whom he admired, he
dispersed three thousand copies of this proclamation to be posted up
through Paris; the alarm and the curiosity were simultaneous; but the
latter prevailed. Every book collector hastened to procure a copy so
terrifically denounced, and at the same time so amusing. The author of
the "Livres condamnes au Feu" might have inserted this anecdote in his
collection. It may be worth adding, that Maimbourg always affected to
say that he had never read Bayle's work, but he afterwards confessed to
Menage, that he could not help valuing a book of such curiosity. Jurieu
was so jealous of its success, that Beauval attributes his personal
hatred of Bayle to our young philosopher overshadowing that veteran.

The taste for literary history we owe to Bayle; and the great interest
he communicated to these researches spread in the national tastes of
Europe. France has been always the richest in these stores, but our
acquisitions have been rapid; and Johnson, who delighted in them,
elevated their means and their end, by the ethical philosophy and the
spirit of criticism which he awoke. With Bayle, indeed, his minor works
were the seed-plots; but his great Dictionary opened the forest.

It is curious, however, to detect the difficulties of early attempts,
and the indifferent success which sometimes attends them in their first
state. Bayle, to lighten the fatigue of correcting the second edition of
his Dictionary, wrote the first volume of "Reponses aux Questions d'un
Provincial," a supposititious correspondence with a country gentleman.
It was a work of mere literary curiosity, and of a better description of
miscellaneous writing than that of the prevalent fashion of giving
thoughts and maxims, and fanciful characters, and idle stories, which
had satiated the public taste: however, the book was not well received.
He attributes the public caprice to his prodigality of literary
anecdotes, and other _minutiae literariae_, and his frequent quotations!
but he defends himself with skill: "It is against the nature of things
to pretend that in a work to prove and clear up facts, an author should
only make use of his own thoughts, or that he ought to quote very
seldom. Those who say that the work does not sufficiently interest the
public, are doubtless in the right; but an author cannot interest the
public except he discusses moral or political subjects. All others with
which men of letters fill their books are useless to the pub