Page:Books Condemned to be Burnt - James Anson Farrer.djvu/167

Rh he says also of the Fathers would be nowadays assented to by all who have ever had the curiosity to look into their writings; namely, "that they were as injudicious, violent, and factious as other men; that they were, for the greatest part, very credulous and superstitious in religion, as well as pitifully ignorant and superficial in the minutest punctilios of literature."

Toland was only twenty-six when he published his first book, but, to judge from the correspondence between Locke and Molyneux, he was vain and indiscreet. "He has raised against him," says the latter from Dublin (May 27 th, 1697), "the clamours of all parties; and this not so much by his difference in opinion as by his unseasonable way of discoursing, propagating, and maintaining it." Again (September 11th, 1697): "Mr. T. is at last driven out of the kingdom; the poor gentleman, by his imprudent management, had raised such an universal outcry that it was even dangerous for a man to have been known once to converse with him. This made all men wary of reputation decline seeing him; insomuch that at last he wanted a meal's meat (as I am told), and none would admit him to their tables. The little stock of money which he