Curiosities of Literature (Vol. 1-3). Disraeli Isaac

as an example of this ribaldry, Elijah mocking at the false divinities, but God himself bantering the first man after his fall. He justifies the injurious epithets which he has so liberally bestowed on his adversaries by the example of Jesus Christ and the apostles! It was on these grounds also that the celebrated Pascal apologised for the invectives with which he has occasionally disfigured his Provincial Letters. A Jesuit has collected "An Alphabetical Catalogue of the Names of Beasts by which the Fathers characterised the Heretics!" It may be found in Erotemata de malis ac bonis Libris, p. 93, 4to. 1653, of Father Kaynaud. This list of brutes and insects, among which are a vast variety of serpents, is accompanied by the names of the heretics designated!

      Henry Fitzsermon, an Irish Jesuit, was imprisoned for his papistical designs and seditious preaching. During his confinement he proved himself to be a great amateur of controversy. He said, "he felt like a bear tied to a stake, and wanted somebody to bait him." A kind office, zealously undertaken by the learned Usher, then a young man. He engaged to dispute with him once a week on the subject of antichrist! They met several times. It appears that our bear was out-worried, and declined any further dog-baiting. This spread an universal joy through the Protestants in Dublin. At the early period of the Reformation, Dr. Smith of Oxford abjured papistry, with the hope of retaining his professorship, but it was given to Peter Martyr. On this our Doctor recants, and writes several controversial works against Peter Martyr; the most curious part of which is the singular mode adopted of attacking others, as well as Peter Martyr. In his margin he frequently breaks out thus: "Let Hooper read this!"—"Here, Ponet, open your eyes and see your errors!"—"Ergo, Cox, thou art damned!" In this manner, without expressly writing against these persons, the stirring polemic contrived to keep up a sharp bush-fighting in his margins. Such was the spirit of those times, very different from our own. When a modern bishop was just advanced to a mitre, his bookseller begged to re-publish a popular theological tract of his against another bishop, because he might now meet him on equal terms. My lord answered—"Mr.——, no more controversy now!" Our good bishop resembled Baldwin, who from a simple monk, arrived to the honour of the see of Canterbury. The successive honours successively changed his manners. Urban the Second inscribed his brief to him in this concise description—Balduino Monastico ferventissimo, Abbati calido, Episcopo tepido, Archiepiscopo remisso!

      On the subject of literary controversies, we cannot pass over the various sects of the scholastics: a volume might be compiled of their ferocious wars, which in more than one instance were accompanied by stones and daggers. The most memorable, on account of the extent, the violence, and duration of their contests, are those of the Nominalists and the Realists.

      It was a most subtle question assuredly, and the world thought for a long while that their happiness depended on deciding, whether universals, that is genera, have a real essence, and exist independent of particulars, that is species:—whether, for instance, we could form an idea of asses, prior to individual asses? Roscelinus, in the eleventh century, adopted the opinion that universals have no real existence, either before or in individuals, but are mere names and words by which the kind of individuals is expressed; a tenet propagated by Abelard, which produced the sect of Nominalists. But the Realists asserted that universals existed independent of individuals—though they were somewhat divided between the various opinions of Plato and Aristotle. Of the Realists the most famous were Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus. The cause of the Nominalists was almost desperate, till Occam in the fourteenth century revived the dying embers. Louis XI. adopted the Nominalists, and the Nominalists flourished at large in France and Germany; but unfortunately Pope John XXIII. patronised the Realists, and throughout Italy it was dangerous for a Nominalist to open his lips. The French King wavered, and the Pope triumphed; his majesty published an edict in 1474, in which he silenced for ever the Nominalists, and ordered their books to be fastened up in their libraries with iron chains, that they might not be read by young students! The leaders of that sect fled into England and Germany, where they united their forces with Luther and the first Reformers.

