down the leaves of Episcopacy," says Ful- The burning of these two books by comler, "misliking only some garments about mand of the High Commission Court is them; then they came to strike at the one of the charges Michael Sparkes brings branches, and last of all they did lay their against Archbishop Laud on his trial. axe unto the root of the tree." By the "But," writes the Archbishop in the time of Charles I. opinions had grown still" History of his Troubles," "he does not further embittered, and it is in that reign say absolutely burnt, but as he is inthat we find the severest examples of formed,' and he may be informed amiss." punishment incurred for any publications | There is no doubt, however, about the that reflected upon the third order of the treatment of another of his publications, ministry. In 1628 there appeared a very which appeared in the early part of 1633. scurrilous work by a Scotch doctor of This was "The Histriomastix, the playphysic and divinity, Alexander Leighton, er's scourge or actor's tragedies," a book father of the Archbishop, entitled "An which, as we shall see presently, appears Appeal to the Parliament; or Sion's Plea to have had the distinction of being the against the Prelacie. Printed the year first publication burnt in England by the and month in which Rochell was lost." hands of the common hangman. Prynne He calls bishops men of blood, ravens, showed no little courage in publishing and magpies; he declares the institution this book at a time when the Court was of Episcopacy to be anti-christian and not only very much addicted to dramatic satanical; the Queen is a daughter of representations, but had such easy means Heth, and the King is corrupted by bish- at hand for suppressing seditious and ops to the undoing of himself and people; treasonable publications. Much, however, and he approves of the murder of Buck- might have been overlorked in Prynne's ingham. Language such as this could book had he not spoken in such unmeashardly have been passed over unnoticed. ured terms of "women actors." This But it was not till June 4, 1630, that the was interpreted into a special attack author was brought before the Star Cham- upon the Queen, who had herself taken ber. There was no difficulty in pro-part in the performance of a pastoral at nouncing him guilty of seditious and scan- Somerset House. True, the book had dalous writings; and he was sentenced to been published at least six weeks before, a terrible and barbarous punishment. but there was rank treason in it for all Besides a fine of 10,000l. and degradation from the ministry, he was publicly whipped in Palace Yard, made to stand two hours in the pillory; one ear was cut off, a nostril slit open, and one of his cheeks branded with the letters S. S. (Sower of Sedition). After this he was afterwards employed in the defence sent off to the Fleet Prison. At the end of Laud that he was heartily sorry" of a week, "being not yet cured," he was for the strong language he had embrought out again, underwent a second ployed; the judges vied with each other whipping, and a repetition of the former in condemning him to the most exatrocities, and was then consigned to pris-treme penalties they could inflict. on for life, where he actually spent eleven years. In April 1641 his sentence was reversed by the House of Commons, and he received such consolation as it could afford him, when it was decided that his former mutilation and imprisonment had been entirely illegal.

There are few men whom a cacoethes scribendi ever brought into such trouble as William Prynne, "utter barrister of Lincoln's Inn." Of his publications, nearly 200 in number, the first appeared in 1627, entitled "The perpetuity of a regenerate man's estate, against the Saint's total and final Apostasy." In the following year, besides other works, he published "A brief survey and censure of Mr. Cozens, his couzening devotions."

that, and Prynne accordingly was cited before the Star Chamber in February 1633, together with Michael Sparkes the printer, and W. Buckner, the licenser of the obnoxious book. It was no use for Prynne to say through his counsel, Hern

