Books Fatal to Their Authors Part 5

To scoff at the powerful Jesuits was not always a safe pastime, as Pierre Billard discovered, who, on account of his work ent.i.tled _La Bete a sept tetes_, was sent to the Bastille, and subsequently to the prisons of Saint-Lazare and Saint-Victor. The Society objected to be compared to the Seven-headed Beast, and were powerful enough to ruin their bold a.s.sailant, who died at Charenton in 1726.

Another Italian satirist, Pietro Aretino, acquired great fame, but not of a creditable kind. Born at Arezzo in 1492, he followed the trade of a bookbinder; but not confining his labour to the external adornment of books, he acquired some knowledge of letters. He began his career by writing a satirical sonnet against indulgences, and was compelled to fly from his native place and wander through Italy. At Rome he found a temporary resting-place, where he was employed by Popes Leo X. and Clement VII. Then he wrote sixteen gross sonnets on the sixteen obscene pictures of Giulio Romano [Footnote: These were published under the t.i.tle of _La corona de i cazzi, cioe, sonetti lussuriosi del Pietro Aretino. Stamp. senza Luogo ne anno, in-16_. The engravings in this edition, the work of Marc Antonio of Bolgna, were no less scandalous than the sonnets, and the engraver was ordered to be arrested by Pope Clement VII., and only escaped punishment by flight.], which were so intolerable that he was again forced to fly and seek an asylum at Milan under the protection of the "black band" led by the famous Captain Giovanni de Medici. On the death of this leader he repaired to Venice, where he lived by his pen. He began a series of satires on princes and leading men, and earned the t.i.tle of _flagellum principum_. Aretino adopted the iniquitous plan of demanding gifts from those he proposed to attack, in order that by these bribes they might appease the libeller and avert his onslaught. Others employed him to libel their enemies.

Thus the satirist throve and waxed rich and prosperous. His book ent.i.tled _Capricium_ was a rude and obscene collection of satires on great men. His prolific pen poured forth _Dialogues, Sonnets, Comedies_, and mingled with a ma.s.s of discreditable and licentious works we find several books on morality and theology. These he wrote, not from any sense of piety and devotion, but simply for gain, while his immoral life was a strange contrast to his teaching. He published a Paraphrase on the seven Penitential Psalms (Venice, 1534), and a work ent.i.tled _De humanitate sive incarnatione Christi_ (Venice, 1535), calling himself Aretino the divine, and by favour of Pope Julius III. he nearly obtained a Cardinal's hat. Concerning his Paraphrase a French poet wrote:--

"Si ce livre unit le destin De David et de l'Aretin, Dans leur merveilleuse science, Lecteur n'en sois pas empeche Qui paraphrase le peche Paraphrase la penitence."

Utterly venal and unscrupulous, we find him at one time enjoying the patronage of Francis I. of France, and then abusing that monarch and basking in the favour of the Emperor Charles V., who paid him more lavishly. His death took place at Venice in 1557. Some say that he, the _flagellum_ of princes, was beaten to death by command of the princes of Italy; others narrate that he who laughed at others all his life died through laughter. His risible faculties being on one occasion so violently excited by certain obscene jests, he fell from his seat, and struck his head with such violence against the ground that he died.

The town of Zurich was startled in the fifteenth century by finding itself the object of the keen satire of one of its canons, Felix Hemmerlin, who wrote a book ent.i.tled _Clarissimi viri jurumque Doctoris Felicis Malleoli Hemmerlini variae oblectationis Opuscula et Tractatus (Basileae_, 1494, folio). The clergy, both regular and secular, were also subjected to his criticism. The book is divided into two parts; the first is a dialogue _de n.o.bilitate et Rusticitate_, and the second is a treatise against the mendicant friars, monks, Beghards, and Beguines.

The town of Zurich was very indignant at this bold attack, and deprived the poor author of his benefices and of his liberty.

