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The Book-Lover's Library,

Edited by Henry B. Wheatley, F.S.A

BOOKS FATAL TO THEIR AUTHORS

p. H. DITCHFIELD, M.A., F.S.A.

Fellotu oj the Royal Historical Society^ Rector of Harhhani^ Ber

r

NKW YORK

A. C. ARMSTRONG AND SON

51 East Tenth Street

1895

XLo tbc Pernors

JOHN WALTER, ESQ., M.A., J.P.,

OF BEARWOOD, BERKS,

THIS VOLUME

IS

RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY

DEDICATED.

PREFACE. .

TO THE BOOK-LOVER.

O 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

viii Preface.

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 repu- tation, 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 sur- prising 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 -a'Jto might have lived happy, contented, and useful lives were it not for their insane cacoethes scribendi. And hereby

Preface. ix

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 ; mediceval 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

X Preface.

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, sirnply 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 fooVs motley, the Saint's glory aftd Satan's hoof. But with eager eyes and beating hearts the toilers after Truth zvorked on.

Preface. xi

" 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 loVid her that they died for her,

Tasting the raptured flcetness

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 hells 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 co)i- cluded that it voas a secret attack upon the Jesuits. Well might poor Galileo

xii Preface.

exclaim^ ^^ And are these then my judges?^' Stosshis, 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 enini peccasti, denie sinistro. Quod te discerptuni turba sacrata velit ? R. Invisuin dixi verum, propter quod et olim, Vel dontinutn 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,

Preface. xiii

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 175 1. To these I have added many others. The Bio- graphical 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 Litera- ture." From these works I have derived some information. There is a work by Menkenius, '^ Analecta de Calamitatc Literatorum" ; another by Pierius Valer- ianus, " De Infelicitate Literatorum " ; another by Spizelius, ^'■Infelix Literatus "; and last but Jiot least Peignofs " Dic- tionnaire Critique, Litter aire et Biblio- graphique, des Livres condamne's au Feu," which will furnish thee with further

xiv Preface.

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 lime a cross-grained reviewer shoidd 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

Preface. xv

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.

/ 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. fohn Walter, but alas ! his death has deprived it oj that distinc- tion. 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.

CHAPTER I. THEOLOGY.

PAGE

Michael Molinos — Bartholomew Carranza— Jerome Wecchiettus — Samuel Clarke — Francis David — Antonio de Dominis — Noel Bede — William Tyndale — Arias Mon- tanus — John Huss — Antonio Bruccioli — Enzinas — Louis Le Maistre — Caspar Peucer — Grotius — Vorstius — Pasquier Quesnel — Le Courayer— Savonarola — Michael Ser- vetus — Sebastian Edzardt — William of Ockham— Ab61ard I

CHAPTER IL FANATICS AND FREE-THINKERS.

Quirinus Kuhlmann— John Tennhart— Jeremiah Felbinger— Simon Morin— Liszinski— John Toland —Thomas Woolston— John Biddle — Johann Lyser — ernardino Ochino— Samuel Friedrich Willcnberg . ^

xviii Contents.

CHAPTER III.

ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC.

PAGE

Henry Cornelius Agrippa — Joseph Francis Borri — Urban Grandier — Dr. Dee — Edward Kelly — ^John Darrell 6o

. 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 Peyrere — Abb6 de Marolles — Lucilio Vanini— Jean Rousseau ... 76

CHAPTER V.

Antonius Palearius — Caesar Baronius — John Michael Bruto — Isaac Berruyer — Louis Elias Dupin — Noel Alexandre — Peter Gian- none — Joseph Sanfelicius (Eusebius Philo- pater) — ,'\rlotto — Bonfadio — De Thou — Gilbert G6nebrard— Joseph Audra— Beau- melle— John Mariana— John B. Primi — John Christopher Rudiger — Rudbeck — Franpois Haudicquer — Fran9ois de Rosieres — Anthony Urseus ..... 96

CHAPTER VI.

POLITICS AND STATESMANSHIP.

John Fisher — Reginald Pole — " Martin Marpre- late " — Udal — Penry — Hacket — Coppinger — Arthington — Cartwright — Cowell —

Contents.

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 — ^Johnde Falkemberg — ^Jean Lenoir — Simon Linguet — Abbe Caveirac — Dari- grand — Pietro Sarpi — Jerome Maggi — Theodore Reinking . . . . . I 1 9

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 — Franqois Gacon — Daniel Defoe — Du Rosoi — GasparScioppius 148

CHAPTER VIII.

POETRY.

Adrian Beverland — Cecco d'Ascoli — George Buchanan — Nicodemus Frischlin — Clement Marot — Gaspar Weiser — lohn Williams — Deforges — Th6ophile — Helot — Matteo Palmieri — La Grange — Pierre Petit — Vol- taire — Montgomery — Keats — Joseph Ritson 169

CHAPTER IX.

DRAMA AND ROMANCE.

Sir John Yorke and Catholic Plays — Abraham Cowley — Antoine Danchet — Claude Cre- billon — Nogaret — Francois de Salignac F6n61on 190

XX Contents.

CHAPTER X. BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS.

PAGE

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 Lilbume — Etienne Dolet — John Morin — Christian Wechel — Andrew Wechel — Jacques Froull^ — Godonesche — William Anderton . . 200

CHAPTER XI.

SOME LITERARY MARTYRS.

Leland — Strutt — Cotgrave — Henry Wharton — Robert Heron — Collins — William Cole — Homeric victims — Joshua Barnes — An ex- ample of unrequited toil — Borgarutius — Pays 223

Index 235

BOOKS FATAL TO AUTHORS.

THEIR

CHAPTER I.

Theology.

Michael Molinos — Bartholomew Carranza — Jerome Wecchiettus — Samuel Clarke — Francis David — Antonio de Dominis- Noel Bede — 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— Abelard.

INCE 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

2 Books Fatal to their Authors.

fell into the hands of foes who knew no pity. Inasmuch as Theology and Religion are the highest of all studies — the aroma scie?itiariaii — 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 per- secutions were resorted to to force con- sciences, 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

Theology. 3

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 ad- ministering the largest amount of torture before death ended his woes.

Tanfuin rcligio potuit suaderc ntalortiwi.

Liberty of conscience was a thing un- known 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 "^^^^ Spiritual Manual, which was translated from Italian into Latin, and together with a treatise on The Daily Communion was

4 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 as- sistance 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 pur- pose 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 Estrgeus and also of Pope Innocent XI. It was ex- amined 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,

Theology. 5

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 Estrasus for the further examination of the book. The Cardinal preferred the favour of the king to his private friend- ship. Molinoswas 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 pieces sur le Quictisme, published in Amsterdam 1688. JNIohnos 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, Fenelon,

6 Books Fatal to their Authors.

and others in the seventeenth century, all belonged to that contemplative com- pany 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 'Ho-vxao-rat 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.

