The Press.
London, England, 1855-08-18 00:00:00

AUG. 18, 1855.

process is used to obtain a material upon which
the records of the tribes, the deeds of the
chiefs, and the laws of the priests, are in-
scribed. Stripping the bark off a small tree
(the morus papyrispera), they soak, dry, and
polish it as the Egyptians did the papyri.

The discovery of modern paper supervened
upon the use of papyrus. Whether we owe it to
the Chinese or not it is impossible to say; butwe
find that about the year 1050 the papyrus of
Egypt had fallen into disuse, and a species of
strong paper made of cotton and other mixed
materials was adopted in its place. By
degrees the manufacture improved, paper-
mills moved by water were erected in Italy
and in other parts of Europe, and there
was a general emulation to produce paper
of superior quality. Fuller, whom Mr.
Herring quotes, makes some curious observa-
tions on the subject:—

He says—" Paper participates in some sort of the
character of the country which makes it : the Venetian
being neat, subtle, and court-like ; the French light,
slight, and slender; and the Dutch thick, corpulent,
and gross, sucking up the ink with the sponginess
thereof." He complains that the paper manufactories
were not then sufficiently encouraged, considering the
vast sums of money expended in our land for paper out of
Italy, France, and Germany, which might be lessened,
were it made in oar nation. " To such who object," says he
" that we can never equal the perfection of Venice paper, I
return, neither can we match the purity of Venice glasses,
and yet many green ones are blown in Sussex, profitable to
the makers, and convenient to the users, our homespun
paper might be found beneficial."

From the use of cotton that of rags was
adopted about the fifteenth century, but for
some two hundred years no improvement
whatever took place in the mechanical means
employed in the manufacture of paper, and it
was then only by the public spirit of the
Fourdriniers—a name famous and unfortu-
nate—that the ingenious invention of a
Frenchman named Didot was success-
fully organised and set to work. From that
invention, the modern Paper-making machine,
we owe everything in our present manufac-
ture of paper. Need we add the moral to the
tale? The Fourdriniers, through their un-
ceasing efforts to bring the machine to per-
fection, became bankrupt in '47, and the last
surviving partner but a few months since was
carried to his grave a comparative beggar !
The opinion of one so qualified as Mr. Her-
ring is worth noticing upon the subject of the
scarcity of rags, and of the possibility of manu-
facturing paper from other materials. Speaking
of the number of experiments tried, he re-
marks :

In the library of the British Museum may be seen a
book, printed in low Dutch, containing upwards of sixty
specimens of paper, made of different materials, the result
of one man's experiments alone, so far back as the year
1772. In fact, almost every species of tough fibrous vege-
table, and even animal substance, has at one time or
another been employed : even the roots of trees, their bark,
the bine of hops, the tendrils of the vine, the stalks of the
nettle, the common thistle, the stem of the hollyhock, the
sugar-cane, cabbage-stalks, wood-shaving, sawdust, hay,
straw, willow, and the like.

Mr. Herring, however, does not thing favor-
ably of any of the substitutes proposed fer
rags :

All that can be said as to the suitableness of fibre
in general may be summed up in very few words ; any
vegetable fibre having a corrugated edge, which will enable
it to cohere in the mass, is fit for the purposes of paper-
making ; the extent to which such might be applied can
solely be determined by the question of cost in its pro.
duction ; and hitherto, everything proposed has been ex-
cluded, as in the case of the plantain or banana, either by
'the cost of freight, the cost of preparation, or the expenses
combined.
Our author concludes that—

For all writing and printing purposes, which manifestly
are the most important, nothing has yet been discovered
to lessen the value of rags, neither is it at all probable
that there will be ; indeed, the value of paper for some time
past has considerably declined, while during the most
exciting period of last year, the scarcity so much talked of,
was, in fact, comparatively trifling.

The amount of information contained in
this volume is considerable, and upon a sub-
ject on which very little is known. Moreover,
the whole process of modern paper manufac-
ture is fully explained; and accurate plates of
the different machines used help to render
the description familiar. An able introduc-
tion to the volume has been written by Dr.
Croly.

THE PRESS.

