The exposure of this base
business was not pleasing to the royal ears. Lord Preston, the English
ambassador, applied to the Court for the censure of the author, who was
immediately sent to the Bastille. His book was very vigorously suppressed,
so that few copies exist of either the Italian or French versions.
Amongst historians we include one writer of biography, John Christopher
Ruediger, who, under the name of Clarmundus, wrote a book _De Vitis
Clarissimorum in re Litteraria Vivorum_. He discoursed pleasantly upon the
fates of authors and their works, but unhappily incurred the displeasure
of the powerful German family of Carpzov, which produced many learned
theologians, lawyers, and philologists. The chief of this family was one
Samuel Benedict Carpzov, who lived at Wittenberg, wrote several
dissertations, and was accounted the Chrysostom of his age (1565-1624).
Ruediger in Part IX. of his work wrote the biography of this learned man,
suppressing his good qualities and ascribing to him many bad ones, and did
scant justice to the memory of so able a theologian. This so enraged the
sons and other relations of the great man that they accused Ruediger of
slander before the ecclesiastical court, and the luckless author was
ordered to be beaten with rods, and to withdraw all the calumnies he had
uttered against the renowned Carpzov. On account of his books Ruediger was
imprisoned at Dresden, where he died.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111