more--whether this
forger, who rests in so much darkness, might not, after all, be of English
blood. Tom, it may be feared, is known to modern English literature chiefly
by an irreverent mention of his name in a line of Peter Pindar's (Dr.
Wolcot) fifty years back, where he is described as

"Kempis Tom,
Who clearly shows the way to Kingdom Come."

Few in these days can have read him, unless in the Methodist version of
John Wesley. Amongst those few, however, happens to be myself; which arose
from the accident of having, when a boy of eleven, received a copy of the
_De Imitatione Christi_, as a bequest from a relation, who died very young;
from which cause, and from the external prettiness of the book, being a
Glasgow reprint, by the celebrated Foulis, and gaily bound, I was induced
to look into it; and finally read it many times over, partly out of
some sympathy which, even in those days, I had with its simplicity and
devotional fervor; but much more from the savage delight I found in
laughing at Tom's Latinity. _That_, I freely grant to M. Michelet, is
inimitable; else, as regards substance, it strikes me that I could forge a
better _De Imitatione_ myself. But there is no knowing till one tries. Yet,
after all, it is not certain whether the original _was_ Latin. But, however
_that_ may have been, if it is possible that M. Michelet[A] can be accurate
in saying that there are no less than _sixty_ French versions (not
editions, observe, but separate versions) existing of the _De Imitatione_,
how prodigious must have been the adaptation of the book to the religious
heart of the fifteenth century! Excepting the Bible, but excepting
that only in Protestant lands, no book known to man has had the same
distinction. It is the most marvellous bibliographical fact on record.

[Footnote A: "If M. Michelet can be accurate." However, on consideration,
this statement does not depend on Michelet. The bibliographer, Barbier,
has absolutely _specified_ sixty in a separate dissertation, _soixante
traductions_, amongst those even that have not escaped the search. The
Italian translations are said to be thirty. As to mere _editions_, not
counting the early MSS. for half a century before printing was introduced,
those in Latin amount to two thousand, and those in French to one thousand.
Meantime, it is very clear to me that this astonishing popularity, so
entirely unparalleled in literature, could not have existed except in Roman
Cat