charge was brought up again at the national synod of Charenton in 1644, when he was again acquitted. A third attack at the synod of Loudun in 1659 met with no better success. The university of Saumur became the university of French Protestantism. Amyraut had as many as a hundred students in attendance upon his prelections. Another historic part filled by Amyraut was in the negotiations originated by Pierre le Gouz de la Berchère (1600–1653), first president of the parlement of Grenoble, when exiled to Saumur, for a reconciliation and reunion of the Catholics of France with the French Protestants. Very large were the concessions made by Richelieu in his personal interviews with Amyraut; but, as with the Worcester House negotiations in England between the Church of England and nonconformists, they inevitably fell through. On all sides the statesmanship and eloquence of Amyraut were conceded. His De l’élévation de la foy et de l’abaissement de la raison en la créance des mystères de la religion (1641) gave him early a high place as a metaphysician. Exclusive of his controversial writings, he left behind him a very voluminous series of practical evangelical books, which have long remained the fireside favourites of the peasantry of French Protestantism. Amongst these are Estat des fidèles après la mort; Sur l’oraison dominicale; Du mérite des œuvres; Traité de la justification; and paraphrases of books of the Old and New Testament. His closing years were weakened by a severe fall he met with in 1657. He died on the 18th of January 1664.
See Edm. Saigey, Moses Amyraut, sa vie et ses écrits (1849); Alex. Schweizer in Tüb. theol. Jahrbb., 1852, pp. 41 ff. 155 ff., Protestant. Central-Dogmen (1854 ff.), ii. 225 ff., and in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie; Bayle, s.v.; Biog. Univ., s.v.; John Quick’s Synod. in Gall. Reform. pp. 352-357; Ibid. MS. Icones Sacrae Gallicanae; Life of Cameron.
ANA, a Latin neuter plural termination appropriated to various collections of the observations and criticisms of eminent men, delivered in conversation and recorded by their friends, or discovered among their papers after their decease. Though the term Ana is of comparatively modern origin, the introduction of this species of composition is not of recent date. It appears, from d’Herbelot’s Bibliothèque Orientale, that from the earliest periods the Eastern nations were in the habit of preserving the maxims of their sages. From them the practice passed to the Greeks and Romans. Plato and Xenophon treasured up and recorded the sayings of their master Socrates; and Arrian, in the concluding books of his Enchiridion, now lost, collected the casual observations of Epictetus. The numerous apophthegms scattered in Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius and other writers, show that it was customary in Greece to preserve the colloquially expressed ideas of illustrious men. It appears that Julius Caesar compiled a book of apophthegms, in which he related the bons mots of Cicero; and Quintilian informs us that a freedman of that celebrated wit and orator composed three books of a work entitled De Jocis Ciceronis. We are told by Suetonius that Caius Melissus, originally the slave but afterwards the freedman and librarian of Maecenas, collected the sayings of his master; and Aulus Gellius has filled his Noctes Atticae with anecdotes which he heard from the eminent scholars and critics whose society he frequented in Rome.
But though vestiges of Ana may be traced in the classical ages, it is only in modern times that they have come to be regarded as constituting a distinct species of composition, comprising literary anecdotes, critical reflexions, and historical incidents, mingled with the detail of bons mots and ludicrous tales. The term Ana seems to have been applied to such collections as far back as the beginning of the 15th century. Francesco Barbaro, in a letter to Poggio, says that the information and anecdotes which Poggio and Bartolommeo of Montepulciano had picked up during a literary excursion through Germany will be called Ana: “Quemadmodum mala ab Appio e Claudia gente Appiana, et pira a Mallio Malliana cognominata sunt, sic haec literarum quae vestra ope et opera Germania in Italiam deferentur, aliquando et Poggiana et Montepolitiana vocabuntur.”
Poggio Bracciolini, to whom this letter is addressed, and to whom the world is indebted for the preservation of so many classical remains, is the first eminent person of modern times whose jests and opinions have been transmitted to posterity. Poggio was secretary to five successive popes. During the pontificate of Martin V., who was chosen in 1417, Poggio and other members of the Roman chancery were in the habit of assembling in a common hall adjoining the Vatican, in order to converse freely on all subjects. Being more studious of wit than of truth, they termed this apartment Buggiale, a word which Poggio himself interprets Mendaciorum Officina. Here Poggio and his friends discussed the news and scandal of the day; communicated entertaining anecdotes; attacked what they did not approve (and they approved of little); and indulged in the utmost latitude of satiric remark, not sparing even the pope and cardinals. The jests and stories which occurred in these unrestrained conversations were collected by Poggio, and formed the chief materials of his Facetiae, first printed, according to de Bure, in 1470. This collection, which forms a principal part of the Poggiana, is chiefly valuable as recording interesting anecdotes of eminent men of the 14th and 15th centuries. It also contains a number of quibbles or jeux de mots, and a still greater number of facetiae, idle and licentious stories. These Facetiae form, upon the whole, the most amusing and interesting part of the Poggiana printed at Amsterdam in 1720; but this collection also comprehends additional anecdotes of Poggio’s life, and a few extracts from his graver compositions.
Though Poggio was the first person whose remarks and bons mots were collected under the name of Ana, the Scaligerana, which contains the opinions of Joseph Scaliger, was the first worked published under that appellation, and accordingly may be regarded as having led the way to that class of publications. There are two collections of Scaligerana—the Prima and Secunda. The first was compiled by a physician named Francois Vertunien, sieur de Lavau, who attended a family with whom Joseph Scaliger resided. He, in consequence, had frequent opportunities of meeting the celebrated critic, and was in the custom of committing to writing the observations which dropped from him in the course of conversation, to which he occasionally added remarks of his own. This collection, which was chiefly Latin, remained in manuscript many years after the death of the compiler. It was at length purchased by M. de Sigogne, who published it in 1669, under the title of Prima Scaligerana, nusquam antehac edita, calling it prima in order to preserve its claim of priority over another Scaligerana, which, though published three years before, had been more recently compiled. This second work, known as Secunda Scaligerana, was collected by two brothers of the name of Vassan, students of the university of Leiden, of which Scaliger was one of the professors. Being particularly recommended to Scaliger, they were received in his house, and enjoyed his conversation. Writing down what they had heard, particularly on historical and critical subjects, they soon made up a large manuscript volume, in which, however, there was neither connexion nor arrangement of any description. After passing through various hands this manuscript came into the possession of M. Daillé, who for his own use arranged in alphabetical order the articles which it contained. Isaac Vossius, obtaining the manuscript in loan from M. Daillé, transcribed it, and afterwards published it at the Hague, under the title of Scaligerana, sive Excerpta ex Ore Josephi Scaligeri. This edition was full of inaccuracies and blunders, and a more correct impression was afterwards published by M. Daillé, with a preface complaining of the use that Vossius had made of the manuscript, which he declares was never intended for publication, and was not of a nature to be given to the world. Indeed, most literary men in that age conceived that the Scaligerana, particularly the second, detracted considerably from the reputation of the great scholar. Joseph Scaliger, with more extensive erudition, but, as some think, less genius than his father Julius Caesar Scaliger, had inherited his vanity and dogmatical spirit. Conversing with two young students, he would probably be but little cautious in the opinions he expressed, as his literary errors could not be detected or exposed. Unfortunately the blind admiration of his pupils led them to regard his opinions as the responses
