452
HISTORY OF PRINTING.
1610. Died, John Moret, the son-in-law, and successor of Christopher Plantin, in his printing establishment at Antwerp, and whose insigne and motto be adopted. Paul Peter, (upon what authority does not appear) tells us that Moret kept forty-eight presses in constant motion. He left two sons, Balthazar and John, who succeeded to his business.
" Notwithstanding so much may be alledged in favour of books of a small size, yet the scholars of a former age regarded them with contempt. Scaliger, says Baillet, cavils with Drusius for the smallness of his books ; and John Moret, who was one of the greatest printers of his time, complaining to the learned Puteanus, who was considered as the rival of Lipsius, that his books were too small for sale, and that purchasers turned away, frightened at their diminutive size ; Puteanus referred him to Plutarch, whose works consist of small treatises ; but the printer took fire at the cqmparison, and turned him out of his shop, for his vanity at pretending that he wrote in any manner like Plutarch ! a specimen this of the politeness and reverence of the early printers for their learned authors." — D'Israeli.
1610. At this early period the art of printing had found its way even to the secluded recesses of Mount Lebanon, in Syria, as we have un- doubted evidence remaining in a book which has with difficulty found it£ way to Europe. Its title is thus given by De Murr, in his Memora- bilia bibliothectB Norimbergeneis, torn. i. p. 379. Psalterium Arabico-Syrum in Monte Lioano a fratrihu Maronitis tmpressum, 1610, foHo. — Masch, in his edition of Le Long, part II. vol. i. p. 67, and 121, furnishes a more ample account, from which it appears that the editors were Paschalis Eli and Joseph Ibn Amima, and that the work was printed In inclito et religioso mo- naslerio Vallit Kmaia in Monte Libani. What monastery this is, and in what particular part situated, has not been satisfactorily determined : possibly it may be Canobin, a convent of the monks of St. Anthony, distant about twenty miles from Tripoli, in which the patriarch of the Maronites resides ; or rather, says Dr. Cotton, Chsaya, one of the dependant convents situated in the vicinity of Canobin, which is mentioned in the following terms by the ill-fated Burck- hardt,* in his Travels in Syria : " Three bouts distant from Canobin, at the convent Kasheya, which is near the village of Ehden, is a printing office, where prayer books in the Syriac language are printed." De Murr, speaking of the Nurem- burg copy of this Psalter, calk it a Phtenix in Germany : a second copy is to be found in the public library at Hem.stadt; and a third copy is noticed by Schnurrer, in the possession of J. P. Bruns. Masch gives the title of another edition professing to be printed by these monks in the year 1586, taken from Assemani's catalog^ne of the Mediceo-Laurentian library ; but perhaps
- John Louis Burckhardt was by birth a Swiss, and
employed by the African company of London, to make diacoreries in the East, particnlarly Africa. He died at Ca^, April 1817, and was buried with great pomp.
this may be nothing more than the above «ditia* incorrectly described. And this conjecture is confirmed by the fact, that Jerome Dandini, am Italian Jesuit, who was sent by the pope as his nuncio to the Maronites on Mount Libanus. where he assisted at two synods holden in the year 1596, deems it a fortunate circumstance, not only for themselves, but for the whole of Christendom, that the Maronites at that time possessed not the art of printing. But the good nuncio's alarm for the spreading of heterodox and pernicious books is well met and refuted by his translator father Simon, for which the readrar may consult a work entiUed, Voyage d-u Matt Liban, traduit de Vltalien du R. P. J. Dandim, par R. S. P. 12mo. Paris, 1675, pp. 95-305.
16\0, April 18. Died, Robert Parsons, or Persons, a celebrated English Jesuit, who by his learning, his zeal, his activity, and his bold- ness in supporting the doctrines of the church of Rome, was the most noted, and the most formidable antagonist of the Protestant church.
He was born at Netherstowey, in Somerset- shire, and was educated in the protestant faith ; this, however, he quitted, and, retiring abroad, entered into the order of the Jesuits, and was the first Englishman of that order that was ever sent into this country. No man could be a more im- placable enemy to the principles of the refonna- tioD, and being as hostile to the civil as he was to the religious constitution of his native country, he did not startie at the practice of rebellion and treason, but was ardent in promoting- the Spanish invasion. His most celebrated work was his CoT^erence about the Succession of the Croum of ^luland, which was published uoder the name of Doleman, and the obvious intention of which, was to support the title of the infanta of Spain, against tnat of king James, on the death of queen Elizabeth. In pursuit of this point, the author assumed a bold and manly turn of sentiment and reasoning, which, however malignant in its ultimate design, was capable of being applied to the most valuable and useful purposes. He made it his chief business, says Dr. Kippis,to prove, that there are better titles to royalty and government than that of lineal des- cent ; and that the people, in certain cases, have a right to depose their princes, and to change the order of succession. Thus was a Jesuit the disseminator of the grand principles of political liberty ; and the disseminator of those principles which have since been maintained by our best writers,* and converted to the suppression of tyranny, and to the establishment of our free
• " Liberty is to the coUecUve body what health is to every individual body. Without health, no pleasure can be tasted by man ; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.*' — St. John, lord Bolingbnke.
" The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government ; the liberty of a private man. In being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and his country." — Abraham Cowley.
" As all hiunan things have an end, so that beaatlful system of liberty, the Bntish constitution,will perish, when the legislative power shall be more corrupted than the execattve."— Jlf«n<M9ii«e«.
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