Italian air seems to have favoured satire, but Italian susceptibility was somewhat fatal to the satirists. Giovanni Cinelli, born in 1625, taught medicine at Florence and was ill.u.s.trious for his literary productions. He allied himself with Antonio Magliabecchi, who afforded him opportunities of research in the library of the Grand Duke. He began the great work ent.i.tled _Bibliotheca volans_, the fourth section of which brought grievous trouble upon its author. It was all caused by an unfortunate note which attacked the doctor of the Grand Duke. This doctor was highly indignant, and reported Cinelli to the Tribunal. The book was publicly burnt by the hangman, and Cinelli was confined in prison ninety-*three days and then driven into exile. His misfortunes roused his anger, and he published at his retreat at Venice a bitter satire on men of all ranks ent.i.tled _Giusticazione di Giovanni Cinelli_ (1683), exciting much hostility against him. He died at the age of seventy years in the Castle of San Lorenzo, A.D. 1705, and his _Bibliotheca volans_ was continued and completed by Sanca.s.sani under the fict.i.tious name of Philoponis.

Nicholas Francus, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century, was a graceful writer and very skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Etruscan languages, but incurred a grievous fate on account of his severe satire on Pope Pius IV. The stern persecutor of Carranza, the powerful Archbishop of Toledo, was not a person to be attacked with impunity. The cause of the poet's resentment against the Pope was the prohibition of a certain work, ent.i.tled _Priapeia_, which Francus had commenced, describing the feasts of Priapus. Pius IV. refused to allow the poet to complete his book, and ordered that which he had already written to be burned. This was too much for the equanimity of the poet, whose eye was with fine frenzy rolling, and he began to a.s.sail the Pope with all manner of abuse. For some time the punishment for his rash writing was postponed, on account of the protection of a powerful Cardinal; but on the death of Pius IV. Francus sharpened his pen afresh, and sorely wounded the memory of his deceased foe. In one of his satires the words of St. John's Gospel, _verb.u.m caro factum est_, were inserted; and the charge of profanity was brought against him. At length Pius V. condemned him to death. Some historians narrate that the poor poet was hung on a beam attached to the famous statue of the Gladiator in front of the Palace of the Orsini, called the Pasquin, to which the deriders and enemies of the Pope were accustomed to affix their epigrams and pamphlets. These were called _Pasquinades_, from the curious method adopted for their publication. Others declare that he suffered punishment in a funereal chamber draped with black; while another authority declares that the poet, the victim of his own satires, was hung on a fork-shaped gibbet, not on account of his abuse of Pius IV., but through the hatred of Pius V., which some personal quarrel had excited. This conjecture is, however, probably false.

Francus was a true poet, endowed with a vivid imagination and with a delicate and subtle wit. He scorned the coa.r.s.e invective in which the satirists of his day used to delight. He had many enemies on account of his plain-spoken words and keen criticisms. The problem which perplexed the Patriarch Job--the happiness of prosperous vice, the misery of persecuted virtue--tormented his mind and called forth his embittered words. He inveighed against the reprobates and fools, the crowds of monsignors who were as vain of their effeminacy as the Scipios of their deeds of valour; he combated abuses, and with indignant pen heaped scorn upon the fas.h.i.+onable vices of the age. The Pope and his Cardinals, stung by his shafts of satire, cruelly avenged themselves upon the unhappy poet, and, as we have said, doomed him to death in the year 1569. His Dialogues were printed in Venice by Zuliani in 1593, under the t.i.tle _Dialoghi piacevolissimi di Nicolo Franco da Benevento_; and there is a French translation, made by Gabriel Chapins, published at Lyons in 1579, ent.i.tled _Dix plaisans Dialogues du sieur Nicolo Franco_.

