed
boundaries, and the temporal and civil power claimed by the Papacy is not
conjoined to the spiritual power, and ought to be separated from it. This
plain speaking did not commend itself to the occupier of the Papal throne,
nor to his tool Louis XIV., who deprived Dupin of his professorship and
banished him to Châtelleraut. Dupin's last years were occupied with a
correspondence with Archbishop Wake of Canterbury, who was
endeavouring to devise a plan for the reunion of the Churches of France and
England. Unhappily the supporters of the National Church of France were
overpowered by the Ultramontane party; otherwise it might have been
possible to carry out this project dear to the hearts of all who long for the
unity of Christendom. Dupin died A.D. 1719.
A companion in misfortune was Noel Alexandre, a French ecclesiastical
historian who lived at the same period and shared Dupin's views with
regard to the supremacy of the Pope. His work is entitled Natalis Alexandri
Historia Ecclesiastica Veteris et Novi Testamenti, cum Dissertationibus
historico-chronologicis et criticis (Parisiis, Dezallier, 1669, seu 1714, 8 tom
en 7 vol. in-fol.). The results of his researches were not very favourable to
the Court of Rome. The Inquisition examined and condemned the work. Its
author was excommunicated by Innocent XI. in 1684. This sentence was
subsequently removed, as we find our author Provincial of the Dominican
Order in 1706; but having subscribed his name to the celebrated Cas de
Conscience, together with forty other doctors of the Sorbonne, he was
banished to Châtelleraut and deprived of his pension. He died in 1724.
Italian historians seem to have fared ill, and our next author, Peter
Giannone, was no exception to the rule. He was born in 1676, and resided
some time at Naples, following the profession of a lawyer. There he
published in 1723 four volumes of his illustrious work entitled Dell'
Historia civile del Regno di Napoli, dopo l'origine sino ad re Carlo VI., da
Messer P. Giannone (Napoli, Nicolo Naro, 1723, in-4), which, on account
of certain strictures upon the temporal authority of the Pope, involved him
in many troubles.
This remarkable work occupied the writer twenty years, and contains the
result of much study and research, exposing with great boldness the

usurpations of the Pope and his cardinals, and other ecclesiastical
enormities, and revealing many obscure points with regard to the
constitution, laws, and customs of the kingdom of Naples. He was aware of
the great dangers which would threaten him, if he dared to publish this
immortal work; but he bravely faced the cruel fate which awaited him, and
verified the prophetic utterance of a friend, "You have placed on your head
a crown of thorns, and of very sharp ones."
This book created many difficulties between the King of Naples and the
occupant of the Papal See, and its author was excommunicated and
compelled to leave Naples, while his work was placed on the index of
prohibited books. Giannone then led a wandering life for some time, and at
length imagined that he had found a safe asylum at Venice. But his powerful
enemies contrived that he should be expelled from the territory of the
Venetian republic. Milan, Padua, Modena afforded him only temporary
resting-places, and at last he betook himself to Geneva. There he began to
write Vol. V. of his history. He was accosted one day by a certain nobleman,
who professed great admiration of his writings, and was much interested in
all that Giannone told him. His new friend invited him to dinner at a
farmstead which was situated not far from Geneva, but just within the
borders of the kingdom of Savoy. Fearing no treachery, Giannone accepted
the invitation of his new friend, but the repast was not concluded before he
was arrested by order of the King of Sardinia, conveyed to a prison, and
then transferred to Rome. The fates of the poor captives in St. Angelo were
very similar. In spite of a useless retractation of his "errors," he was never
released, and died in prison in 1758. His history was translated into French,
and published in four volumes in 1742 at the Hague. Giannone's work has
furnished with weapons many of the adversaries of Papal dominion, and
one Vernet collected all the passages in this book, so fatal to its author,
which were hostile to the Pope, and many of his scathing criticisms and
denunciations of abuses, and published the extracts under the title
Anecdotes ecclésiastiques (The Hague, 1738).
The work of Giannone on the civil history of the kingdom of Naples
excited Joseph Sanfelicius, of the order of the Jesuits, to reply to the
arguments of the former relating to the temporal power of the Pope. This
man, assuming the name of Eusebius Philopater, wrote in A.D. 1728 a fatal
book upon the civil history of the kingdom of Naples, in which he attacked
Giannone with the utmost vehemence, and heaped upon him every kind of

disgraceful accusation and calumny. This work was first published secretly,
and then sold openly by two booksellers, by whom it was disseminated into
every part of Italy. It fell into the hands of the Regent, who summoned his
council and inquired what action should be taken with regard to it. With one
voice they decided against the book; its sale was prohibited, and its author
banished.
A book entitled Histoire de la tyrannie et des excès dont se rendirent
coupables les Habitans de Padoue dans la guerre qu'ils eurent avec ceux de
Vicence, par Arlotto, notaire à Vicence, carries us back to the stormy period
of the fourteenth century, when Italy was distracted by war, the great
republics ever striving for the supremacy. Arlotto wrote an account of the
cruelties of the people of Padua when they conquered Vicenza, who, in
revenge, banished the author, confiscated his goods, and pronounced
sentence of death on any one who presumed to read his work. Happily
Vicenza succeeded in throwing off the yoke of Padua, and Arlotto recovered
his possessions. This book was so severely suppressed that its author
searched in vain for a copy in order that he might republish it, and only the
title of his work is known.
Genoa too has its literary martyrs, amongst whom was Jacopo Bonfadio,
a professor of philosophy at that city in 1545. He wrote Annales Genuendis,
ab anno 1528 recuperatae libertatis usque ad annum 1550, libri quinque
(Papiae, 1585, in-4). His truthful records aroused the animosity of the
powerful Genoese families. The Dorias and the Adornos, the Spinolas and
Fieschi, were not inclined to treat tenderly so daring a scribe, who
presumed to censure their misdeeds. They proceeded to accuse the author of
a crime which merited the punishment of death by burning. His friends
procured for him the special favour that he should be beheaded before his
body was burnt. The execution took place in 1561. The annals have been
translated into Italian by Paschetti, and a new Latin edition was published at
Brescia in 1747.
Books have sometimes been fatal, not only to authors, but to their
posterity also; so it happened to the famous French historian De Thou, who
wrote a valuable history of his own times (1553—1601), Historia sui
temporis. [Footnote: The title of the edition of 1604 is Jacobi Augusti
Thuani in suprema regni Gallici curia praesidis insulati, historiarum sui
temporis (Parisiis Sonnius, Patisson, Drouart, in-fol.).] This great work was

written in Latin in one hundred and thirty-eight books, and afterwards
translated into French and published in sixteen volumes. The important
offices which De Thou held, his intimate acquaintance with the purposes of
the King and the intrigues of the French Court, the special embassies on
which he was engaged, as well as his judicial mind and historical aptitude,
his love of truth, his tolerance and respect for justice, his keen penetration
and critical faculty, render his memoirs extremely valuable. In 1572 he
accompanied the Italian ambassador to Italy; then he was engaged on a
special mission to the Netherlands; for twenty-four years he was a member
of the Parliament of Paris. Henry III. employed him on various missions to
Germany, Italy, and to different provinces of his own country, and on the
accession of Henry IV. he followed the fortunes of that monarch, and was
one of the signatories of the Edict of Nantes. But his writings created
enemies, and amongst them the most formidable was the mighty Richelieu,
who disliked him because our author had not praised one of the ancestors of
the powerful minister, and had been guilty of the unpardonable offence of
not bestowing sufficient honour upon Richelieu himself. Such a slight was
not to be forgiven, and when De Thou applied for the post of President of
the Parliament of Paris from Louis XIII., the favourite took care that the
post should be given to some one else, although it had been promised to our
author by the late monarch. This disappointment and the continued
opposition of Richelieu killed De Thou, who died in 1617. But the revenge
of the minister was unsated. Frederick Augustus de Thou, the son of the
historian, and formerly a protégé of Richelieu, was condemned to death and
executed. Enraged by the treatment which his father had received from the
minister, he had turned against his former patron, and some imprudent
letters to the Countess of Chevreuse, which fell into Richelieu's hands,
caused the undying animosity of the minister, and furnished a pretext for the
punishment of his former friend, and the completion of his vengeance upon
the author of Historia sui temporis. Casaubon declares that this history is
the greatest work of its kind which had been published since the Annals of
Livy. Chancellor Hardwicke is said to have been so fond of it as to have
resigned his office and seals on purpose to read it. The book contains some
matter which was written by Camden, and destined for his Elizabeth, but
erased by order of the royal censor. Sir Robert Filmer, Camden's friend,
states that the English historian sent all that he was not suffered to print to

his correspondent Thuanus, who printed it all faithfully in his annals
without altering a word.
On the tomb of our next author stands the epitaph Urna capit cineres,
nomen non orbe tenetur. This writer was Gilbert Génébrard, a French
author of considerable learning, who maintained that the bishops should be
elected by the clergy and people and not nominated by the king. His book,
written at Avignon, is entitled De sacrarum electionum jure et necessitate
ad Ecclesiae Gallicanae, redintegrationem, auctore G. Genebrardo
(Parisiis, Nivellius, 1593, in-8). The Parliament of Aix ordered the book to
be burned, and its author banished from the kingdom and to suffer death if
he attempted to return. He survived his sentence only one year, and died in
the Burgundian monastery of Semur. He loved to declaim against princes
and great men, and obscured his literary glory by his bitter invectives. One
of his works is entitled Excommunication des Ecclésiastiques qui ont
assisté au service divin avec Henri de Valois après l'assassinat du Cardinal
de Guise (1589, in-8). Certainly the judgment of posterity has not fulfilled
the proud boast of his epitaph.
Joseph Audra, Professor of History at the College of Toulouse, composed
a work for the benefit of his pupils entitled Abrégé d'Histoire générale, par
l'Abbé Audra (Toulouse, 1770), which was condemned, and deprived Audra
of his professorship, and also of his life. He died from the chagrin and
disappointment which his misfortunes caused.
The author of Mémoires et Lettres de Madame de Maintenon
(Amsterdam, 1755, 15 vols., in-12) found his subject a dangerous one,
inasmuch as it conducted him to the Bastille, a very excellent reformatory
for audacious scribes. Laurence Anglivielle de la Beaumelle, born in 1727,
had previously visited that same house of correction on account of his
political views expressed in Mes Pensées, published at Copenhagen in
1751. In his Mémoires he attributed to the mistress-queen of Louis XIV.
sayings which she never uttered, and his style lacks the dignity and decency
of true historical writings. Voltaire advised that La Beaumelle should be
fettered together with a band of other literary opponents and sent to the
galleys.
Among Spanish historians the name of John Mariana is illustrious. He
was born at Talavera in 1537, and, in spite of certain misfortunes which
befell him on account of his works, lived to the age of eighty-seven years.

He was of the order of the Jesuits, studied at Rome and Paris, and then
retired to the house of the Jesuits at Toledo, where he devoted himself to his
writings. His most important work was his Historiae de rebus Hispaniae
libri xxx., published at Toledo 1592-95. But the work which brought him
into trouble was one entitled De Mutatione Monetae, which exposed the
frauds of the ministers of the King of Spain with regard to the adulteration
of the public money, and censured the negligence and laziness of Philip III.,
declaring that Spain had incurred great loss by the depreciation in the value
of the current coin of the realm. This book aroused the indignation of the
King, who ordered Mariana to be cast into prison. The Spanish historian
certainly deserved this fate, not on account of the book which brought this
punishment upon him, but on account of another work, entitled De Rege ac
Regis institutione Libri iii. ad Philippum III., Hispaniae regem catholicum.
Toleti, apud Petrum Rodericum, 1599, in-4. In this book Mariana
propounded the hateful doctrine, generally ascribed to the Jesuits, that a
king who was a tyrant and a heretic ought to be slain either by open
violence or by secret plots. It is said that the reading of this book caused
Ravaillac to commit his crime of assassinating Henry IV. of France, and that
in consequence of this the book was burned at Paris in 1610 by order of the
Parliament.
The historian of the Dutch war of 1672 endured much distress by reason
of his truthfulness. This was John Baptist Primi, Count of Saint-Majole. His
book was first published in Italian, and entitled Historia della guerra
d'Olanda nell' anno 1672 (In Parigi, 1682), and in the same year a French
translation was issued. The author alludes to the discreditable Treaty of
Dover, whereby Charles II., the Sovereign of England, became a pensioner
of France, and basely agreed to desert his Dutch allies, whom he had
promised to aid with all his resources. The exposure of this base business
was not pleasing to the royal ears. Lord Preston, the English ambassador,
applied to the Court for the censure of the author, who was immediately
sent to the Bastille. His book was very vigorously suppressed, so that few
copies exist of either the Italian or French versions.
Amongst historians we include one writer of biography, John Christopher
Rüdiger, who, under the name of Clarmundus, wrote a book De Vitis
Clarissimorum in re Litteraria Vivorum. He discoursed pleasantly upon the
fates of authors and their works, but unhappily incurred the displeasure of
the powerful German family of Carpzov, which produced many learned

theologians, lawyers, and philologists. The chief of this family was one
Samuel Benedict Carpzov, who lived at Wittenberg, wrote several
dissertations, and was accounted the Chrysostom of his age (1565-1624).
Rüdiger in Part IX. of his work wrote the biography of this learned man,
suppressing his good qualities and ascribing to him many bad ones, and did
scant justice to the memory of so able a theologian. This so enraged the
sons and other relations of the great man that they accused Rüdiger of
slander before the ecclesiastical court, and the luckless author was ordered
to be beaten with rods, and to withdraw all the calumnies he had uttered
against the renowned Carpzov. On account of his books Rüdiger was
imprisoned at Dresden, where he died.
Haudicquer, the unfortunate compiler of genealogies, was doomed to the
galleys on account of the complaints of certain noble families who felt
themselves aggrieved by his writings. His work was entitled La Nobiliaire
de Picardie, contenant les Généralités d'Amiens, de Soissons, des pays
reconquis, et partie de l'Election de Beauvais, le tout justifié conformément
aux Jugemens rendus en faveur de la Province. Par François Haudicquer
de Blancourt (Paris, 1693, in-4). Bearing ill-will to several illustrious
families, he took the opportunity of vilifying and dishonouring them in his
work by many false statements and patents, which so enraged them that
they accomplished the destruction of the calumniating compiler. The book,
in spite of his untrustworthiness, is sought after by curious book-lovers, as
the copies of it are extremely rare, and few perfect.
It is usually hazardous to endeavour to alter one's facts in order to support
historical theories. This M. François de Rosières, Archdeacon of Toul,
discovered, who endeavoured to show in his history of Lorraine that the
crown of France rightly belonged to that house. His book is entitled
Stemmatum Lotharingiae et Barri ducum, Tomi VII., ab Antenore Trojano,
ad Caroli III., ducis tempora, etc. (Parisiis, 1580, in-folio). The heroes of
the Trojan war had a vast number of descendants all over Western Europe,
if early genealogies are to be credited. But De Rosières altered and
transposed many ancient charters and royal patents, in order to support his
theory with regard to the sovereignty of the House of Lorraine. His false
documents were proved to have been forged by the author. The anger of the
French was aroused. He was compelled to sue for pardon before Henry III.;
his book was proscribed and burnt; but for the protection of the House of

Guise, he would have shared the fate of his book, and was condemned to
imprisonment in the Bastille.
The learned Swedish historian Rudbeck may perhaps be included in our
list of ill-fated authors, although his death was not brought about by the
machinations of his foes. He wrote a great work on the origin, antiquities,
and history of Sweden, but soon after its completion he witnessed the
destruction of his book in the great fire of Upsal in 1702. The
disappointment caused by the loss of his work was so great that he died the
same year.
Rudbeck is not the only author who so loved his work that he died
broken-hearted when deprived of his treasure. A great scholar of the
fifteenth century, one Anthony Urseus, who lived at Forli, had just finished
a great work, when unhappily he left a lighted lamp in his study during his
absence. The fatal flame soon enveloped his books and papers, and the poor
author on his return went mad, beating his head against the door of his
palace, and raving blasphemous words. In vain his friends tried to comfort
him, and the poor man wandered away into the woods, his mind utterly
distraught by the enormity of his loss.
Few authors have the bravery, the energy, and amazing perseverance of
Carlyle, who, when his French Revolution had been burned by the
thoughtlessness of his friend's servant, could calmly return to fight his battle
over again, and reproduce the MS. of that immortal work of which hard fate
had cruelly deprived him.