The Besefit of Christ's Death. Probably Written
by Aonio Paleario. Reprinted in Facsimile
from the Italian Edition of 1543; together
with a French Translation printed in 1551;
from Copies in the Library of St. John's
College, Cambridge. To which is added an
English Version made in 1548, by Edward
Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, now first
Edited from a MS. preserved in the Library
of the University of Cambridge. With au
Introduction, by Churchill Babington, 8.D.,
F.L.S., Fellow of St. John's College, Cam-
bridge, and Member of the Royal Society of
Literature. London : Bell and Daldy.
Ws have copied nearly at full length the title-
page of this curious volume, and yet we have
not exhausted all its contents, of which the
two epigraphs are not the least remarkable.
Thus the editor prints from the German
historian Ranke the following sentence :
" Though many thousands of the work on the
" 'Benefits Bestowed by Christ' were dis-
" semmated, not one was suffered to escape :
" the book entirely disappeared, and is no
" longer to be found "; and to this assertion
is appended another from Mr. Macaulay, in
his most dogmatic tone :—" The Inquisitors
" detected in it the Lutheran doctrine of Jus-
" tification by Faith alone: they proscribed
" it; and it is now as hopelessly lost as
" the second decade of Livy." With these
hints by way of introduction, the attention of
those curious in book-research is sure to be
stimulated by such a volume.
Our own attention has been drawn to it in
consequence of the interest with which we
perused the little work published in 1847 by
the Religious Tract Society. The Rev. John
Ayre (minister of St. John's, Hampstead) is
justly pronounced by Mr. Babington to be
" the true restorer of the treatise of Paleario."
Mr. Ayre printed his version of " The Benefit
of Christ's Death " from the old English trans-
lation ; and in that form it excited deserved
attention, partly on account of its cu-
riosity, and also on account of the uncom-
mon ability of the eloquent work itself. We
could have wished that Mr. Babington had
given us a more detailed account of the life
of Paleario, as in Mr. Ayre's volume the pre-
liminary memoir is of considerable interest ;
and we feel assured that the name of Paleario
will after this publication be far more fami-
liarly known than it is at present. Mr.
Babington thus cursorily sketches the chief
incidents in the life of Paleario

Antonio dally Paglia was born in or about the year 1500,
at Veroli, in the Campagna di Roma, and after studying
under eminent masters with great success, passed several
years in Rome. He then removed (in or about 15341 to
Sienna, where he was made public teacher of Greek and
Latin, and lecturer on philosophy and belles lettres. His
letters (of which he published four books, and to which
accessions have been since made) shew that he was on
terms of intimacy with many of the most distinguished
men of his day. Among his correspondents were Cardinal
Bembo, Pietro Vittorio, Cardinal Sadoleti, Cardinal Maffei,
and the Latin Pindar, Benedetto Lampridio. He was
also the friend of M. A. Flaminio, to whom he was pecu-
liarly attached, of Bernardino Ochino, and of Cardinal
Pole. His poem on the " Immortality of the Soul," in
which he imitates the style of Lucretius, is termed by G.. 1.
Vossius a divine and immortal composition ; and his
rhetorical exercise " In L Murrenam," which affects to be
delivered in opposition to Cicero, as well as other orations,
which were written in sober seriousness, and his Epistles,
" adeo feliciter exprimunt Ciceronem turn qua dictionem,
turn qua numeros," that Morhoff doubts if any one is his
superior in Latinity. Being driven from Sienna in conse-
quence of his freely-expressed attachment to the Reformed
doctrines, he was invited to Lucca by the Senate, where he
was elected to the office of Public Orator, a post of greater
honour than emolument. This seems to have been in
1546. After remaining at Lucca about ten years, he ac-
cepted a more lucrative appointment at Milan, and became
professor of elocution. Being persecuted in this city he
meditated flight to another, and was on the point of
removing, in 1566, to Bologna. But when Pius V.
ascended the papal chair, Paleario and many others became
the victims of his intolerance. He was removed to Rome
under the custody of Frate Angelo di Cremona, the Inqui-
sitor, and after an imprisonment of more than three years
was suspended on a gibbet, on the 3rd of July, 1570, and
afterwards committed to the flames. " When we take
into account," says McCrie, " his talents, his zeal, the
utility of his writings. and the sufferings he endured,
Paleario must be viewed as one of the greatest ornaments
of the Reformed cause in Italy."

