be mentioned whose works have been very fatal; but theology was not the only branch of literature which brought trouble upon its professors. Fanatics and freethinkers, astrologers, alchemists, and magicians, men of science and philosophers, historians, politicians, and statesmen, satirists, poets, and dramatists, all have experienced something of the same fatality, and suffered prosecution and persecution, fines, a passing acquaintance with the stocks, prison, pillory, ear-cropping, exile, and sometimes death. The victims of fanaticism were usually fitter for an asylum than a prison. Kulmann, their prince, saw strange visions and wrote his mad ravings in two books, entitled "Aurora" and "Prodromus Quinquennii Mirabilis," which caused him to be exiled from Holland, his native land, whence he wandered through many countries, and was finally burnt at Moscow in 1689. Simon Morin, on account of his "Pensées," published in Paris in 1647, was condemned by the Parliament of that city to do penance, dressed in his shirt, with a rope round his neck, a torch in his hand, before the entrance of Notre Dame, and was then burnt with his book, his ashes being cast into the air. Three famous advocates of polygamy-John Lyser, Bernard Ochin, and Samuel Willenborg-all suffered various pains and penalties on account of the errors expressed in their works. It is curious to note that Lyser had no inclination to practise what he preached : he abhorred womankind and ever remained a bachelor. Probably the love of notoriety, which has proved fatal to many authors, led him to advocate so vehemently his strange opinions. Books relating to alchemy and magic have caused much trouble. Edward Kelly, the companion of Dr. Dee, had his ears cut off at Manchester, and his friend and patron, whose works were edited by Casaubon, was obliged to fly from England, and seek shelter at the court of the Emperor Rudolf. The impostor, Joseph Francis Borri, an Italian chemist and charlatan, who claimed after the fashion of alchemists to have discovered the philosopher's stone, wrote a book entitled "The Key of the Cabinet of Borri," and was imprisoned for life in the Castle of St. Angelo. Urban Grandier, an amiable cleric of France, offended Richelieu in his book, "La Cordonnière de Loudun," and consequently, when a strange frenzy broke out among the nuns of the convent of which he was Director, he was accused of witchcraft, and condemned to be burnt. When he ascended the funeral pile a fly was observed to buzz around his head, and a monk standing near declared that as Beelzebub was the God of Flies, the devil was with Grandier in his dying hour, and wished to bear away his soul to the infernal regions. Among scientific writers one Roger Bacon was imprisoned on account of his books, and everyone knows the treatment which Galileo received at the hands of the Inquisition. Jordano Bruno, an Italian, who was a friend of Sir Philip Sydney, on account of his book, "The Expulsion of the Triumphing Beast," was burnt at Rome in 1595. 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." Lucilio Vanini was an Italian philosopher of much learning, who, after the fashion of the scholars of his age, roamed from country to country, like the knight-errants of the days of chivalry, seeking for glory and honour, not by the sword, but by learning. This Vanini was a somewhat vain and ridiculous person. He assumed the high-sounding cognomen of Julius Cæsar, and soon wrote a book which caused him to be accused of Atheism. He was burnt at Toulouse in 1619. The catalogue of historians who have suffered on account of their works is very long. One Antonius Palearius actually dared to attack the Inquisition itself, and for his pains was hung, strangled, and burnt at Rome in 1566. He stated that that dread tribunal was a dagger pointed at the throats of literary men. As an instance of the foolishness of the method of discovering the guilt of the accused, we may notice that Palearius was adjudged a heretic because he preferred to sign his name Aonius instead of Antonius, his accuser alleging that he abhorred the sign of the Cross in the letter T, and therefore abridged his name. By such absurd arguments were men doomed to death. In England political works have slain many authors. The Marprelate tracts, breathing forth terrible hate and scurrilous abuse against "bouncing priests and bishops," doomed Udal and Penry to the block, and Hacket, Coppinger, and Arthington to severe penalties. Dr. Leighton, a Scottish divine, on account of "Syon's Plea against Prelacy" (1628), was ordered "to be committed to the Fleet Prison for life, and to pay a fine of £10,000 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 in prison for the remainder of his life, unless his Majesty be pleased to enlarge him "—a sentence sufficiently severe to deter any rash scribe from venturing upon authorship! John Stubbs, who wrote "Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf," &c., protesting against Queen Elizabeth's proposed marriage with the Duke of Anjou, together with Page, his bookseller, was brought into the open market at Westminster, and had his right hand 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!" Prynne's punishment on account of "Histriomastix" was sufficiently severe; he was condemned to lose both his ears, to pay a fine of £5,000, and to be kept in perpetual imprisonment. To satirise the foibles and weaknesses of mankind has always proved itself to be a somewhat dangerous pastime, as many authors have found to their cost. Italian air seems specially to have favoured this species of writing, but Italian susceptibility has been rather fatal to satirists. The most venomous of all was Gaspar Scioppius, who had such a singular lust for powerful invective that he cared not whom he attacked, and made himself abhorred by all. He earned the title of "the Attila of Authors," and boasted that he caused the death of two of his literary opponents, Casaubon and Scaliger, who, worn out by vexation and disappointment, produced by his attacks, ended their lives in misery. This "public pest of letters and society," as the Jesuits loved to call him, saw the interior