Lorenzo Valla, born at Rome in 1406, was one of the greatest scholars of his age, and contributed more than any other man to the revival of the love of Latin literature in the fifteenth century. His works are voluminous. He translated into Latin _Herodotus_ (Paris, 1510), _Thucydides_ (Lyons, 1543), _The Iliad_ (Venice, 1502), _Fables of Aesop_ (Venice, 1519); and wrote _Elegantiae Sermonis Latini_, a history of Ferdinand Aragon (Paris, 1521), and many other works, which are the monuments of his learning and industry. But Valla raised against him many enemies by the severity of his satire on almost all the learned men of his time. He spared no one, and least of all the clerics, who sought his destruction. A friend advised him that, unless he was weary of life, he ought to avoid heaping his satirical abuse on the Roman priests and bishops. He published a work on the pretended Donation of Constantine to the Papal See, and for this and other writings p.r.o.nounced heretical by the Inquisition he was cast into prison, and would have suffered death by fire had not his powerful friend Alphonso V., King of Aragon, rescued him from the merciless Holy Office. Valla was compelled publicly to renounce his heretical opinions, and then, within the walls of a monastery, his hands having been bound, he was beaten with rods. It is unnecessary to follow the fortunes of Valla further. He was engaged in a long controversy with the learned men of his time, especially with the facetious Poggio, whose wit was keener though his language was not so forcible. Erasmus in his Second Epistle defends Valla in his attacks upon the clergy, and asks, "Did he speak falsely, because he spoke the truth too severely?" Valla died at Naples in 1465. The following epigram testifies to the correctness of his Latinity and the severity of his criticisms:--

_Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit, Non audet Pluto verba latina loqui.

Jupiter hunc coeli dignatus honore fuisset, Censorem lingua sed timet esse suae._

Raphael Maffei, surnamed Volaterra.n.u.s, the compiler of the _Commentarii urbani_ (1506), a huge encyclopaedia published in thirty-eight books, composed the following witty stanza on the death of Valla:--

_Tandem Valla silet solitus qui parcere nulli est Si quaeris quid agat? nunc quoque mordet humum._

Our list of Italian satirists closes with Ferrante Pallavicino, a witty Canon, born at Plaisance in 1618, who ventured to write satirical poems on the famous nepotist, Pope Urban VIII., and all his family, the Barberini. Some of his poems were ent.i.tled _Il corriero sualigiato, Il divortio celeste, La baccinata_, which were published in a collection of his complete works at Venice in 1655. His selected works were published at Geneva in 1660. He made a playful allusion to the Barberini on the t.i.tle-page of his work, where there appeared a crucifix surrounded by burning thorns and bees, with the verse of the Psalmist _Circ.u.mdederunt me sicut apes, et exa.r.s.erunt sicut ignis in spinis_, alluding to the bees which that family bear on their arms. Pallavicino lived in safety for some time at Venice, braving the anger of his enemies. Unfortunately he wished to retire to France, and during his journey pa.s.sed through the territory of the Pope. He was accompanied by a Frenchman, one Charles Morfu, who pretended great friends.h.i.+p for him, admired his works, and scoffed at the Barberini with jests as keen as the Canon's own satires.

But the Frenchman betrayed him to his foes, and poor Pallavicino paid the penalty of his rashness by a cruel death in the Papal Palace at Avignon at the early age of twenty-nine years. His strictures on Urban and his family were well deserved. The Pope heaped riches and favours on his relations. He made three of his nephews cardinals, and the fourth was appointed General of the Papal troops. So odious did the family make themselves by their exactions that on the death of Urban they were forced to leave Rome and take refuge in France. Pallavicino had certainly fitting subjects for his satirical verses.

Francois Gacon, a French poet and satirist of the eighteenth century, suffered imprisonment on account of his poems, ent.i.tled _Le Poete sans fard, ou Discours satyriques sur toutes sortes de sujets_ (Paris, 2 vols., in-12). His satire was very biting and not a little scurrilous, and was famous for the quant.i.ty rather than the quality of his poetical effusions. We give the following example of his skill, in which he discourses upon the different effects which age produces on wine and women:--

"Une beaute, quand elle avance en age, A ses amans inspire du degout; Mais, pour le vin, il a cet avantage, Plus il vieillit, plus il flatte le gout."

