The history of this work is a striking instance of those imperfect beginnings, which have often closed in the most important labours. This admirable "Methode" made its first meagre appearance in two volumes in 1713. It was soon reprinted at home and abroad, and translated into various languages. In 1729 it assumed the dignity of four quartos; but at this stage it encountered the vigilance of government, and the lacerating hand of a celebrated _censeur_, Gros de Boze. It is said, that from a personal dislike of the author, he cancelled one hundred and fifty pages from the printed copy submitted to his censorship. He had formerly approved of the work, and had quietly passed over some of these obnoxious passages: it is certain that Gros de Boze, in a dissertation on the Janus of the ancients in this work, actually erased a high commendation of himself,[149] which Lenglet had, with unusual courtesy, bestowed on Gros de Boze; for as a critic he is most penurious of panegyric, and there is always a caustic flavour even in his drops of honey. This _censeur_ either affected to disdain the commendation, or availed himself of it as a trick of policy. This was a trying situation for an author, now proud of a great work, and who himself partook more of the bull than of the lamb. He who winced at the scratch of an epithet, beheld his perfect limbs bruised by erasures and mutilated by cancels. This sort of troubles indeed was not unusual with Lenglet. He had occupied his old apartment in the Bastile so often, that at the sight of the officer who was in the habit of conducting him there, Lenglet would call for his nightcap and snuff; and finish the work he had then in hand at the Bastile, where, he told Jordan, that he made his edition of Marot. He often silently restituted an epithet or a sentence which had been condemned by the _censeur_, at the risk of returning once more; but in the present desperate affair he took his revenge by collecting the castrations into a quarto volume, which was sold clandestinely. I find, by Jordan, in his _Voyage Litteraire_, who visited him, that it was his pride to read these cancels to his friends, who generally, but secretly, were of opinion that the decision of the _censeur_ was not so wrong as the hardihood of Lenglet insisted on. All this increased the public rumour, and raised the price of the cancels. The craft and mystery of authorship was practised by Lenglet to perfection; and he often exulted, not only in the subterfuges by which he parried his _censeurs_, but in his bargains with his booksellers, who were equally desirous to possess, while they half feared to enjoy, his uncertain or his perilous copyrights. When the _unique_ copy of the _Methode_, in its pristine state, before it had suffered any dilapidations, made its appearance at the sale of the curious library of the _censeur_ Gros de Boze, it provoked a Roxburgh competition, where the collectors, eagerly outbidding each other, the price of this