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THEOLOGY.

Michael Molinos--Bartholomew Carranza--Jerome Wecchiettus--Samuel Clarke--Francis David--Antonio de Dominis--No?l B?de--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--Ab?lard.

FANATICS AND FREE-THINKERS.

Quirinus Kuhlmann--John Tennhart--Jeremiah Felbinger--Simon Morin--Liszinski--John Toland--Thomas Woolston--John Biddle--Johann Lyser--Bernardino Ochino--Samuel Friedrich Willenberg.

ASTROLOGY, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC.

Henry Cornelius Agrippa--Joseph Francis Borri--Urban Grandier--Dr. Dee--Edward Kelly--John Darrell.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

Bishop Virgil--Roger Bacon--Galileo--Jordano Bruno--Thomas Campanella--De Lisle de Sales--Denis Diderot--Balthazar Bekker--Isaac de la Peyr?re--Abb? de Marolles--Lucilio Vanini--Jean Rousseau.

HISTORY.

Antonius Palearius--Caesar Baronius--John Michael Bruto--Isaac Berruyer? Louis Elias Dupin--Noel Alexandre--Peter Giannone--Joseph Sanfelicius --Arlotto--Bonfadio--De Thou--Gilbert G?n?brard--Joseph Audra--Beaumelle--John Mariana--John B. Primi--John Christopher R?diger--Rudbeck--Fran?ois Haudicquer--Fran?ois de Rosi?res--Anthony Urseus.

POLITICS AND STATESMANSHIP.

John Fisher--Reginald Pole--"Martin Marprelate"--Udal--Penry--Hacket--Coppinger--Arthington--Cartwright --Cowell--Leighton--John Stubbs--Peter Wentworth--R. Doleman--J. Hales-- Reboul--William Prynne--Burton?Bastwick--John Selden--John Tutchin-- Delaune--Samuel Johnson--Algernon Sidney--Edmund Richer--John de Falkemberg--Jean Lenoir--Simon Linguet--Abb? Caveirac--Darigrand--Pietro Sarpi--Jerome Maggi--Theodore Reinking.

SATIRE.

Roger Rabutin de Bussy--M. Dassy--Trajan Boccalini--Pierre Billard--Pietro Aretino--Felix Hemmerlin--John Giovanni Cinelli--Nicholas Francus--Lorenzo Valla--Ferrante Pallavicino--Fran?ois Gacon--Daniel Defoe--Du Rosoi--Caspar Scioppius.

POETRY.

Adrian Beverland--Cecco d'Ascoli--George Buchanan--Nicodemus Frischlin--Clement Marot--Gaspar Weiser--John Williams--Deforges--Th?ophile--H?lot--Matteo Palmieri--La Grange--Pierre Petit--Voltaire--Montgomery--Keats--Joseph Ritson.

DRAMA AND ROMANCE.

Sir John Yorke and Catholic Plays--Abraham Cowley--Antoine Danchet--Claude Cr?billon--Nogaret--Fran?ois de Salignac F?n?lon.

BOOKSELLERS AND PUBLISHERS.

The Printers of Nicholas de Lyra and Caesar Baronius--John Fust--Richard Grafton--Jacob van Liesvelt--John Lufftius--Robert Stephens --Henry Stephens--Simon Ockley--Floyer Sydenham--Edmund Castell--Page--John Lilburne--Etienne Dolet--John Morin--Christian Wechel--Andrew Wechel--Jacques Froull?--Godonesche--William Anderton.

SOME LITERARY MARTYRS.

Leland--Strutt--Cotgrave--Henry Wharton--Robert Heron--Collins--William Cole--Homeric victims--Joshua Barnes--An example of unrequited toil--Borgarutius?Pays.

INDEX

Michael Molinos--Bartholomew Carranza--Jerome Wecchiettus--Samuel Clarke--Francis David--Antonio de Dominis--No?l B?de--William Tyndale--Arias Montanus--John Huss--Antonio Bruccioli--Enzinas--Louis Le Maistre--Gaspar Peucer--Grotius--Vorstius--Pasquier Quesnel--Le Courayer--Savonarola--Michael Servetus--Sebastian Edzardt--William of Ockham--Ab?lard.

The historian then will not be surprised to find that by far the larger number of Fatal Books deal with these subjects of Theology and Religion, and many of them belong to the stormy period of the Reformation. They met with severe critics in the merciless Inquisition, and sad was the fate of a luckless author who found himself opposed to the opinions of that dread tribunal. There was no appeal from its decisions, and if a taint of heresy, or of what it was pleased to call heresy, was detected in any book, the doom of its author was sealed, and the ingenuity of the age was well-nigh exhausted in devising methods for administering the largest amount of torture before death ended his woes.