The literary world of Paris in 1708 was very much disturbed by certain satirical verses which seemed to come from an unknown hand and empty cafes as if with the magic of a bomb. The Cafe de la Laurent was the famous resort of the writers of the time, where Rousseau and Lamothe reigned as chiefs of the literary Parna.s.sus amid a throng of poets, politicians, and wits. Some malcontent poet thought fit to disturb the harmony of this brilliant company by publis.h.i.+ng some very satirical couplets directed against the frequenters of the cafe. This so enraged the company that they deserted the unfortunate cafe, and selected another for their rendezvous. But other verses, still more severe, followed them. Jean Baptist Rousseau was suspected as their author; he denied the supposition and accused Saurin; but Rousseau was found to be guilty and was banished from the kingdom for ever, as the author and distributer of "certain impure and satirical verses."

Amongst satirical writers who have suffered hard fates we must mention the ill.u.s.trious author of _Robinson Crusoe_, Daniel Defoe. A strong partisan of the Nonconformist cause during the controversial struggle between Church and Dissent in the reign of Queen Anne, he published a pamphlet ent.i.tled _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_ (1702), in which he ironically advised their entire extermination. This pleased certain of the Church Party who had not learned the duty of charity towards the opinions of others, nor the advantages of Religious Liberty.

Nor were they singular in this respect, as the Dissenting Party had plainly shown when the power was in their hands. Happily wiser counsels prevail now. When Defoe's jest was discovered, and his opponents found that the book was "writ sarcastic," they caused the unhappy author to be severely punished. Parliament condemned his book to the flames, and its author to the pillory and to prison. On his release he wrote other political pamphlets, which involved him in new troubles; and, disgusted with politics, he turned his versatile talents to other literary work, and produced his immortal book _Robinson Crusoe_, which has been translated into all languages, and is known and read by every one.

Young's _Night Thoughts_ might not be considered a suitable form of poem for parody, but this M. Durosoi, or Du Rosoi, accomplished in his _Les Jours d'Ariste_ (1770), and was sent to the Bastille for his pains. The cause of his condemnation was that he had published this work without permission, and also perhaps on account of certain political allusions contained in his second work, _Le Nouvel Ami des Hommes_, published in the same year. But a worse fate awaited Du Rosoi on account of his writings. In the dangerous years of 1791 and 1792 he edited _La Gazette de Paris_, which procured greater celebrity for him, and brought about his death. When the fatal tenth of August came, the Editor was not to be found in Paris. However, ultimately he was secured and condemned to death by the tribunal extraordinary appointed by the Legislative a.s.sembly to judge the enemies of the new government. He died with great bravery at the hands of the revolutionary a.s.sa.s.sins, after telling his judges that as a friend of the King he was accounted worthy to die on that day, the Feast of Saint Louis.

All the venom of satirical writers seems to have been collected by that strange author Gaspar Scioppius, who had such a singular l.u.s.t for powerful invective that he cared not whom he attacked, and made himself abhorred by all. This Attila of authors was born in Germany in 1576, went to Rome, abjured Protestantism, and was raised to high honours by Pope Clement VIII. In return for these favours he wrote several treatises in support of the Papal claims, amongst others _Ecclesiasticus_, which was directed against James I. of England.

Concerning this book Casaubon wrote in his Epistle CLV.: "Know concerning Scioppius that some of his works have been burned not only here at London by the command of our most wise King, but also at Paris by the hand of the hangsman. I have written a letter, which I will send to you, if I am able, against that beast." He poured the vials of his wrath upon the Jesuits, declaring in his _Relatio ad reges et principes de stratagematibus Societatis Jesu_ (1635) that there was no truth to be found in Italy, and that this was owing entirely to the Jesuits, who "keep back the truth in injustice, who, rejecting the cup of Christ, drink the cup of devils full of all abominations." This roused their wrath, and by their designs our author was imprisoned at Venice. There he would have been slain, if he had not enjoyed the protection of a powerful Venetian. He boasted that his writings had had such an effect on two of his literary opponents, Casaubon and Scaliger, as to cause them to die from vexation and disappointment. He made himself so many powerful enemies that towards the end of his life he knew not where to find a secure retreat. This "public pest of letters and society," as the Jesuits delighted to call him, died at Padua in 1649 hated by all, both Catholics and Protestants. He wrote one hundred and four works, of which the most admired is his _Elementa philosophiae moralis stoicae_ (Mayence, 1606).