Theology. 7

and published a catechism under this title: Commentarios sobre el Cateqidsmo Cristiano divididos en quatro partes las quales contietmi fodo loque professamor en el sancto baptismo, como se vera en la plana seguiente dirigidos al serenissimo Roy de Espana (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. Immedi- ately 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 hngered 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 pro- nounced him guilty of false doctrine. His catechism was condemned ; he was com- pelled to abjure sixteen propositions, and besides other penances he was confined

8 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 sen- tence had been pronounced.* On his deathbed he solemnly declared that he had never seriously offended with regard to the Faith. The people were very indig- nant 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 afino primitivo ab exordio vmndi, ad annum Julia^ium accommodato, et de sacrorum temporuvi ratione. Augustce- Vtnde/icoruni, 1621, in folio mag?io. It is a work of Jerome Wecchiettus, a Florentine doctor of theology. The

* Cf. The Church of Spain, by Canon Meyrick. (National Churches Series.)

Theology. 9

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 oft the Being arid Attributes of God, and on Natural and Revealed Religion, which found its

10 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 17 12 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 corres- pondence with Leibnitz on Time, Space, Necessity, and Liberty was published it 1 7 17, and his editions of Csesar 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

Theology. 1 1

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 invocatido, which was answered by Faustus Socinus, the founder of Socinianism. The Prince of Transyl- vania, 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 Professor-

12 Books Fatal to their Authors.

ship 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 Dal- matia. He took a leading part in the controversy between the Republic of Venice and the Pope, and after the re- conciliation 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 him- self 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 pre- vented 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. AH 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

Theology. 13

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 Middle- ton'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 16 17 in three large folios — De Republicd Ecclesias- tica, 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 Roine can easily be disproved from Holy Scrip- ture, 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

14 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 distaste- ful to the Pope and his followers.

James rewarded De Dominis by con- ferring on him the Mastership of the Savoy and the Deanery of Windsor, and he further increased his wealth by pre- senting himself to the rich living of West Ilsley, in Berkshire.

In an unfortunate moment he insulted Count Gondomar, the Spanish Ambas- sador, 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 inultum supra quadringentas libras annuas which he received in England, and

Theology. 1 5

pining after the duodecim viillia Coro- natorum 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 ^i,6oo. De Dominis fled to Brussels, and there wrote his Consilium Reditus, 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 discon-

1 6 Books Fatal to their Authors.

tinued 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 Republica Ecdesiastica^ 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 parti- coloured knave now he is come again." He had undoubtedly great learning and skill in controversy,* but avarice was his master, and he was rewarded according to his deserts.f

The lonely fortress of Mont-Saint- Michel saw the end of a bitter con-

* 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.

t Cf. article by the Rev. C. W. Penny in the Journal of the Berks Archccological Society, on Antonio de Dominis.

Theology. 17

troversialist, Noel Bede, who died there in 1587. }ie y^rote NaiaHs Bedce,doctoris Theol. Parisiensis annotationiim in Eras- mi paraphrases Novi Testamenii, et Jacobi Fabri^ Stapulensis comnientarios in Evangelistas, Paidique Epistolas, Libri III., Farisiis, 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 false- hoods, two hundred and six calumnies, and forty-seven blasphemies. Bede con- tinued to denounce Erasmus as a heretic, and in a sermon before the court re- proached the king for not punishing such unbelievers with sufficient rigour. The author was twice banished, and finally was compelled to make a public retracta- tion 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

1 8 Books Fatal to their Aiithoi's.

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 negotia- tions 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 "per- nicious 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 Cotifutation, .which did little credit to the writer or to the cause for which he contended. Tyndale's longest controversial work, en- titled The Obedience of a Christian Man, and ho7t> Christiaji Rulers ought to govern, although it stirred up much hostility against its author, very favourably im- pressed King Henry, who delighted in it,

Theology. 19

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 v/arm 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 i6th, 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

20 Books Fatal to their Authors.

year, by the King's command, the first edition of the Bible was published in London. If Tyndale had confined him- self to the great work of translating the Scriptures, and had abandoned con- troversy 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 com- mand of King Phihp II. the famous Polyglot Bible printed at Antwerp in nine tomes. He possessed a wonderful knowledge of several languages, and de- voted 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 Ex-

Theology. 21

purgatorius, 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 Ecclesia, 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 cor- ruptions of the cardinals. Besides this treatise we have many others — Adv. In- dulgentias, De Erectione Cruets, 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

22 Books Fatal to their Authors.

of defeat. But as they would only sacri- fice one out of the company of his foes, he declared that the conditions were unequal, and the challenge was abandoned. AVhen at last he was granted a safe conduct by the Emperor Sigismund, and trusted him- self 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 e7i letigua toscana, cioe, i tutti i santi libri del vecchio y Novo Testamento, ifi lengua toscana^ dalla hebraica vertta, e fonte greco, con commento

Theology. 23

da Antotiio Bruccioli. Although a Roman Catholic, he favoured Protestant views, and did not show much love for either the monks or priests. His bold com- ments 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 inter- ceded, 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 trans- lation of the New Testament entitled El Nuevo Testaniento de N. Redeviptor y Salvador J. C. traduzido eti lengua castel- lana {En Ainberes, 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 novi-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

24 Books Fatal to their Authors.

imprisoned in the Bastille on account of his opinions and also for his French translation of the New Testament, pub- lished at Mons, in 1667, and entitled Le Nouveau Testa7?ietit de N. S. /. C, traduit en francais selon Peditmi Vulgate, avec les differences 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 Uavid, their antagonists as Saul. Louis XIV. appears as Rehoboam, Jezebel, Ahasuerus, and Darius. But these fanciful interpre- tations are probably due to the imagina- tion of the critics.

The fate of Caspar Peucer enforces the truth of the old adage that " a shoemaker ought to stick to his last," and shows that

Theology. 25

those men court adversity who meddle with matters outside their profession. Peucer was a doctor of medicine of the academy of Wiirtemberg, 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 im- prisoned 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 Wiirtemberg, written in Latin, in 1552. He ranks among the most learned men of Germany of the sixteenth century.

