iven or otherwise, it was an
acquisition which a monarch might have thankfully accepted. Such was the
habitual ardour of our author, that afterwards he set about forming
another collection, of which he has also given a catalogue in 1672, in
12mo. Both these catalogues of prints are of extreme rarity, and are yet
so highly valued by the connoisseurs, that when in France I could never
obtain a copy. A long life may be passed without even a sight of the
"Catalogue des Livres d'Estampes" of the Abbe de Marolles.[352]

Such are the lessons drawn from this secret history of voluminous
writers. We see one venting his mania in scrawling on his prison walls;
another persisting in writing folios, while the booksellers, who were
once caught, like Reynard who had lost his tail, and whom no arts could
any longer practise on, turn away from the new trap; and a third, who
can acquire no readers but by giving his books away, growing grey in
scourging the sacred genius of antiquity by his meagre versions, and
dying without having made up his mind, whether he were as woful a
translator as some of his contemporaries had assured him.

Among these worthies of the Scribleri we may rank the Jesuit, Theophilus
Raynaud, once a celebrated name, eulogised by Bayle and Patin. His
collected works fill twenty folios; an edition, indeed, which finally
sent the bookseller to the poor-house. This enterprising bibliopolist
had heard much of the prodigious erudition of the writer; but he had not
the sagacity to discover that other literary qualities were also
required to make twenty folios at all saleable. Of these "Opera omnia"
perhaps not a single copy can be found in England; but they may be a
pennyworth on the continent. Raynaud's works are theological; but a
system of grace maintained by one work and pulled down by another, has
ceased to interest mankind: the literature of the divine is of a less
perishable nature. Beading and writing through a life of eighty years,
and giving only a quarter of an hour to his dinner, with a vigorous
memory, and a whimsical taste for some singular subjects, he could not
fail to accumulate a mass of knowledge which may still be useful for the
curious; and besides, Raynaud had the Ritsonian characteristic. He was
one of those who, exemplary in their own conduct, with a bitter zeal
condemn whatever does not agree with their own notions; and, however
gentle in their nature, yet will set no limits to the ferocity of their