CHAPTER VIII. POETRY.

Adrian Beverland--Cecco d'Ascoli--George Buchanan--Nicodemus Frischlin--Clement Marot--Caspar Weiser--John Williams--Deforges--Theophile--Helot--Matteo Palmieri--La Grange--Pierre Pet.i.t--Voltaire--Montgomery--Keats--Joseph Ritson.

The haunters of Parna.s.sus and the wearers of the laurel crown have usually been loved by their fellows, save only when satire has mingled with their song and filled their victims' minds with thoughts of vengeance. In the last chapter we have noticed some examples of satirical writers who have clothed their libellous thoughts in verse, and suffered in consequence. But the woes of poets, caused by those who listened to their song, have not been numerous. Shakespeare cla.s.ses together "the lunatic, the lover, and the poet" as being "of imagination all compact"; and perchance the poet has shared with the madman the reverence which in some countries is bestowed on the latter.

However, all have not so escaped the destinies of fate. Some think that Ovid incurred the wrath of Augustus Caesar through his verses on the art of loving, and was on that account driven into exile, which he mourned so melodiously and complained of so querulously. In a period less remote we find Adrian Beverland wandering away from the true realm of poetry and taking up his abode in the pesthouse of immorality. He was born at Middlebourg in 1653, and studied letters at the University of Leyden.

He began his career by publis.h.i.+ng indecent poems. He wrote a very iniquitous book, _De Peccato originali_, in which he gave a very base explanation of the sin of our first parents; and although considerable licence was allowed to authors in the Netherlands at that time, nevertheless the magistrates and professors of Leyden condemned the book to be burned and its author to banishment. The full t.i.tle of the work is _Hadriani Beverlandi peccatum originale philogice elucubratum, a Themidis alumno. Eleutheropoli, in horto Hesperidum, typis Adami, Evae, Terrae filii_ (1678, in-8). He seems to have followed Henri Cornelius Agrippa in his idea that the sin of our first parents arose from s.e.xual desire. Leonard Ryssenius refuted the work in his _Justa detestatio libelli sceleratissimi Hadriani Beverlandi, de Peccato originali_ (1680). He would doubtless have incurred a harder fate on account of another immoral work, ent.i.tled _De prostibulis veterum_, if one of his relations had not charitably committed it to the flames. Before the sentence of banishment had been p.r.o.nounced he wrote an apology, professed penitence, and was allowed to remain at Utrecht, where he composed several pamphlets. Being exiled on account of the indecency of his writings, he came to England, where he affected decorum, and his friend and countryman Isaac Vossius, who enjoyed the patronage of Charles II. and was Canon of Windsor, obtained for him a pension charged upon some ecclesiastical fund. Never were ecclesiastical funds applied to a baser use; for although Beverland wrote another book [Footnote: _De fornicatione cavenda admonitio (Londini, Bateman_, 1697, in-8).] with the apparent intention of warning against vice, the argument seemed to inculcate the l.u.s.ts which he condemned. Having become insane he died, in extreme poverty, in 1712. He imagined that he was pursued by a hundred men who had sworn to kill him.

