Young's _Night Thoughts_ might not be considered a suitable form of poem for parody, but this M. Durosoi, or Du Rosoi, accomplished in his _Les Jours d'Ariste_ (1770), and was sent to the Bastille for his pains. The cause of his condemnation was that he had published this work without permission, and also perhaps on account of certain political allusions contained in his second work, _Le Nouvel Ami des Hommes_, published in the same year. But a worse fate awaited Du Rosoi on account of his writings. In the dangerous years of 1791 and 1792 he edited _La Gazette de Paris_, which procured greater celebrity for him, and brought about his death. When the fatal tenth of August came, the Editor was not to be found in Paris. However, ultimately he was secured and condemned to death by the tribunal extraordinary appointed by the Legislative Assembly to judge the enemies of the new government. He died with great bravery at the hands of the revolutionary assassins, after telling his judges that as a friend of the King he was accounted worthy to die on that day, the Feast of Saint Louis. All the venom of satirical writers seems to have been collected by that strange author Gaspar Scioppius, who had such a singular lust for powerful invective that he cared not whom he attacked, and made himself abhorred by all. This Attila of authors was born in Germany in 1576, went to Rome, abjured Protestantism, and was raised to high honours by Pope Clement VIII. In return for these favours he wrote several treatises in support of the Papal claims, amongst others _Ecclesiasticus_, which was directed against James I. of England. Concerning this book Casaubon wrote in his Epistle CLV.: "Know concerning Scioppius that some of his works have been burned not only here at London by the command of our most wise King, but also at Paris by the hand of the hangsman. I have written a letter, which I will send to you, if I am able, against that beast." He poured the vials of his wrath upon the Jesuits, declaring in his _Relatio ad reges et principes de stratagematibus Societatis Jesu_ (1635) that there was no truth to be found in Italy, and that this was owing entirely to the Jesuits, who "keep back the truth in injustice, who, rejecting the cup of Christ, drink the cup of devils full of all abominations." This roused their wrath, and by their designs our author was imprisoned at Venice. There he would have been slain, if he had not enjoyed the protection of a powerful Venetian. He boasted that his writings had had such an effect on two of his literary opponents, Casaubon and Scaliger, as to cause them to die from vexation and disappointment. He made himself so many powerful enemies that towards the end of his life he knew not where to find a secure retreat. This "public pest of letters and society," as the Jesuits delighted to call him, died at Padua in 1649 hated by all, both Catholics and Protestants. He wrote one hundred and four works, of