Several chapters might
be written on this not very savoury subject. We may mention Helot's
_L'Escole des Filles, par dialogues_ (Paris, 1672, in-12). Helot was the
son of a lieutenant in the King's Swiss Guard. As he succeeded in making
his escape from prison, he was hung in effigy, and his books were burnt.
Chauveau, the celebrated engraver, who designed a beautiful engraving for
Helot, not knowing for what purpose it was intended, also incurred great
risks, but fortunately he escaped with no greater penalty than the
breaking of the plate on which he had engraved the design. The printer
suffered with the author. Some think that Helot was burnt at Paris with
his books.
The Muses have often lured men from other and safer delights, and tempted
them to wander in dangerous paths. Matteo Palmieri was a celebrated
Italian historian, born at Florence in 1405; he was a man of much
learning, endowed with great powers of energy and perseverance; he was
entrusted with several important embassies, and achieved fame as an
historian by his vast work _Chronicon Generale_, in which he set himself
the appalling task of writing the history of the world from the creation
to his own time. The first part of this work, consisting of extracts from
the writings of Eusebius and Prosper, remains unpublished. The rest first
saw the light in 1475, and subsequent editions appeared at Venice in 1483,
and at Basle in 1529 and 1536.
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