An early poet who suffered death on account of his writings was Cecco d'Ascoli, Professor of Astrology at the famous University of Bologna in 1322. His poems have been collected and published under the t.i.tle _Opere Poetiche del' ill.u.s.tro poeta Cecco d'Ascoli, cioe, l'acerba. In Venetia, per Philippum Petri et Socios, anno 1478_, in-4. The printer of this work, Philippus Condam Petri (Philippo de Piero Veneto) is one of the earliest and most famous of Venetian printers, and produced several of the incunabula which we now prize so highly. The absurdities of Cecco contained in his poems merited for their author a place in a lunatic asylum, rather than on a funeral pile. He was, however, burnt alive at Bologna in 1327. He believed in the influence of evil spirits, who, under certain constellations, had power over the affairs of men; that our Saviour, Jesus Christ, was born under a certain constellation which obliged Him to poverty; whereas Antichrist would come into the world under a certain planet which would make him enormously wealthy. He continued to proclaim these amazing delusions at Bologna, and was condemned by the Inquisition. The poet escaped punishment by submission and repentance. But two years later he announced to the Duke of Calabria, who asked him to cast the horoscope of his wife and daughter, that they would betake themselves to an infamous course of life. This prophecy was too much for the Duke. Cecco was again summoned to appear before the Inquisitors, who condemned him to the stake. At his execution a large crowd a.s.sembled to see whether his familiar genii would arrest the progress of the flames. The poet's real name was Francois de Stabili, Cecco being a diminutive form of Francesco. There are many editions of his work. The "lunatic" and the "poet" were certainly in his case not far removed.

A very different man was the ill.u.s.trious author and historian of Scotland, George Buchanan, who was born in 1506. After studying in Paris, he returned to Scotland, and became tutor of the Earl of Murray, the natural son of James V. The Franciscan monks were not very popular at this period, and at the suggestion of the King Buchanan wrote a satirical poem ent.i.tled _Silva Franciscanorum_, in which he censured the degenerate followers of St. Francis, and hara.s.sed them in many ways.

This poem so enraged the monks that they seized him and imprisoned him in one of their monasteries. One night, while his guards slept, he contrived to escape by a window, and underwent great perils. He published two other severe satirical poems on the Franciscans, ent.i.tled _Fratres Fraterrimi_ and _Francisca.n.u.s_. It is scarcely necessary to follow his fortunes further, as Buchanan's history is well known. After teaching at Paris, Bordeaux, and at Coimbre in Portugal, he returned to Scotland, and was entrusted by Mary, Queen of Scots, with the education of her son. Buchanan then embraced Protestantism, opposed the Queen in the troubles which followed, and received from Parliament the charge of the future Solomon of the North, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England. He devoted his later life to historical studies, and produced his famous _History of Scotland_ in twelve books, _De Maria Regina ejusque conspiratione_, in which he attacked the reputation of the Queen, and _De jure regni apud Scotos_, a book remarkable for the liberalism of the ideas which were therein expressed. His royal pupil did not treat Buchanan's History with due respect; he caused it to be proclaimed at the Merkat Cross, and ordered every one to bring his copy "to be perused and purged of the offensive and extraordinary matters."

In the reign of Charles II. the University of Oxford ordered Buchanan's _De jure regni_, together with certain other works, to be publicly burnt on account of certain obnoxious propositions deducible from them; such as "Wicked kings and tyrants ought to be put to death." He published a paraphrase of the Psalms of David in verse, which has been much praised.

The Jesuits were not very friendly critics of our author, for they a.s.serted that Buchanan showed in his life little of the piety of David, and stated that during thirty years he did not deliver a single sermon, even on Sundays. "But who is ignorant," observes M. Klotz, "of the l.u.s.t of these men for calumny?"

