elling us that "He wrote
everything which offered itself to his imagination; to-day one thing,
to-morrow another, in order that when he should revise it again, this
contrariety of opinion might induce him to examine the subject more
accurately." The notions of the friends of authors are as extravagant as
those of their enemies. Barthius evidently wrote so much, that often he
forgot what he had written, as happened to another great book-man, one
Didymus, of whom Quintilian records, that on hearing a certain history,
he treated it as utterly unworthy of credit; on which the teller called
for one of Didymus's own books, and showed where he might read it at
full length! That the work failed, we have the evidence of Clement in
his "Bibliotheque curieuse de Livres difficiles a trouver," under the
article _Barthius_, where we discover the winding up of the history of
this book. Clement mentions more than one edition of the Adversaria; but
on a more careful inspection he detected that the old title-pages had
been removed for others of a fresher date; the booksellers not being
able to sell the book practised this deception. It availed little; they
remained with their unsold edition of the two first volumes of the
Adversaria, and the author with three thousand folio sheets in
manuscript--while both parties complained together, and their heirs
could acquire nothing from the works of an author, of whom Bayle says
that "his writings rise to such a prodigious bulk, that one can scarce
conceive a single man could be capable of executing so great a variety;
perhaps no copying clerk, who lived to grow old amidst the dust of an
office, ever transcribed as much as this author has written." This was
the memorable fate of one of that race of writers who imagine that their
capacity extends with their volume. Their land seems covered with
fertility, but in shaking their wheat no ears fall.

Another memorable brother of this family of the Scribleri is the Abbe de
Marolles, who with great ardour as a man of letters, and in the
enjoyment of the leisure and opulence so necessary to carry on his
pursuits, from an entire absence of judgment, closed his life with the
bitter regrets of a voluminous author; and yet it cannot be denied that
he has contributed one precious volume to the public stock of
literature; a compliment which cannot be paid to some who have enjoyed a
higher reputation than our author. He has left us his very curious
"Memoirs." A