2nd s. N« 97., Nov. 7. 'S?.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



87S 



Vaillant, with an Introduction by Bowyer, 8vo., 

 Londini, 1766. Vaillant gave the. MS. to the 

 British Museum, where it now remains (No. 4803. 

 Add. MSS.). There is not a printed copy at the 

 Museum, and the book is scarce ; probably there 

 were not many copies printed. The MS. is only 

 a transcript — not Hardouin's " autograph " — as 

 stated on the title-page of the publication.* It is 

 stated that Hardouin confided his MSS. to the 

 care of the Abbe d'Olivef, who placed them in 

 the Library of Paris. It was probably thence 

 that Vaillant obtained his copy ; and there also 

 may remain the larger MS. Censura Scriptorum 

 Veterum, 



This work is a recapitulation and farther af- 

 firmation of all his astounding averments. All 

 histofy, philosophy, science, divinity, lives of 

 saints and martyrs — in a word, the whole mass 

 of human knowledge — had been forged by the 

 monks of Germany, France, and Italy. The li- 

 braries of the monasteries, before the invention of 

 printing, were nothing but arsenals of atheism 

 and heresy, " armentaria atheismi et haeresum " 

 (Proleg. c. xvi.). In a previous work he said 

 that the Missals and Breviaries were forgeries ! 

 (Op. Varia, p. 549.) Indeed much that he wrote 

 in this vein of historical scepticism would be 

 downright profanity, or even " blasphemy," if it 

 had not been written by a man of acknowledged 

 piety. Such is the paramount value of a repu- 

 tation ! 



Had he an object in view ? It seems so from 

 his Prolegomena. The legitimate inference from 

 his theory is that he wished to establish Romanism 

 on the ruins of universal learning, and to reduce 

 mankind to an implicit submission to the Pope- 

 dom : for, to the obvious question, which he states 

 himself, " If we must not believe the Fathers, 

 whom can we believe ?" he boldly replies : "Not 

 the Fathers, I say, but our Holy Mother the 

 Church of Rome " — " Non Patribus, inquam ego, 

 sed Matri Sanctas Romanae Ecclesise." It is im- 

 possible to read his works and believe that the 

 man was not in earnest — at least in the expres- 

 sion of his doubts — or scepticism. Dupin af- 

 firms that Hardouin was perfectly serious in his 

 scepticism ; and the numerous " refutations " gf 

 his theory attest that it was calculated to unsettle 



* The MS. is written in a clear, bold, mature hand, 

 such as Hardouin could not have written in his old age — 

 the period of its composition — although the style is as 

 vigorous as ever, and shows no signs of decay. There is 

 another MS. at the Museum (Sloane MSS. 130.) of Har- 

 douin's De Nummis Herod., which is evidently his auto- 

 graph, the handwriting of which proves that the former 

 is a copy. The title of the printed work is, — " Joannis 

 Harduini Jesuitae, Ad Censuram Scriptorum Veterum 

 Prolegomena. Juxta Autographum, sumt. P. Vaillant. 

 Londini, 8vo." pp. 237. In Klotz's Acta Literaria, iv. 

 p. 274., there is a savage review of this book, with ex- 

 tracts. 



the minds of men at the time : indeed he made a 

 convert of his brother- Jesuit the similarly famous 

 Berruyer ; and even had a determined defender 

 of his system in a periodical of the day. All men 

 of sober thought felt convinced that Hardouin's 

 hypothesis leads directly to serious doubts and 

 incredulity — from the mere fact of its being 

 averred by a man of well-known piety. What 

 could the alternative of accepting the dogma of 

 Rome be to most men ? 



Hardouin died in 1729, aged eighty-three ; 

 Voltaire was then in his thirty-fifth year ; and he 

 certainly expanded Father Hardouin's historical 

 Pyrrhonism to the utmost in his Essai sur les 

 Mceurs and other writings. In truth Voltaire and 

 Hardouin seem to have been very similarly " or- 

 ganised." The latter was a Jesuit, and he gave 

 his doubts a seemingly harmless channel. He 

 used to say that " God had deprived him of 

 human faith in order to strengthen in him that 

 which was divine." Voltaire or any other sceptic 

 may surely utter the same sublime excuse and 

 deprecation. 



On the other hand, when astonishment was ex- 

 pressed at the boldness of his paradoxes, Har- 

 douin replied, " What ! Do you think I should 

 have been getting up every morning of my life at 

 four o'clock, merely to say what others have said 

 before me ?" Hence the Jesuits themselves have 

 adopted the opinion that he was actuated by a 

 mere love of singularity — by the ambitious desire 

 of establishing one of those reputations which are 

 acquired by paradox. Valeat quantum — but what 

 if the expression of these vagaries could be the 

 only allowable exponent of his doubts and diffi- 

 culties ? 



Bishop Lowth qualifies Hardouin as " a man of 

 extensive learning, of much more extensive read- 

 ing, of great genius, of a strong, a lively, a fruitful, 

 aforgetive imagination : but very confident, arro- 

 gant, and violently addicted to hypothesis and 

 paradox ;" and Jacob Vernet of Geneva dedi- 

 cated to him the following epitaph ; 



" In expectatione Judicii 



Hie jacet 



Hominura paradoxatatos ; 



Natione Gallus, religione Romanus ; 



Orbis literarii Portentum : 



Venerandse Antiquitatis Cultor et Destructor : 



Doct^ febricitans 



Somnia, et inaudita commenta vigilans, edidit. 



Scepticum pife egit. 



Credulitate puer, audacia juvenis, deliriis senex:— 



Verbo dicam, hie jacet Harduinus." 



F. C. H. (2°'* S. iv. 316.) is clearly wrong in 

 stating that Gibbon alludes to this learned Jesuit's 

 treatise De Nummis Herodiadum. If he will refer 

 to the treatise (Harduini, Opera Selecfa, p. 343. 

 b.) he will find that Hardouin therein merely 

 hints furtively at his theory, without mentioning 

 St. Peter, or even the JEneid. If Gibbon alluded 