CHAPTER VI. POLITICS AND
STATESMANSHIP.
John Fisher—Reginald Pole—"Martin Marprelate"—Udal—Penry—
Hacket— Coppinger—Arthington—Cartwright—Cowell—Leighton—John
Stubbs—Peter Wentworth—R. Doleman—J. Hales—Reboul—William
Prynne— Burton—Bastwick—John Selden—John Tutchin—Delaune—
Samuel Johnson— Algernon Sidney—Edmund Richer—John de
Falkemberg—Jean Lenoir—Simon Linguet—Abbé Caveirac—Darigrand—
Pietro Sarpi—Jerome Maggi—Theodore Reinking.
The thorny subject of Politics has had many victims, and not a few
English authors who have dealt in State-craft have suffered on account of
their works. The stormy period of the Reformation, with its ebbs and flows,
its action and reaction, was not a very safe time for writers of pronounced
views. The way to the block was worn hard by the feet of many pilgrims,
and the fires of Smithfield shed a lurid glare over this melancholy page of
English history.
One of the earliest victims was John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, a
prelate renowned for his learning, his pious life, and for the royal favour
which he enjoyed both from Henry VII. and Henry VIII. The Margaret
Professorship at Cambridge and the Colleges of St. John's and Christ's owe
their origin to Fisher, who induced Margaret, the Countess of Richmond
and mother of Henry VII., to found them. Fisher became Chancellor of the
University, and acted as tutor to Henry VIII. High dignities and royal
favours were bestowed upon the man whom kings delighted to honour. But
Bishop Fisher was no time-serving prelate nor respecter of persons, and did
not hesitate to declare his convictions, whatever consequences might result.
When the much-married monarch wearied of his first wife, the ill-fated
Catherine, and desired to wed Anne Boleyn, the bishops were consulted,
and Fisher alone declared that in his opinion the divorce would be unlawful.
He wrote a fatal book against the divorce, and thus roused the hatred of the
headstrong monarch. He was cast into prison on account of his refusing the
oath with regard to the succession, and his supposed connection with the

treason of Elizabeth Barton, whose mad ravings caused many troubles; he
was deprived, not only of his revenues, but also of his clothes, in spite of
his extreme age and the severity of a hard winter, and for twelve long dreary
months languished in the Tower. The Pope added to the resentment which
Henry bore to his old tutor by making him a Cardinal; and the Red Hat
sealed his doom. "The Pope may send him a hat," said the ferocious
monarch; "but, Mother of God, he shall wear it on his shoulders, for I will
leave him never a head to set it on." He was charged with having "falsely,
maliciously, and traitorously wished, willed, and desired, and by craft
imagined, invented, practised, and attempted, to deprive the King of the
dignity, title, and name of his royal estate, that is, of his title and name of
supreme head of the Church of England, in the Tower, on the seventh day of
May last, when, contrary to his allegiance, he said and pronounced in the
presence of different true subjects, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously,
these words: the King oure soveraign lord is not supreme hedd yn erthe of
the Cherche of Englande." These words, drawn from him by Rich, were
found sufficient to effect the King's pleasure.
The aged prelate was pronounced guilty, and beheaded on July 22nd,
1535. On his way to the scaffold he exclaimed, "Feet, do your duty; you
have only a short journey," and then, singing the Te Deum laudamus, he
placed his head upon the block, and the executioner's axe fell. Although
Bishop Fisher was condemned for denying the King's supremacy, he
incurred the wrath of Henry by his book against the divorce, and that
practically sealed his fate. His head was placed on a spike on London
Bridge as a warning to others who might be rash enough to incur the
displeasure of the ruthless King.
Another fatal book which belongs to this period is Pro unitate ecclesiae
ad Henricum VIII., written by Reginald Pole in the secure retreat of Padua,
in which the author compares Henry to Nebuchadnezzar, and prays the
Emperor of Germany to direct his arms against so heretical a Christian,
rather than against the Turks. Secure in his retreat at the Papal Court, Pole
did not himself suffer on account of his book, but the vengeance of Henry
fell heavily upon his relations in England, in whose veins ran the royal
blood of the Plantagenets who had swayed the English sceptre through so
many generations. Sir Geoffrey Pole, a brother of the cardinal, was seized;
this arrest was followed by that of Lord Montague, another brother, and the
Countess of Salisbury, their mother, who was the daughter of the Duke of

Clarence, brother of Edward IV. They were accused of having devised to
maintain, promote, and advance one Reginald Pole, late Dean of Exeter, the
King's enemy beyond seas, and to deprive the King of his royal state and
dignity. Sir Geoffrey Pole contrived to escape the vengeance of Henry by
betraying his companions, but the rest were executed. For some time Pole's
mother was kept a prisoner in the Tower, as a hostage for her son's conduct.
She was more than seventy years of age, and after two years' imprisonment
was condemned to be beheaded. When ordered to lay her head upon the
block she replied, "No, my head never committed treason; if you will have
it, you must take it as you can." She was held down by force, and died
exclaiming, "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness'
sake." Henry endeavoured to tempt the cardinal to England, but "in vain
was the net spread in sight of any bird." In his absence he was condemned
for treason. The King of France and the Emperor were asked to deliver him
up to justice. Spies and emissaries of Henry were sent to watch him, and he
believed that ruffians were hired to assassinate him. But he survived all
these perils, being employed by the Pope on various missions and passing
his leisure in literary labours. He presided at the Council of Trent, and lived
to return to England during the reign of Mary, became Archbishop of
Canterbury, and strived to appease the sanguinary rage of that dreadful
persecution which is a lasting disgrace to humanity and to the unhappy
Queen, its chief instigator.
The rise of the Puritan faction and all the troubles of the Rebellion caused
many woes to reckless authors. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the Puritan
party opened a vehement attack upon the Episcopalians, and published
books reviling the whole body, as well as the individual members. The most
noted of these works were put forth under the fictitious name of Martin
Marprelate. They were base, scurrilous productions, very coarse, breathing
forth terrible hate against "bouncing priests and bishops." Here is an
example: A Dialogue wherein is laid open the tyrannical dealing of L.
Bishopps against God's children. It is full of scandalous stories of the
prelates, who lived irreproachable lives, and were quite innocent of the
gross charges which "Martin Senior" and "Martin Junior" brought against
them. The Bishop of Lincoln, named Cooper, was a favourite object of
attack, and the pamphleteers were always striving to make "the Cooper's
hoops to flye off and his tubs to leake out." In the Pistle to the Terrible
Priests they tell us of "a parson, well-known, who, being in the pulpit, and

hearing his dog cry, he out with the text, 'Why, how now, hoe! can you not
let my dog alone there? Come, Springe! come, Springe!' and whistled the
dog to the pulpit." Martin Marprelate was treated by some according to his
folly, and was scoffed in many pamphlets by the wits of the age in language
similar to that which he was so fond of using. Thus we have Pasquill of
England to Martin Junior, in a countercuffe given to Martin Junior; A
sound boxe on the eare for the father and sonnes, Huffe, Ruffe, and Snuffe,
the three tame ruffians of the Church, who take pepper in their nose
because they cannot marre Prelates grating; and similar publications.
Archbishop Whitgift proceeded against these authors with much severity.
In 1589 a proclamation was issued against them; several were taken and
punished. Udal and Penry, who were the chief authors of these outrageous
works, were executed. Hacket, Coppinger, and Arthington, who seem to
have been a trio of insane libellers, and Greenwood and Barrow, whose
seditious books and pamphlets were leading the way to all the horrors of
anarchy introduced by the Anabaptists into Germany and the Netherlands,
all felt the vengeance of the Star Chamber, and were severely punished for
their revilings. The innocent often suffer with the guilty, and Cartwright was
imprisoned for eighteen months, although he denied all connection with the
"Marprelate" books, and declared that he had never written or published
anything which could be offensive to her Majesty or detrimental to the
state.
The Solomon of the North and the Parliament of England dealt hard
justice to the Interpreter (1607), which nearly caused its author's death. He
published also Institutiones Juris Anglicani ad seriem Institutionum
imperialium (Cambridge, 1605, 8vo), which involved him in a charge of
wishing to confound the English with the Roman law. Dr. Cowell, in the
former work, sounded the battle-cry which was heard a few years later on
many a field when the strength of the Crown and Parliament met in deadly
combat. He contended for the absolute monarchy of the King of England.
His writings are especially valuable as illustrating our national customs.
The author says: "My true end is the advancement of knowledge, and
therefore I have published this poor work, not only to impart the good
thereof to those young ones who want it, but also to draw from the learned
the supply of my defects.... What a man saith well is not however to be
rejected because he hath many errors; reprehend who will, in God's name,
that is with sweetness and without reproach. So shall he reap hearty thanks

at my hands, and thus more soundly help in a few months, than I, by tossing
and tumbling my books at home, could possibly have done in many years."
The Attorney-General, Sir Edward Coke, was the determined foe of the
unhappy doctor, endeavouring to ridicule him by calling him Dr. Cowheel;
then, telling the King that the book limited the supreme power of the royal
prerogative; and when that failed, he accused our author to the Parliament
of the opposite charge of betraying the liberties of the people. At length
Cowell was condemned by the House to imprisonment; James issued a
proclamation against the book, but saved its author from the hangman.
However, Fuller states that Dr. Cowell's death, which occurred soon after
the condemnation of his book, was hastened by the troubles in which it
involved him.
A Scottish divine, Dr. Leighton, the father of the illustrious Archbishop,
incurred the vengeance of the Star Chamber in 1630 on account of his
treatise entitled Syon's Plea against Prelacy (1628), and received the
following punishment: "To be committed to the Fleet Prison for life, and to
pay a fine of ten thousand pounds to the king's use; to be degraded from the
ministry; to be brought to the pillory at Westminster, while the court was
sitting, and be whipped, and after the whipping to have one of his ears cut,
one side of his nose slit, and be branded in the face with the letters S.S.,
signifying Sower of Sedition: after a few days to be carried to the pillory in
Cheapside on a market-day, and be there likewise whipped, and have the
other ear cut off, and the other side of his nose slit, and then to be shut up in
prison for the remainder of his life, unless his Majesty be graciously pleased
to enlarge him." A sentence quite sufficiently severe to deter any rash scribe
from venturing upon authorship! Maiming an author, cutting off his hands,
or ears, or nose, seems to have been a favourite method of criticism in the
sixteenth century. One John Stubbs had his right hand cut off for protesting
against the proposed marriage of Queen Elizabeth with the Duke of Anjou,
which bold act he committed in his work entitled Discoverie of a Gaping
Gulf whereinto England is like to be swallowed by another French
marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banes by letting her Majestie see the sin
and punishment thereof (1579). Hallam states that the book was far from
being a libel on the Virgin Queen, but that it was written with great
affection. However, it was pronounced to be "a fardell of false reports,
suggestions, and manifest lies." Its author and Page, the bookseller, were
brought into the open market at Westminster, and their right hands were cut

off with a butcher's knife and mallet. With amazing loyalty, Stubbs took off
his cap with his left hand and shouted, "Long live Queen Elizabeth!"
The autocratic Queen had a ready method of dealing with obnoxious
authors, as poor Peter Wentworth discovered, who wrote A Pithy
Exhortation to Her Majesty for establishing her Successor to the Crown,
and for his pains was committed to the Tower, where he pined and died.
This work advocated the claims of James VI. of Scotland, and was written
in answer to a pamphlet entitled A Conference about the Next Succession to
the Crown of England, published by R. Doleman (1594). The Jesuit R.
Parsons, Cardinal Allen, and Sir Francis Englefield were the authors, who
advocated the claims of Lord Hertford's second son, or the children of the
Countess of Derby, or the Infanta of Spain. The authors were safe beyond
seas, but the printer was hung, drawn, and quartered.
John Hales wrote A Declaration of Succession of the Crown of England,
in support of Lord Hertford's children by Lady Catherine Grey, and was
sent to the Tower.
James I., by his craft and guile, accomplished several notable and
surprising matters, and nothing more remarkable than actually to persuade
the Pope to punish an Italian writer, named Reboul, for publishing an
apology for the English Roman Catholics who refused to take the oath of
allegiance required by the English monarch in 1606, after the discovery of
the gunpowder plot. This certainly was a singular and remarkable
performance, and must have required much tact and diplomacy. It is
conjectured that the artful King so flattered the Pope as to induce him to
protect the English sovereign from the attacks of his foes. Reboul's
production was very virulent, exhorting all Catholics to go constantly to
England to excite a rising against the King, and to strangle the tyrant with
their hands. The Pope ordered the furious writer to be hanged, and an
account of his execution, written by a Venetian senator, is found among
Casaubon's collection of letters.
The most famous victim of the Star Chamber was William Prynne, whose
work Histriomastix, or the Player's Scourge, directed against the sinfulness
of play-acting, masques, and revels, aroused the indignation of the Court.
This volume of more than a thousand closely printed quarto pages contains
almost all that was ever written against plays and players; not even the

Queen was spared, who specially delighted in such pastimes, and
occasionally took part in the performances at Court.
Prynne was ejected from his profession, condemned to stand in the
pillory at Westminster and Cheapside, to lose both his ears, one in each
place, to pay a fine of £5,000, and to be kept in perpetual imprisonment. A
few years later, on account of his News from Ipswich, he was again fined
£5,000, deprived of the rest of his ears, which a merciful executioner had
partially spared, branded on both cheeks with S.L. (Schismatical Libeller),
and condemned to imprisonment for life in Carnarvon Castle. He was
subsequently removed to the Castle of Mont Orgueil, in Jersey, where he
received kind treatment from his jailor, Sir Philip de Carteret. Prynne was
conducted in triumph to London after the victory of the Parliamentarian
party, and became a member of the Commons. His pen was ever active, and
he left behind him forty volumes of his works, a grand monument of
literary activity.
Associated with Prynne was Burton, the author of two sermons For God
and King, who wrote against Laud and his party, and endeavoured to
uphold the authority of Charles, upon which he imagined the bishops were
encroaching. Burton suffered the same punishment as Prynne; and
Bastwick, a physician, incurred a like sentence on account of his Letany,
and another work entitled Apologeticus ad Praesules Anglicanos, which
were written while the author was a prisoner in the Gatehouse of
Westminster, and contained a severe attack upon the Laudian party, the
High Commission, and the Church of England. He had previously been
imprisoned and fined 1,000 pounds for his former works Elenchus
Papisticae Religionis and Flagellum Pontificis.
During this period of severe literary criticism lived John Selden, an
author of much industry and varied learning. He was a just, upright, and
fearless man, who spoke his mind, upheld what he deemed to be right in the
conduct of either King or Parliament, and was one of the best characters in
that strange drama of the Great Rebellion. He was the friend and companion
of Littleton, the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and together they studied
the Records, and were expert in the Books of Law, being the greatest
antiquaries in the profession. Selden had a great affection for Charles; but
the latter was exceedingly enraged because Selden in an able speech in the
House of Commons declared the unlawfulness of the Commission of Array,

for calling out the Militia in the King's name, founded upon an ancient Act
of Parliament in the reign of Henry IV., which Selden said had been
repealed. When Lord Falkland wrote a friendly letter to remonstrate with
him, he replied courteously and frankly, recapitulating his arguments, and
expressing himself equally opposed to the ordinance of the
Parliamentarians, who wished to summon the Militia without the authority
of the King. With equal impartiality and vigour Selden declared the
illegality of this measure, and expected that the Commons would have
rejected it, but he found that "they who suffered themselves to be entirely
governed by his Reason when those conclusions resulted from it which
contributed to their own designs, would not be at all guided by it, or submit
to it, when it persuaded that which contradicted and would disappoint those
designs." [Footnote: Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 667.]
His work De Decimis, in which he tried to prove that the giving of tithes
was not ordered by any Divine command, excited much contention, and
aroused the animosity of the clergy. In consequence of this in 1621 he was
imprisoned, and remained in custody for five years. On the dissolution of
Parliament in 1629, being obnoxious to the royal party, he was sent to the
Tower, and then confined in a house of correction for pirates. But as a
compensation for his injuries in 1647 he received £5,000 from the public
purse and became a member of the Long Parliament. He was by no means a
strong partisan of the Puritan party, and when asked by Cromwell to reply
to the published works in favour of the martyred King he refused. He lived
until 1654 and wrote several works, amongst which are Mare clausum,
which was opposed to the Mare liberum of the learned Dutch historian
Grotius, Commentaries on the Arundel Marbles (1629), and Researches into
the History of the Legislation of the Hebrews.
John Tutchin, afterwards editor of the Observator, was punished by the
merciless Jeffreys in his Bloody Assize for writing seditious verses, and
sentenced to seven years' imprisonment and to be flogged every year
through a town in Dorsetshire. The court was filled with indignation at this
cruel sentence, and Tutchin prayed rather to be hanged at once. This
privilege was refused, but as the poor prisoner, a mere youth, was taken ill
with smallpox, his sentence was remitted. Tutchin became one of the most
pertinacious and vehement enemies of the House of Stuart.
Delaune's Plea for the Nonconformists was very fatal to its author, and
landed him in Newgate, where the poor man died. Some account of this

book and its author is given in a previous volume of the Book-Lover's
Library (Books Condemned to be Burnt), and the writer founds upon it an
attack upon the Church of England, whereas the Church had about as much
to do with the persecution of poor Delaune as the writer of Condemned
Books! There are other conclusions and statements also propounded by the
writer of that book, which to one less intolerant than himself would appear
entirely unwarrantable. But this is not the place for controversy.
A book entitled Julian the Apostate was very fatal to that turbulent divine
Samuel Johnson, who in the reign of Charles II. made himself famous for
his advocacy of the cause of civil liberty and "no popery." He lived in very
turbulent times, when the question of the rights of the Duke of York, an
avowed Roman Catholic, to the English throne was vehemently disputed,
and allied himself with the party headed by the Earl of Essex and Lord
William Russell. He preached with great force against the advocates of
popery, and (in his own words) threw away his liberty with both hands, and
with his eyes open, for his country's service. Then he wrote his book in
reply to a sermon by Dr. Hickes, who was in favour of passive obedience,
and compared the future King to the Roman Emperor surnamed the
Apostate. This made a great sensation, which was not lessened by the report
that he had indited a pamphlet entitled Julian's Arts to undermine and
extirpate Christianity. Johnson was subsequently condemned to a fine of
one hundred marks, and imprisoned. On his release his efforts did not flag.
He wrote An Humble and Hearty Address to all the Protestants in the
Present Army at the time when the Stuart monarch had assembled a large
number of troops at Hounslow Heath in order to overawe London. This was
the cause of further misfortunes; he was condemned to stand in the pillory,
to pay another five hundred marks, to be degraded from the ministry, and
publicly whipped from Newgate to Tyburn. When the Revolution came he
expected a bishopric as the reward of his sufferings; but he was scarcely the
man for the episcopal bench. He refused the Deanery of Durham, and had to
content himself with a pension and a gift of £1,000.
All men mourn the fate of Algernon Sidney, who perished on account of
his political opinions; and his Discourse on the Government, a manuscript
which was discovered by the authorities at his house, furnished his enemies
with a good pretext. A corrupt jury, presided over by the notorious Jeffreys,
soon condemned poor headstrong Sidney to death. He was beheaded in
1683. His early life, his hatred of all in authority, whether Charles I. or