of a prison cell at Venice, on account of his attack on the Jesuits in a book entitled "Relatio ad reges et principes de stratagematibus Societatis Jesu" (1635), and only escaped death by means of the protection of a powerful Venetian. Powerful friends were certainly useful in the days of savage and relentless criticism. Alphonso V., King of Aragon, performed the charitable office of rescuing, from the clutches of the merciless Holy Office, Laurence Valla, who had incurred the wrath of the Inquisition by his work on the Donation of Constantine. Notwithstanding, the poor author was compelled to renounce his heretical opinions, and was beaten with rods. The severity of Valla's Satire, and the correctness of his Latinity, are borne witness to by the following witty epigram : Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit, Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui. Jupiter hunc cœli dignatus honore fuisset, One of the most famous early Italian satirists was Pietro Aretino, who earned the title of flagellum principum, and wrote many rude and obscene satires on great men, varied by several theological works and a paraphrase on the Seven Penitential Psalms. He was an utterly worthless fellow, and almost deserved his fate, if the story be true, that he, the flagellum of princes, was beaten to death by order of the princes of Italy. Another story states that he who laughed at others all his life was himself killed by laughter; his risible faculties being on one occasion so violently excited by certain obscene jests that he fell from his seat, striking his head against the ground with such force that he died. A similar uncertainty of fate enshrouds the death of poor Niccolo Franco, a true poet of Italy of the sixteenth century, who heaped scorn upon the fashionable vices of his age, and inveighed against the reprobates and fools, the crowds of monsignors who were as vain of their effeminacy as the Scipios of their deeds of valour. The Pope and Cardinals, stung by his shafts of satire, cruelly avenged themselves upon the unhappy poet. Some say he was hung on a beam attached to the famous statue of the gladiator, in front of the palace of the Orsini, called the Pasquin, to which the deriders and enemies of the Pope were accustomed to affix their epigrams and pamphlets. Others declare that he suffered punishment in a funereal chamber draped with black; while another authority asserts that the poet was hung on a forked-shaped gibbet. It I met with a copy in a catalogue of old books of Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnasso" (1612). This was a fatal book. represents Apollo as judge of Parnassus, citing before him kings, authors, warriors, statesmen, and other mighty personages, minutely examining their faults and crimes, and passing judgment upon them. Inasmuch as these people whom Apollo condemned were the author's contemporaries, it may be imagined that the book created no small stir, and aroused the anger of the victims of his satire. The poor author fled to Venice, where he imagined himself safe; but assassins were not hard to find in the seventeenth century, and one day four strong ruffians seized the obnoxious author, cast him upon a couch, and beat him to death with bags filled with sand. One example of French satirical writing may be mentioned. Count Roger Rabutin de Bussy exercised his keen wit on the court intrigues and lawless loves of the grand monarch. His first book, "Les Amours du Palais Royal," excited the wrath of Louis XIV. This was followed by his "Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules," wherein he described the lax manners of the court, the intrigue of Louis with La Vallière, and lashed all the fair court dames with his satire, amongst them Mesdames d'Olonne and de Chatillon. Unhappily he had the indiscretion to show the book when it was yet in MS. to his intimate friend, the Marchioness de Beaume. 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 presented itself. She showed the ladies of the court the severe verses which the Count had written. So enraged were they that they carried their complaints to the King, already smarting under De Bussy's satire, and the poor author was immediately sent to the Bastille, and then doomed to perpetual banishment. Everyone has heard of the fate of Daniel Defoe, the illustrious author of "Robinson Crusoe," who was condemned to prison and the pillory for his "Shortest Way with the Dissenters." A parody of Young's "Night Thoughts," entitled "Les Jours d'Ariste," sent Durosoy to the Bastille, and a scandalous poem carried by a gust of wind through an open window condemned Pierre Petit to the stake. It would be an easy task to multiply instances of literary martyrdom, and to add to our long list of unhappy authors. One writer lost his life on account of a single couplet of verses. This was Caspar Weiser, Professor of Lund in Sweden. When the city was captured by the Danes in 1676, Weiser greeted the conqueror with the following couplet : Perge, triumphator, reliquas submittere terras: This was fatal to him. The Swedish monarch recovered his lost territory, and the poor poet lost his head. The same hard fate befell John Williams in 1619, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered, on account of two poems, "Balaam's Ass" and "Speculum Regis," the MSS. of which he foolishly sent secretly in a box to James I. The monarch always feared assassination, and as one of the poems foretold his speedy decease, the prophet incurred the king's wrath, and suffered death for his pains. We have often heard of authors being compelled to "eat their words," but the operation has seldom been performed literally. One instance of this, however, we can mention. When the Danes lost much of their power during the Thirty Years' War, and were overshadowed by the might of Sweden, one Theodore Reinking, lamenting the diminished glory of his nation, wrote a work upon the history of his country and the guiles of the Swedes. It was not a very excellent work, neither was its author a learned nor accurate historian, but it aroused the anger of the Swedes, who cast Reinking VOL. CCLXXXIV. NO. 2005, E |