On the death of
his friend Lyser was compelled frequently to change his abode, and
wandered through most of the provinces of Germany. He was imprisoned by
the Count of Hanover, and then expelled. In Denmark his book was burned by
the public executioner. At another place he was imprisoned and beaten and
his books burned. At length, travelling from Italy to Holland, he endured
every kind of calamity, and after all his misfortunes he died miserably in
a garret at Amsterdam, in 1684. It is curious that Lyser, who never
married nor desired wedlock, should have advocated polygamy; but it is
said that he was led on by a desire for providing for the public safety by
increasing the population of the country, though probably the love of
notoriety, which has added many authors' names to the category of fools,
contributed much to his madness.
Infected with the same notions was Bernardino Ochino, a Franciscan, and
afterwards a Capuchin, whose dialogue _De Polygamia_ was fatal to him.
Although he was an old man, the authorities at Basle ordered him to leave
the city in the depth of a severe winter. He wandered into Poland, but
through the opposition of the Papal Nuncio, Commendone, he was again
obliged to fly. He had to mourn over the death of two sons and a daughter,
who died of the plague in Poland, and finally Ochino ended his woes in
Moravia. Such was the miserable fate of Ochino, who was at one time the
most famous preacher in the whole of Italy.
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