Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/44

 28 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES preceding. In his Dedicatory Epistle to his old pro- tector, the Cardinal de Chastillon, dated Paris, 28th January 1552, he declares, with that coolness of con- summate audacity which must have largely helped to save him when weaker men were lost : " But the calumny of certain cannibals, misanthropes, and laughterless fools {agelastes) had been so atrocious and unreasonable against me, that it had vanquished my patience, and I had intended not to write a jot more. For one of the least of their slanders was that all my books are stuffed with heresies, though they could not show a single one in any passage. Of joyous fooleries, free from offence to God and the king, yes : they are the unique subject and theme of these books ; of heresies, no ; if not perversely, and against all usage of reason and common lan- guage, interpreted into what I would rather suffer a thousand deaths, were it possible, than have thought ; as who should interpret bread, stone ; fish, serpent ; egg, scorpion." Yet, in this fourth book, he not only mercilessly derided the monks as before, but also the fasts of the Church, the Court of Rome, the Council of Trent, the authority of the Pope, and even (chap, xxvii.) the immortality of the soul, and (chap, xxviii.) the Divinity of Christ. Ac- cordingly, this book had scarcely appeared when it was condemned by the Faculty of Theology, which procured a decree of the Parliament of Paris, dated I St March 1552, suspending the sale, and sum- moning the printer to appear before it. Paul La- croix, indeed, argues with probability that the first edition was suppressed, that which we have being the second, and the Epistle dedicatory to the Car-