There were many Fatal Books in Hol- land 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 mis- fortune. Indeed his books were instru- mental in his escape, which was effected by means of his large box containing

26 Books Fatal to their Authors.

books brought into the prison by his wife. When removed from the prison it con- tained, not the books, but the author. Vorstius, the successor of Arminius as Professor of Theology at Leyden, was not so happy. His book, Tradatus de Deo, sen de natiira 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 extra- ordinary Synod, where theology was mysti- fied, religion disgraced, and Christianity outraged.*

Few books have created such a sensa- tion in the world or aroused so prolonged a controversy as Les Reflexions Morales of Pasquier Quesnel, published in 167 1. The full title of the work is Le Nouveau Testamefit en Fraficais, avec des reflexions morales sur chaque verset (Paris, 1671, r vol., in- 1 2), pour les quatre Evangiles seulement. Praslard was the publisher. In 1693 and 1694 appeared another edition, containing his reflexions inorales, not only on the Gospels, but also on the Acts and the Epistles. Many subsequent edi- tions have appeared. Not only France,

* Cf. Church in the Netherlands, by P. H. Ditch- field, chap. xvii.

Theology. 27

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 incar- ceration ; 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 Fe?isees Chr'etiennes 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 Reflexions Morales appeared in 1694 with the approval of De Noailles, then Bishop of Chalons, after- wards 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 es- caped and retired to Amsterdam, where he

28 Books Fatal to their Authors.

died in 1 7 1 9. 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 pro- positions 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 sump- tuous banquet given by the Archbishop of

Theology. 29

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 Fran9ois le Courayer, of the order of the canons regular of St. Augustine, who wrote a book of great interest to English church- men, entitled Dissertation sur la validite des Ordinations Anglicanes (Bruxelles, 1723, 2 vols., in-12). This book was con- demned and its author excommunicated. He retired to the shelter of the Church whose right of succession he so ably de- fended, and died in London in 1776.

Few authors have received greater hon- our 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 patriot- ism and intense devotion, he inveighed against the vices of the age, the worldliness

30 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 fore- tell 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 revolu- tion was accomplished, and for three years Savonarola was practically the ruler of the new state. His works were : Conwienta- tiuncula de Mahumetanorum secta : Tri- umphus crucis, sive de fidei Christiana: veritate in four books (1497), de Siviplicitate vito'^ Christiance in five books, and Co7ji- pendiuin Revelationis (1495), ^'^d many volumes of his discourses, some of which are the rarest treasures of incunabula.* 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

* At Venice in the library of Leo S. Olschki I

Theology. 3 1

Cardinals, that they too formed a power- ful 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

have met with some of these volumes, the rarest of which is entitled : —

PREDICHE DEL REVERENDO PADRE FRATE HIERONYMO

Da Ferrara facte lanno del. 1 496

negiorni delle feste, finito che

hebbe la qiiaresinta : &' prima

riposatosi circa iino inese

ricomiiicio eldi di Sco

M telle le Adi. viii di

Maggio. MCCCC

LXXXXVI.

The text commences " CREDITE IN Dfio 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 writ- ing is very small, and must have taxed the ski!! of the printers in deciphering it.

32 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 destruc- tion 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 fur- nished 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

Theology. 33

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 Re- formers, 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

3

34 Books Fatal to their Authors.

CEcolampadius at Basle reasoned with him. He must needs disseminate his opinions in a book entitled De Trinitatis Erroribiis, 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 o?i 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 re- tracted the opinions he had expressed.

He also annotated Pagnini's Latin version of the Sacred Scriptures, entitled Biblia sacra latina ex hebmo, per Sanctum Pagninum, cum prcBfatione 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

Theology. 35

the name of his birthplace. His former works had been published under the name of Reves, formed by the transposi- tion 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 anony- mously his well-known work De Restitu- tione Christiajiismi. 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 hos- tility 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

36 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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-suffi- ciency. 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 Wiirtemberg, and when Frederick I. of Prussia conceived the desire of uniting the various reformed bodies with the Lutherans, he published a w^ork Be causis et natiira tinmiis, and a treatise Ad

Theology. 37

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 siibditorum diffidentibus, published in 1703 in support of the King's designs. In the same year he published Impietas cohortis fanatica, expropriis Speneri, Rechenbergii, Fetersemi, Thomasii, Artio/di, Schutzii, Boehnieri, aliorumqiie fanaticorum scriptis, phisqiiain apodictis argumentis, ostensa. Hambitrgt, Kcenig, 1703, in-^. This work was sup- pressed 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 Reforinirten im Griinde des Glaubens : von dieser Vereinigi/ng eigentlicher Natur und Be- schaffenheit, 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 " Invin-

38 Books Fatal to their Authors.

cible 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 XXH. 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 Ger- many 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 Pads 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

Theology. 39

court of the German emperor, to whom he addressed the words, " Tu me defendas gladio, ego te defendant cala^jio." There he Hved and wrote, condemned by the Pope, disowned by his order, the Fran- ciscans, threatened daily with sentences of heresy, deprivation, and imprisonment ; but for them he cared not, and fearlessly pursued his course, becoming the acknow- ledged 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 Nomin- alists 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

40 Books Fatal to their Authors.

uncommon in their quarrels about univer- sals, 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 : Quccstiones et decisiones in qiiatiwr lihros sententiarum cum centilogio theologico (Lyons, 1495),* SuDima logiccT. (Paris, 1483), Quodlibeta (Paris, 1487), Super potestate sumini pontifici (1496). He died at Munich in

1343-

The Introductto ad Theologiam of the famous Abelard, another schoolman, was fatal to him. Abelard'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

* 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.

Theology. 41

Paris had an enthusiastic following; thousands flocked to his lectures from every country ; his popularity was enor- mous. 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 ex- pressed in his Introdudio (Traite de la Trinite) were made the subject of a charge against him, and certainly they cannot be easily distinguished from Sabel- lianism. 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 Abelard was reproached. Whether they were actually contained in his writings, it is not so evident. We have only fragments of Abelard's writings to judge from, which have been collected by M. Cousin — Oiivrages inedits d' Abelard — and therefore cannot speak with certain knowledge of his opinions. At least they were judged

42 Books Fatal to their Authors.

to be blasphemous and heretical by the Council of Soissons, when he was con- demned 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 No>i* 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 1 140 obtained a verdict against its author. He said that poor Abelard was an infernal dragon who persecuted the Church, that Arius, Pelagius, and Nestorius were not more dangerous, as Abe'lard united all

* Petri Abelardi Sic et Non (Marburgi, Sump- tibusLibrarise; Academy Elwertianae, 1851). The best edition of Abelard's letters is P. Abalaydi ct Heloisce conjitgis ejus Epistolce, ab crroribus piirgatce et ami codd. AISS. collates ciira Richardi Raivlinson, Londini, 1 7 18, z'«-8. There is also an edition published in Pans in 1616, 4to, Petii Abelardi et Heloisce conjugis ejus, opera cum prcvfatione apologetica Franc. Amboesii, et Censuia doctorum parisiensium ; ex editione Andrece Quercetaiti {Andre Duchesne).

