Bayle, one of the most daring thinkers of the seventeenth century, was the author of the famous Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, which, proscribed both in France and Holland, had immense influence on the thought of the age, and may be said to have been rationalism's first protest against the dogmatism of the churches. The system, of course, entirely defeated its own ends. Had there been a literary censorship in Rome, we should have had to-day neither Horace, Juvenal, nor the philosophical works of Cicero. You say that the magistrates who regulate the literary custom-house complain that there are too many books. That is just the same thing as if the provost of merchants complained there were too many provisions in Paris.
People buy what they choose.
Men's thoughts have become an important article of commerce. A feeble novel is, I know, among books what a fool, always striving after wit, is in the world. We laugh at him and tolerate him. Further, the book amuses for an hour or two a few women who like novelty in literature as in everything. The theatre also deserves attention.