Cromwell, his revolutionary instincts, are well known. A few extracts from
his fatal MS. will show the author's ideas:—"The supreme authority of
kings is that of the laws, and the people are in a state of dependence upon
the laws." "Liberty is the mother of virtues, and slavery the mother of
vices." "All free peoples have the right to assemble whenever and wherever
they please." "A general rising of a nation does not deserve the name of a
revolt. It is the people for whom and by whom the Sovereign is established,
who have the sole power of judging whether he does, or does not, fulfil his
duties." In the days of "the Divine Right of Kings" such sentiments could
easily be charged with treason.
Political authors in other lands have often shared the fate of our own
countrymen, and foremost among these was Edmund Richer, a learned
doctor of the Sorbonne, Grand Master of the College of Cardinal Le Moine,
and Syndic of the University of Paris. He ranks among unfortunate authors
on account of his work entitled De Ecclesiastica et Politica, potestate
(1611), which aroused the anger of the Pope and his Cardinals, and
involved him in many difficulties. This remarkable work, extracted chiefly
from the writings of Gerson, was directed against the universal temporal
power of the Pope, advocated the liberties of the Gallican Church, and
furnished Protestant theologians with weapons in order to defend
themselves against the champions of the Ultramontane party. He argues that
ecclesiastical authority belongs essentially to the whole Church. The Pope
and the bishops are its ministers, and form the executive power instituted by
God. The Pope is the ministerial head of the Church; our Lord Jesus Christ
is the Absolute Chief and Supreme Pastor. The Pope has no power of
making canons; that authority belongs to the universal Church, and to
general councils. Richer was seized by certain emissaries of a Catholic
leader as he entered the college of the Cardinal, and carried off to prison,
from which he was ultimately released on the intercession of his friends and
of the University. But Richer's troubles did not end when he regained his
freedom. Having been invited to supper by Father Joseph, a Capuchin
monk, he went to the house, not suspecting any evil intentions on the part of
his host. But when he entered the room where the feast was prepared he
found a large company of his enemies. The door was closed behind him,
daggers were drawn by the assembled guests, and they demanded from him
an immediate retractation of all the opinions he had advanced in his work.
The drawn daggers were arguments which our unhappy author was unable

to resist. As a reward for all his labour and hard study he was obliged to live
as an exile, as he mournfully complained, in the midst of a kingdom whose
laws he strenuously obeyed, nor dared to set foot in the college of which he
had been so great an ornament. In his latter days Richer's studies were his
only comfort. His mind was not fretted by any ambition, but he died in the
year 1633, overcome by his grief on account of his unjust fate, and fearful
of the powerful enemies his book had raised. The age of Richelieu was not
a very safe period for any one who had unhappily excited the displeasure of
powerful foes.
A strange work of a wild fanatic, John de Falkemberg, entitled Diatribe
contre Ladislas, Roi de Pologne, was produced at the beginning of the
fifteenth century, and condemned by the Council of Constance in 1414.
Falkemberg addressed himself to all kings, princes, prelates, and all
Christian people, promising them eternal life, if they would unite for the
purpose of exterminating the Poles and slaying their king. The author was
condemned to imprisonment at Constance on account of his insane book.
As there were no asylums for lunatics in those days, perhaps that was the
wisest course his judges could adopt.
The hostility of the Pope to authors who did not agree with his political
views has been excited by many others, amongst whom we may mention
the learned Pietro Sarpi, born at Venice in 1552. He joined the order of the
Servites, who paid particular veneration to the Blessed Virgin, and of that
order Sarpi and a satirical writer named Doni were the most distinguished
members. Sarpi adopted the name of Paul, and is better known by his title
Fra Paolo. He studied history, and wrote several works in defence of the
rights and liberties of the Venetian Republic against the arrogant
assumptions of Pope Paul V. The Venetians were proud of their defender,
and made him their consultant theologian and a member of the famous
Council of Ten. But the spiritual weapons of the Pope were levied against
the bold upholder of Venetian liberties, and he was excommunicated. His
Histoire de l'Interdit (Venice, 1606) exasperated the Papal party. One
evening in the following year, as Sarpi was returning to his monastery, he
was attacked by five assassins, and, pierced with many wounds, fell dead at
their feet. The authorship of this crime it was not hard to discover, as the
murderers betook themselves to the house of the Papal Nuncio, and thence
fled to Rome. In this book Sarpi vigorously exposed the unlawfulness and
injustice of the power of excommunication claimed by the Pope, and

showed he had no right or authority to proscribe others for the sake of his
own advantage. Sarpi wrote also a history of the Council of Trent,
published in London, 1619. His complete works were published in Naples
in 1790, in twenty-four volumes.
Another Venetian statesman, Jerome Maggi, very learned in archaeology,
history, mathematics, and other sciences, hastened his death by his writings.
He was appointed by the Venetians a judge of the town of Famagousta, in
the island of Cyprus, which was held by the powerful Republic from the
year 1489 to 1571. After one of the most bloody sieges recorded in history,
the Turks captured the stronghold, losing 50,000 men. Maggi was taken
captive and conducted in chains to Constantinople. Unfortunately he whiled
away the tedious hours of his captivity by writing two books, De equuleo
and De tintinnabulis, remarkable for their learning, composed entirely
without any reference to other works in the squalor of a Turkish prison. He
dedicated the books to the Italian and French ambassadors to the Sublime
Porte, who were much pleased with them and endeavoured to obtain the
release of the captive. Their efforts unhappily brought about the fate which
they were trying to avert. For when the affair became known, as Maggi was
being conducted to the Italian ambassador, the captain of the prison ordered
him to be brought back and immediately strangled in the prison.
The unhappy Jean Lenoir, Canon of Séez, was doomed in 1684 to a life-
long servitude in the galleys, after making a public retractation of his errors
in the Church of Notre-Dame, at Paris. His impetuous and impassioned
eloquence is displayed in all his writings, which were collected and
published under the title Recueil de Requêtes et de Factums. The titles of
some of his treatises will show how obnoxious they were to the ruling
powers—e.g., Hérésie de la domination épiscopale que l'on établit en
France, Protestation contre les assemblées du clergé de 1681, etc. These
were the causes of the severe persecutions of which he was the unhappy
victim. He was fortunate enough to obtain a slight alleviation of his terrible
punishment by writing a Complainte latine, in which he showed that the
author, although black in name (le noir), was white in his virtues and his
character. He was released from the galleys, and sent to prison instead,
being confined at Saint Malo, Brest, and Nantes, where he died in 1692.
In times less remote, Simon Linguet, a French political writer (born in
1736), found himself immured in the Bastille on account of his works,

which gave great offence to the ruling powers. His chief books were his
Histoire Impartiale des Jésuites (1768, 2 vols., in-l2) and his Annales
Politiques. After his release he wrote an account of his imprisonment,
which created a great sensation, and aroused the popular indignation against
the Bastille which was only appeased with its destruction. Linguet's
Annales Politiques was subsequently published in Brussels in 1787, for
which he was rewarded by the Emperor Joseph II. with a present of 1,000
ducats. Linguet's experiences in the Bastille rendered him a persona grata
to the revolutionary party, in which he was an active agent; but, alas for the
fickleness of the mob! he himself perished at the hands of the wretches
whose madness he had inspired, and was guillotined at Paris in 1794. The
pretext of his condemnation was that he had incensed by his writings the
despots of Vienna and London.
The Jesuit controversy involved many authors in ruin, amongst others
Abbé Caveirac, who wrote Appel à la Raison des Ecrits et Libelles publiés
contre les Jésuites, par Jean Novi de Caveirac (Bruxelles, 1762, 2 vols., in-
12). This book was at once suppressed, and its author was condemned to
imprisonment in 1764, and then sent to the pillory, and afterwards doomed
to perpetual exile. He was accused of having written an apology for the
slaughter of the Protestants on the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day, but our
last mentioned author, Linguet, endeavours to clear his memory from that
charge.
A friend of Linguet, Darigrand, wrote a book entitled L'Antifinancier, ou
Relevé de quelques-unes des malversations dont se rendent journellement
les Fermiers-Généraux, et des vexations qu'ils commettent dans les
provinces (Paris, Lambert, 1764, 2 vols., in-12). It was directed against the
abominable system of taxation in vogue in France, which was mainly
instrumental in producing the Revolution. Darigrand was a lawyer, and had
been employed in la ferme générale. He knew all the iniquities of that
curious institution; he knew the crushing taxes which were levied, and the
tender mercies of the "cellar-rats," the gnawing bailiffs, who knew no pity.
Indignant and disgusted by the whole business, he wrote his vehement
exposure L'Antifinancier. The government wished to close his mouth by
giving him a lucrative post under the same profitable system. This our
author indignantly refused; and that method of enforcing silence having
failed, another more forcible one was immediately adopted. Darigrand was
sent to the Bastille in January 1763. His book is a most forcible and

complete exposure of that horrible system of extortion, torture, and
ruination which made a reformation or a revolution inevitable.
Authors have often been compelled to eat their words, but the operation
has seldom been performed literally. In the seventeenth century, owing to
the disastrous part which Christian IV. of Denmark took in the Thirty Years'
War, his kingdom was shorn of its ancient power and was overshadowed by
the might of Sweden. One Theodore Reinking, lamenting the diminished
glory of his race, wrote a book entitled Dania ad exteros de perfidia
Suecorum (1644). It was not a very excellent work, neither was its author a
learned or accurate historian, but it aroused the anger of the Swedes, who
cast Reinking into prison. There he remained many years, when at length he
was offered his freedom on the condition that he should either lose his head
or eat his book. Our author preferred the latter alternative, and with
admirable cleverness devoured his book when he had converted it into a
sauce. For his own sake we trust his work was not a ponderous or bulky
volume.

CHAPTER VII. SATIRE.
Roger Rabutin de Bussy—M. Dassy—Trajan Boccalini—Pierre Billard
—Pietro Aretino—Felix Hemmerlin—John Giovanni Cinelli—Nicholas
Francus—Lorenzo Valla—Ferrante Pallavicino—François Gacon—Daniel
Defoe—Du Rosoi—Caspar Scioppius.
To "sit in the seat of the scorner" has often proved a dangerous position,
as the writers of satires and lampoons have found to their cost, although
their sharp weapons have often done good service in checking the onward
progress of Vice and Folly. All authors have not shown the poet's wisdom
who declared:—

"Satire's my weapon, but I'm too discreet
To run amuck, and tilt at all I meet."

Nor have all the victims of satire the calmness and self-possession of the
philosopher who said: "If evil be said of thee, and it be true, correct thyself;
if it be a lie, laugh at it." It would have been well for those who indulged in
this style of writing, if all the victims of their pens had been of the same
mind as Frederick the Great, who said that time and experience had taught
him to be a good post-horse, going through his appointed daily stage, and
caring nothing for the curs that barked at him along the road.
Foremost among the writers of satire stands Count Roger Rabutin de
Bussy, whose mind was jocose, his wit keen, and his sarcasm severe. He
was born in 1618, and educated at a college of Jesuits, where he manifested
an extraordinary avidity for letters and precocious talents. The glory of war
fired his early zeal, and for sixteen years he followed the pursuit of arms.
Then literature claimed him as her slave. His first book, Les amours du
Palais Royal, excited the displeasure of King Louis XIV., and prepared the
way for his downfall. In his Histoire amoureuse des Gaules (Paris, 1665, 1
vol., in-12) he satirised the lax manners of the French Court during the
minority of the King, and had the courage to narrate the intrigue which
Louis carried on with La Vallière. He spares few of the ladies of the Court,
and lashes them all with his satire, amongst others Mesdames d'Olonne and
de Chatillon. Unhappily for the Count, he showed the book, when it was yet

in MS., to the Marchioness de Beaume, his intimate friend. But the best of
friends sometimes quarrel, and unfortunately the Count and the good lady
quarrelled while yet the MS. was in her possession. A grand opportunity for
revenge thus presented itself. She showed to the ladies of the Court the
severe verses which the Count had written; and his victims were so enraged
that they carried their complaints to the King, who had already felt the
weight of the author's blows in some verses beginning:—

"Que Deodatus est heureux
De baiser ce bec amoureux,
Qui, d'une oreille à l'autre va.
Alléluia," etc.

This aroused the anger of the self-willed monarch, who ordered the
author to be sent to the Bastille, and then to be banished from the kingdom
for ever. Bussy passed sixteen years in exile, and occupied his enforced
leisure by writing his memoirs, Les mémoires de Roger de Rabutin, Comte
de Bussi (Paris, 1697), in which he lauded himself amazingly, and a history
of the reign of Louis XIV., which abounded in base flattery of the "Great
Monarch." Bussy earned the title of the French Petronius, by lashing with
his satirical pen the debaucheries of Louis and his Court after the same
manner in which the Roman philosopher ridiculed the depravity of Nero
and his satellites. His style was always elegant, and his satire, seemingly so
playful and facetious, stung his victims and cut them to the quick. This was
a somewhat dangerous gift to the man who wielded the whip when the
Grand Monarch felt the lash twisting around his royal person. Therefore
poor Bussy was compelled to end his days in exile.
A book fatal to its author, M. Dassy, a Parisian lawyer, was one which
bore the title Consultation pour le Baron et la Baronne de Bagge (Paris,
1777, in-4). It attacked M. Titon de Villotran, counsellor of the Grand
Chamber, who caused its author to be arrested. The book created some
excitement, and contained some severe criticisms on the magistrates and the
ecclesiastical authorities as well as on the aggrieved Villotran. Parliament
confirmed the order for Dassy's arrest, but he contrived to effect his escape
to Holland. He was a rich man, who did much to relieve and assist the poor,
while he delighted to attack and satirise the prosperous and the great.
The Italian satirist Trajan Boccalini, born at Loretto in 1556, was also
one upon whom Court favour shone. He was surrounded by a host of
friends and admirers, and was appointed Governor of the States of the

Church. He was one of the wittiest and most versatile of authors, and would
have risen to positions of greater dignity, if only his pen had been a little
less active and his satire less severe. He wrote a book entitled Ragguagli di
Parnasso (1612), which was most successful. In this work he represents
Apollo as judge of Parnassus, who cites before him kings, authors, warriors,
statesmen, and other mighty personages, minutely examines their faults and
crimes, and passes judgment upon them. Inasmuch as these people whom
Apollo condemned were his contemporaries, it may be imagined that the
book created no small stir, and aroused the wrath of the victims of his satire.
Boccalini was compelled to leave Rome and seek safety in Venice. He also
wrote a bitter satire upon the Spanish misrule in Italy, entitled Pietra del
paragone politico (1615). In this book he showed that the power of the
King of Spain in Italy was not so great as men imagined, and that it would
be easy to remove the Spanish yoke from their necks. In Venice he
imagined himself safe; but his powerful foes hired assassins to "remove"
the obnoxious author. He was seized one day by four strong men, cast upon
a couch, and beaten to death with bags filled with sand. The elegance of his
style, his witticisms and fine Satire, have earned for Boccalini the title of
the Italian Lucian.
To scoff at the powerful Jesuits was not always a safe pastime, as Pierre
Billard discovered, who, on account of his work entitled La Bête à sept
têtes, was sent to the Bastille, and subsequently to the prisons of Saint-
Lazare and Saint-Victor. The Society objected to be compared to the Seven-
headed Beast, and were powerful enough to ruin their bold assailant, who
died at Charenton in 1726.
Another Italian satirist, Pietro Aretino, acquired great fame, but not of a
creditable kind. Born at Arezzo in 1492, he followed the trade of a
bookbinder; but not confining his labour to the external adornment of
books, he acquired some knowledge of letters. He began his career by
writing a satirical sonnet against indulgences, and was compelled to fly
from his native place and wander through Italy. At Rome he found a
temporary resting-place, where he was employed by Popes Leo X. and
Clement VII. Then he wrote sixteen gross sonnets on the sixteen obscene
pictures of Giulio Romano [Footnote: These were published under the title
of La corona de i cazzi, cioë, sonetti lussuriosi del Pietro Aretino. Stamp.
senza Luogo ne anno, in-16. The engravings in this edition, the work of
Marc Antonio of Bolgna, were no less scandalous than the sonnets, and the

engraver was ordered to be arrested by Pope Clement VII., and only
escaped punishment by flight.], which were so intolerable that he was again
forced to fly and seek an asylum at Milan under the protection of the "black
band" led by the famous Captain Giovanni de Medici. On the death of this
leader he repaired to Venice, where he lived by his pen. He began a series of
satires on princes and leading men, and earned the title of flagellum
principum. Aretino adopted the iniquitous plan of demanding gifts from
those he proposed to attack, in order that by these bribes they might appease
the libeller and avert his onslaught. Others employed him to libel their
enemies. Thus the satirist throve and waxed rich and prosperous. His book
entitled Capricium was a rude and obscene collection of satires on great
men. His prolific pen poured forth Dialogues, Sonnets, Comedies, and
mingled with a mass of discreditable and licentious works we find several
books on morality and theology. These he wrote, not from any sense of
piety and devotion, but simply for gain, while his immoral life was a
strange contrast to his teaching. He published a Paraphrase on the seven
Penitential Psalms (Venice, 1534), and a work entitled De humanitate sive
incarnatione Christi (Venice, 1535), calling himself Aretino the divine, and
by favour of Pope Julius III. he nearly obtained a Cardinal's hat. Concerning
his Paraphrase a French poet wrote:—

"Si ce livre unit le destin
De David et de l'Arétin,
Dans leur merveilleuse science,
Lecteur n'en sois pas empêché
Qui paraphrase le péché
Paraphrase la pénitence."