Mr. Babington raises the question as to
whether Paleario was really the author of
this celebrated treatise. It is melancholy

791

to observe the frequency with which literary
doubts are cast upon the authorship of bril-
liant pieces. We shall not here discuss the
controversy about the authorship of this
treatise, but we shall record our opinion that
the word " probably " might be struck out of
the preliminary titlepage in this volume.
Not less than three different versions of
Paleario's treatise are presented in this vo-
lume—viz., the Italian original, the French
translation of 1552, and the English version
by the Earl of Devonshire. The title page of
the original stands thus :

TRAT TATO
VTILISSIMO
DEL BENEFICIO DI
OIESV CHRIST°
CROCIFISSO,
VERSO I
CHRT-
STIANI.
Venetiis Arid Bernardino
de Bindonis. Anno Do.
M.D.XXXXIII.

And of the title of the French version the
following is a copy:—

DV BENEFICE
DZ

lESVS CHRIST CRVCIFTE,
ENVERS LES CHRESTLENS.
TRADUICT DE VULGATES ITALIEN, EN LANGAGE
~. £IIANcOYE.
Venez a moy vote tour qui trauaillez et eater charge:, et is
vous soulageray.
15.62.

We need not copy the title of the English
version of 1548.

Unquestionably this work has a strong
claim to be classed amongst " the curiosities'
of literature. The treatise made a great noise
in its time, and up to the present age it has
always been supposed to have perished en-
tirely. How such a work came to be entirely
suppressed shows us the amazing activity of
the Inquisition. Mr. Babington, in giving the
history of the work, says :
The number of copies printed was truly astonishing, con-
sidering the age in which the book appeared : we cannot
well estimate their number; but it may be thought that
fifty thousand is much more likely to be under the sum
total than above it. If any work of that age seemed likely
to go down to all succeeding generations it was the
" Trattato." Yet how uncertain are appearances! Within
a century the book seems to have wellnigh vanished
in almost every form : in another century it was believed
to be definitely lost
And elsewhere he observes :

The Inquisitors were resolved not only to punish with
death or imprisonment the chief admirers and abettors of
the book, but also to destroy, if possible, every copy from off
the faze of the earth. The resolution once made, they
went to work with incredible energy and with almost
miraculous succe4s. Wherever the terrors of the Holy
Office reigned, the perniciusiosnan libretto was proscribed.
Popes, kings, prelates, and councils conspired together to
annihilate it. At Rome, at Venice, at Milan, at Paris, at Ant-
werp, at Medrd, the " Tratteto " was placed upon the black-
list, and sometimes under different titles in the same list. All
this was done before the close of the sixteenth century.
As early as the year 1570 every form in which the book had
appeared is doomed : the " Benefizio di Christi) " in all its
languages is denounced in the appendix to the Tridentine
Index. _

By these vigorous measures, and by the extensive scale
on which they were conducted, the Inquisitors appear to
have destroyed almost all the copies before the close of the
century. In our own country the English translation of
1573 was made from the French version, in consequence,
doubtless, of the difficulty of procuring a copy of the
original. In the following century the English version
alone seems to have been reprinted : and the original
appears to have been wellnigh unknown : although, for the
sake of security, every form of the " Trattato " was again
proscribed by the Inquisitors.
Yet there are to be found in our own age and
country persons who approve of the Church
under whose tyranny such acts of despotism
took place.
For some singular particulars of the literary
history of this work we must refer our readers
to the volume. The treatise itself, for the
tone of its religion and the vigour of its
writing, we hold in the highest estimation.
The author was able to seize his subject not
only by its strictly religious points, but he
possessed also a grasp of thought and power
of riveting the general reader often denied to
men of subtle faculties. His piety is manly,
his views of the all•sufficiency of the Atone-
ment are almost Lutheran, and the thoroughly
Christian character of his religion is stamped
on every page. It is particularlv to be observed
that in his composition no Italianism of doc-
trine is to be seen. In his creed there was
apostolical plainness and simpheity, and with

792

his masculine force of style there is much of
that unction which is necessary to all religious
eloquence. At times he rises into a strain of
austere pathos, as in those parts where he
enforces the necessity of a Saviour, and where
he dwells on the utter insufficiency of man to
work out his salvation by himself. The dupes
of the glittering fallacy of the perfectibility of
human nature would do well to take to their
hearts some of the affecting thoughts of
Paleario. It is not the least merit of his per-
formance that, though essentially popular in
its style of reasoning, its arguments and con
siderations are within the comprehension of
any one with common sense and ordinary
powers of attention.
But though thus essentially popular in its
rhetoric, a skilled reader can easily discern
that the treatise of Paleario is based upon a
strictly logical survey of his subject. That
such is the case is more particularly manifest
in the manner in which the author connects
Original Sin with the reality of the Atone-
ment. On the consequences of Original Sin,
and on hereditary corruption, Paleario
writes :

