He was looking only for the prurient, the indecent, the immoral in actions and dress, and with his scanty French was sharpening his ears to catch the obscenities that the austere guardians of the fatherland had foretold.

A man with a pen in his hand, however feeble it may be, must use it to tell the truth about the monstrous horror, to etch its images of cruelty into the brains of his readers, and to tear down the veils by which the leaders of the peoples try to conceal its obscenities.

All these contain obscenity which is either inserted to amuse or to instruct, and the medical work now assailed deals with physiological points purely to instruct, and to increase the happiness of men and women.

Perhaps no one felt more keenly than did Crébillon fils the growing popularity of a novel the purity of which but enhanced the obscenity of his own writings.

His "Rimini" "is so wretchedly written that one feels disgust at its pretense, affectation and gaudiness, ignorance, vulgarity, irreverence, quackery, glittering and rancid obscenities.

He shows the absurdity and inconsistency of tolerating players in their delineation of the vices and follies of deities for the amusement of the people in the theatre, while the priests performed the same obscenities as religious rites in the temples which were upheld by the State; so that philosophers like Varro could pour contempt on players with impunity, while he dared not ridicule priests for doing in the temples the same things.

For here was no harmless burning which I didbut the crime of arson; and a most fiendish, though vague, malevolence, and the rage to burn and raven and riot, was upon me like a dog-madness, and all the mood of Nero, and Nebuchadnezzar: and from my mouth proceeded all the obscenities of the slum and of the gutter, and I sent up such hisses and giggles of challenge to Heaven that day as never yet has man let out.

P. 181 col. 2. line 3., for obscurities, read obscenities.

If during this long period the party has thuswithout one word of protestcirculated an indecent work, the less we talk about Freethought morality the better; the work has been largely sold, and if leading Freethinkers have sold itprofiting by the salein mere carelessness, few words could be strong enough to brand the indifference which thus scattered obscenity broadcast over the land.

in that of the renowned Queen Elizabeth; yet he had recourse to the mean expedient of writing obscenity, and favouring the cause of vice, by which he no doubt recommended himself to the rakes about town, who, as they are generally no true judges of wit, to estimate the merit of a piece, as it happens to suit their appetite, or encourage them in every irregular indulgence.