Another poet had occasion to adopt the same mode of escape which Buchanan successfully accomplished, but with less happy results. This was Nicodemus Frischlin, a German poet and philosopher, born in the duchy of Wurtemberg in 1547. At an early age he showed great talents; honours cl.u.s.tered thickly on his brow. At the age of twenty years he was made Professor of Belles-Lettres at Tubingen; he received from the Emperor Rudolph the poetic crown with the t.i.tle of _chevalier_, and was made Count Palatin as a reward for his three panegyrics composed in honour of the emperors of the House of Austria. Certainly Fortune smiled upon her favourite, but Envy raised up many enemies, who were eager to find occasion against the successful poet. He afforded them a pretext in his work _De laudibus vitae rusticae_, which, in spite of its innocent t.i.tle, grievously offended the n.o.bles, who were already embittered against him on account of his arrogance and turbulence, and his keen and unsparing satire. So bitter was their hostility that the poet was compelled to leave Tubingen, and became a wandering philosopher, sometimes teaching in schools, always pouring forth poems, elegies, satires, tragedies, comedies, and epics. Being eager to publish some of his works and not having sufficient means, he applied to the Duke of Wurtemberg for a subsidy, at the same time furiously attacking his old opponents. This so exasperated the chief men of the Court, that they persuaded the Duke to recall Frischlin; but instead of finding a welcome from his old patron, he was cast into prison, in order that he might unlearn his presumption, and acquire the useful knowledge that modesty is the chief ornament of a learned man. But Frischlin did not agree with another poet's a.s.sertion:--

"Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage."

Having raged and stormed, and tried in vain to obtain release, he resolved to escape. From his prison window he let himself down by a rope made out of his bed-clothes, but unfortunately the rope broke and the poor poet fell upon the hard rocks beneath his chamber window and was injured fatally. Frischlin was considered one of the best Latin poets of post-cla.s.sical times; but his genius was marred by his immoderate and bitter temper, which caused him to imagine that the gentle banter and jocular remarks of his acquaintances were insults to be repaid by angry invective and bitter sarcasm, with which his writings abound.

Clement Marot was one of the most famous of early French poets, and the creator of the school of nave poetry in which La Fontaine afterwards so remarkably excelled. His poetical version of the Psalms was read and sung in many lands; and in spite of prohibition copies could not be printed so fast as they were eagerly bought. They were at one time as popular in the Court of Henry II. of France as they were amongst the Calvinists of Geneva and Holland. In 1521 we find him fighting in the Duke of Alencon's army, when he was wounded at the battle of Pavia. Then his verses caused their author suffering, and he was imprisoned on the charge of holding heretical opinions. His epistles in poetry written to the King contain a record of his life, his fear of imprisonment, his flight, his arrest by his enemies of the Sorbonne, his release by order of the King, and his protestations of orthodoxy. But he seems to have adopted the principles of the Reformation, and France was no safe place for him. In Geneva and Piedmont he found resting-places, and died in 1544. His translation of the Psalms into harmonious verse, which was sung both by the peasants and the learned, was the cause of his persecution by the doctors of the Sorbonne. He complains bitterly to the Lyons printer, Dolet, that many obscene and unworthy poems were ascribed to him and printed amongst his works of which he was not the author. As an example of his verse I quote the beginning of Psalm cxli.:--

"Vers l'Eternel des oppressez le pere Je m'en iray, luy monstrant l'impropere Que l'on me faict, luy ferai ma priere A haulte voix, qu'il ne jette en arriere Mes piteux cris, car en lui seul j'espere."

It is not often that a poet loses his head for a single couplet, but this seems to have been the fate of Caspar Weiser, Professor of Lund in Sweden. At first he showed great loyalty to his country, and wrote a panegyric on the coronation of Charles XI., King of Sweden. But a short time afterwards he appears to have changed his political opinions, for when the city was captured by the Danes in 1676, Weiser met the conqueror, and greeted him with the words:--

_Perge Triumphator reliquas submittere terras, Sic redit ad Dominum, quod fuit ante, suum_.

This verse was fatal to him. The Swedish monarch recovered his lost territory; the Danes were expelled, and the poor poet was accused of treason and beheaded.

The same hard fate befell John Williams in 1619, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered, on account of two poems, _Balaam's a.s.s_ and _Speculum Regis_, the MSS. of which he foolishly sent secretly in a box to King James. The monarch was always fearful of a.s.sa.s.sination, and as one of the poems foretold his speedy decease, the prophet incurred the King's wrath and suffered death for his pains.

A single poem was fatal to Deforges, ent.i.tled _Vers sur l'arrestation du Pretendant d'Angleterre, en 1749_. It commences with the following lines:--

"Peuple, jadis si fier, aujourd'hui si servile, Des princes malheureux, tu n'es donc plus l'asyle?"

