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 as lasting as they are
terrible." A disputation between two great scholars was so interminably
violent, that it lasted thirty years! He humorously compares its
duration to the German war which lasted as long.

Baillet, when he refuted the sentiments of a certain author always did
it without naming him; but when he found any observation which, he
deemed commendable, he quoted his name. Bayle observes, that "this is an
excess of politeness, prejudicial to that freedom which should ever
exist in the republic of letters; that it should be allowed always to
name those whom we refute; and that it is sufficient for this purpose
that we banish asperity, malice, and indecency."

After these preliminary observations, I shall bring forward various
examples where this excellent advice is by no means regarded.

Erasmus produced a dialogue, in which he