Utterly venal and unscrupulous, we find him at one time enjoying the
patronage of Francis I. of France, and then abusing that monarch and
basking in the favour of the Emperor Charles V., who paid him more
lavishly. His death took place at Venice in 1557. Some say that he, the
flagellum of princes, was beaten to death by command of the princes of
Italy; others narrate that he who laughed at others all his life died through
laughter. His risible faculties being on one occasion so violently excited by
certain obscene jests, he fell from his seat, and struck his head with such
violence against the ground that he died.
The town of Zürich was startled in the fifteenth century by finding itself
the object of the keen satire of one of its canons, Felix Hemmerlin, who
wrote a book entitled Clarissimi viri jurumque Doctoris Felicis Malleoli

Hemmerlini variae oblectationis Opuscula et Tractatus (Basileae, 1494,
folio). The clergy, both regular and secular, were also subjected to his
criticism. The book is divided into two parts; the first is a dialogue de
Nobilitate et Rusticitate, and the second is a treatise against the mendicant
friars, monks, Beghards, and Béguines. The town of Zürich was very
indignant at this bold attack, and deprived the poor author of his benefices
and of his liberty.
Italian air seems to have favoured satire, but Italian susceptibility was
somewhat fatal to the satirists. Giovanni Cinelli, born in 1625, taught
medicine at Florence and was illustrious for his literary productions. He
allied himself with Antonio Magliabecchi, who afforded him opportunities
of research in the library of the Grand Duke. He began the great work
entitled Bibliotheca volans, the fourth section of which brought grievous
trouble upon its author. It was all caused by an unfortunate note which
attacked the doctor of the Grand Duke. This doctor was highly indignant,
and reported Cinelli to the Tribunal. The book was publicly burnt by the
hangman, and Cinelli was confined in prison ninety-*three days and then
driven into exile. His misfortunes roused his anger, and he published at his
retreat at Venice a bitter satire on men of all ranks entitled Giusticazione di
Giovanni Cinelli (1683), exciting much hostility against him. He died at the
age of seventy years in the Castle of San Lorenzo, A.D. 1705, and his
Bibliotheca volans was continued and completed by Sancassani under the
fictitious name of Philoponis.
Nicholas Francus, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, was a graceful
writer and very skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Etruscan languages, but
incurred a grievous fate on account of his severe satire on Pope Pius IV. The
stern persecutor of Carranza, the powerful Archbishop of Toledo, was not a
person to be attacked with impunity. The cause of the poet's resentment
against the Pope was the prohibition of a certain work, entitled Priapeia,
which Francus had commenced, describing the feasts of Priapus. Pius IV.
refused to allow the poet to complete his book, and ordered that which he
had already written to be burned. This was too much for the equanimity of
the poet, whose eye was with fine frenzy rolling, and he began to assail the
Pope with all manner of abuse. For some time the punishment for his rash
writing was postponed, on account of the protection of a powerful Cardinal;
but on the death of Pius IV. Francus sharpened his pen afresh, and sorely
wounded the memory of his deceased foe. In one of his satires the words of

St. John's Gospel, verbum caro factum est, were inserted; and the charge of
profanity was brought against him. At length Pius V. condemned him to
death. Some historians narrate that the poor poet was hung on a beam
attached to the famous statue of the Gladiator in front of the Palace of the
Orsini, called the Pasquin, to which the deriders and enemies of the Pope
were accustomed to affix their epigrams and pamphlets. These were called
Pasquinades, from the curious method adopted for their publication. Others
declare that he suffered punishment in a funereal chamber draped with
black; while another authority declares that the poet, the victim of his own
satires, was hung on a fork-shaped gibbet, not on account of his abuse of
Pius IV., but through the hatred of Pius V., which some personal quarrel had
excited. This conjecture is, however, probably false.
Francus was a true poet, endowed with a vivid imagination and with a
delicate and subtle wit. He scorned the coarse invective in which the
satirists of his day used to delight. He had many enemies on account of his
plain-spoken words and keen criticisms. The problem which perplexed the
Patriarch Job—the happiness of prosperous vice, the misery of persecuted
virtue—tormented his mind and called forth his embittered words. He
inveighed against the reprobates and fools, the crowds of monsignors who
were as vain of their effeminacy as the Scipios of their deeds of valour; he
combated abuses, and with indignant pen heaped scorn upon the
fashionable vices of the age. The Pope and his Cardinals, stung by his shafts
of satire, cruelly avenged themselves upon the unhappy poet, and, as we
have said, doomed him to death in the year 1569. His Dialogues were
printed in Venice by Zuliani in 1593, under the title Dialoghi piacevolissimi
di Nicolo Franco da Benevento; and there is a French translation, made by
Gabriel Chapins, published at Lyons in 1579, entitled Dix plaisans
Dialogues du sieur Nicolo Franco.
Lorenzo Valla, born at Rome in 1406, was one of the greatest scholars of
his age, and contributed more than any other man to the revival of the love
of Latin literature in the fifteenth century. His works are voluminous. He
translated into Latin Herodotus (Paris, 1510), Thucydides (Lyons, 1543),
The Iliad (Venice, 1502), Fables of Aesop (Venice, 1519); and wrote
Elegantiae Sermonis Latini, a history of Ferdinand Aragon (Paris, 1521),
and many other works, which are the monuments of his learning and
industry. But Valla raised against him many enemies by the severity of his
satire on almost all the learned men of his time. He spared no one, and least

of all the clerics, who sought his destruction. A friend advised him that,
unless he was weary of life, he ought to avoid heaping his satirical abuse on
the Roman priests and bishops. He published a work on the pretended
Donation of Constantine to the Papal See, and for this and other writings
pronounced heretical by the Inquisition he was cast into prison, and would
have suffered death by fire had not his powerful friend Alphonso V., King
of Aragon, rescued him from the merciless Holy Office. Valla was
compelled publicly to renounce his heretical opinions, and then, within the
walls of a monastery, his hands having been bound, he was beaten with
rods. It is unnecessary to follow the fortunes of Valla further. He was
engaged in a long controversy with the learned men of his time, especially
with the facetious Poggio, whose wit was keener though his language was
not so forcible. Erasmus in his Second Epistle defends Valla in his attacks
upon the clergy, and asks, "Did he speak falsely, because he spoke the truth
too severely?" Valla died at Naples in 1465. The following epigram testifies
to the correctness of his Latinity and the severity of his criticisms:—

Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit,
Non audet Pluto verba latina loqui.
Jupiter hunc coeli dignatus honore fuisset,
Censorem lingua sed timet esse suae.

Raphael Maffei, surnamed Volaterranus, the compiler of the Commentarii
urbani (1506), a huge encyclopaedia published in thirty-eight books,
composed the following witty stanza on the death of Valla:—

Tandem Valla silet solitus qui parcere nulli est
Si quaeris quid agat? nunc quoque mordet humum.

Our list of Italian satirists closes with Ferrante Pallavicino, a witty
Canon, born at Plaisance in 1618, who ventured to write satirical poems on
the famous nepotist, Pope Urban VIII., and all his family, the Barberini.
Some of his poems were entitled Il corriero sualigiato, Il divortio celeste,
La baccinata, which were published in a collection of his complete works at
Venice in 1655. His selected works were published at Geneva in 1660. He
made a playful allusion to the Barberini on the title-page of his work, where
there appeared a crucifix surrounded by burning thorns and bees, with the
verse of the Psalmist Circumdederunt me sicut apes, et exarserunt sicut
ignis in spinis, alluding to the bees which that family bear on their arms.
Pallavicino lived in safety for some time at Venice, braving the anger of his

enemies. Unfortunately he wished to retire to France, and during his
journey passed through the territory of the Pope. He was accompanied by a
Frenchman, one Charles Morfu, who pretended great friendship for him,
admired his works, and scoffed at the Barberini with jests as keen as the
Canon's own satires. But the Frenchman betrayed him to his foes, and poor
Pallavicino paid the penalty of his rashness by a cruel death in the Papal
Palace at Avignon at the early age of twenty-nine years. His strictures on
Urban and his family were well deserved. The Pope heaped riches and
favours on his relations. He made three of his nephews cardinals, and the
fourth was appointed General of the Papal troops. So odious did the family
make themselves by their exactions that on the death of Urban they were
forced to leave Rome and take refuge in France. Pallavicino had certainly
fitting subjects for his satirical verses.
François Gacon, a French poet and satirist of the eighteenth century,
suffered imprisonment on account of his poems, entitled Le Poëte sans fard,
ou Discours satyriques sur toutes sortes de sujets (Paris, 2 vols., in-12). His
satire was very biting and not a little scurrilous, and was famous for the
quantity rather than the quality of his poetical effusions. We give the
following example of his skill, in which he discourses upon the different
effects which age produces on wine and women:—

"Une beauté, quand elle avance en âge,
A ses amans inspire du dégoût;
Mais, pour le vin, il a cet avantage,
Plus il vieillit, plus il flatte le goût."

The literary world of Paris in 1708 was very much disturbed by certain
satirical verses which seemed to come from an unknown hand and empty
cafés as if with the magic of a bomb. The Café de la Laurent was the
famous resort of the writers of the time, where Rousseau and Lamothe
reigned as chiefs of the literary Parnassus amid a throng of poets,
politicians, and wits. Some malcontent poet thought fit to disturb the
harmony of this brilliant company by publishing some very satirical
couplets directed against the frequenters of the café. This so enraged the
company that they deserted the unfortunate café, and selected another for
their rendezvous. But other verses, still more severe, followed them. Jean
Baptist Rousseau was suspected as their author; he denied the supposition
and accused Saurin; but Rousseau was found to be guilty and was banished

from the kingdom for ever, as the author and distributer of "certain impure
and satirical verses."
Amongst satirical writers who have suffered hard fates we must mention
the illustrious author of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe. A strong partisan
of the Nonconformist cause during the controversial struggle between
Church and Dissent in the reign of Queen Anne, he published a pamphlet
entitled The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), in which he ironically
advised their entire extermination. This pleased certain of the Church Party
who had not learned the duty of charity towards the opinions of others, nor
the advantages of Religious Liberty. Nor were they singular in this respect,
as the Dissenting Party had plainly shown when the power was in their
hands. Happily wiser counsels prevail now. When Defoe's jest was
discovered, and his opponents found that the book was "writ sarcastic," they
caused the unhappy author to be severely punished. Parliament condemned
his book to the flames, and its author to the pillory and to prison. On his
release he wrote other political pamphlets, which involved him in new
troubles; and, disgusted with politics, he turned his versatile talents to other
literary work, and produced his immortal book Robinson Crusoe, which has
been translated into all languages, and is known and read by every one.
Young's Night Thoughts might not be considered a suitable form of poem
for parody, but this M. Durosoi, or Du Rosoi, accomplished in his Les Jours
d'Ariste (1770), and was sent to the Bastille for his pains. The cause of his
condemnation was that he had published this work without permission, and
also perhaps on account of certain political allusions contained in his
second work, Le Nouvel Ami des Hommes, published in the same year. But
a worse fate awaited Du Rosoi on account of his writings. In the dangerous
years of 1791 and 1792 he edited La Gazette de Paris, which procured
greater celebrity for him, and brought about his death. When the fatal tenth
of August came, the Editor was not to be found in Paris. However,
ultimately he was secured and condemned to death by the tribunal
extraordinary appointed by the Legislative Assembly to judge the enemies
of the new government. He died with great bravery at the hands of the
revolutionary assassins, after telling his judges that as a friend of the King
he was accounted worthy to die on that day, the Feast of Saint Louis.
All the venom of satirical writers seems to have been collected by that
strange author Gaspar Scioppius, who had such a singular lust for powerful

invective that he cared not whom he attacked, and made himself abhorred
by all. This Attila of authors was born in Germany in 1576, went to Rome,
abjured Protestantism, and was raised to high honours by Pope Clement
VIII. In return for these favours he wrote several treatises in support of the
Papal claims, amongst others Ecclesiasticus, which was directed against
James I. of England. Concerning this book Casaubon wrote in his Epistle
CLV.: "Know concerning Scioppius that some of his works have been
burned not only here at London by the command of our most wise King, but
also at Paris by the hand of the hangsman. I have written a letter, which I
will send to you, if I am able, against that beast." He poured the vials of his
wrath upon the Jesuits, declaring in his Relatio ad reges et principes de
stratagematibus Societatis Jesu (1635) that there was no truth to be found
in Italy, and that this was owing entirely to the Jesuits, who "keep back the
truth in injustice, who, rejecting the cup of Christ, drink the cup of devils
full of all abominations." This roused their wrath, and by their designs our
author was imprisoned at Venice. There he would have been slain, if he had
not enjoyed the protection of a powerful Venetian. He boasted that his
writings had had such an effect on two of his literary opponents, Casaubon
and Scaliger, as to cause them to die from vexation and disappointment. He
made himself so many powerful enemies that towards the end of his life he
knew not where to find a secure retreat. This "public pest of letters and
society," as the Jesuits delighted to call him, died at Padua in 1649 hated by
all, both Catholics and Protestants. He wrote one hundred and four works,
of which the most admired is his Elementa philosophiae moralis stoicae
(Mayence, 1606).