There is no tongue that can express the thousandth part
of our miseries, forsomuch that after we were made of God
as with his own hands, we have lost that image of God, and
are become like unto the devil, and are made also naturally
one self [same] thing with him, both willing all that he
willeth and also refusing all that displeaseth him. Aud
forsomuch as we be thus given to [a] prey to so wicked a
spirit, there is no sin so great that every one of us is not
ready to do, when we are not let by the grace of God.
This privation or want of righteousness, and this in-
clination and readiness to all unrighteousuess and
ungodliness, is called Original Sin ; the which we
bring with us from our mother's womb, being born
the children of wrath, and yet took beginning of our
first parents, and is the occasion and well-head of all
the sins and iniquity that we commit, from the
which if we will be delivered, and return to this first
innocency, recovering the likeness of God, it is necessary
that we know first our miseries. And for this cause, even
as no man at any time seeketh after a physician if he know
not himself to be sick, neither knoweth the excellency of
the physician, nor the bounden goodwill that he ought to
bear towards him in that behalf, nor if he know not his
sickness to be very dangerous, and threatening death, even
so no man knoweth Christ the only healer of our souls if
he know not his soul to be sick, nor can know the excel-
lency of Christ. nor the bounden goodwill that he ought to
bear to him, if lie do not go down into the knowledge of
his most grevious sins, and of the most dangerous sickness
that we have caught by the infection of our thee parents.
On the faith which justifieth, he says:—

The faith that juatifleth is a work of God in us by the
which our old man is crucified, and we being altogether
transformed into Christ do become a new creature, and
dearly-beloved sons of God: this godly faith is such
that it graffeth us in the death and resurrection of Christ,
and consequently mortifleth the flesh with her affections
and concupiscences ; fur we know ourselves by the efficacy
of faith to be dead with Christ, and lo therefore determine
with ourselves and with the world, and also do understand
that it appertaineth to those that are dead with Christ, to
mortify their worldly members, that is to say, the sinful
affections of the mind, and the appetites or lusts of the
flesh ; and knowing ourselves raised with Christ, we dili-
gently endeavour to lead a spiritual and holy life, and like
that which we shall live iu Heaven after our resurrection.
This moat holy faith causeth us to broke or enjoy the
general pardon that the Gospel publisheth, yea, it
leadeth us into the kingdom of God, and maketh peace in
our conscience, and maintaineth in it a perpetual and holy
joyfulness and mirth. This sameself faith uniteth us with
'Jod, and causeth that God dwelleth in our hearts, and
clotheth our soul with himself; and consequently his Holy
Spirit moveth us to those things to the which it moved
Christ, when he was conversant amongst men : I say, to
humility, meekness and obedience of God, charity, and to
other perfections, by the which we recover the image of God.
But he cautions strongly against the delusions
of a false faith. What would the writer of
the following grave words have thought of
some of our pseudo-philosophic religionists of
modern times?—

And therefore let no man beguile himself when he
heareth say, that only faith without works justifieth
(believing as doth the false Christians, which drawetl► all
things to a fleshly living), that the true faith oonsisteth in
believing the story of Jesus Christ, in like manner as they
that believe the histories of Ctesar and Alexander. This
manner of believing is an historical faith, founded on the
very report of man, and of writing, and is printed slightly
in the mind by a certain use or custom; and is like to the
faith of the Turks, who by the selfsame occasions believeth
in the fables of Alcoran. This faith (so made) is an
imagination of man, which reneweth nothing the heart of
man, nor heateth him with godly love, neither (loth there
follow it any works of faith, nor new life ; and therefore
they say falsely, both against the holy Scripture and also
the holy doctors of the true church, that only faith justi-
fied' not, but that the works are needful ; to the which I
answer, that this historical and very vain faith, with the
works th follow it, not alone not justifieth, but also
casteth a man down headlong into hell, as those that have
no oil in their lamps, that is to say, no true faith in their
hearts.