Theology. 43

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. Abelard's disciple Arnold of Brescia attended him at the Council, and shared in the con- demnations 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 vener- ated as relics by his followers. St. Bernard described him as a man having the head of a dove and the tail of a scorpion. Abelard 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 Abelard 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 Kuhlinann— John Tennhart — Jeremiah Felbinger — Simon Morin— Liszinski — John Toland — Thomas Woolston — John Biddle — Johann Lyser — Bernardino Ochino — Samuel Friedrich Willenberg.

|HE 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 44

Fanatics and Free-thinkers. 45

inquire, nor whether a spark of the latter has not shone briUiantly 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 fanatic- ism 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 Kul- nianus (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 165 1, 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

46 Books Fatal to their Authors.

other things when and after what manner he should be released. Kuhlmann then wrote a book, entitled Prodronms Qiiin- quennii 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 wan- dered 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

Fanatics and Free-thinkers. 47

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 Kuhl- mann'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 a7id Amsterdam " Kuhl-FestivaV at the Gathering of Lutherans and Calvinists, which sufficiently attests his insanity.

48 Books Fatal to their Authors.

The following is a specimen of the lucidity of his works : " The more I continued my doctrines, the more opposition I re- ceived, 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 con- tinually of the visions, dreams, and col- loquies 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 him.self inspired, but in an evil hour he published a book against the priests, entitled JVorie Goiies, oder Trac- tiitlein an den so genannteji 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 17 14 was imprisoned at Nuremberg. His incar- ceration did not, however, last long, and

Fanatics and Free-thinkers. 49

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 Fel- binger, a native of Brega, a town in the Prussian State of Silesia, who was an early advocate of the heresy of the Uni- tarians. For some years he was a soldier, and then became a schoolmaster. He wrote Prodromus demonstrationis, pub- lished in 1654, in which he attempted to prove his Unitarian ideas. Shortly before this, in 1653, he wrote Demonstrationes Christiana, and finally his Epistola ad Christianas, published at Amsterdam in 1672. His strange views and perverted opinions first caused his dismissal from the army, and his works upon the Uni- tarian 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

50 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Pens'ees de Simon Morin (Paris, 1647, ii^'S), 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, incorpo- rated 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 con- demned by the Parliament of Paris, and

Fanatics and Free-thinkers. 51

after having done penance, dressed in his i

shirt, with a rope round his neck and a J

torch in his hand, before the entrance of J

Notre Dame, he was burnt with his book j

and writings, his ashes being subsequently j

cast into the air. Morin had several '

followers who shared his fantastic views, 1

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 Cazi- ,

mir Liszinski in 1689, whose ashes were I

placed in a cannon and shot into the air. This Polish gentleman was accused of atheism by the Bishop of Potsdam. His \ 1

condemnation was based upon certain >C

atheistical manuscripts found in his posses- sion, 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 j^ 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 tiot Mysterious (London,

i;

52 Books Fatal to their Authors.

1696). Its author was born in London- derry in 1670, and was endowed with much natural abihty, but this did not avail to avert the calamities which pursue in- discreet 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 interpreta- tion. 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

Fanatics and Free-thinkers. 53

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, Siillingfleet, Payne, Beverley, Clarke, Leibnitz, and others. Toland wrote also The Life of Miltoti (London, 1698), which was directed against the authenticity of the New Testament ; The JVazarene, or Christianity., Judaic, Pagan, and Maho- metan (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.

54 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 interpre- tation 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 recita- tions. These and many other such-like doctrines are found in his works. Wool- ston 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

Fanatics and Free-thinkers. 55

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 sup- ported 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 betiveen 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, 169 1, 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

56 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 woman- kind, 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 IVahrenbergs kurzes Gespraech voti der Polyganiie ; and this little work was followed by a second book. Das Koenig- liche March alkr Laender (YxQyhvLrg, 1676, in-4). Then he produced another w-ork, entitled Theophili Alethcei discursus politi- cus de Polygamia. A second edition of this work followed, which bore the title Polygamia triiimphatrix, id est, discursus politicus de Polygamia, auctore Theoph. AlethcBO, cum notis Athanasii Vincentii, omnibus Anti-polygamis, ubique locorum, terrarum, insularum, pagorum, urbium modeste et pie opposita [Londini Scanorum, 1682, in-4). Oi^ account of the strange

Fanatics and Free-thinkers. 57

views expressed in this work he was de- prived of his office of Inspector, and was obliged to seek protection from a power- ful 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 en- dured 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 noto- riety, 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 Polygajuid was fatal to him. Although

58 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 wTOte a book against the Papacy in English, which was printed in London, and also a sermon on pre- destination. He visited England in com- pany 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

Fanatics and Free-tlimkers. 59

doctor of law of the famous University of Cracow, who wrote a book Be fittibus polygamicE licitcR and aroused the hatred of the Poles. In 17 15, 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 thou- sand gold pieces.

With these unhappy advocates of a system which violates the sacredness ot marriage, we must close our list of fanatics whose works have proved fatal to them. Many of them deserve our pit}' rather than our scorn; for they suffered from that species of insanity which, ac- cording 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 Darnell.

SUPERSTITION is a deformed monster who dies hard ; and Hke 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." * But society was once leavened with it. Alchemy, astrology, and magic were a fashionable cult, and so long as its pro- fessors pleased their patrons, proclaimed " smooth things and prophesied deceits," all went well with them ; but it is an

* Carlyle. 60

Astrology, Alchemy, and Magic. 6i

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 i486, 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

62 Books Fatal to their Autliors.

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 15 21, 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 esta- blished 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 re- quested 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

Astrology, Alcliciny, and Magic. 63

up the cry, and " conjurer," " necro- mancer," 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 historio- grapher. 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 illus- trious author. In 1530 he published a work, De Ince7'titndine et Vanitate Scien- tiarum et Artium, atque Excellentid Verbi Dei Declamatio (Antwerp). His severe satire upon scholasticism and its professors roused the anger of those whom with scathing words he castigated. The Pro- fessors 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 Declatnationis de Vanitate Scientiarum contra Tkeoiogistes Lovanienses. In spite of such powerful friends as the Papal Legate, Cardinal Campeggio, and Cardinal de la Marck, Prince Bishop of Liege, Agrippa

64 Books Fatal to their Authors.

was vilified by his opponents, and im- prisoned 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 multi- tudes, 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 out- stretched 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 Inquisi- tion and placed by the Council of Trent on the list of prohibited works, amongst the heretical books of the first class.