CHAPTER VIII. POETRY.
Adrian Beverland—Cecco d'Ascoli—George Buchanan—Nicodemus
Frischlin—Clement Marot—Caspar Weiser—John Williams—Deforges—
Théophile—Helot—Matteo Palmieri—La Grange—Pierre Petit—Voltaire
—Montgomery—Keats—Joseph Ritson.
The haunters of Parnassus and the wearers of the laurel crown have
usually been loved by their fellows, save only when satire has mingled with
their song and filled their victims' minds with thoughts of vengeance. In the
last chapter we have noticed some examples of satirical writers who have
clothed their libellous thoughts in verse, and suffered in consequence. But
the woes of poets, caused by those who listened to their song, have not been
numerous. Shakespeare classes together "the lunatic, the lover, and the
poet" as being "of imagination all compact"; and perchance the poet has
shared with the madman the reverence which in some countries is bestowed
on the latter.
However, all have not so escaped the destinies of fate. Some think that
Ovid incurred the wrath of Augustus Caesar through his verses on the art of
loving, and was on that account driven into exile, which he mourned so
melodiously and complained of so querulously. In a period less remote we
find Adrian Beverland wandering away from the true realm of poetry and
taking up his abode in the pesthouse of immorality. He was born at
Middlebourg in 1653, and studied letters at the University of Leyden. He
began his career by publishing indecent poems. He wrote a very iniquitous
book, De Peccato originali, in which he gave a very base explanation of the
sin of our first parents; and although considerable licence was allowed to
authors in the Netherlands at that time, nevertheless the magistrates and
professors of Leyden condemned the book to be burned and its author to
banishment. The full title of the work is Hadriani Beverlandi peccatum
originale philogicé elucubratum, à Themidis alumno. Eleutheropoli, in
horto Hesperidum, typis Adami, Evae, Terrae filii (1678, in-8). He seems to
have followed Henri Cornelius Agrippa in his idea that the sin of our first
parents arose from sexual desire. Leonard Ryssenius refuted the work in his
Justa detestatio libelli sceleratissimi Hadriani Beverlandi, de Peccato

originali (1680). He would doubtless have incurred a harder fate on account
of another immoral work, entitled De prostibulis veterum, if one of his
relations had not charitably committed it to the flames. Before the sentence
of banishment had been pronounced he wrote an apology, professed
penitence, and was allowed to remain at Utrecht, where he composed
several pamphlets. Being exiled on account of the indecency of his writings,
he came to England, where he affected decorum, and his friend and
countryman Isaac Vossius, who enjoyed the patronage of Charles II. and
was Canon of Windsor, obtained for him a pension charged upon some
ecclesiastical fund. Never were ecclesiastical funds applied to a baser use;
for although Beverland wrote another book [Footnote: De fornicatione
cavendâ admonitio (Londini, Bateman, 1697, in-8).] with the apparent
intention of warning against vice, the argument seemed to inculcate the
lusts which he condemned. Having become insane he died, in extreme
poverty, in 1712. He imagined that he was pursued by a hundred men who
had sworn to kill him.
An early poet who suffered death on account of his writings was Cecco
d'Ascoli, Professor of Astrology at the famous University of Bologna in
1322. His poems have been collected and published under the title Opere
Poetiche del' illustro poeta Cecco d'Ascoli, cioë, l'acerba. In Venetia, per
Philippum Petri et Socios, anno 1478, in-4. The printer of this work,
Philippus Condam Petri (Philippo de Piero Veneto) is one of the earliest and
most famous of Venetian printers, and produced several of the incunabula
which we now prize so highly. The absurdities of Cecco contained in his
poems merited for their author a place in a lunatic asylum, rather than on a
funeral pile. He was, however, burnt alive at Bologna in 1327. He believed
in the influence of evil spirits, who, under certain constellations, had power
over the affairs of men; that our Saviour, Jesus Christ, was born under a
certain constellation which obliged Him to poverty; whereas Antichrist
would come into the world under a certain planet which would make him
enormously wealthy. He continued to proclaim these amazing delusions at
Bologna, and was condemned by the Inquisition. The poet escaped
punishment by submission and repentance. But two years later he
announced to the Duke of Calabria, who asked him to cast the horoscope of
his wife and daughter, that they would betake themselves to an infamous
course of life. This prophecy was too much for the Duke. Cecco was again
summoned to appear before the Inquisitors, who condemned him to the

stake. At his execution a large crowd assembled to see whether his familiar
genii would arrest the progress of the flames. The poet's real name was
François de Stabili, Cecco being a diminutive form of Francesco. There are
many editions of his work. The "lunatic" and the "poet" were certainly in
his case not far removed.
A very different man was the illustrious author and historian of Scotland,
George Buchanan, who was born in 1506. After studying in Paris, he
returned to Scotland, and became tutor of the Earl of Murray, the natural
son of James V. The Franciscan monks were not very popular at this period,
and at the suggestion of the King Buchanan wrote a satirical poem entitled
Silva Franciscanorum, in which he censured the degenerate followers of St.
Francis, and harassed them in many ways. This poem so enraged the monks
that they seized him and imprisoned him in one of their monasteries. One
night, while his guards slept, he contrived to escape by a window, and
underwent great perils. He published two other severe satirical poems on
the Franciscans, entitled Fratres Fraterrimi and Franciscanus. It is scarcely
necessary to follow his fortunes further, as Buchanan's history is well
known. After teaching at Paris, Bordeaux, and at Coimbre in Portugal, he
returned to Scotland, and was entrusted by Mary, Queen of Scots, with the
education of her son. Buchanan then embraced Protestantism, opposed the
Queen in the troubles which followed, and received from Parliament the
charge of the future Solomon of the North, James VI. of Scotland and I. of
England. He devoted his later life to historical studies, and produced his
famous History of Scotland in twelve books, De Maria Regina ejusque
conspiratione, in which he attacked the reputation of the Queen, and De
jure regni apud Scotos, a book remarkable for the liberalism of the ideas
which were therein expressed. His royal pupil did not treat Buchanan's
History with due respect; he caused it to be proclaimed at the Merkat Cross,
and ordered every one to bring his copy "to be perused and purged of the
offensive and extraordinary matters." In the reign of Charles II. the
University of Oxford ordered Buchanan's De jure regni, together with
certain other works, to be publicly burnt on account of certain obnoxious
propositions deducible from them; such as "Wicked kings and tyrants ought
to be put to death." He published a paraphrase of the Psalms of David in
verse, which has been much praised. The Jesuits were not very friendly
critics of our author, for they asserted that Buchanan showed in his life little
of the piety of David, and stated that during thirty years he did not deliver a

single sermon, even on Sundays. "But who is ignorant," observes M. Klotz,
"of the lust of these men for calumny?"
Another poet had occasion to adopt the same mode of escape which
Buchanan successfully accomplished, but with less happy results. This was
Nicodemus Frischlin, a German poet and philosopher, born in the duchy of
Würtemberg in 1547. At an early age he showed great talents; honours
clustered thickly on his brow. At the age of twenty years he was made
Professor of Belles-Lettres at Tubingen; he received from the Emperor
Rudolph the poetic crown with the title of chevalier, and was made Count
Palatin as a reward for his three panegyrics composed in honour of the
emperors of the House of Austria. Certainly Fortune smiled upon her
favourite, but Envy raised up many enemies, who were eager to find
occasion against the successful poet. He afforded them a pretext in his work
De laudibus vitae rusticae, which, in spite of its innocent title, grievously
offended the nobles, who were already embittered against him on account
of his arrogance and turbulence, and his keen and unsparing satire. So bitter
was their hostility that the poet was compelled to leave Tubingen, and
became a wandering philosopher, sometimes teaching in schools, always
pouring forth poems, elegies, satires, tragedies, comedies, and epics. Being
eager to publish some of his works and not having sufficient means, he
applied to the Duke of Würtemberg for a subsidy, at the same time furiously
attacking his old opponents. This so exasperated the chief men of the Court,
that they persuaded the Duke to recall Frischlin; but instead of finding a
welcome from his old patron, he was cast into prison, in order that he might
unlearn his presumption, and acquire the useful knowledge that modesty is
the chief ornament of a learned man. But Frischlin did not agree with
another poet's assertion:—

"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage."

Having raged and stormed, and tried in vain to obtain release, he resolved
to escape. From his prison window he let himself down by a rope made out
of his bed-clothes, but unfortunately the rope broke and the poor poet fell
upon the hard rocks beneath his chamber window and was injured fatally.
Frischlin was considered one of the best Latin poets of post-classical times;
but his genius was marred by his immoderate and bitter temper, which
caused him to imagine that the gentle banter and jocular remarks of his

acquaintances were insults to be repaid by angry invective and bitter
sarcasm, with which his writings abound.
Clement Marot was one of the most famous of early French poets, and
the creator of the school of naïve poetry in which La Fontaine afterwards so
remarkably excelled. His poetical version of the Psalms was read and sung
in many lands; and in spite of prohibition copies could not be printed so fast
as they were eagerly bought. They were at one time as popular in the Court
of Henry II. of France as they were amongst the Calvinists of Geneva and
Holland. In 1521 we find him fighting in the Duke of Alençon's army, when
he was wounded at the battle of Pavia. Then his verses caused their author
suffering, and he was imprisoned on the charge of holding heretical
opinions. His epistles in poetry written to the King contain a record of his
life, his fear of imprisonment, his flight, his arrest by his enemies of the
Sorbonne, his release by order of the King, and his protestations of
orthodoxy. But he seems to have adopted the principles of the Reformation,
and France was no safe place for him. In Geneva and Piedmont he found
resting-places, and died in 1544. His translation of the Psalms into
harmonious verse, which was sung both by the peasants and the learned,
was the cause of his persecution by the doctors of the Sorbonne. He
complains bitterly to the Lyons printer, Dolet, that many obscene and
unworthy poems were ascribed to him and printed amongst his works of
which he was not the author. As an example of his verse I quote the
beginning of Psalm cxli.:—

"Vers l'Eternel des oppressez le pere
Je m'en iray, luy monstrant l'impropere
Que l'on me faict, luy ferai ma priere
A haulte voix, qu'il ne jette en arriere
Mes piteux cris, car en lui seul j'espere."

It is not often that a poet loses his head for a single couplet, but this
seems to have been the fate of Caspar Weiser, Professor of Lund in Sweden.
At first he showed great loyalty to his country, and wrote a panegyric on the
coronation of Charles XI., King of Sweden. But a short time afterwards he
appears to have changed his political opinions, for when the city was
captured by the Danes in 1676, Weiser met the conqueror, and greeted him
with the words:—

Perge Triumphator reliquas submittere terras,
Sic redit ad Dominum, quod fuit ante, suum.

This verse was fatal to him. The Swedish monarch recovered his lost
territory; the Danes were expelled, and the poor poet was accused of treason
and beheaded.
The same hard fate befell John Williams in 1619, who was hanged,
drawn, and quartered, on account of two poems, Balaam's Ass and
Speculum Regis, the MSS. of which he foolishly sent secretly in a box to
King James. The monarch was always fearful of assassination, and as one
of the poems foretold his speedy decease, the prophet incurred the King's
wrath and suffered death for his pains.
A single poem was fatal to Deforges, entitled Vers sur l'arrestation du
Prétendant d'Angleterre, en 1749. It commences with the following lines:—

"Peuple, jadis si fier, aujourd'hui si servile,
Des princes malheureux, tu n'es donc plus l'asyle?"

He happened to be present at the Opera House in Paris when the young
Pretender was arrested, and being indignant at this breach of hospitality, and
believing that the honour of the nation had been compromised, he wrote
these bitter verses. His punishment was severe. He was arrested and
conducted to the gloomy fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel, where he remained
for three long years shut up in the cage. The floor of this terrible prison,
which was enveloped in perpetual darkness, was only eight square feet. The
poor poet bore his sufferings patiently, and was befriended by M. de
Broglie, Abbé of Saint-Michel, who obtained permission for him to leave
his cage and be imprisoned in the Abbey; nor did he fail to take precautions
lest the poor poet should lose his eyesight on passing from the darkness of
the dungeon to the light of day. The good Abbé finally procured liberty for
his captive, who became secretary to M. de Broglie's brother, and
subsequently, on the death of Madame de Pompadour, commissioner of war.
Terrible were the sufferings which the unhappy Deforges endured on
account of his luckless poem.
Théophile was condemned to be burned at Paris on account of his book
Le Parnasse des Poètes Satyriques, ou Recueil de vers piquans et gaillards
de notre temps (1625, in-8), but he contrived to effect his escape. He was
ultimately captured in Picardy, and put in a dungeon. He was banished from
the kingdom by order of the Parliament. In his old age he found an asylum
in the house of the Duke of Montmorency. The poet's real surname was

Viaud. The following impromptu is attributed to Théophile, who was asked
by a foolish person whether all poets were fools:—

"Oui, je l'avoue avec vous,
Que tous les poètes sont fous;
Mais sachant ce que vous êtes,
Tous les fous ne sont pas poètes."

His poems are a mere collection of impieties and obscenities, published
with the greatest impudence, and well deserved their destruction. On one
occasion he travelled to Holland with Balzac, and used this opportunity for
bringing out an infamous charge against him, which he had most probably
invented. His book, the cause of all his woes, was burnt with the poet's
effigy in 1623.
Many authors have ruined themselves by writing scandalous works,
offensive to the moral feelings of not very scrupulous ages. Several chapters
might be written on this not very savoury subject. We may mention Hélot's
L'Escole des Filles, par dialogues (Paris, 1672, in-12). Hélot was the son of
a lieutenant in the King's Swiss Guard. As he succeeded in making his
escape from prison, he was hung in effigy, and his books were burnt.
Chauveau, the celebrated engraver, who designed a beautiful engraving for
Hélot, not knowing for what purpose it was intended, also incurred great
risks, but fortunately he escaped with no greater penalty than the breaking
of the plate on which he had engraved the design. The printer suffered with
the author. Some think that Hélot was burnt at Paris with his books.
The Muses have often lured men from other and safer delights, and
tempted them to wander in dangerous paths. Matteo Palmieri was a
celebrated Italian historian, born at Florence in 1405; he was a man of much
learning, endowed with great powers of energy and perseverance; he was
entrusted with several important embassies, and achieved fame as an
historian by his vast work Chronicon Générale, in which he set himself the
appalling task of writing the history of the world from the creation to his
own time. The first part of this work, consisting of extracts from the
writings of Eusebius and Prosper, remains unpublished. The rest first saw
the light in 1475, and subsequent editions appeared at Venice in 1483, and
at Basle in 1529 and 1536. He wrote also four books on the Pisan War.
Would that he had confined himself to his histories! Unfortunately he wrote
a poem, which was never published, entitled Citta Divina, representing the
soul released from the chains of the body, and freed from earthly stain,

wandering through various places, and at last resting amid the company of
the blessed in heaven. Our souls are angels who in the revolt of Lucifer
were unwilling to attach themselves either to God or to the rebel hosts of
heaven. So, as a punishment, God made them dwell in mortal bodies in a
state of probation. This work was considered tainted with the Manichaean
heresy, and was condemned to the flames, and some assert that Palmieri
shared the fate of his book. This, however, is doubtful.
Very fatal to himself were the odes and philippics of M. La Grange,
written in 1720, and published in Paris in 1795, in-12, with the title Les
Philippiques, Odes, par M. de la Grange-Chancel, Seigneur d'Antoniat en
Périgord, avec notes historiques, critiques, et littéraires. In these poems he
attacked with malignant fury the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, and
was obliged to fly for safety to Avignon. There he was betrayed by a false
friend, who persuaded him to walk into French territory, and delivered him
into the hands of a band of soldiers prepared for his capture. The poet was
conducted to the Isle of Ste. Marguerite, and confined in a dungeon. The
governor of the castle was enchanted by his talents and gaiety, and gave
him great liberty. But Le Grange's pen was still restless. He must needs
make a bitter epigram upon his kind benefactor, which so aroused the
governor's ire that the poet was sent back to his dungeon cell. A piteous ode
addressed to the Regent imploring pardon secured for him a less rigorous
confinement. He succeeded in effecting his escape; then wandered through
many lands; and at last, on the death of the Regent in 1723, ventured to
return to France, where he lived many years and wrote much poetry and
several plays, dying in 1758. It has never been ascertained what was the
cause of his animosity to the Regent; certainly his verses glow with fiery
invective and abuse. He speaks of him as un monstre farouche. The
following example will perhaps be sufficient to be quoted:—

"Il ouvrit à peine les paupières,
Que, tel qu'il se montre aujourd'hui,
Il fut indigné des barrières
Qu'il vit entre le trône et lui.
Dans ses détestables idées
De l'art des Circés, des Médées,
Il fit ses uniques plaisirs;
Il crut cette voie infernale
Digne de remplir l'intervalle
Qui s'opposait à ses désirs."

Voltaire suffered one year's imprisonment in the Bastille on account of a
satirical poem on Louis XIV., and in confinement wrote an epic poem, La
Henriade. Some other storms raised by his works, such as his Lettres
Philosophiques and his Epître à Uranie, he weathered by flight, or by
unscrupulously denying their authorship. The rest of his works, contained in
seventy volumes, do not concern our present purpose.
Our English poet James Montgomery began life as a poor shop-boy. At
an early age he began to write verses, and became editor of a Sheffield
newspaper. The troubles of the French Revolution then broke out, and fired
the extreme Radical spirit of the poetical editor. His writings attracted the
attention of the Government, and he was sent to prison, where he wrote
several poems—Ode to the Evening Star, Pleasures of Imprisonment, and
Verses to a Robin Redbreast.
As late as the middle of the seventeenth century a young unfortunate
poet, in spite of the interest of powerful friends, was hung and burnt at
Paris. This was young Pierre Petit, the author of La B—— céleste, chansons
et autres Poésies libres. His productions were certainly infamous and
scandalous, but that was no reason why the poet should have been hanged.
Moreover the poems existed only in MS.; subsequently they were published
in a Recueil de Poésies. The manner of the discovery of the poems is
curious, and serves as a warning to incautious bards. Leaving his chamber
one day, he opened the window, and unfortunately a strong gust of wind
carried several pages of MS. which were lying on his table into the street. A
priest who happened to be passing the house examined one or two of the
drifting poems, and, discovering that they were impious, denounced Petit to
the authorities. His rooms furnished a large supply of similar work, and, as
we have said, the poet paid the penalty for his rashness at the gallows.
Although the methods of later critics are less severe than their
inquisitorial predecessors, they have not been without their victims, and
books maltreated by them have sometimes "done to death" their authors.
A century ago furious invective was the fashion, and the tender mercies
of the reviewers were cruel. Poor Keats died of criticism, if Shelley's story
be true. On the appearance of Endymion the review in Blackwood told the
young poet "to go back to his gallipots," and that it was a wiser and better
thing to be a starved apothecary than a starved poet. Such vulgar abuse was
certainly not criticism. Shelley wrote that "the savage criticism on Keats'

Endymion which appeared in the Quarterly Review produced the most
violent effects on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended
in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued,
and the succeeding acknowledgments from more candid critics of the true
greatness of his powers were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly
inflicted. It may be well said, that these wretched men know not what they
do. They scatter their insults and their slanders without heed as to whether
the poisonous shafts light on a heart made callous by many blows, or one
like Keats', composed of more penetrable stuff." And then addressing the
reviewer he says: "Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly
defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall
it be your excuse that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but
used none."
Joseph Ritson, the antiquary, who, though not a poet, was a great writer
on poetry and our early English songs and ballads, complained bitterly of
the ignorant reviewers, and described himself as brought to an end in ill-
health and low spirits—certain to be insulted by a base and prostitute gang
of lurking assassins who stab in the dark, and whose poisoned daggers he
had already experienced. Ritson himself was a fairly venomous critic, and
the "Ritsonian" style has become proverbial. Nowadays authors do not
usually die of criticism, not even susceptible poets. Critics can still be
severe enough, but they are just and generous, and never descend to that
scurrilous personal abuse of authors which inflicted such severe wounds a
century ago, and sometimes caused to flow the very heart's blood of their
victims.

