BOO K. 



665 



Bcok. tionof all the unbiassed and judicious. Who can hear, 

 v without emotion, that the works of such men as Lin- 

 naeus, and our cou.itryman Principal Robertson, men 

 not more remarkable for the vigour of their genius, 

 and the amplitude of their attainments, than for their 

 sacred regard to religion, are prohibited on the con- 

 tinent, as dangerous in theirtendency ? The slightest 

 appearance of contradiction, even though unintended, 

 to the absurdities of a prevailing superstition, has 

 often drawn down the weightiest vengeance on the 

 unfortunate authors. A printer was beheaded in 

 1542, for the publication of a Dutch Bible. Pape- 

 brock, a learned Jesuit of Antwerp, was condemned 

 by the Inquisition of Madrid, for advancing three he- 

 terodox assertion's ; first, that the Carmelite, or bare- 

 footed monks, were not descended from the prophet 

 Elias ; secondly, that the image of our Saviour was 

 not impressed on the sacred handkerchiefs, and that 

 doubts might be entertained whether there was ac- 

 tually a Saint Veronica ; and, lastly, that the church 

 of Antwerp 1 wa not, as it pretended, in possession of 

 that corporeal evidence which proved the circumci- 

 sion of Jesus Christ. After these examples of into- 

 lerance, we cannot be surprised that the truly excep- 

 tionable works of Voltaire should have been con- 

 demned and suppressed immediately on their publica- 

 tion ; that the Emile of Rousseau was torn and burnt 

 by the bands of the common executioners at Paris 

 and Geneva ; and that the same sentence was passed 

 against the Chrislianisme Devoilee of Boulanger by 

 the French parliament in 1 770, and against the History 

 of the East and West Indies by the Abbe Raynal in 

 1781. Even in the literary history of our own coun- 

 try, many instances occur of persecution equally un- 

 justifiable against authors, whose publications have 

 been offensive to church or state. William Prynne, 

 the celebrated author of Histriomasti-x, a work level- 

 led against the licentious amusements and practices 

 which prevailed in the court of Charles I., was com- 

 mitted to the Tower of London in 1633, the year 

 after its publication, and sentenced by the Star Cham- 

 ber to pay a fine of j5000 to the king; to be ex- 

 pelled from the university of Oxford, and the Temple 

 in Lincoln's Inn ; to be degraded and disabled from 

 practising his profession as a lawyer ; to stand on the 

 pillory; there to lose part of his ears; to have his 

 book burnt before his face; and to be impriso; c d 

 For life. The execution of this severe sentence did 

 not deter him from again exposing himself to the 

 vengeance of the court, by the publication of another 

 work, entitled Nemt from Ipswich, which made its 

 appearance in 1637. He was a second time senten- 

 ced by the Star Chamber to pay a heavy fine, to lose 

 the remainder of his ears on the pillory, to be brand- 

 ed on both cheeks with the letters S. L. (Schisma- 

 tical Libeller,) and to be perpetually imprisoned. 

 This sentence was enforced in all its rigour ; but 

 when the government was overturned by the revolu- 

 tionists, he was relieved by an order of the House of 

 Commons in 1640; and twenty years after was himself 

 elected a member of parliament. Neither prosperous 

 nor adverse fortune, however, could check his pro- 

 pensity to expose and inveigh against what he con- 

 ceived to be abuses ; and he now published some re- 



VOI.. 111. PART IV. 



flections against the House ; for which he was com- 

 pelled to apologise. Woolston, the author of seve- 

 ral controversial works in theology, was prosecuted 

 in the Court of King's Bench, for the publication of 

 the Moderator and Apostate, with two Supplements. 

 At the solicitation of Mr Whiston, the attorney ge- 

 neral then desisted from the prosecution. But when 

 he published his Six Discourses on the Miracles of 

 Christ, a new prosecution was commenced against 

 him, and he was fined in ;100, and sentenced to one 

 year's imprisonment. Coward's Thoughts on the 

 Human Soul, published at London in 1702, were 

 condemned by parliament to be burnt by the hands 

 of the common executioner, as containing doctrines 

 hostile to the Christian religion ; and the famous John 

 Wilkes was expelled from parliament, in consequence 

 of the publication of his North Briton, and Essay 

 on Women. While the question of the expediency 

 of a union between England and Scotland was keenly 

 agitated, Atwood, an English lawyer, imprudently 

 revived the obsolete dispute concerning the superiori- 

 ty of England over this kingdom. A treatise which 

 he wrote on this invidious subject, was communicated 

 to the Scottish parliament, who, with becoming in- 

 dignation, condemned it to be burnt in Edinburgh 

 by the common executioner. Works suppressed 

 from such causes as these, often excite an interest 

 which leads in time to their extensive circulation ; 

 but at all events, the original editions of them neces- 

 sarily continue exceedingly rare ; and when a portion 

 of them has been destroyed, the scarcity must al- 

 ways remain. In some instances, the most rigorous 

 suppression becomes not only justifiable, but indis- 

 pensibly necessary, as in the case of works directly- 

 immoral, or of malicious libels calculated to ruin the 

 character and the peace of individuals. Yet such is 

 the perverseness of human nature, that such works 

 are frequently read with an avidity exactly propor- 

 tioned to the severity with which they are prohibit- 

 ed. Two volumes by Pasquill, published at Rome 

 ill 1544, are now very eagerly sought after, and bear 

 an extraordinary price. They contain a number of 

 epigrams in verse, and dialogues in prose, inveighing 

 with much asperity against the government, and the 

 conduct of private persons. 



3. The next cause of the scarcity of books is, when, 

 by particular accidents, they have been almost wholly 

 destroyed. It is owing to a cause of this nature, that 

 the Atlantica of Olaus Rudbeck can scarcely be ob- 

 tained complete ; and had not some copies of the se- 

 cond part of the Machina Coslestis of Hevelius been 

 given to the author's friends, it would have been to- 

 tally lost in the flames which consumed his house. 

 A similar accident destroyed most of the large paper 

 copies of Wakefield's Lucretius de Natura Rerum ; 

 in consequence of which those which were preserved 

 are valued at sixty guineas each. 



4. A fourth cause of the absolute scarcity of books 

 is, when only part of them has been printed, the rest re- 

 maining unfinished. Cases of this kind too frequently 

 occur, to require or to permit any particular enume- 

 ration. It necessarily happens when an author or 

 editor, for want of encouragement, is unable to pro- 

 ceed with his work; and as none but an amateur of 



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