Astrology, Alchemy, and Magic. 65

Erasmus, however, spoke very highly of it, and declared it to be " the work of a man of sparkling intellect, of varied read- ing and good memory, who always blames bad things, and praises the good." Schel- horn declares that the book is remark- able 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 re- flected 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

5

66 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Prcecellentia Fcejninei Sexus (Antwerp, 1529), in order to flatter his patroness Margaret of Austria, and an early work, De Trip/id Ratione Cognosce7idi Deum (15 15). 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

Astrology, Alchemy, and Magic. 6"/

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 sud- denly 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 ridi- culous 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 con- tained 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 pre- rogative 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

68 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 HI., 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 gabhietto del cavagliere G. F. Borri (The key of the cabinet of Borri). Cer- tainly 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 pur- pose of " removing " an obnoxious person.

Astrology, Alchemy, and Magic. 69

Grandier was cure 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. In- deed he wrote a book, Contra Ccelibatum ClericoruJH, 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 cordon- niere 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 scrupu- lous 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 con- tagious frenzy, imagining themselves tormented by evil spirits, of whom the chief was Asmodeus.* They pretended

■^ This was the demon mentioned in Tobit iii. 8, 17, who attacked Sarah, the daughter of Raguel,

70 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 afifair.

In the meantime the vengeful eye of Richelieu was watching for an oppor- tunity. 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 Cc^libatum 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,

and killed her seven husbands. Rabbinical writers consider him as the chief of evil spirits, and recount his marvellous deeds. He is re- garded as the fire of impure love.

Astrology, Alchemy, and Magic, yi

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 Loudim, oit 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

72 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 corona- tion 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.

Astrology, Alchemy, and Magic. 73

These were eollected by Casaubon, who published in London in 1659 a resume 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 1 608, is now in the British Museum. In spite of all these marvels, the favour which

74 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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, Notting- ham, 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 im- postor 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 be-

Astrology, Alchemy, and Magic. 75

tween them, and that Darrell had instructed them how they were to act in order to appear possessed. The author was subse- quently 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 pre- tences of Darrell and others obliged the clergy to enact the following canon (No. 73) : " That no minister or ministers, with- out 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 impos- ture, 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 Peyrere— Abbe de MaroUes— Lucilio Vanini — Jean Rousseau.

[CIENCE 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 step- mother, and cried so loudly and talked so strangely that the world was forced to listen to its utterances. These were re- garded with distrust and aversion by the theologians of the day, for they were supposed to be in opposition to Revela- tion, and contrary to the received opinions of all learned and pious people. There- fore Science met with very severe treatment ; its followers were persecuted with relentless vehemence, and " blas- 76

Science and Philosophy. yj

phemous 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 his office, unless he con- fessed his perverse errors. In spite of the censure and sentence of excommunication

78 Books Fatal to their Authors.

pronounced upon him, Bishop Virgil was canonised by Pope Gregory XL ; 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 Encyclopedia and the Novum Organu/n of the thirteenth century," discloses an unfettered mind and judg- ment far in advance of the spirit of the age in which he lived. In addition to this he wrote Compendium Fhilosophice,

Science and Philosophy. 79

De mirabili Potestate artls et 7iatura, Specula mathematical Speculum akhemicum, and other \vo):ks.

The treatment which Galileo received at the hands of the ecclesiastics of his day is well known. This father of experi- mental 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 dis- coveries, 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 mondo, 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

8o Books Fatal to their Authors.

Rome, and condemned by the order of Pope Urban VIII. Galileo was com- manded 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 as- tonished 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. i^iterno alle due nuove Scienze (1638), Delia Scienza Meccanica (1649), Tractato della Sfera (1655); and the tele- scope, 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 !

Science and Philosophy. 8i

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 *^he cloister was irksome to his freedom- loving soul. He cast off his monkish garb, and wandered through Europe as a knight-errant of philosophy, multu?7i ilk 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,

6

82 Books Fatal to their Authors.

where in 1582 he produced one of his more important works, De wnbris idearwn. Soon afterwards he came to London, where he became the intimate friend of Sir PhiHp Sidney. Here he wrote the work which proved fatal to him, entitled Spaccio della bestia triomphante (The expulsion of the triumphing beast) (London, 1584).* 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

* The full title of the work is : Spaccio clella besiia iriuinphante da giove, effetuato dal conscglo, revelato da Mcrcitrio, recitato da sofia, iidtto da Saldino, regisirato dal nolano, diviso in ire dialogi, subdivisiin tre parti. In Parigi, 1584, in-'6.

Science and Philosophy. 83

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 con- ducted to Rome, where, after an imprison- ment 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 Delia causa, principio e nno (1584), De infinito iiniverso et mundis (1584), De monade nicmero et figura (Francfort, 159 1).

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

84 Books Fatal to their AuiJiors.

the same time as our more celebrated Bacon. This was a task too great for his strength, nor did he receive much en- couragement 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 sensilms 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 sensa- tion, and that all parts of the earth were endowed with feeling. Campanella also wrote Prodromiis philosophies instaurandce (1617); Philosophia rationalis, embracing grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, poetry, and history ; Universalis Philosophatus, a treatise on metaphysics ; Civitas soils, a description of a kind of Utopia, after the fashion of Plato's Republic. But the fatal book which caused his woes was his Atheismiis 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 mediceval dun- geon ; through thirty-five hours he was

Science and Philosophy. 85

" questioned " with such exceeding cruelty that all his veins and arteries were so drawn and jjtretched 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 con- spiracy to betray the kingdom of Naples to the Spaniards ; but it is probable that his Atheismus triumphatus was the chief cause of his woes. Sorbiere 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;

86 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 luck- less 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 Philosophic de la Nature, ou Traitc de morale pour I'espece huinaine, tire de la philosophie et fonde sur la nature {Paris, Saillant et Nyon, 1769, 6 vols., in-12), has a curious history. It in- flicted punishment not only on its author, De Lisle de Sales, but also on two learned censors of books who approved its con- tents, the Abbe Chretien 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

Science and Philosophy. 8/

men of Paris visited the imprisoned philo- sopher. All the sentences were reversed by the Parliament of Paris in 1777. This book has often been reproduced and trans- lated 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 Di- derot wrote Lettres sur les Aveiigles a r usage de ceux qui voient (1749, in- 12). There were " those who saw " and were not bhnd to its defects, and proceeded to incarcerate Diderot in the Castle of Vin- cennes, 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 En- cyclopaedia (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,

88 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Cometes (1683), in which he combated the popular belief in the malign influence of comets. This work Avas followed a few years later by his more famous book De Betovcrde Weereld, or The Enchanted World* in which he

* Le Monde enchante, ou Examen des sentimens touchant les esprits, tradnit dti flaniand en Jmnfais (Amsterdam, 1694, 4 vols., in- 1 2). One Benjamin Binet wrote a refutation, entitled Traite historique des Dieux et des Demons dii paganisnte, avec des rcmarques sur le systeme de Balthazar Bekker (Delft, 1696, in-12).