CHAPTER IX. DRAMA AND ROMANCE.
Sir John Yorke and Catholic Plays—Abraham Cowley—Antoine
Danchet—Claude Crébillon—Nogaret—François de Salignac Fénélon.
Of the misfortunes of dramatists and romance-writers I have little to
record, but it would not be safe to conclude that this subject always
furnished a secure field for literary activity. However, the successes of the
writers of fiction and plays in our own times might console the Muse for
any indignities which her followers have suffered in the past.
In our own country the early inventors of dramatic performances—
Mysteries, Moralities, and Interludes—lived securely, their names being
unknown. When penal laws were in force against Roman Catholics, plays
inculcating their doctrines and worship were often secretly performed in the
houses of Catholic gentry. The anonymous author was indeed safe, but Sir
John Yorke and his lady were fined one thousand pounds apiece and
imprisoned in the Tower on account of a play performed in their house at
Christmas, 1614, containing "many foul passages to the vilifying of our
religion and exacting of popery."
Abraham Cowley was driven into retirement by his unfortunate play
Cutter of Coleman Street, which was an improved edition of his unfinished
comedy entitled The Guardian, acted at Cambridge before the Court at the
beginning of the Civil War. After the Restoration he produced the revised
version under the name of Cutter of Coleman Street, the principal character
being a merry person who bore that cognomen. Some of the aspirants to
royal favour persuaded the King that the play was a satire directed against
him and his Court, and the poor poet, condemned by the enemies of the
Muses, calumniated and deprived of all hopes of preferment, retired in
disgust to a country retreat among the hills of Surrey. The disfavour of the
Court was also increased by his Ode to Brutus, wherein he had extolled the
genius of his hero, and praised liberty in language too enthusiastic for the
Court of Charles II. The spirit of melancholy claimed Cowley for her own.
Disappointment and disgust clouded his heart; ill-health followed, and soon
the poor poet breathed his last. As is not unusual, the learned and the great

mourned over and praised the dead poet whom when alive they had so
cruelly neglected.
Antoine Danchet was one of the most famous of French dramatic writers,
although his poetry was not of a very high order and lacked energy and
colour. He was born at Riom, in Auvergne, in 1671; he distinguished
himself at the college of the Oratorian fathers, and soon came to Paris to
become a teacher of youths and to finish his studies at the Jesuit College. At
a very early age he manifested a great love of poetry, and when he used to
recite the whole of Horace he was rewarded by a wealthy patron with a
present of thirty louis d'ors. He bore so noble a character and had such a
reputation for learning that a certain noble lady on her death-bed entrusted
him with the charge of her two sons, giving him a pension of two hundred
livres, on the condition that he should never leave them. Soon after her
death he was ordered to write some verses for a ballet produced at Court;
this led him to acquire a taste for the theatre, and he produced in 1700 an
opera entitled Hésione, which met with a great success. The relations of his
pupils were aroused. It was scandalous that a teacher of youths should write
plays. All the arguments that superstition could suggest were used against
him. He must relinquish his charge; he must refund the pension which he
had received from the mistaken mother. But Danchet saw no reason why he
should conform to their demands, and refused to relinquish his charge. They
urged him still more vehemently, but met with the same response. They at
length refused to pay him the pension, and withdrew his pupils from his
care. A troublesome law-suit followed, but at length the poet emerged
triumphant from the troubles in which his love of the drama had involved
him. He produced also the tragedies of Cyrus, Tyndarides, Héraclides, and
Nitétis, but these did not meet with the success of his earlier work. He was a
devoted son to his mother, depriving himself of even the necessaries of life
in order to support her. He showed himself a kind and generous friend to
all, and always took a keen interest in young men. One of these brought him
an elegy written to his mistress and bewailing her misfortunes. The verses
began with Maison qui renfermes l'objet de mon amour. "Is not that word
maison rather feeble?" observed Danchet; "would not palais, beau lieu ... be
better?" "Yes," replied the poet, "but it is a maison de force, a prison!" A
complete edition of his works was published after his death in 1751.
The younger Crébillon (Claude Prosper Jolyot) was confined in the
Bastille on account of his satirical romance Tanzai et Néadarné (1734, 2

vols., in-12). His father, Prosper Crébillon, was a very famous French
dramatic poet, and discarded the profession of the law for the sake of the
Muses. Idomeneus, Atreus Electra, Rhadamistus, and the Triumvirate were
some of his works. The son possessed much of his father's genius, and his
wit and gaiety rendered him a pleasant companion. At one time he was a
great favourite amongst the élite of Parisian society. But his satirical and
licentious romances brought him into trouble, and the above-mentioned
work conducted him to the Bastille, wherein so many authors have been
incarcerated. He died in 1777.
The name is not known of a young man who came to Paris with a
marvellous play which he felt sure would electrify the world and cover its
author with glory. Unhappily, he met with a cold reception by a stern critic,
who, with merciless severity, pointed out the glaring errors in his beloved
work. The poor author, overcome with vexation, returned home with a
broken heart, burnt his tragedy, and died of grief.
M. Nogaret is not the only author who has been unfortunate in the
selection of a subject for a romance. He wrote a book entitled La
Capucinade (1765), and the heroes of his story are the Capuchin monks,
whom he treated somewhat severely. This work and his Mémoires de
Bachaumont conducted the author to the Bastille.
Few are ignorant of that most charming, graceful, and immortal work
Télémache. Not only has it been studied and admired by every Frenchman,
but it has been translated into German, English, Spanish, Flemish, and
Italian. But in spite of the great popularity which the work has enjoyed,
perhaps few are acquainted with the troubles which this poetic drama and
romance brought upon its honoured author. François de Salignac de la
Mothe Fénélon, born in the castle of his ancestors at Fénélon in 1651, was a
man of rare piety, virtue, and learning, who deservedly attained to the
highest ecclesiastical honours, and was consecrated Archbishop of
Cambray. He had previously been appointed by Louis XIV. tutor to the
Dauphin, and his wit and grace made him a great favourite at the Court, and
even Madame de Maintenon for a time smiled upon the noble churchman,
whose face was so remarkable for its expressiveness that, according to the
Court chronicler Saint Simon, "it required an effort to cease looking at
him." His Fables and Dialogues of the Dead were written for his royal
pupil. It is well known that the Archbishop sympathised strongly with

Madame Guyon and the French mystics, that he did not approve of some of
the extravagant expressions of that ardent enthusiast, but vindicated the
pure mysticism in his famous work Maximes des Saints. This work involved
him in controversy with Bossuet, and through the influence of Louis XIV. a
bull was wrung from Pope Innocent XII. condemning the book, and
declaring that twenty-three propositions extracted from it were "rash,
scandalous, and offensive to pious ears, pernicious and erroneous." The
Pope was very reluctant to pass this sentence of condemnation, and was
induced to do so through fear of Louis, and not because he considered the
book to be false. With his usual gentleness, Fénélon accepted the sentence
without a word of protest; he read the brief in his own cathedral, declaring
that the decision of his superiors was to him an echo of the Divine Will.
Fénélon had aroused the hatred of Madame de Maintenon by opposing her
marriage with the King, which took place privately in 1685, and she did not
allow any opportunity to escape of injuring and persecuting the Archbishop.
At this juncture, through the treachery of a servant, Télémache was
published. At first it was received with high favour at Court. It inculcated
the truth that virtue is the glory of princes and the happiness of nations, and
while describing the adventures of the son of Ulysses its author strove to
establish the true system of state-craft, and his work is imbued with a sense
of beauty and refinement which renders it a most pleasurable book to read.
But Madame de Maintenon was grievously offended by its success, and by
the praise which even Louis bestowed upon it. She easily persuaded him
that the work was a carefully executed satire directed against the ministers
of the Court, and that even the King himself was not spared. Malignant
tongues asserted that Madame de Montespan, the King's former mistress,
might be recognised under the guise of Calypso, Mademoiselle de
Fontanges in Eucharis, the Duchess of Bourgogne in Antiope, Louvois in
Prothésilas, King James in Idoménée, and Louis himself in Sésostris. This
aroused that monarch's indignation. Fénélon was banished from Court, and
retired to Cambray, where he spent the remaining years of his life, honoured
by all, and beloved by his many friends. Strangers came to listen to his
words of piety and wisdom. He performed his episcopal duties with a care
and diligence worthy of the earliest and purest ages of the Church, and in
this quiet seclusion contented himself in doing good to his fellow-creatures,
in spite of the opposition of the King, the censures of the Pope, and the
vehement attacks of his controversial foes Bossuet and the Jansenists. In

addition to his fatal book he wrote Démonstration de l'existence de Dieu,
Réfutation du Système de Malebranche, and several other works.
The Jansenist Abbé Barral, in his Dictionnaire Historique, Littéraire, et
Critique, des Hommes Célèbres, thus speaks of our author and his work:
"He composed for the instruction of the Dukes of Burgundy, Anjou, and
Berri several works; amongst others, the Telemachus—a singular book,
which partakes at once of the character of a romance and of a poem, and
which substitutes a prosaic cadence for versification. But several luscious
pictures would not lead us to suspect that this book issued from the pen of a
sacred minister for the education of a prince; and what we are told by a
famous poet is not improbable, that Fénélon did not compose it at Court,
but that it is the fruits of his retreat in his diocese. And indeed the amours of
Calypso and Eucharis should not be the first lessons that a minister ought to
give to his scholars; and, besides, the fine moral maxims which the author
attributes to the Pagan divinities are not well placed in their mouth. Is not
this rendering homage to the demons of the great truths which we receive
from the Gospel, and to despoil Jesus Christ to render respectable the
annihilated gods of paganism? This prelate was a wretched divine, more
familiar with the light of profane authors, than with that of the fathers of the
Church." The Jansenists were most worthy men, but in their opinion of their
adversary Fénélon they were doubtless mistaken.

CHAPTER X. BOOKSELLERS AND
PUBLISHERS.
The Printers of Nicholas de Lyra and Caesar Baronius—John Fust—
Richard Grafton—Jacob van Liesvelt—John Lufftius—Robert Stephens
(Estienne)—Henry Stephens—Simon Ockley—Floyer Sydenham—
Edmund Castell—Page—John Lilburne—Etienne Dolet—John Morin—
Christian Wechel—Andrew Wechel—Jacques Froullé—Godonesche—
William Anderton.
Authors have not been the only beings who have suffered by their
writings, but frequently they have involved the printers and sellers of their
works in their unfortunate ruin. The risks which adventurous publishers run
in our own enlightened age are not so great as those incurred a few
centuries ago. Indeed Mr. Walter Besant assures us that now our publishers
have no risks, not even financial! They are not required to produce the huge
folios and heavy quartos which our ancestors delighted in, and poured forth
with such amazing rapidity, unless there is a good subscribers' list and all
the copies are taken.
The misfortunes of booksellers caused by voluminous authors might
form a special subject of inquiry, and we commend it to the attentions of
some other Book-lover. We should hear the groans of two eminent printers
who were ruined by the amazing industry of one author, Nicholas de Lyra.
He himself died long before printing was invented, in the year 1340, but he
left behind him his great work, Biblia sacra cum interpretationibus et
postillis, which became the source of trouble to the printers, Schweynheym
and Pannartz, of Subiaco and Rome. They were persuaded or ordered by the
Pope or his cardinals to print his prodigious commentary on the Bible;
when a few volumes had been printed they desired most earnestly to be
relieved of their burden, and petitioned the Pope to be saved from the
bankruptcy which this mighty undertaking entailed. They possessed a
lasting memento of this author in the shape of eleven hundred ponderous
tomes, which were destined to remain upon their shelves till fire or moths

or other enemies of books had done their work. These volumes began to be
printed in 1471, and contain the earliest specimens of Greek type.
The printers of the works of Prynne, Barthius, Reynaud, and other
voluminous writers must have had a sorry experience with their authors; but
"once bitten twice shy." Hence some of these worthies found it rather
difficult to publish their works, and there were no authors' agents or
Societies of Authors to aid their negotiations. Indeed we are told that a
printer who was saddled with a large number of unsaleable copies of a
heavy piece of literary production adopted the novel expedient of bringing
out several editions of the work! This he accomplished by merely adding a
new title-page to his old copies, whereby he readily deceived the unwary.
Catherino, in his book entitled L'Art d'Imprimer, quotes the saying of De
Fourcey, a Jesuit of Paris, that "one might make a pretty large volume of the
catalogue of those who have entirely ruined their booksellers by their
books."
But the booksellers and printers whose hard fate I wish principally to
record are those who shared with the authors the penalties inflicted on
account of their condemned books. Unhappily there have been many such
whose fate has been recorded, and probably there are many more who have
suffered in obscurity the terrible punishments which the stern censors of
former days knew so well how to inflict.
One of the reputed discoverers of the art of printing, John Fust, is said to
have been persecuted; he was accused at Paris of multiplying the Scriptures
by the aid of the Devil, and was compelled to seek safety in flight.
The booksellers of the historian Caesar Baronius, [Footnote: Cf. page
97.] whose account of the Spanish rule in Sicily so enraged Philip III. of
Spain, were condemned to perpetual servitude, and were forced to endure
the terrible tortures inflicted on galley slaves.
The early printers of the Bible incurred great risks. Richard Grafton and
Edward Whitchurch, together with Miles Coverdale, were entrusted to
arrange for the printing of Thomas Mathew's translation. The work was
given to the printers in Paris, as the English printers were not very highly
esteemed. The book was nearly completed when the Inquisition effectually
stopped the further progress of the work by seizing the sheets, and Grafton
with his companions were forced to fly. Then Francis Regnault, whose
brother's colophon is the admiration of all bibliophiles, undertook the

printing of the New Testament, made by Miles Coverdale, which was
finished at Paris in 1538. Richard Grafton and Whitchurch contrived to
obtain their types from Paris, and the Bible was completed in 1539. Thus
they became printers themselves, and as a reward for his labour, when the
Roman Catholics again became rulers in high places, Richard Grafton was
imprisoned. His printer's mark was a graft, or young tree, growing out of a
tun.
The title of the Bible which was begun in Paris and finished in London is
as follows:—

The Byble in Englyshe. 1539. Folio.

"The Byble in Englyshe, that is to saye the content of all the Holy
Scrypture, bothe of the Olde, and Newe Testament, truly translated
after the veryte of the Hebrue and Greke textes, by the dylygent
studye of dyuerse excellent learned men, expert in the forsayde
tongues. Printed by Rychard Grafton and Edward Whitchurche. Cum
priuilegio—solum. 1539."

This Grafton was also a voluminous author, and wrote part of Hall's
Chronicles, an abridgment of the Chronicles of England, and a manual of
the same.
Whether by accident or intention, a printer of the Bible in the reign of
Charles I. omitted the important negative in the Seventh Commandment. He
was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court, and fined
three thousand pounds. The story is also told of the widow of a German
printer who strongly objected to the supremacy of husbands, and desired to
revise the text of the passage in the Sacred Scriptures which speaks of the
subjection of wives (Genesis iii. 16). The original text is "He shall be thy
lord." For Herr (lord) in the German version she substituted Narr, and made
the reading, "He shall be thy fool." It is said that she paid the penalty of
death for this strange assertion of "woman's rights."
We must not omit the name of another martyr amongst the honourable
rank of printers of the Scriptures, Jacob van Liesvelt, who was beheaded on
account of his edition of the Bible, entitled Bible en langue hollandaise
(Antwerpen, 1542, in-fol.).
John Lufftius, a bookseller and printer of Würtemburg, incurred many
perils when he printed Luther's German edition of the Sacred Scriptures. It
is said that the Pope used to write Lufftius' name on paper once every year,
and cast it into the fire, uttering terrible imprecations and dire threatenings.

