stitious." He pretends these affected
titles indicated their several subjects; but the genius of Toland
could descend to literary quackery.

He had the art of propagating books; his small Life of Milton produced
several; besides the complacency he felt in extracting long passages
from Milton against the bishops. In this Life, his attack on the
authenticity of the _Eikon Basilike_ of Charles I. branched into
another on supposititious writings; and this included the spurious
gospels. Association of ideas is a nursing mother to the fertility of
authorship. The spurious gospels opened a fresh theological campaign,
and produced his "Amyntor." There was no end in provoking an author,
who, in writing the life of a poet, could contrive to put the
authenticity of the Testament to the proof.

Amid his philosophical labours, his _vanity_ induced him to seize on
all temporary topics to which his facility and ingenuity gave
currency. The choice of his subjects forms an amusing catalogue; for
he had "Remarks" and "Projects" as fast as events were passing. He
wrote on the "Art of Governing by Parties," on "Anglia Liberia,"
"Reasons for Naturalising the Jews," on "The Art of Canvassing at
Elections," "On raising a National Bank without Capital," "The State
Anatomy," "Dunkirk or Dover," &c. &c. These, and many like these, set
off with catching titles, proved to the author that a man of genius
may be capable of writing on all topics at all times, and make the
country his debtor without benefiting his own creditors.[113]

There was a moment in Toland's life when he felt, or thought he felt,
fortune in his grasp. He was then floating on the ideal waves of the
South Sea bubble. The poor author, elated with a notion that he was
rich enough to print at his own cost, dispersed copies of his absurd
"Pantheisticon." He describes a society of Pantheists, who worship the
universe as God; a mystery much greater than those he attacked in
Christianity. Their prayers are passages from Cicero and Seneca, and
they chant long poems instead of psalms; so that in their zeal they
endured a little tediousness. The next objectionable circumstance in
this wild ebullition of philosophical wantonness is the apparent
burlesque of some liturgies; and a wag having inserted in some copies
an impious prayer to Bacchus, Toland suffered for the folly of others
as well as his own.[114] With the South Sea bubble vanished Toland's
desire of printing books at his own ri