Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 03.pdf/468

 The Law and Authors in the Olden Time. rant of the writings of that illustrious Swede. In France, in 1790, above 4,194,412 books, which were in the suppressed monasteries, were burned. Two millions were on theology, and 26,000 were manuscripts. In the city of Paris alone 808,120 volumes were burned. A gentleman named Collingbourne was executed on Tower Hill for the following couplet, alluding to Catesby, Ratcliff, and Lovel giving their advice to Richard III., whose crest was a white boar: — "The cat, the rat. and Lovel our dog, Rule all England under a hog."' The unfortunate versifier having been hanged, was cut down immediately, and his entrails were then extracted and thrown into the fire; and all this was so speedily per formed that, as Stow says, when the execu tioner pulled out his heart, " he spake and said, ' Jesus, Jesus! ' " W. Thomas, author of " A Historie of Italy, a Boke Excedyng Profitable to be Redde" (1549), enjoyed the confidence of Henry VIII. and Edward VI., but was hanged by order of Queen Mary, for the bitterness he evinced toward the Pope and others in that curious and now very scarce book. The printer of a work entitled " Doleman's Conferance about the next Succes sion to the Crown of England " (1594), was hanged, drawn, and quartered; and it was en acted by the 35th of Elizabeth that whoever should have this book in his house should be condemned as guilty of high treason. Cardinal Allen, Sir Francis Englefield, and Father Robert Parsons the Jesuit are sup posed to have written this work, the object of which was to support the title of the Infanta against that of King James, after the death of Elizabeth. It is now so very rare that as much as fifteen pounds has been paid for one of the few copies that exist; and even an imperfect copy has been sold for £110s. Archbishop Laud was be headed for compiling Charles I.'s " Book of Sports" (1633). Jacques Boulay, canon of St. Pierre cn Pont, wrote " Le Vigneron Francais " (1723), containing an excellent 56

433

account of the French vineyards, and so faithful an exposure of the frauds and adul terations practised by the growers and sell ers, that tradition says he was found one fine morning hung up in the midst of his own vineyard, as a public warning to those who make people too wise by telling the tricks of trade. Campbell the poet called Bonaparte the literary executioner, because Palm the bookseller was executed in Ger many by order of the French. George Withers the poet was imprisoned for several months in the Marshalsea, as a punishment for the offence he gave by his satires, in a little book entitled " Abuses Stript and Whipt" (1633). In James I I.'s reign Richard Baxter, the eminent divine and nonconformist, was committed to the King's Bench by a warrant from the detest able Judge Jeffries, who treated this worthy man, at his trial, in the most brutal manner, and reproached him with having written a cartload of books, " every one as full of sedi tion and treason as an egg is full of meat." Bussy Rabutin, maliciously betrayed by the Marchioness of Beaume as the author of "Amours des Illustres de France," pub lished at Cologne in 17 17, was sent to the Bastile, and then exiled seventeen years on his own estate. Thomas Wilson, who was seized at Rome and thrown into the Inquisition in conse quence of the heresies contained in his " Arte of Rhetorique, for the use of all such as are Studious of Eloquence" (1553), would have been burned if the prison itself had not taken fire; for the people then broke open the doors, that the prisoners might save their lives if they could, and Wilson made his es cape. Henry Stephens the printer was con demned to be burned for publishing a work entitled " Introduction au Traite de la Conformite des Mervailles Anciennes avec les Modernes " (1566), which is so full of amus ing anecdotes and satire against monks, priests, and popes, that many authors have been tempted to extract from it without acknowledgment. While Charles II. had the