One of his works aroused the indignation of the Parisian authorities. It was entitled Introduction au Traité des Merveilles anciennes avec les modernes, ou Traité préparatif à l'Apologie pour Hérodote, par Henri Estienne (1566, in-8). This work was supposed to contain insidious attacks upon the monks and priests and Roman Catholic faith, comparing the fables of Herodotus with the teaching of Catholicism, and holding up the latter to ridicule. At any rate, the book was condemned and its author burnt in effigy. M. Peignot asserts in his Dictionnaire Critique, Littéraire, et Bibliographique that it was this Henry Stephens who uttered the bon mot with regard to his never feeling so cold as when his effigy was being burnt and he himself was in the snowy mountains of the Auvergne. Other authorities attribute the saying to his father, as we have already narrated.
Noble martyrs Literature has had, men who have sacrificed ease, comfort, and every earthly advantage for her sake, and who have shared with Henry Stephens the direst straits of poverty brought about by the ardour of their love. Such an one was a learned divine, Simon Ockley, Vicar of Swavesey in 1705, and Professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1711, who devoted his life to Asiatic researches. This study did not prove remunerative; having been seized for debt, he was confined in Cambridge Castle, and there finished his great work, The History of the Saracens. His martyrdom was lifelong, as he died in destitution, having always (to use his own words) given the possession of wisdom the preference to that of riches. Floyer Sydenham, who died in a debtors' prison in 1788, and incurred his hard fate through devoting his life to a translation of the Dialogues of Plato, was another martyr; from whose ashes arose the Royal Literary Fund, which has prevented many struggling authors from sharing his fate. Seventeen long years of labour, besides a handsome fortune, did Edmund Castell spend on his Lexicon Heptaglotton; but a thankless and ungrateful public refused to relieve him of the copies of this learned work, which ruined his health while it dissipated his fortune. These are only a few names which might be mentioned out of the many. What a noble army of martyrs Literature could boast, if a roll-call were sounded!
Amongst our booksellers we must not omit the name of Page, who suffered with John Stubbs in the market-place at Westminster on account of the latter's work entitled The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banes by letting her Majestie see the sin and punishment thereof (1579). Both author and publisher were condemned to the barbarous penalty of having their right hands cut off, as we have already recorded. [Footnote: Cf. page 129.]
"Sturdy John," as the people called John Lilburne of Commonwealth fame, was another purveyor of books who suffered severely at the hands of both Royalists and Roundheads. At the early age of eighteen he began the circulation of the books of Prynne and Bastwick, and for this enormity he was whipped from the Fleet to Westminster, set in the pillory, gagged, fined, and imprisoned. At a later stage in his career we find him imprisoned in the Tower by Cromwell, for his Just Reproof to Haberdashers' Hall, and fined £1,000; and his bitter attack on the Protector, entitled England's New Chains Discovered, caused him to pay another visit to the Tower and to be tried for high treason, of which he was subsequently acquitted. To assail the "powers that be" seemed ever to be the constant occupation of "Sturdy John" Lilburne. From the above example, and from many others which might be mentioned, it is quite evident that Roundheads, when they held the power, could be quite as severe critics of publications obnoxious to them as the Royalists, and troublesome authors fared little better under Puritan regime than they did under the Stuart monarchs.
Another learned French printer was Etienne Dolet, who was burned to death at Paris on account of his books in 1546. He lived and worked at Lyons, and, after the manner of the Stephens, published many of his own writings as well as those of other learned men. He applied his energies to reform the Latin style, and in addition to his theological and linguistical works cultivated the art of poetry. Bayle says that his Latin and French verses "are not amiss." In the opinion of Gruterus they are worthy of a place in the Deliciae Poetarum Gallorum; but the impassioned and scurrilous Scaliger, who hated Dolet, declares that "Dolet may be called the Muse's Canker, or Imposthume; he wildly affects to be absolute in Poetry without the least pretence to wit, and endeavours to make his own base copper pass by mixing with it Virgil's gold. A driveller, who with some scraps of Cicero has tagged together something, which he calls Orations, but which men of learning rather judge to be Latrations. Whilst he sung the fate of that great and good King Francis, his name found its own evil fate, and the Atheist suffered the punishment of the flames, which both he and his verses so richly merited. But the flames could not purify him, but were by him rather made impure. Why should I mention his Epigrams, which are but a common sink or shore of dull, cold, unmeaning trash, full of that thoughtless arrogance that braves the Almighty, and that denies His Being?" The conclusion of this scathing criticism is hardly meet for polite ears. A private wrong had made the censorious Scaliger more bitter than usual. In spite of the protection of Castellan, a learned prelate, Dolet at length suffered in the flames, but whether the charge of Atheism was well grounded has never been clearly ascertained.
Certainly the pious prayer which he uttered, when the faggots were piled around him, would seem to exonerate him from such a charge: "My God, whom I have so often offended, be merciful to me; and I beseech you, O Virgin Mother, and you, divine Stephen, to intercede with God for me a sinner." The Parliament of Paris condemned his works as containing "damnable, pernicious, and heretical doctrines." The Faculty of Theology censured very severely Dolet's translation of one of the Dialogues of Plato, entitled Axiochus, and especially the passage "Après la mort, tu ne seras rien," which Dolet rendered, "Après la mort, tu ne seras plus rien du tout." The additional words were supposed to convict Dolet of heresy. He certainly disliked the monks, as the following epigram plainly declares:—
Ad Nicolaum Fabricium Valesium De cucullatis.
"Incurvicervicum cucullatorum habet
Grex id subinde in ore, se esse mortuum
Mundo: tamen edit eximie pecus, bibit
Non pessime, stertit sepultum crapula,
Operam veneri dat, et voluptatum assecla
Est omnium. Idne est mortuum esse mundo?
Aliter interpretare. Mortui sunt Hercule
Mundo cucullati, quod inors tense sunt onus,
Ad rem utiles nullam, nisi ad scelus et vitium."
Amongst the works published and written by Dolet may be mentioned:—
Summaire des faits et gestes de François I., tant contre l'Empereur
que ses sujets, et autres nations étrangères, composés d'abord en
latin par Dolet, puis translatés en français par lui-même. Lyon,
Etienne Dolet, 1540, in-4.
Stephani Doleti Carminum, Libri IV. Lugduni, 1538, in-4.
Brief Discours de la république françoyse, désirant la lecture des
livres de l'Ecriture saincte luy estre loisable en sa langue vulgaire.
Etienne Dolet, 1544, in-16.
La fontaine de vie, in-16.