Liberty of conscience was a thing unknown in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; and while we prize that liberty as a priceless possession, we can but admire the constancy and courage of those who lived in less happy days. We are not concerned now in condemning or defending their opinions or their beliefs, but we may at least praise their boldness and mourn their fate.

Our next author was a victim to the same inconstancy of mind which proved so fatal to Francis David, but sordid reasons and the love of gain without doubt influenced his conduct and produced his fickleness of faith. Antonio de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, was a shining light of the Roman Church at the end of the sixteenth century. He was born in 1566, and educated by the Jesuits. He was learned in history and in science, and was the first to discover the cause of the rainbow, his explanation being adopted and perfected by Descartes. The Jesuits obtained for him the Professorship of Mathematics at Padua, and of Logic and Rhetoric at Brescia. After his ordination he became a popular preacher and was consecrated Bishop of Segni, and afterwards Archbishop of Spalatro in Dalmatia. He took a leading part in the controversy between the Republic of Venice and the Pope, and after the reconciliation between the two parties was obliged by the Pope to pay an annual pension of five hundred crowns out of the revenues of his see to the Bishop of Segni. This highly incensed the avaricious prelate, who immediately began to look out for himself a more lucrative piece of preferment. He applied to Sir Dudley Carleton, the English Ambassador at Venice, to know whether he would be received into the Church of England, as the abuses and corruptions of the Church of Rome prevented him from remaining any longer in her communion.

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

The unreasonableness and injustice of this condemnation may be understood from the following extracts:--

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."

Not only were the Inquisitors and the Cardinals guilty of intolerance and the stern rigour of persecution, but the Reformers themselves, when they had the power, refrained not from torturing and burning those who did not accept their own particular belief. This they did not merely out of a spirit of revenge conceived against those who had formerly condemned their fathers and brethren to the stake, but sometimes we see instances of Reformers slaughtering Reformers, because the victims did not hold quite the same tenets as those who were in power. Poor Michael Servetus shared as hard a fate at the hands of Calvin, as ever "heretic" did at the hands of the Catholics; and this fate was entirely caused by his writings. This author was born in Spain, at Villaneuva in Arragon, in 1509. At an early age he went to Africa to learn Arabic, and on his return settled in France, studying law at Toulouse, and medicine at Lyons and Paris.

Quirinus Kuhlmann--John Tennhart--Jeremiah Felbinger--Simon Morin--Liszinski--John Toland--Thomas Woolston--John Biddle--Johann Lyser--Bernardino Ochino--Samuel Friedrich Willenberg.

The nympholepts of old were curious and unhappy beings who, while carelessly strolling amidst sylvan shades, caught a hasty glimpse of some spirit of the woods, and were doomed ever afterwards to spend their lives in fruitlessly searching after it. The race of Fanatics are somewhat akin to these restless seekers. There is a wildness and excessive extravagance in their notions and actions which separates them from the calm followers of Truth, and leads them into strange courses and curious beliefs. How far the sacred fire of enthusiasm may be separated from the fierce heat of fanaticism we need not now inquire, nor whether a spark of the latter has not shone brilliantly in many a noble soul and produced brave deeds and acts of piety and self-sacrifice. Those whose fate is here recorded were far removed from such noble characters; their fanaticism was akin to madness, and many of them were fitter for an asylum rather than a gaol, which was usually their destination.

Poland witnessed the burning of Cazimir Liszinski in 1689, whose ashes were placed in a cannon and shot into the air. This Polish gentleman was accused of atheism by the Bishop of Potsdam. His condemnation was based upon certain atheistical manuscripts found in his possession, containing several novel doctrines, such as "God is not the creator of man; but man is the creator of a God gathered together from nothing." His writings contain many other extravagant notions of the same kind.

With these unhappy advocates of a system which violates the sacredness of marriage, we must close our list of fanatics whose works have proved fatal to them. Many of them deserve our pity rather than our scorn; for they suffered from that species of insanity which, according to Holmes, is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. At any rate, they furnish an example of that

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

Henry Cornelius Agrippa--Joseph Francis Borri--Urban Grandier--Dr. Dee--Edward Kelly--John Darrell.

Superstition is a deformed monster who dies hard; and like Loki of the Sagas when the snake dropped poison on his forehead, his writhings shook the world and caused earthquakes. Now its power is well-nigh dead. "Superstition! that horrible incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks and poison-chalices, and foul sleeping-draughts, is passing away without return." But society was once leavened with it. Alchemy, astrology, and magic were a fashionable cult, and so long as its professors pleased their patrons, proclaimed "smooth things and prophesied deceits," all went well with them; but it is an easy thing to offend fickle-minded folk, and when the philosopher's stone and the secret of perpetual youth after much research were not producible, the cry of "impostor" was readily raised, and the trade of magic had its uncertainties, as well as its charms.

