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Show THESE BOOKS WERE DIGESTED History Furnishes Instances of Authors Au-thors Being Compelled Literally to Eat Their Words. To literally digest a book is an accomplishment ac-complishment which few can boast of having performed. Nevertheless, a good deal of literature has been destroyed de-stroyed in this way at one time or another. an-other. Barnabo Viscontl compelled two papal delegates to eat the bull of excommunication ex-communication which they had brought him, together with its silken cords and leaden seal. As the bull was written on parchment, It was all the more difficult dif-ficult to digest. A similar anecdote is related of an Austrian general, who had signed a note for 2,000 florins, and, when it fell due, compelled his creditors cred-itors to eat it. A Scandinavian writer, the author of a political book, was compelled to choose between being beheaded or eating eat-ing his manuscript boiled in broth. Isaac Volmar, who wrote some satires against Bernard, duke of Saxony, was not allowed the courtesy of the kitchen, kitch-en, but was forced to swallow them uncooked. Still worse was the fate of Philip Oldenburger, a jurist of great renown, who was condemned not only to eat a pamphlet of his writing, but also to be flogged during his repast |