ceaseless conflict with his own honesty. If he values his skin, he must
accommodate himself to current dogmas and refrain from truthful
comments and conclusions. He has the choice of being a chronologer or a
ballad-monger-obsolete and unimportant occupations. Unenviable fate of
those who aspire to be teachers of mankind, that they themselves should
be studied with a kind of antiquarian interest, stimulating thought not
otherwise than as warning examples! Clio has fallen from her pedestal.
That radiant creature, in identifying her interests with those of
theocracy, has become the hand-maiden of a withered and petulant
mistress, a mercenary slut. So things will remain, till mankind has
acquired a fresh body of ethics, corresponding to modern needs. It is
useless, it is dangerous, to pour new wine into old bottles. . . ."

He carries out his theory. The work of Monsignor Perrelli is, above all
things, a human document--the revelation of a personality cultured and
free from prejudice. Indeed, when one considers the religious situation
of those days, he seems to be sailing perilously near the wind in some
of his theological reflections; so much so, that Mr. Eames often
wondered whether this might not account for our ignorance of his later
life and the manner of his death. He held it possible that the scholar
may have fallen into the clutches of the Inquisition, never again to
return to the surface of society. It would explain why the first
edition of the ANTIQUITIES is so extremely rare, and why the two
subsequent ones were issued, respectively, at Amsterdam and Bale.

Incidentally, the book contains in its nine hundred pages all that
could possibly interest a contemporary student about the history and
natural products of Nepenthe. It is still a mine of antiquarian
information, though large sections of the work have inevitably become
obsolete. To bring the ANTIQUITIES up to date by means of a revised and