Science and Philosophy. 89

refuted the vulgar notions with regard to demoniacal possession. This work created a great excitement amongst the Hol- landers, 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 pro- nounced. A great variety of opinions have been expressed concerning this book. Bekker was a follower of Des- cartes, 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 in-

90 Books Fatal to their Authors.

tended 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 re- semble Satan in the ugliness of his appear- ance. 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 triuinphat. Bekker also wrote a catechism, entitled La Nourritiire des Par/aits (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 Peyrere suffered for its sake. His fatal book was one entitled Prccadamitce, sive exercitatio super versibiis xii., xiii., xiv., capitis v., epistoloi divi Pauli ad romanos, Quibus indiiaintur prinii homines a?tfe Adajmnn conditi{i6^Ci, 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 Conde ; but, in spite of his protector, he

Science and Philosophy. 91

was imprisoned at Brussels, and his book was burnt at Paris, in 1655. This work had a salutary effect on the indefatigable translator Abbe de Marolles, who with extraordinary energy, but with little skill, was in the habit of translating the classical wofl-ks, 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 Scrip- tures, translating them with notes. In the latter he inserted extracts and reflec- tions from the above-mentioned book by Peyrere, which caused a sudden cessation of his labours. By the authority of the Pope the printing of his works was sud- denly stopped, but probably the loss which the world incurred was not very great. Peyrbre seems to have foretold the fate of his book and his own escape in the follow- ing line : —

Parve, ncc 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

92 Books Fatal to their Authors.

was a somewhat vain and ridiculous person. Not content with his Christian name Lucilio, he assumed the grandi- loquent and high-sounding cognomen of Julius Ccesar, wishing to attach to him- self 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, Swit- zerland, 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 ceternce providetitice diviiio- magiaim , Christiano - Physicum, nee 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 pre- tended to refute, and led his readers to see the force of the arguments against the Faith of which he posed as a champion.

Scknce and Philosophy. 93

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 natum regitice deceqiie mortaliiun arcanis (Paris, 161 6), which, pubhshed in the form of sixty dialogues, contained many profane statements. In this work also he adopted his previous plan of pretending to de- mohsh 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 de- scribes his disputations with them, care- fully 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

94 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 ques- tion 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 inanet ; 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 philo- sopher who died just before the outbreak of the First French Revolution, Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is well known that

Science and Philosophy. 95

his work Emile, oti de r Education, par J. J. Rousseau, Citoyen de Geneve {a 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 need less to write. This has already been done by many authors in many works.

CHAPTER V. History.

Antonius Palearius — Caesar Baronius — John Michael Bruto — Isaac Berniyer — Louis Elias Dupin — Noel Alexandre — Peter Giannone — Joseph Sanfelicius (Eusebius Philopater) — — Arlotto — Bonfadio — De Thou — Gilbert Genebrard — Joseph Audra — Beaumelle — John Mariana — John B. Primi — John Christopher Rtidiger — Rudbeck — Fran9ois Haudicquer — Francois de Rosieres — Anthony Urseus.

[IRAVER 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 Inqiiisitmiis Detradator, 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 96

History. 97

truth very plainly when he said that the Inquisition was a dagger pointed at the throats of literary men. As an in- stance of the foolishness of the method of discovering the guilt of the accused, we may observe that Palearius was ad- judged a heretic because he preferred to sign his name Aonius, instead of Arttonius, 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 A}t?iales Ecdesiastici of Cresar 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

98 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 for- bidding 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 £cc/esiastict 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

History. 99

Lucca. It was continued by Rainaldi and Laderchi, and the whole work was pubhshed in forty-two volumes at Lucca 1738-57. It is a monument of the industry and patience of its authors.

Another luckless Italian historian flour- ished in the sixteenth century, John Michael Bruto, who was born a. d. 15 15, and was the author of a very illustrious work, Historia Florentina (Lyons, 1562). The full title of the work is : Joh. Michaelis Briiti Histories Floretttince, 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

100 Books Fata! to their Authors.

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 Parlia- ment 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

History. lOi

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 illus- trious work La Bibliotheque Universelle def aiiteurs ecclesiastiques. 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 Antigua Ecclesice disciplina, in which he defended with much zeal the liberty of the Galilean Church. He lived at the time when that Church was much agitated by the assumptions of Pope Clement XL, 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

102 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Unigenitiis, and wrote his book De Antiqua EcclesicE disciplina in order to defend the Gallican Church from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome. In this work he carefully distinguishes the uni- versal 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 Chatelleraut. Dupin's last years were occupied with a correspondence with Archbishop Wake of Canterbury,

History. 103

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. 17 19.

A companion in misfortune was Noel Alexandre, a French ecclesiastical his- torian 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 Ecde- siastica Veteris et Novi Testametiti, cum Dissertationibiis historico-chro7iologicis et criticis {Farisils, Dezallier, 1669, sen 17 14, 8 torn 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 XL 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 Chatelleraut and deprived of his pension. He died in 1724.

I04 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Deir Historia civile del Regno di Napoli, dopo Forigine 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, ex- posing with great boldness the usurpa- tions of the Pope and his cardinals, and other ecclesiastical enormities, and reveal- ing 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

History. 105

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. Gian- none 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 invita- tion of his new friend, but the repast was not concluded before he was arrested by order of the King of Sardmia, 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 T758. His history was translated into

io6 Books Fatal to their Authors.

French, and published in four volumes in 1742 at the Hague. Giannone's work has furnished with weapons many of the adver- saries 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 ecdesiastiques (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.

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A book entitled Histoire de la tyrannie et des exces dont se rendirent coiipables les Habitans de Padoue dans la guerre quHls etirent avec ceux de Vice/ice, par Arlotto, notaire a Viceftce, carries us back to the stormy period of the fourteenth century, when Italy was distracted by war, the great republics ever striving for the supre- macy. 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 re- covered 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 A finales Genuendis, ab anno 1528 recuperatce libertatis usque ad annum 1550, libri quinque iyPapice, 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

io8 Books Fatal to their Authors.

tenderly so daring a scribe, who presumed to censure their misdeeds. They pro- ceeded 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 his- torian De Thou, who wrote a valuable history of his own times (1553 — 1601), Historia sui teinporis* This great work was written in Latin in one hundred and thirty-eight books, and afterwards trans- lated 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 apti- tude, his love of truth, his tolerance and

* The title of the edition of 1604 is Jacobi Augusti Tluianiin sttpreiiia regni Gallici curia prcs- sidis insiilati, liistoriarum sui ietnporis {Parisiis Sonnius, Patisson, Drouart, in-foL).

