ly approaching
Revolutionary whirlwind, the spirit of which these literary
productions anticipated and expressed.

The last book I find to notice is the Abbe Raynal's _Histoire
philosophique et politique des Etablissemens et du Commerce des
Europeens dans les Deux Indes_, published in 1771 at Geneva, and,
after a first attempt at suppression in 1779, finally burnt by
the order of the Parlement of Paris of May 25th, 1781, as
impious, blasphemous, seditious, and the rest. Like many another
eminent writer, Raynal had started as a Jesuit.

From the above illustrations of the practice abroad, we may turn
to a more detailed account of its history in England. Although in
France it was much more common than in England during the
eighteenth century, it appears to have come to an end in both
countries about the same time. I am not aware of any proofs that
it survived the French Revolution, and it is probable that that
event, directly or indirectly, put an end to it. In England it
seems gradually to have dwindled, and to have become extinct
before the end of the century. If the same was the case in other
countries, it would afford another instance of the fundamental
community of development which seems to govern at least our part
of the civilised world, regardless of national differences or
boundaries. The different countries of the world seem to throw
off evil habits, or to acquire new habits, with a degree of
simultaneity which is all the more remarkable for being the
result of no sort of agreement. At one time, for instance, they
throw off Jesuitism, at another the practice of torture, at
another the judicial ordeal, at another burnings for heresy, at
another trials for witchcraft, at another book-burning; and now
the turn seems approaching of war, or the trade of professional
murder. The custom here to be dealt with, therefore, holds its
place in the history of humanity, and is as deserving of study as
any other custom whose rise and decline constitute a phase in the
world's development.

CHAPTER I.

SIXTEENTH CENTURY BOOK-FIRES.

Fire, which is the destruction of so many things, and destined,
according to old Indian belief, one day to destroy the world, is
so peculiarly the enemy of books, that the worm itself is not
more fatal to them. Whole libraries have fallen a prey to the
flames, and oftener, alas! by design than accident; the warrior
always, whether Alexander at Persepolis, Antiochus at Jerusalem,
Cae