      Nothing could exceed the violence with which these disputes were conducted. Vives himself, who witnessed the contests, says that, "when the contending parties had exhausted their stock of verbal abuse, they often came to blows; and it was not uncommon in these quarrels about universals, to see the combatants engaging not only with their fists, but with clubs and swords, so that many have been wounded and some killed."

      On this war of words, and all this terrifying nonsense John of Salisbury observes, "that there had been more time consumed than the Cæsars had employed in making themselves masters of the world; that the riches of Crœsus were inferior to the treasures that had been exhausted in this controversy; and that the contending parties, after having spent their whole lives in this single point, had neither been so happy as to determine it to their satisfaction, nor to find in the labyrinths of science where they had been groping any discovery that was worth the pains they had taken." It may be added that Ramus having attacked Aristotle, for "teaching us chimeras," all his scholars revolted; the parliament put a stop to his lectures, and at length having brought the matter into a law court, he was declared "to be insolent and daring"—the king proscribed his works, he was ridiculed on the stage, and hissed at by his scholars. When at length, during the plague, he opened again his schools, he drew on himself a fresh storm by reforming the pronunciation of the letter Q, which they then pronounced like K—Kiskis for Quisquis, and Kamkam for Quamquam. This innovation Was once more laid to his charge: a new rebellion! and a new ejection of the Anti-Aristotelian! The brother of that Gabriel Harvey who was the friend of Spenser, and with Gabriel had been the whetstone of the town-wits of his time, distinguished himself by his wrath against the Stagyrite. After having with Gabriel predicted an earthquake, and alarmed the kingdom, which never took place (that is the earthquake, not the alarm), the wits buffeted him. Nash says of him, that "Tarlton at the theatre made jests of him, and Elderton consumed his ale-crammed nose to nothing, in bear-baiting him with whole bundles of ballads." Marlow declared him to be "an ass fit only to preach of the iron age." Stung to madness by this lively nest of hornets, he avenged himself in a very cowardly manner—he attacked Aristotle himself! for he set Aristotle with his heels upwards on the school gates at Cambridge, and with asses' ears on his head!

      But this controversy concerning Aristotle and the school divinity was even prolonged. A professor in the College at Naples published in 1688 four volumes of peripatetic philosophy, to establish the principles of Aristotle. The work was exploded, and he wrote an abusive treatise under the nom de guerre of Benedetto Aletino. A man of letters, Constantino Grimaldi, replied. Aletino rejoined; he wrote letters, an apology for the letters, and would have written more for Aristotle than Aristotle himself perhaps would have done. However, Grimaldi was no ordinary antagonist, and not to be outwearied. He had not only the best of the argument, but he was resolved to tell the world so, as long as the world would listen. Whether he killed off Father Benedictus, the first author, is not affirmed; but the latter died during the controversy. Grimaldi, however, afterwards pursued his ghost, and buffeted the father in his grave. This enraged the University of Naples; and the Jesuits, to a man, denounced Grimaldi to Pope Benedict XIII. and to the Viceroy of Naples. On this the Pope issued a bull prohibiting the reading of Grimaldi's works, or keeping them, under pain of excommunication; and the viceroy, more active than the bull, caused all the copies which were found in the author's house to be thrown into the sea! The author with tears in his eyes beheld his expatriated volumes, hopeless that their voyage would have been successful. However, all the little family of the Grimaldis were not drowned—for a storm arose, and happily drove ashore many of the floating copies, and these falling into charitable hands, the heretical opinions of poor Grimaldi against Aristotle and school divinity were still read by those who were not out-terrified by the Pope's bulls. The salted passages were still at hand, and quoted with a double zest against the Jesuits!

      We now turn to writers whose controversy was kindled only by subjects of polite literature. The particulars form a curious picture of the taste of the age.

      "There is," says Joseph Scaliger, that great critic and reviler, "an art of abuse or slandering, of which those that are ignorant may be said to defame others much less than they show a willingness to defame."

      "Literary wars," says Bayle, "are sometimes