The book was examined by the Inquisition and placed by the Council of Trent on the list of prohibited works, amongst the heretical books of the first class. Erasmus, however, spoke very highly of it, and declared it to be "the work of a man of sparkling intellect, of varied reading and good memory, who always blames bad things, and praises the good." Schelhorn declares that the book is remarkable for the brilliant learning displayed in it, and for the very weighty testimony which it bears against the errors and faults of the time.

"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."

In the town of Loudun was a famous convent of Ursuline nuns, and Grandier solicited the office of director of the nunnery, but happily he was prevented by circumstances from undertaking that duty. A short time afterwards the nuns were attacked with a curious and contagious frenzy, imagining themselves tormented by evil spirits, of whom the chief was Asmodeus. They pretended that they were possessed by the demon, and accused the unhappy Grandier of casting the spells of witchcraft upon them. He indignantly refuted the calumny, and appealed to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Charles de Sourdis. This wise prelate succeeded in calming the troubled minds of the nuns, and settled the affair.

Manchester was made too hot, even for the alchemist, through the opposition of his clerical brethren, and he was compelled to resign his office of warden of the college. Then, accompanied by Kelly, he wandered abroad, and was received as an honoured guest at the courts of many sovereigns. The Emperor Rodolphe, Stephen, King of Poland, and other royal personages welcomed the renowned astrologers, who could read the stars, had discovered the elixir of life, which rendered men immortal, the philosopher's stone in the form of a powder which changed the bottom of a warming-pan into pure silver, simply by warming it at the fire, and made the precious metals so plentiful that children played at quoits with golden rings. No wonder they were so welcome! They were acquainted with the Rosicrucian philosophy, could hold correspondence with the spirits of the elements, imprison a spirit in a mirror, ring, or stone, and compel it to answer questions. Dr. Dee's mirror, which worked such wonders, and was found in his study at his death in 1608, is now in the British Museum. In spite of all these marvels, the favour which the great man for a time enjoyed was fleet and transient. He fell into poverty and died in great misery, his downfall being brought about partly by his works but mainly by his practices.

Associated with Lancashire demonology is the name of John Darrell, a cleric, afterwards preacher at St. Mary's, Nottingham, who published a narrative of the strange and grievous vexation of the devil of seven persons in Lancashire. This remarkable case occurred at Clayworth in the parish of Leigh, in the family of one Nicholas Starkie, whose house was turned into a perfect bedlam. It is vain to follow the account of the vagaries of the possessed, the howlings and barkings, the scratchings of holes for the familiars to get to them, the charms and magic circles of the impostor and exorcist Hartley, and the godly ministrations of the accomplished author, who with two other preachers overcame the evil spirits.

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

Bishop Virgil--Roger Bacon--Galileo--Jordano Bruno--Thomas Campanella--De Lisle de Sales--Denis Diderot--Balthazar Bekker--Isaac de la Peyr?re--Abb? de Marolles--Lucilio Vanini--Jean Rousseau.

Science in its infancy found many powerful opponents, who, not understanding the nature of the newly-born babe, strove to strangle it. But the infant grew into a healthy child in spite of its cruel stepmother, and cried so loudly and talked so strangely that the world was forced to listen to its utterances. These were regarded with distrust and aversion by the theologians of the day, for they were supposed to be in opposition to Revelation, and contrary to the received opinions of all learned and pious people. Therefore Science met with very severe treatment; its followers were persecuted with relentless vehemence, and "blasphemous fables" and "dangerous deceits" were the only epithets which could characterise its doctrines.

The controversy between Religion and Science still rages, in spite of the declaration of Professor Huxley that in his opinion the conflict between the two is entirely factitious. But theologians are wiser now than they were in the days of Galileo; they are waiting to see what the scientists can prove, and then, when the various hypotheses are shown to be true, it will be time enough to reconcile the verities of the Faith with the facts of Science.

But in spite of these errors Bruno's learning was remarkable. He had an extensive knowledge of all sciences. From England he went to Germany, and lectured at Wittenberg, Prague, and Frankfort. His philosophy resembled that of Spinosa. He taught that God is the substance and life of all things, and that the universe is an immense animal, of which God is the soul.

Authorities differ with regard to the ultimate fate of this author. Some say that he was killed in prison in 1599; others declare that he was released and fled to France, where he enjoyed a pension granted to him by Richelieu. However, during his incarceration he continued his studies, and wrote a work concerning the Spanish monarchy which was translated from Italian into German and Latin. In spite of his learning he made many enemies by his arrogance; and his restless and ambitious spirit carried him into enterprises which were outside the proper sphere of his philosophy. In this he followed the example of many other luckless authors, to whom the advice of the homely proverb would have been valuable which states that "a shoemaker should stick to his last."

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