Nodier might well say the earth's equilibrium is imperilled: and if we add to the above the typographical labours of other countries! In the matter of Bibles alone, the British Societies have distributed 20,000,000 copies since 1827. A house in Paris published the Scriptures in three quarto volumes, price seventy-five francs, in twelve years—1824-1836: by dint of canvassing, and offering the work from house to house, they sold 65,000 copies, value 4,875,000 francs. Nor are we without monuments of individual effort: Daniel Kieffer, a celebrated Protestant and learned Orientalist of Strasburg, translated the Old Testament into Turkish; and in one year, 1832, distributed at his sole charge 160,000 of the volumes. The best Bohemian dictionary yet published is the work of a M. Jungmann, who prepared and brought it out at his own cost, and sold a vineyard to defray the expense. According to Mr Kohl, Bibles are smuggled into Bohemia, Scripture is contraband, and yet, contradictory as it may seem, Bibles may be sold in that country, although they may not be printed there or imported. The copies which do find an entrance are sent mostly from Berlin and England. A few years since, two wagon-loads fell into the hands of customhouse officers, who have ever since kept the prize safely under lock and key. In the public library at Linz, the above-named traveller saw an old edition of Luther's works thickly coated with dust, and was informed by the attendant that the volumes had not once been disturbed for thirty years.
Even in the days when oligarchs prescribed the popular reading, Pasquin dared to say what he thought of their proceedings. Father Germain, who accompanied Mabillon to Rome in 1685, relates an incident:—'He found Rome agitated with the affair of the Quietists. His account of the dispute is rather facetious than theological. Just then a Spaniard had been sent to the galleys, and a priest to the gallows; the first for talking, the second for writing scandals; while the great Quietist Molinos was in the custody of the Inquisition. Marforio, says Germain, is asked by Pasquin, why are you leaving Rome? and answers, "He who speaks is sent to the galleys; he who writes is hanged; he who remains quiet goes to the Holy Office." Marforio had good cause for his heresy; for the scandal which (as Germain pleasantly has it) "broke the priest's neck" was merely his having said that the "mare had knocked the snail out of its shell," in allusion to the fact of the Pope's having been forced out of his darling seclusion and repose, to be present at a certain festival, at which a mare or palfrey was also an indispensable attendant. The rogues continue to repeat the jest notwithstanding, observes the reverend looker-on.'
'Many men, many minds;' so runs the adage. About the year 1839, a work, 'Le mariage au point de vue chrétien' was published by Madame Gasparin. The French Academy awarded a prize to the authoress for her book, but at the very same time it was inscribed by the church in the Index Expurgatorius as a prohibited treatise: such being one among the innumerable instances of difference of opinion. The disappointment of writers, too, would fill a long catalogue: there are extravagant expectations in literature as well as in mines and railways. In 1836, one M. Châtel published the 'Code de l'humanité,' which was to regenerate society. He announced himself as Primate of the Gauls, drew around him a few disciples, who remained faithful during fifteen years, when the delusion came suddenly to an end—the primate had become a postmaster.
Some books, like human beings, come into the world with fortune for their nurse, others encounter difficulties at the very outset, and barely escape strangulation. According to Pliny, several thousand men were placed at the service of Aristotle during the time that his great work was in preparation, to furnish him with information and observations on all sorts of natural objects—men whose business it was to take care of cattle, fishing-grounds, and apiaries. The monarch under whose auspices it was composed gave him 800 talents (L.79,000) towards the expenses. Was ever a book brought out under more favourable circumstances?
When Amari wrote his history of Sicily, he submitted it to the censorship at Palermo, and obtained leave to publish. The permission from some cause was, however, revoked before the work appeared, and the author received orders to send the whole of the copies to the police. Unwilling to make such a sacrifice, he packed the books in a case, and shipped them on board a French vessel, and at the same time sent a similar case to the authorities filled with vegetables and rubbish. He then, with a false passport, sailed for Marseilles, and eventually published his book at Paris with the imprint 'Palermo' on the title-page. It has since gone through a second edition.
Some writers have said the inventing of a title, or composing of a preface, cost them more trouble or thought than any other part of their work; it might not be unfair to suppose that the subject-matter was very indifferent, or the preface very good. True it is, however, that many books do exhibit strange freaks of invention on the part of their authors, as a few specimens will exemplify. In 'The Arte of Vulgar Arithmeticke,' published in 1600 by Thomas Hylles, we find 'the partition of a shilling into his aliquot parts' thus exhibited:—
'A farthing first findes fortie-eight,
An halfepeny hopes for twentie-foure,
Three farthings seekes out 16 streight,
A peny puls a dozen lower:
Dicke dandiprat drewe 8 out deade,
Two-pence tooke 6 and went his way,
Tom trip and goe with 4 is fled,
But goodman grote on 3 doth stay;
A testerne only 2 doth take,
Moe parts a shilling cannot make.'
Schoolboys of the present day often chant a quatrain without a suspicion that young scholars vented their discontent in the same doggerel in the days when the invincible Armada was approaching our shores. Professor De Morgan mentions a manuscript, date 1570, in which these lines occur:—
'Multiplication is mie vexation,
And Division is quite as bad,
The Golden Rule is mie stumbling-stule,
And Practice drives me mad.'