But the thunders of Roman pontiffs did not trouble the worthy bookseller,
who laughed at their threats, and exclaimed, "I perspired so freely at Rome
in the flame, that I must take a larger draught, as it is necessary to
extinguish that flame."
The same fatality befell Robert Stephanus, the Parisian printer. His
family name was Estienne, but, according to the fashion of the time, he
used the Latin form of the word. He edited and published a version of the
Sacred Scriptures, showing the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin texts, and adding
certain notes which were founded upon the writings of François Vatable,
Abbot of Bellozane, but also contained some of the scholarly reflections of
the learned bookseller. On the title-page the name of the Abbot appears
first, before that of Stephanus. But considerable hostility was raised against
him by this and other works on the part of the doctors of the Sorbonne. He
was compelled to seek safety in flight, and found a secure resting-place in
Geneva. His enemies were obliged to content themselves with burning his
effigy. This troubled Stephanus quite as little as the Papal censures
distressed Lufftius. At the time when his effigy was being burnt, the
Parisian printer was in the snowy mountains of the Auvergne, and declared
that he never felt so cold in his life.
The printers seem ever to have been on the side of the Protestants. In
Germany they produced all the works of the Reformation authors with great
accuracy and skill, and often at their own expense; whereas the Roman
Catholics could only get their books printed at great cost, and even then the
printing was done carelessly and in a slovenly manner, so as to seem the
production of illiterate men. And if any printer, more conscientious than the
rest, did them more justice, he was jeered at in the market-places and at the
fairs of Frankfort for a Papist and a slave of the priests.
This Robert Stephanus (Estienne or Stephens, as the name is usually
called) was a member of one of the most illustrious families of learned
printers the world has ever seen. The founder of the family was Henry
Stephens, born at Paris in 1470, and the last of the race died there in 1674.
Thus for nearly two centuries did they confer the greatest advantages on
literature, which they enriched quite as much by their learning as by their
skill. Their biographies have frequently been written; so there is no
occasion to record them. This Robert Stephens, who was exiled on account
of his books, was one of the most illustrious scholars of his age. He printed,

edited, and published an immense number of works in Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin, amongst others the Biblia Latina (1528), Latinae linguae Thesaurus
(1531), Dictionarium latino-gallicum (1543), Ecclesiastica Historia
Eusebii, Socrates, Theodoreti (1544), Biblia Hebraica (1544 and 1546), and
many others. In the Bible of 1555 he introduced the divisions of chapter and
verse, which are still used. With regard to the accuracy of his proofs we are
told that he was so careful as to hang them up in some place of public
resort, and to invite the corrections of the learned scholars who collected
there. At Geneva his printing-press continued to pour forth a large number
of learned works, and after his death, one of his sons, named Charles,
carried on the business.
Another son of Robert Stephens, named Henry, was one of those scholars
who have ruined themselves by their love of literature, devoting their lives
and their fortunes to the production of volumes on some special branch of
study in which only a few learned readers are interested. Hence, while they
earn the gratitude of scholars and enrich the world of literature by their
knowledge, the sale of their books is limited, and they fail to enrich
themselves. The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae cost poor Henry Stephens ten
years of labour and nearly all his fortune. This is a very valuable work, and
has proved of immense service to subsequent generations of scholars. A
second edition was published in London in 1815 in seven folio volumes,
and recently another edition has appeared in Paris.
One of his works aroused the indignation of the Parisian authorities. It
was entitled Introduction au Traité des Merveilles anciennes avec les
modernes, ou Traité préparatif à l'Apologie pour Hérodote, par Henri
Estienne (1566, in-8). This work was supposed to contain insidious attacks
upon the monks and priests and Roman Catholic faith, comparing the fables
of Herodotus with the teaching of Catholicism, and holding up the latter to
ridicule. At any rate, the book was condemned and its author burnt in effigy.
M. Peignot asserts in his Dictionnaire Critique, Littéraire, et
Bibliographique that it was this Henry Stephens who uttered the bon mot
with regard to his never feeling so cold as when his effigy was being burnt
and he himself was in the snowy mountains of the Auvergne. Other
authorities attribute the saying to his father, as we have already narrated.
Noble martyrs Literature has had, men who have sacrificed ease,
comfort, and every earthly advantage for her sake, and who have shared

with Henry Stephens the direst straits of poverty brought about by the
ardour of their love. Such an one was a learned divine, Simon Ockley, Vicar
of Swavesey in 1705, and Professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1711, who
devoted his life to Asiatic researches. This study did not prove
remunerative; having been seized for debt, he was confined in Cambridge
Castle, and there finished his great work, The History of the Saracens. His
martyrdom was lifelong, as he died in destitution, having always (to use his
own words) given the possession of wisdom the preference to that of riches.
Floyer Sydenham, who died in a debtors' prison in 1788, and incurred his
hard fate through devoting his life to a translation of the Dialogues of Plato,
was another martyr; from whose ashes arose the Royal Literary Fund,
which has prevented many struggling authors from sharing his fate.
Seventeen long years of labour, besides a handsome fortune, did Edmund
Castell spend on his Lexicon Heptaglotton; but a thankless and ungrateful
public refused to relieve him of the copies of this learned work, which
ruined his health while it dissipated his fortune. These are only a few names
which might be mentioned out of the many. What a noble army of martyrs
Literature could boast, if a roll-call were sounded!
Amongst our booksellers we must not omit the name of Page, who
suffered with John Stubbs in the market-place at Westminster on account of
the latter's work entitled The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto
England is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord
forbid not the banes by letting her Majestie see the sin and punishment
thereof (1579). Both author and publisher were condemned to the barbarous
penalty of having their right hands cut off, as we have already recorded.
[Footnote: Cf. page 129.]
"Sturdy John," as the people called John Lilburne of Commonwealth
fame, was another purveyor of books who suffered severely at the hands of
both Royalists and Roundheads. At the early age of eighteen he began the
circulation of the books of Prynne and Bastwick, and for this enormity he
was whipped from the Fleet to Westminster, set in the pillory, gagged, fined,
and imprisoned. At a later stage in his career we find him imprisoned in the
Tower by Cromwell, for his Just Reproof to Haberdashers' Hall, and fined
£1,000; and his bitter attack on the Protector, entitled England's New
Chains Discovered, caused him to pay another visit to the Tower and to be
tried for high treason, of which he was subsequently acquitted. To assail the
"powers that be" seemed ever to be the constant occupation of "Sturdy

John" Lilburne. From the above example, and from many others which
might be mentioned, it is quite evident that Roundheads, when they held the
power, could be quite as severe critics of publications obnoxious to them as
the Royalists, and troublesome authors fared little better under Puritan
regime than they did under the Stuart monarchs.
Another learned French printer was Etienne Dolet, who was burned to
death at Paris on account of his books in 1546. He lived and worked at
Lyons, and, after the manner of the Stephens, published many of his own
writings as well as those of other learned men. He applied his energies to
reform the Latin style, and in addition to his theological and linguistical
works cultivated the art of poetry. Bayle says that his Latin and French
verses "are not amiss." In the opinion of Gruterus they are worthy of a place
in the Deliciae Poetarum Gallorum; but the impassioned and scurrilous
Scaliger, who hated Dolet, declares that "Dolet may be called the Muse's
Canker, or Imposthume; he wildly affects to be absolute in Poetry without
the least pretence to wit, and endeavours to make his own base copper pass
by mixing with it Virgil's gold. A driveller, who with some scraps of Cicero
has tagged together something, which he calls Orations, but which men of
learning rather judge to be Latrations. Whilst he sung the fate of that great
and good King Francis, his name found its own evil fate, and the Atheist
suffered the punishment of the flames, which both he and his verses so
richly merited. But the flames could not purify him, but were by him rather
made impure. Why should I mention his Epigrams, which are but a
common sink or shore of dull, cold, unmeaning trash, full of that
thoughtless arrogance that braves the Almighty, and that denies His Being?"
The conclusion of this scathing criticism is hardly meet for polite ears. A
private wrong had made the censorious Scaliger more bitter than usual. In
spite of the protection of Castellan, a learned prelate, Dolet at length
suffered in the flames, but whether the charge of Atheism was well
grounded has never been clearly ascertained.
Certainly the pious prayer which he uttered, when the faggots were piled
around him, would seem to exonerate him from such a charge: "My God,
whom I have so often offended, be merciful to me; and I beseech you, O
Virgin Mother, and you, divine Stephen, to intercede with God for me a
sinner." The Parliament of Paris condemned his works as containing
"damnable, pernicious, and heretical doctrines." The Faculty of Theology
censured very severely Dolet's translation of one of the Dialogues of Plato,

entitled Axiochus, and especially the passage "Après la mort, tu ne seras
rien," which Dolet rendered, "Après la mort, tu ne seras plus rien du tout."
The additional words were supposed to convict Dolet of heresy. He
certainly disliked the monks, as the following epigram plainly declares:—
Ad Nicolaum Fabricium Valesium De cucullatis.

"Incurvicervicum cucullatorum habet
Grex id subinde in ore, se esse mortuum
Mundo: tamen edit eximie pecus, bibit
Non pessime, stertit sepultum crapula,
Operam veneri dat, et voluptatum assecla
Est omnium. Idne est mortuum esse mundo?
Aliter interpretare. Mortui sunt Hercule
Mundo cucullati, quod inors tense sunt onus,
Ad rem utiles nullam, nisi ad scelus et vitium."

Amongst the works published and written by Dolet may be mentioned:—

Summaire des faits et gestes de François I., tant contre l'Empereur
que ses sujets, et autres nations étrangères, composés d'abord en
latin par Dolet, puis translatés en français par lui-même. Lyon,
Etienne Dolet, 1540, in-4.

Stephani Doleti Carminum, Libri IV. Lugduni, 1538, in-4.

Brief Discours de la république françoyse, désirant la lecture des
livres de l'Ecriture saincte luy estre loisable en sa langue vulgaire.
Etienne Dolet, 1544, in-16.

La fontaine de vie, in-16.

Several translations into French of the writings of Erasmus and
Melanchthon may also be remembered, and the Geneva Bible, which was
printed by Dolet.
One of the few remaining copies of Cymbalum mundi, en français,
contenant quatre Dialogues poétiques, antiques, joyeux, et facétieux, par
Thomas Duclevier (Bonaventure Despériers, Valet de chambre de la Reyne
de Navarre) (Paris, Jehan Morin, 1537, in-8) reveals the fact that the printer,
Jean Morin, was imprisoned on account of this work. Therein it is recorded
that he presented the copy to the Chancellor with the request that he might
be released from prison, where he had been placed on account of this work.
The reasons given for its condemnation are various. Some state that the
author, a friend of Clement Marot, intended to preach by the use of
allegories the Reformed religion. Others say that it was directed against the
manners and conduct of some members of the Court. Whether Morin's

request was granted I know not, nor whether Despériers shared his
imprisonment. At any rate, the author died in 1544 from an attack of frenzy.
Another famous printer at Paris in the sixteenth century was Christian
Wechel, who published a large number of works. He was persecuted for
publishing a book of Erasmus entitled De esu interdicto carnium, and some
declare that he fell into grievous poverty, being cursed by God for printing
an impious book. Thus one writer says that "in the year 1530 arose this
abortive child of hell, who wrote a book against the Divine Justice in favour
of infants dying without baptism, and several have wisely observed that the
ruin of Christian Wechel and his labours fell out as a punishment for his
presses and characters being employed in such an infamous work."
However, there is reason to believe that the book was not so "impious,"
expressing only the pious hope that the souls of such infants might not be
lost, and also that no great "curse" fell upon the printer, and that his poverty
was apocryphal. At any rate, his son Andrew was a very flourishing printer;
but he too was persecuted for his religious opinions, and narrowly escaped
destruction in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. He ran in great danger on
that eventful night, and states that he would have been slaughtered but for
the kindness of Hubert Languet, who lodged in his house. Andrew Wechel
fled to Frankfort, where he continued to ply his trade in safety; and when
more favourable times came re-established his presses at Paris. He had the
reputation of being one of the most able printers and booksellers of his
time.
The Revolutionary period in France was not a safe time for either authors
or booksellers. Jacques Froullé was condemned to death in 1793 for
publishing the lists of names of those who passed sentence on their King,
Louis XVI., and doomed him to death. This work was entitled Liste
comparative des cinq appels nominaux sur le procès et jugement de Louis
XVI., avec les déclarations que les Députes ont faites à chacune des
séances (Paris, Froullé, 1793, in-8). He gives the names of the deputies who
voted on each of the five appeals, until at length the terrible sentence was
pronounced, 310 voting for the reprieve and 380 for the execution of their
monarch. The deputies were so ashamed of their work that they doomed the
recorder of their infamous deed to share the punishment of their sovereign.
We have few instances of the illustrators of books sharing the
misfortunes of authors and publishers, but we have met with one such

example. Nicolas Godonesche made the engravings for a work by Jean
Laurent Boursier, a doctor of the Sorbonne, entitled Explication abrégée
des principales questions qui ont rapport aux affaires présentes (1731, in-
12), and found that work fatal to him. This book was one of many published
by Boursier concerning the unhappy contentions which for a long time
agitated the Church of France. Godonesche, who engraved pictures for the
work, was sent to the Bastille, and the author banished.
In all ages complaints are heard of the prolific writers who have been
seized by the scribbling demon, and made to pour forth page after page
which the public decline to read, and bring grief to the publishers.
Pasquier's Letters contains the following passage, which applies perhaps
quite as forcibly to the present age as to his own time: "I cannot forbear
complaining at this time of the calamity of this age which has produced
such a plenty of reputed or untimely authors. Any pitiful scribbler will have
his first thoughts to come to light; lest, being too long shut up, they should
grow musty. Good God! how apposite are these verses of Jodelle:—

"'Et tant ceux d'aujourd'huy me fashent,
Qui dès lors que leurs plumes laschent
Quelque-trait soit mauvais ou bon,
En lumière le vont produire,
Pour souvent avec leur renom,
Les pauvres Imprimeurs destruire.'"

This has been translated as follows:—

"The scribbling crew would make one's vitals bleed,
They write such trash, no mortal e'er will read;
Yet they will publish, they must have a name;
So Printers starve, to get their authors fame."

One would be curious to see the form of agreement between such prolific
authors and their deluded publishers, and to learn by what arts, other than
magical, the former ever induced the latter to undertake the publication of
such fatal books.
The story of the establishment of the liberty of the Press in England is
full of interest, and tells the history of several books which involved their
authors and publishers in many difficulties. The censors of books did not
always occupy an enviable post, and were the objects of many attacks.
"Catalogue" Fraser lost his office for daring to license Walker's book on the
Eikon Basilike, which asserted that Gauden and not Charles I. was the

author. His successor Bohun was deprived of his orffice as licenser and sent
to prison for allowing a pamphlet to be printed entitled King William and
Queen Mary, Conquerors. The Jacobite printers suffered severely when
they were caught, which was not very frequent. In obscure lanes and garrets
they plied their secret trade, and deluged the land with seditious books and
papers. One William Anderton was tracked to a house near St. James's
Street, where he was known as a jeweller. Behind the bed in his room was
discovered a door which led to a dark closet, and there were the types and a
press, and heaps of Jacobite literature. Anderton was found guilty of
treason, and paid the penalty of death for his crime. In 1695 the Press was
emancipated from its thraldom, and the office of licenser ceased to exist.
Henceforward popular judgment and the general good sense and right
feeling of the community constituted the only licensing authority of the
Press of England. Occasionally, when a publisher or author makes too free
with the good name of an English citizen, the restraint of a prison cell is
imposed upon the audacious libeller. Sometimes when a book offends
against the public morals, and contains the outpourings of a voluptuous
imagination, its author is condemned to lament in confinement over his
indecorous pages. The world knows that Vizetelly, the publisher, was
imprisoned for translating and publishing some of Zola's novels. Nana and
L'Assommoir were indeed fatal books to him, as his imprisonment and the
anxiety caused by the prosecution are said to have hastened his death. The
right feeling and sound sense of the nation has guided the Press of this
country into safe channels, and few books are fatal now on account of their
unseemly contents or immoral tendencies.

