These three works seemed to me to call for some special reference, because they present noteworthy and characteristic examples of the theological controversies of the century and of the employment of scholarly labour to secure or to affirm the foundations of religious faith. The very great advantages possessed by the Roman writer in securing immediate channels of distribution and an assured reading public are also to be noted in connection with the serious obstacles existing at the time in the way of any general distribution of books by means of such machinery as was available for the publishers. The _Exercitationes_ was printed for Casaubon by the King’s printer in London and was issued by a publisher named Bell. I can find no record of the publishing arrangement, but the cost of the undertaking appears to have been provided for in part by the royal treasury and in part by the aid of Bishop Andrews, who was an old friend of the author. Casaubon’s sojourn in England was more favourable for his literary labour than had been his position as royal librarian in Paris, but while he was the most industrious of students, and, according to his biographies, practically killed himself by close application to his desk, the number of his completed works is but inconsiderable. Pattison gives the titles or descriptions of not less than twenty-four books, which had been planned out and many of which had been in part written, but which remained at the death of the scholar either fragments or simply titles. Of the twenty-five works that were finished during the lifetime of the scholar, a portion were afterwards characterised by himself as _juvenilia_ which he was unwilling even to acknowledge. The edition of _Theophrastus_, published in 1592, is the first work with which in later years Casaubon expressed himself as satisfied. No one of the books appears to have retained for itself a literary life, that is to say, to have become a part of the world’s literature or even to have remained in demand with the scholars. It was the case with Casaubon, as with Scaliger, that his reputation has remained greater than that of his productions. The scholar was more important than his books. It seems evident, as far as can be gathered from the scanty references to business details in Casaubon’s correspondence, that he never earned anything, at least directly, through the labours of his pen. His books must all have produced deficiencies instead of profits, and the sum required for their publication had to be obtained from the few wealthy friends who were able to appreciate the value to the world of a life devoted to scholarship. Casaubon died in London in 1614, in his 55th year. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. WILLIAM CAXTON, AND THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING INTO ENGLAND, 1422-1492.