The Inquisition, with that brutal bigotry which characterised most of its proceedings, almost entirely destroyed Grafton's Paris Bible of 1538, with the result that the printing presses, types, and workmen were brought to London, and the few copies saved were completed here, to be sold on rare occasions at the present day for as much as L160 apiece. There is nothing in the Bible more than in any other; it is not particularly well printed, but it has a history, just as the Scotch Bassandyne Bible has, though in that case the persecution was directed against persons who _declined_ to have the book in their houses, ready to be shown to the tax collector whenever he chose to call. One Dr. James Drake, who in the year 1703 had the temerity to publish in London his _Historia Anglo-Scotica_, which contained, as was alleged, many false and injurious reflections upon the sovereignty and independence of the Scottish nation, had the pleasure of hearing that his work had been publicly burned at the Mercat Cross of Edinburgh, a pleasure which was doubtless considerably enhanced when another venture--the _Memorial_--shared the same fate in London, two years later. Drake had the honour of hearing himself censured from the throne, of being imprisoned, and of having his books burned, distinctions which some people sigh for in vain at the present day. As a consequence, the _Historia_ and the _Memorial_ are both desirable books, and Drake's name has been rescued from oblivion. William Attwood's _Superiority and Direct Dominion of the Imperial Crown of England over the Crown and Kingdom of Scotland_ (London, 4to, 1705) is another book of good pedigree which would never have been worth the couple of guineas a modern bookseller will ask for it, had it not been burned by jealous Scotchmen immediately on its appearance. The massacre of St. Bartholomew produced a large crop of treatises, and any contemporary book on the Huguenot side is worth preservation, for a general search was made throughout France, and every work showing the slightest favour to the Protestants was seized and destroyed. Among them was Claude's _Defense de la Reformation_ (1683), which was burned not only abroad, but in England as well, so great an ascendency had the French Ambassador acquired over our Court. Bishop Burnet's _Pastoral letter to the Clergy of his Diocese_ (1689) was condemned and burned for ascribing the title of William III. to the Crown, to the right of conquest. The _Emilie_ and the _Contrat Social_ of Jean Jacques Rousseau shared the same fate, as did also _Les Histoires_ of d'Aubigne and Augustus de Thou. Baxter's _Holy Commonwealth_ went the way of all obnoxious books, in 1688; the _Boocke of Sportes upon the Lord's Day_, in 1643; the Duke of Monmouth's proclamation declaring James to be an usurper, in 1685; Claude's _Les Plaintes des Protestans_, in 1686.