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respect for justice, his keen penetration and critical faculty, render his memoirs extremely valuable. In 1572 he accom- panied 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 dis- appointment and the continued opposition of Richelieu killed De Thou, who died in 1 61 7. But the revenge of the minister

no Books Fatal to their Authors.

was unsated. Frederick Augustus de Thou, the son of the historian, and formerly a protege of RicheHeu, was con- demned 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 oi Historia sui temporis. Casaubon declares that this history is the greatest work of its kind which had been pub- lished since the Annals of Livy. Chan- cellor 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 with- out altering a word.

On the tomb of our next author stands the epitaph Urna capit cineres,

History. 1 1 1

nomen non orbe tenetur. This writer was Gilbert Genebrard, a French author of considerable learning, who main- tained that the bishops should be elected by the clergy and people and not nomi- nated by the king. His book, written at Avignon, is entitled De sacrarum electio7ium jure et ?iecessitate ad Ecclesice Gallicance redintegraiionein, audore 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 Eccle- siastiques qui ont assiste au service divin ' avec Henri de Valois apres C assassinat du Cardinal de Guise (1589, in-8). Certainly the judgment of posterity has not fultilled 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 Abrege d'Histoire generate, par i'Abbc Audra (Toulouse, 1770), which was con- demned, and deprived Audra of his pro-

112 Books Fatal to their Authors.

fessorship, and also of his life. He died from the chagrin and disappointment which his misfortunes caused.

The author of Menioires et Lettres de Madame de Maintenon (Amster- dam, 1755, 15 vols., in-12) found his subject a dangerous one, inasmuch as it conducted him to the Bastille, a very ex- cellent 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 Fensees, published at Copenhagen in 175 1. In his Memoires 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

History. 113

writings. His most important work was his Historice de rebus Hispa7iice libri xxx., published at Toledo 1592-95. But thework which brought him into trouble was one en- titled Z)e Mufafione Afonetce,vi,'hich exposed the frauds of the ministers of the King of Spain with regard to the adulteration of the public money, and censured the negli- gence 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 Z>e Rege ac Regis institutione Libri Hi. ad Philipputn III., Hispanice regent catholi- cum. Toleti, apud Petruni Rodericum, 1599, in-^. 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 assas- sinating Henry IV. of France, and that in consequence of this the book was burned at Paris in 16 10 by order of the Parliament.

114 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 pubHshed in Itahan, and entitled His tor la della guerra d'Olanda nelP anno 1672 {In Farigi, 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 pen- sioner 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 Riidiger, who, under the name of Clar- mundus, wrote a book De Vitis Claris- simorutfi 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 pro-

History. 115

duced many learned theologians, lawyers, and philologists. The chief of this family was one Samuel Benedict Carpzov, who lived at Wittenberg, wrote several disser- tations, and was accounted the Chrysostom of his age (1565 — 1624). Riidiger 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 Riidiger of slander before the ecclesiastical court, and the luckless author was ordered to be beaten with rods, and to withdraw all the calum- nies he had uttered against the renowned Carpzov. On account of his books Riidiger 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 Ficardie, contenant les Gene- ralites d' Amiens, de Soissons, des pays recon- quis, et partie de l^ Election de Beauvais, le tout justifie conformement aux Jiigemens rendiis en faveiir de la Province. Par Francois Hatidicquer de Bla?icourt (Paris,

ii6 Books Fatal to their Authors.

1693, in-4). Bearing ill-will to several illus- trious 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 accom- plished the destruction of the calumniating compiler. The book, in spite of his un- trustworthiness, is sought after by curious book-lovers, as the copies of it are ex- tremely rare, and few perfect.

It is usually hazardous to endeavour to alter one's facts in order to support his- torical theories. This M. Frangois de Rosieres, 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 en- titled Stemmatum Lotharingice et Barri diicum, Tomi VII., ab Antenore Trojano, ad Caroli III, ducis tempora, etc. (Farisiis, 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 Rosieres 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 com-

History. 1 1 7

pelled 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 disappoint- ment 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 un- happily 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

ii8 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 repro- duce the MS. of that immortal work of which hard fate had cruelly deprived him.

CHAPTER VI.

Politics and Statesmanship.

John Fisher— Reginald Pole—" Martin Marpre- late"— 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 —Abbe Caveirac- Darigrand— Pietro Sarpi —Jerome Maggi— Theodore Reinking.

HE 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 119

120 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Ijoth 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 Univer- sity, 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

Politics and Statesmanship. I2i

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 at- tempted, 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.

122 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Deuvi 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 imitate ecclesits 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

Politics and Statesmanship. 123

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 con- demned 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 righteous- ness' 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

124 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 JMary, became Archbishop of Canterbury, and strived to appease the sanguinary rage of that dreadful perse- cution 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 re- viling 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 where- in is laid open the tyramiical dealing of L. Bishopps against God's children. It is full of scandalous stories of the prelates,

Politics and Statesmanship. 125

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 Fistle 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 Smffe, the three tame ruff[ians of the Church, who take pepper in their nose because they camiot 7narre 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.

126 Books Fatal to their Authors.

Udal and Penry, who were the chief authors of these outrageous works, were executed. Hacket, Coppinger, and Arth- ington, who seem to have been a trio of insane hbellers, and (Greenwood and Barrow, whose seditious books and pam- phlets were leading the way to all the horrors of anarchy introduced by the Anabaptists into Germany and the Nether- lands, 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 im- prisoned for eighteen months, although he denied all connection with the " Mar- prelate " 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 serieni Instittitionum i inperialiuiti (Cambridge, 1665, 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

Politics and Statesmanship. 127

Crown and Parliament met in deadly combat. He contended for the abso- lute monarchy of the King of England. His writings are especially valuable as illustrating our national customs. The author says : " My true end is the advance- ment of knowledge, and therefore 1 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 deter- mined foe of the unhappy doctor, en- deavouring 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 im- prisonment ; James issued a proclamation

128 Books Fatal to their Authors

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, in- curred 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 !

Politics and Statesmanship. 129

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 Gapifig Gulf ivhere- into England is like to be swallowed by another French inarriage, 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 far- dell 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 Crotvn, and for his pains was committed to the

130 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 Successmi 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 w^ere 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, accom- pHshed 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

Politics and Statesmanship. 131

diplomacy. It is conjectured that the artful King so flattered the Pope as to induce him to protect the English sove- reign 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>ooo, and to be kept in perpetual

132 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 subse- quently 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 mem- ber 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, in- curred a like sentence on account of his Letany, and another work entitled Apolo- geticus ad Prcesules Angiicanos, which were written while the author was a prisoner in the Gatehouse of Westminster, and con-

Politics and Statesmanship. 133

tained a severe attack upon the Laudian party, the High Commission, and the Church of England. He had previously been imprisoned and fined ;^ 1,000 for his former works Eknchus Papistia^ Religionis and Flagellmn 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 cha- racters in that strange drama of the Great Rebellion. He was the friend and com- panion 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 anti- quaries 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 Com- mons 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, recapi-

134 Books Fatal to their Authors.

tulating 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." * 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 162 1 he was imprisoned, and remained in custody for five years. On the dissolution of Parlia- ment 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 hisinjuries in 1647 hereceived;^5, 000 from the public purse and became a member

* Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, vol. i., p. 667.