CHAPTER XI. SOME LITERARY MARTYRS.
Leland—Strutt—Cotgrave—Henry Wharton—Robert Heron—Collins—
William Cole—Homeric victims—Joshua Barnes—An example of
unrequited toil—Borgarutius—Pays.
We have still a list far too long of literary martyrs whose works have
proved fatal to them, and yet whose names have not appeared in the
foregoing chapters. These are they who have sacrificed their lives, their
health and fortunes, for the sake of their works, and who had no sympathy
with the saying of a professional hack writer, "Till fame appears to be worth
more than money, I shall always prefer money to fame." For the labours of
their lives they have received no compensation at all. Health, eyesight, and
even life itself have been devoted to the service of mankind, who have
shown themselves somewhat ungrateful recipients of their bounty.
Some of the more illustrious scholars indeed enjoy a posthumous fame,
—their names are still honoured; their works are still read and studied by
the learned,—but what countless multitudes are those who have sacrificed
their all, and yet slumber in nameless graves, the ocean of oblivion having
long since washed out the footprints they hoped to leave upon the shifting
sands of Time! Of these we have no record; let us enumerate a few of the
scholars of an elder age whose books proved fatal to them, and whose
sorrows and early deaths were brought on by their devotion to literature.
What antiquary has not been grateful to Leland, the father of English
archaeology! He possessed that ardent love for the records of the past which
must inspire the heart and the pen of every true antiquary; that accurate
learning and indefatigable spirit of research without which the historian,
however zealous, must inevitably err; and that sturdy patriotism which led
him to prefer the study of the past glories of his own to those of any other
people or land. His Cygnea Cantio will live as long as the silvery Thames,
whose glories he loved to sing, pursues its beauteous way through the
loveliest vales of England. While his royal patron, Henry VIII., lived, all
went well; after the death of that monarch his anxieties and troubles began.
His pension became smaller, and at length ceased. No one seemed to
appreciate his toil. He became melancholy and morose, and the effect of

nightly vigils and years of toil began to tell upon his constitution. At length
his mind gave way, ere yet the middle stage of life was passed; and
although many other famous antiquaries have followed his steps and
profited by his writings and his example, English scholars will ever mourn
the sad and painful end of unhappy Leland.
Another antiquary was scarcely more fortunate. Strutt, the author of
English Sports and Pastimes, whose works every student of the manners
and customs of our forefathers has read and delighted in, passed his days in
poverty and obscurity, and often received no recompense for the works
which are now so valuable. At least he had his early wish gratified,—"I will
strive to leave my name behind me in the world, if not in the splendour that
some have, at least with some marks of assiduity and study which shall
never be wanting in me."
Randle Cotgrave, the compiler of one of the most valuable dictionaries of
early English words, lost his eyesight through laboriously studying ancient
MSS. in his pursuit of knowledge. The sixteen volumes of MS. preserved in
the Lambeth Library of English literature killed their author, Henry
Wharton, before he reached his thirtieth year. By the indiscreet exertion of
his mind, in protracted and incessant literary labours, poor Robert Heron
destroyed his health, and after years of toil spent in producing volumes so
numerous and so varied as to stagger one to contemplate, ended his days in
Newgate. In his pathetic appeal for help to the Literary Fund, wherein he
enumerates the labours of his life, he wrote, "I shudder at the thought of
perishing in gaol." And yet that was the fate of Heron, a man of amazing
industry and vast learning and ability, a martyr to literature.
He has unhappily many companions, whose names appear upon that
mournful roll of luckless authors. There is the unfortunate poet Collins, who
was driven insane by the disappointment attending his unremunerative toil,
and the want of public appreciation of his verses. William Cole, the writer
of fifty volumes in MS. of the Athenae Cantabrigienses, founded upon the
same principle as the Athenae Oxonienses of Anthony Wood, lived to see
his hopes of fame die, and yet to feel that he could not abandon his self-
imposed task, as that would be death to him. Homer, too, has had some
victims; and if he has suffered from translation, he has revenged himself on
his translators. A learned writer, Joshua Barnes, Professor of Greek at
Cambridge, devoted his whole energy to the task, and ended his days in

abject poverty, disgusted with the scanty rewards his great industry and
scholarship had attained. A more humble translator, a chemist of Reading,
published an English version of the Iliad. The fascination of the work drew
him away from his business, and caused his ruin. A clergyman died a few
years ago who had devoted many years to a learned Biblical Commentary;
it was the work of his life, and contained the results of much original
research. After his death his effects were sold, and with them the precious
MS., the result of so many hours of patient labour; this MS. realised three
shillings and sixpence!
Fatal indeed have their works and love of literature proved to be to many
a luckless author. No wonder that many of them have vowed, like
Borgarutius, that they would write no more nor spend their life-blood for
the sake of so fickle a mistress, or so thankless a public. This author was so
troubled by the difficulties he encountered in printing his book on Anatomy,
that he made the rash vow that he would never publish anything more; but,
like many other authors, he broke his word. Poets are especially liable to
this change of intention, as La Fontaine observes:—

"O! combien l'homme est inconstant, divers,
Foible, léger, tenant mal sa parole,
J'avois juré, même en assez beaux vers,
De renouncer à tout Conte frivole.
Depuis deux jours j'ai fait cette promesse
Puis fiez-vous à Rimeur qui répond
D'un seul moment. Dieu ne fit la sagesse
Pour les cerveaux qui hantent les neuf Soeurs."

In these days of omnivorous readers, the position of authors has
decidedly improved. We no longer see the half-starved poets bartering their
sonnets for a meal; learned scholars pining in Newgate; nor is "half the pay
of a scavenger" [Footnote: A remark of Granger—vide Calamities of
Authors, p. 85.] considered sufficient remuneration for recondite treatises. It
has been the fashion of authors of all ages to complain bitterly of their own
times. Bayle calls it an epidemical disease in the republic of letters, and
poets seem especially liable to this complaint. Usually those who are most
favoured by fortune bewail their fate with vehemence; while poor and
unfortunate authors write cheerfully. To judge from his writings one would
imagine that Balzac pined in poverty; whereas he was living in the greatest
luxury, surrounded by friends who enjoyed his hospitality. Oftentimes this
language of complaint is a sign of the ingratitude of authors towards their

age, rather than a testimony of the ingratitude of the age towards authors.
Thus did the French poet Pays abuse his fate: "I was born under a certain
star, whose malignity cannot be overcome; and I am so persuaded of the
power of this malevolent star, that I accuse it of all misfortunes, and I never
lay the fault upon anybody." He has courted Fortune in vain. She will have
nought to do with his addresses, and it would be just as foolish to afflict
oneself because of an eclipse of the sun or moon, as to be grieved on
account of the changes which Fortune is pleased to cause. Many other
writers speak in the same fretful strain. There is now work in the vast field
of literature for all who have the taste, ability, and requisite knowledge; and
few authors now find their books fatal to them—except perhaps to their
reputation, when they deserve the critics' censures. The writers of novels
certainly have no cause to complain of the unkindness of the public and
their lack of appreciation, and the vast numbers of novels which are
produced every year would have certainly astonished the readers of thirty or
forty years ago.
For the production of learned works which appeal only to a few scholars,
modern authors have the aid of the Clarendon Press and other institutions
which are subsidised by the Universities for the purpose of publishing such
works. But in spite of all the advantages which modern authors enjoy, the
great demand for literature of all kinds, the justice and fair dealing of
publishers, the adequate remuneration which is usually received for their
works, the favourable laws of copyright—in spite of all these and other
advantages, the lamentable woes of authors have not yet ceased. The
leaders of literature can hold their own, and prosper well; but the men who
stand in the second, third, or fourth rank in the great literary army, have still
cause to bewail the unkindness of the blind goddess who contrives to see
sufficiently to avoid all their approaches to her.
For these brave, but often disheartened, toilers that noble institution, the
Royal Literary Fund, has accomplished great things. During a period of
more than a century it has carried on its beneficent work, relieving poor
struggling authors when poverty and sickness have laid them low; and it has
proved itself to be a "nursing mother" to the wives and children of literary
martyrs who have been quite unable to provide for the wants of their
distressed families. We have already alluded to the foundation of the Royal
Literary Fund, which arose from the feelings of pity and regret excited by
the death of Floyer Sydenham in a debtors' prison. It is unnecessary to

record its history, its noble career of unobtrusive usefulness in saving from
ruin and ministering consolation to those unhappy authors who have been
wounded in the world's warfare, and who, but for the Literary Fund, would
have been left to perish on the hard battlefield of life. Since its foundation
£115,677 has been spent in 4,332 grants to distressed authors. All book-
lovers will, we doubt not, seek to help forward this noble work, and will
endeavour to prevent, as far as possible, any more distressing cases of
literary martyrdom, which have so often stained the sad pages of our
literary history.
In order to diminish the woes of authors and to help the maimed and
wounded warriors in the service of Literature, we should like to rear a large
Literary College, where those who have borne the burden and heat of the
day may rest secure from all anxieties and worldly worries when the
evening shadows of life fall around. Possibly the authorities of the Royal
Literary Fund might be able to accomplish this grand enterprise. In
imagination we seem to see a noble building like an Oxford College, or the
Charterhouse, wherein the veterans of Literature can live and work and end
their days, free from the perplexities and difficulties to which poverty and
distress have so long accustomed them. There is a Library, rich with the
choicest works. The Historian, the Poet, the Divine, the Scientist, can here
pursue their studies, and breathe forth inspired thoughts which the res
angusta domi have so long stifled. In society congenial to their tastes, far
from "the madding crowd's ignoble strife," they may succeed in
accomplishing their life's work, and their happiness would be the happiness
of the community.
If this be but a dream, it is a pleasant one. But if all book-lovers would
unite for the purpose of founding such a Literary College, it might be
possible for the dream to be realised. Then the woes of future generations of
authors might be effectually diminished, and Fatal Books have less unhappy
victims.

INDEX.
Abélard, Canon of Notre Dame.
Agrippa, Henry Cornelius, astrologer.
Alexandre, Noel, Church historian.
Anderton, William, Jacobite printer.
Aretino, Pietro, satirist.
Arlotto of Padua, historian.
Arnold of Brescia, disciple of Abélard.
Arthington, pamphleteer.

Ascoli, Cecco d', poet.
Athos, Monks of Mount, Quietists.
Audra, Joseph, historian.

Bacon, Roger, philosopher.
Balzac, pretended poverty of.
Barnes, Joshua, translator.
Baronius, Caesar, Church historian.
Barrai, L'Abbé, his opinion of Fénélon.
Barrow, pamphleteer.
Bastwick, pamphleteer, attacked Laud.
Bède, Noël, controversialist.
Bekker, Balthazar, opponent of demoniacal possession.
Berruyer, Isaac Joseph, Jesuit historian.
Beverland, Adrian, poet.
Biddle, John, Socinian and Unitarian.
Billard, Pierre, satirised Jesuits.
Boccalini, Trajan, Italian satirist.
Bogarutius, anatomist.
Bohun, censor.
Bonfadio, Jacopo, Genoese historian.
Borri, Joseph Francis, charlatan.
Boursier, Jean Laurent, controversialist.
Bruccioli, Antonio, translator.
Bruno, Jordano, philosopher and atheist.
Bruto, John Michael, Florentine historian.
Buchanan, George, poet.
Burton, attacked Laud.
Bussy, Roger Rabutin de, satirist.

Campanella, Thomas, philosopher and atheist.
Carlyle, Thomas, an example of energy.
Carpzov, Samuel Benedict, libelled Rüdiger.
Carranza, Bartholomew, Archbishop of Toledo.
Cartwright, pamphleteer.
Castell, Edmund, polyglot.
Caveirac, L'Abbé, Jesuit defender.
Cinelli, John Giovanni, satirist.
Clarke, Samuel, philosopher and theologian.
Cole, William, author of Athenae Cantabrigienses.
Collins, poet.
Coppinger, pamphleteer.
Cotgrave, Randle, lexicographer.
Cowell, Dr., supporter of absolute monarchy.
Cowley, Abraham, dramatist.
Crébillon, the younger, dramatist.

Danchet, Antoine, dramatist.
Darigrand, author of L'Anti-Financier.
Darrell, John, cleric and demonologist.
Dassy, satirist.
David, Francis, theologian.
Dee, Dr., alchemist.
Defoe, Daniel, satirical writer.
Deforges, poet.
Delaune, author of A Plea for the Nonconformists.
Diderot, Denis, collaborateur of D'Alembert.
Doleman, printer.
Dolet, Etienne, printer and author.
Dominis, Antonio de, Archbishop of Spalatro.
Dort, Synod of, some of its proceedings.

Dryander, nom-de-plume of Enzinas.
Dryander, John, brother of Enzinas.
Dupin, Louis Elias, Church historian.
Durosoi, editor.

Edzardt, Sebastian, theologian.
Enzinas, Spanish translator, 23.
Estienne, see Stephanus.

Falkemberg, John de, fanatic.
Felbinger, Jeremiah, Unitarian.
Fénélon, François de la Mothe, Archbishop of Cambrai.
Fisher, John, Bishop of Rochester, opponent of royal divorce.
Fontaine, Nicolas, collaborateur of Le Maistre.
Francus, Nicholas, poet.
Fraser, "Catalogue," censor.
Frischlin, Nicodemus, poet.
Froullé, Jacques, bookseller.
Fust, John, printer.

Gacon, François, poet and satirist.
Galileo, "father of experimental philosophy."
Génébrard, Gilbert, controversialist.
Giannone, Peter, Italian historian.
Godonesche, Nicolas, engraver.
Grafton, Richard, printer of Coverdale's Bible.
Grandier, Urban, curé of London, opponent of celibacy of clergy.
Greenwood, pamphleteer.
Grotius, historian.

Hacket, pamphleteer.
Hales, John, pamphleteer.
Harsnett, Bishop, the exposer of Darrell.
Hartley, exorcist, friend of Darrell.
Haudicquer, genealogist.
Hélot, poet.
Hemmerlin, Felix, satirist.
Heron, Robert, voluminous author.
Histriomastix.
Homeric victims.
Huss, John, reformer and martyr, his writings.

Johnson, Samuel, divine, author of Julian the Apostate.

Keats, poet, Endymion cruelly reviewed.
Kelly, Edward, necromancer, friend of Dr. Dee.
Kuhlmann, Quirinus, "Prince of Fanatics".

La Beaumelle, Laurence de, Memoirs of Madame de Maintenon.
La Grange, poet.
La Peyrère, Isaac de, ethnologist.
Le Courayer, Pierre François Canon of St. Augustine.
Leighton, Dr., author of Syon's Plea against Prelacy.
Leland, archaeologist.
Le Maistre, Louis, Jansenist and translator.
Lenoir, Jean, Canon of Séez, political writer.
Liesvelt, Jacob van, Dutch printer.
Lilburne, "Honest John," bookseller and author.
Linguet, Simon, political writer, de Lisle de Sales, philosopher.
Liszinski Cazimir, Polish atheist.
Literary College, ideal.

Literary Fund, Royal.
Lufftius, John, printer of Würtemburg.
Lyra, Nicholas de, commentator, ruins his printers.
Lyser, John, advocate of polygamy.

Maffei, Raphael, his epigram on Valla.
Maggi, Jerome, Venetian statesman.
Maintenon, Madame de, Memoirs.
Mariana, John, Spanish historian.
Marolles, L'Abbé de, translator.
Marot, Clement, poet, versifier of Psalms.
Marprelate, Martin, nom-de-plume of various Puritan authors.
Melanchthon, reformer, works published by Peucer.
Molinos, Michael, Spanish theologian.
Montague, Lord, victim of Reginald Pole's book.
Montanus, Arius, translator of Polyglot Bible.
Montgomery, James, poet.
Morin, Jean, printer.
Morin, Simon, fanatic.

Nogaret, novelist.
Nordemann, follower of Kuhlmann.

Ochino, Bernardino, a Franciscan, advocate of polygamy.
Ockham, William of, "The Invincible Doctor".
Ockley, Simon, Vicar of Swavesey.
Ovid, poet, exiled by Caesar.

Page, printer of Stubbs' pamphlet.
Palearius, Antonius, "Inquisitionis Detractator."
Pallavicino, Ferrante, Italian satirist.
Palmieri, Matteo, Italian historian.
Pannartz, printer.
Paolo, Fra, see Sarpi.
Pasquier, his Letters quoted.
Pasquinades, origin of term.
Pays, French poet, quoted.
Penry, pamphleteer.
Petit, Pierre, poet.
Peucer, Caspar, doctor of medicine and Calvinist.
Pole, Sir Geoffrey, arrested by Henry VIII., escapes.
Pole, Reginald, denounced Henry VIII.
Primi, John Baptist, Count of St. Majole, historian.
Prynne, William, author of Histriomastix.

Quesnal, Pasquier, translator and theologian.
Quietism.

Reboul, Italian pamphleteer.
Reinking, Theodore, historian, condemned to eat his book.
Richer, Edmund, political essayist.
Ritson, Joseph, antiquary.
Rosières, François de, Archdeacon of Toul, historian.
Rothe, John, pretended prophet.
Rousseau, Jean Baptiste, satirist.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, philosopher.
Rudbeck, Swedish historian.
Rudiger. John Christopher, biographer.

Sacy, de, see Le Maistre.
Salisbury, Countess of, victim of Pole's book.

Sarpi, Pietro, Venetian historian.
Savonarola, Florentine preacher.
Scaliger, his criticism of Dolet.
Schweynheym, printer.
Scioppius, Caspar, satirist.
Selden, John, author of De Decimis.
Servetus, Michael, scientist and theologian, persecuted by Calvin.
Sidney, Algernon, his manuscript a witness against him.
Starkie, Nicholas, household possessed by devils, see Darrell.
Stephanus or Stephens, Robert, Parisian printer.
Stephens, Henry, son of above, printer.
Strutt, author of English Sports and Pastimes.
Stubbs, John, opponent of Elizabeth's marriage.
Sydenham, Floyer, translator.

Théophile, poet.
Thou, de, French historian.
Thou, Frederick Augustus de, son of above.
Toland, John, freethinker.
Tutchin, John, editor of Observator, persecuted by Jeffreys.
Tyndale, William, translator of Bible and controversialist.

Udal, Nicholas, part author of Marprelate pamphlets.
Unigenitus, Papal Bull.
Urseus, Anthony, becomes insane through loss of book.

Valla, Lorenzo, Roman satirist.
Vanini, Lucilio, philosopher and atheist.
Villanovanus, nom-de-plume of Servetus.
Virgil, Bishop of Salisbury, cosmologist.
Vizetelly, publisher.
Volaterranus, see Maffei.
Voltaire, François Arouet de, satirical poem.

Wecchiettus, Jerome, theologian.
Wechel, Christian, Parisian printer.
Wechel, Andrew, son of above.
Weiser, Caspar, Swedish poet.
Wentworth, Peter, pamphleteer.
Wharton, Henry, died of overwork.
Whitchurch, Edward, printer.
Willenberg, Samuel Friedrich, advocate of polygamy.
Williams, John, poet.
Woolston, Thomas, freethinker.

Yorke, Sir John, imprisoned for Roman Catholic play performed in his
house.

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