in these classes,

BEFORE }
DURING }
and } _his imprisonment_.
SINCE }

with this motto, "Jucundi acti labores," 1643. The secret history of
this voluminous author concludes with a characteristic event: a
contemporary who saw Prynne in the pillory at Cheapside, informs us that
while he stood there they "burnt his huge volumes under his nose, which
had almost suffocated him." Yet such was the spirit of party, that a
puritanic sister bequeathed a legacy to purchase all the works of Prynne
for Sion College, where many still repose; for, by an odd fatality, in
the fire which happened in that library these volumes were saved, from
the idea that folios were the most valuable![350]

The pleasure which authors of this stamp experience is of a nature
which, whenever certain unlucky circumstances combine, positively
debarring them from publication, will not abate their ardour one jot;
and their pen will still luxuriate in the forbidden page which even
booksellers refuse to publish. Many instances might be recorded, but a
very striking one is the case of Gaspar Barthius, whose "Adversaria,"
in two volumes folio, are in the collections of the curious.

Barthius was born to literature, for Baillet has placed him among his
"Enfans Celebres." At nine years of age he recited by heart all the
comedies of Terence, without missing a line. The learned admired the
puerile prodigy, while the prodigy was writing books before he had a
beard. He became, unquestionably, a student of very extensive
literature, modern as well as ancient. Such was his devotion to a
literary life, that he retreated from the busy world. It appears that
his early productions were composed more carefully and judiciously than
his latter ones, when the passion for voluminous writing broke out,
which showed itself by the usual prognostic of this dangerous
disease--extreme facility of composition, and a pride and exultation in
this unhappy faculty. He studied without using collections or
references, trusting to his memory, which was probably an extraordinary
one, though it necessarily led him into many errors in that delicate
task of animadverting on other authors. Writing a very neat hand, his
first copy required no transcript; and he boasts that he rarely made a
correction: everything was sent to the press in its first state. He
laughs at Statius, who congratulated himself that he employed only two
days in composing the epithalamium upo