Politics and Statesmanship. 135

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, Commen- taries on the Arundel Marbles (1629), and Researches into the History of the Legisla- tion 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 pertina- cious and vehement enemies of the House of Stuart.

Delaune's Flea 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

136 Books Fatal to their Authors.

its author is given in a previous volume of the Book-Lover's Library {Books Con- de^nned 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 Condem7ie,^ 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 un- warrantable. But this is not the place for controversy.

A book entitled Jzdiati 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,

Politics and Statesmanship. 137

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 Juliati's Arts to 2inderinine and extirpate Chris- tianity. Johnson was subsequently con- demned to a fine of one hundred marks, and imprisoned. On his release his efforts did not flag. He wrote An Mumble 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

138 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 country- men, and foremost among these was Edmund Richer, a learned doctor of the

Politics and Statesmanship. 139

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 (161 1), 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 essen- tially 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 x\bsolute 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

140 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 de- manded from him an immediate retracta- tion 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 com- plained, 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 com- fort. 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.

Politics and Statesmanship. 141

A strange work of a wild fanatic, John de Falkemberg, entitled Diatribe centre Ladislas, Roi de Fologne, was produced at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and condemned by the Council of Con- stance in 14 14. 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 Con- stance 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

142 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 up- holder of Venetian liberties, and he was excommunicated. His Histoire de I'ln- terdit (Venice, 1606) exasperated the Papal party. One evening in the follow- ing 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, 16 19. His complete works were published in Naples in 1790, in twenty-four volumes.

Another Venetian statesman, Jerome Maggi, very learned in archeeology, history, mathematics, and other sciences, hastened his death by his writings. He

Politics and Statesmanship. 143

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 cap- tivity by writing two books, De equiileo and De tintinnahilis, 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 ambassa- dors 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 am- bassador, the captain of the prison ordered him to be brought back and immediately strangled in the prison.

The unhappy Jean Lenoir, Canon of Seez, was doomed in 1684 to a Ufe-long servitude in the galleys, after making a public retractation of his errors in the Church of Notre-Dame, at Paris. His

144 Books Fatal to their Authors.

impetuous and impassioned eloquence is displayed in all his writings, which were collected and published under the title Recueil de Requites et de Factuftis. The titles of some of his treatises will show how obnoxious they were to the ruling powers — e.g., Heresiede la domination epis- copale que Ion etabliten France, Protestation contre les assemblies du clerge de 1681, etc. These were the causes of the severe per- secutions 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, al- though black in name {le noir), was white in his virtues and his character. He was re- leased 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 Jesuites (1768, 2 vols., in-12) and his An- nales Politiques. After his release he wrote an account of his imprisonment, which created a great sensation, and aroused the popular indignation against

Politics and Statesmanship. 145

the Bastille which was only appeased with its destruction. Linguet's Annales Poli- tiques was subsequently published in Brussels in 1787, for which he was re- warded by the Emperor Joseph II. with a present of t,ooo 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 Abbe Caveirac, who wrote Appel a la Raison des Ecrits et Libelles publics contre les Jesiiites, 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.

146 Books Fatal to their Authors.

A friend of Linguet, Darigrand, wrote a book entitled L Antifinancier, ou Releve de quelques-unes des malversations dofit se rendent journellement les Fermiers-Gener- aux, et des vexations quails commettent dans les provinces {Faris, Lajnbert, 1764, 2 vols., in-i 2). It was directed against the abomin- able system of taxation in vogue in France, which was mainly instrumental in pro- ducing the Revolution. Darigrand was a lawyer, and had been employed in la ferine generale. He knew all the iniqui- ties 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 lucra- tive 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 extor- tion, torture, and ruination which made a reformation or a revolution inevitable.

Authors have often been compelled to

Politics and Statesmanship. 147

eat their words, but the operation has seldom been performed literally. In the seventeenth century, owing to the disas- trous part which Christian IV". of Den- mark 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, lament- ing the diminished glory of his race, wrote a book entitled Dania ad exteros de per- fidia Siiecorum (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 Rein- king 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 — Fer- rante Pallavicino — Francois Gacon — Daniel Defoe — Du Rosoi — Caspar Scioppius.

lO " 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 check- ing 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 philo- sopher who said : " If evil be said of thee, and it be true, correct thyself; if it 148

Satire. 149

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 ap- pointed 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 161 8, 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 amoiir- euse des Gaules (Paris, 1665, i 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 in- trigue which Louis carried on with La Valliere. He spares few of the ladies of the Court, and lashes them all with his

150 Books Fatal to their Authors.

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 bee amoureux, Qui, d'une oreille a I'autre va. Alleluia," 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 memoires 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

Satire. 1 5 1

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, coun- sellor 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. Parlia- ment 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

152 Books Fatal to their Atithors.

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 httle less active and his satire less severe. He wrote a book entitled Raggtiagli di Parnasso (16 12), 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 con- temporaries, 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

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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 dis- covered, who, on account of his work en- titled La Bete a sept tctes, 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 con- fining his labour to the external adorn- ment of books, he acquired some know- ledge of letters. He began his career by writing a satirical sonnet against indulgences, and was compelled to fly

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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,* 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 principiim. Aretino adopted the ini- quitous 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

* These were published under the title of La corona de i cazsi, doe, sonetti lussuriosi del Pietro Aretino. Stamp, senza Ltiogo ne anno, m-l6. The engravings in this edition, the work of Marc Antonio of Bolgna, were no less scan- dalous than the sonnets, and the engraver was ordered to be arrested by Pope Clement VII., and only escaped punishment by flight.

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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 pubhshed a Paraphrase on the seven Penitential Psalms (Venice, 1534), and a work entitled De hiimanitate sive in- carnatione Christi (Venice, 1535), calling himself Aretino the divine, and by favour of Pope Julius III. he nearly obtained a Cardinal's hat. Concerning his Para- phrase a French poet wrote : —

•' Si ce livre unit le destin De David et de I'Aretin, Dans leur merveilleuse science, Lecteur n'en sois pas empeche Qui paraphrase le peche Paraphrase la penitence."

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 flagelluju of princes, was beaten to death

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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 Zurich 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 jurunique Doctoris Felicis Malleoli Hemmerli^ii varice oblectationis Opuscula et Tradatus {Basilea;, 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 Beguines. The town of Ziirich 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

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