He happened to be present at the Opera House in Paris when the young Pretender was arrested, and being indignant at this breach of hospitality, and believing that the honour of the nation had been compromised, he wrote these bitter verses. His punishment was severe. He was arrested and conducted to the gloomy fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel, where he remained for three long years shut up in the cage. The floor of this terrible prison, which was enveloped in perpetual darkness, was only eight square feet. The poor poet bore his sufferings patiently, and was befriended by M. de Broglie, Abbe of Saint-Michel, who obtained permission for him to leave his cage and be imprisoned in the Abbey; nor did he fail to take precautions lest the poor poet should lose his eyesight on pa.s.sing from the darkness of the dungeon to the light of day. The good Abbe finally procured liberty for his captive, who became secretary to M. de Broglie's brother, and subsequently, on the death of Madame de Pompadour, commissioner of war. Terrible were the sufferings which the unhappy Deforges endured on account of his luckless poem.

Theophile was condemned to be burned at Paris on account of his book _Le Parna.s.se des Poetes Satyriques, ou Recueil de vers piquans et gaillards de notre temps_ (1625, in-8), but he contrived to effect his escape.

He was ultimately captured in Picardy, and put in a dungeon. He was banished from the kingdom by order of the Parliament. In his old age he found an asylum in the house of the Duke of Montmorency. The poet's real surname was Viaud. The following impromptu is attributed to Theophile, who was asked by a foolish person whether all poets were fools:--

"Oui, je l'avoue avec vous, Que tous les poetes sont fous; Mais sachant ce que vous etes, Tous les fous ne sont pas poetes."

His poems are a mere collection of impieties and obscenities, published with the greatest impudence, and well deserved their destruction. On one occasion he travelled to Holland with Balzac, and used this opportunity for bringing out an infamous charge against him, which he had most probably invented. His book, the cause of all his woes, was burnt with the poet's effigy in 1623.

Many authors have ruined themselves by writing scandalous works, offensive to the moral feelings of not very scrupulous ages. Several chapters might be written on this not very savoury subject. We may mention Helot's _L'Escole des Filles, par dialogues_ (Paris, 1672, in-12). Helot was the son of a lieutenant in the King's Swiss Guard. As he succeeded in making his escape from prison, he was hung in effigy, and his books were burnt. Chauveau, the celebrated engraver, who designed a beautiful engraving for Helot, not knowing for what purpose it was intended, also incurred great risks, but fortunately he escaped with no greater penalty than the breaking of the plate on which he had engraved the design. The printer suffered with the author. Some think that Helot was burnt at Paris with his books.

The Muses have often lured men from other and safer delights, and tempted them to wander in dangerous paths. Matteo Palmieri was a celebrated Italian historian, born at Florence in 1405; he was a man of much learning, endowed with great powers of energy and perseverance; he was entrusted with several important emba.s.sies, and achieved fame as an historian by his vast work _Chronicon Generale_, in which he set himself the appalling task of writing the history of the world from the creation to his own time. The first part of this work, consisting of extracts from the writings of Eusebius and Prosper, remains unpublished. The rest first saw the light in 1475, and subsequent editions appeared at Venice in 1483, and at Basle in 1529 and 1536. He wrote also four books on the Pisan War. Would that he had confined himself to his histories!

Unfortunately he wrote a poem, which was never published, ent.i.tled _Citta Divina_, representing the soul released from the chains of the body, and freed from earthly stain, wandering through various places, and at last resting amid the company of the blessed in heaven. Our souls are angels who in the revolt of Lucifer were unwilling to attach themselves either to G.o.d or to the rebel hosts of heaven. So, as a punishment, G.o.d made them dwell in mortal bodies in a state of probation. This work was considered tainted with the Manichaean heresy, and was condemned to the flames, and some a.s.sert that Palmieri shared the fate of his book. This, however, is doubtful.