The

Earl of Dorset was the most vehement, but it will be enough to quote the judgment of Lord Cottington, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"I do in the first place begin censure with his book. I condemn it to be burnt in the most public manner that can be. The manner in other countries is (where such books are), to be burnt by the hangman, though not used in England (yet I wish it may in respect of the strangeness and heinousness of the matter contained in it) to have a strange manner of burning, and therefore I shall desire it may be so burnt by the hand of the hang

uerim." For this he was condemned to pay a fine of 1,000l., to be excommunicated, to be debarred from the practice of his profession, his book to be burnt, and he himself to pay the costs and remain in prison till he recanted; and that is," he Whilst in the Gate House he published, in says, "till domesday in the afternoone." 1636, another book called "Пpúes Tv πOKÓлv: sive Apologeticus ad præsules Anglicanos criminum Ecclesiasticorum in Curia Celsa Commissionis," written, he tells us in the Petition he afterwards pre

adjudge him, my Lords, that the Society of Lincoln's Inn do put him out of the Society; and be cause he had his offspring from Oxford (now with a low voice said the Archbishop of Canterbury, I am sorry that ever Oxford bred such an evil member!'), there to be degraded. And I do condemn Mr. Prynne to stand in the pillory in two places, in Westminster and Cheapside, and that he shall lose both his ears, one in each place, and with a paper on his head declaring how foul an offence it is, viz., that it is for an infamous libel against both their Majesties' State and Government. And lastly (nay, not lastly,) I do condemn him in 5,000%. fine to the King. And lastly, perpetual impris-sented to the House of Commons, in answer

onment."

Buckner, who had been domestic chaplain to Abbot the Puritanical Archbishop of Canterbury, was to be fined 50l.; Sparkes 500%, and to stand at the pillory, without touching of his ears," in St. Paul's Churchyard. "It is a consecrated place," saith the Archbishop of Canterbury. "I cry your Grace's mercy," said my Lord, "then let it be in Cheapside."

to a book by Thomas Chowney, a Sussex gentleman, who maintained that the Church of Rome was a true church, and had not erred in fundamentals. The year following appeared a far more infamous.book entitled "The Letany of John Bastwicke, being now full of devotion as well as in respect of the common calamities of plague and pestilence, as also of his own particular misirie: lying at this instant in Limbo patrum. Printed by the speciall procurement and for the especiall use of our English prelats in the yeare of Remembrance Anno 1637." At first it was only shown to a few friends in manuscript, but afterwards it came to be printed in this way. John Lilburne, afterwards a lieutenantcolonel in the Parliamentary army, and who behaved with such gallantry at Marston Moor, got introduced to Dr. Bastwick in 1637, and was so much pleased at hearing the Letany, that having a little ready money at command, he undertook to get it printed in Holland. Bastwick was at first averse to this, as he distrusted a friend of Lilburne's, who would have to assist in disposing of the impression. His scruples, however, were overcome, and the Letany, together with another libellous publication, entitled "Answers to the Information of Sir John Banks, Kt., Atturney Universall," committed to the press. The first edition realized a handsome profit; but now Laud got scent of the publication, laid hold upon the disperser, and made him confess who the main culprit in the business was. Accordingly when Lilburne landed with another impression, he was seized along with his cargo, and the books burnt by the hands of the common hangman.

Prynne's sufferings by no means ended here. On the 14th of June, 1637, we find him a second time before the Star Chamber, this time in company with Dr. J. Bastwick and H. Burton, "for writing and publishing seditious, schismatical, and libellous books against the hierarchy of the Church." Bastwick, though he called himself M.D. apparently without any claim to the title, seems to have had few if any patients, and tried literature. He had his book printed in Leyden in 1624, and its title was "Elenchus religionis Papisticæ, in quo probatur neque Apostolicam, neque Catholicam, neque Romanam esse.' It was written in answer to a book by Richard Short, which defended the Papal supremacy, the doctrine of the mass, and the Romish religion in general. In the year 1635, at the request of a friend, he published an epitome of this book, called Flagellum Pontificis et Episcoporum Latialium." 66 Though professing to be directed against the Church of Rome, 'tis more than manifest," Laud says, "that it was purposely written and divulged against the Bishops and Church of England." For this he was cited before the High Commission Court, when thirtyseven articles were charged against him. He was acquitted of all the charges except H. Burton, B.D., was the incumbent of one, and that was his maintaining bishops St. Matthew's, Friday Street, the church and priests to be the same order of minis- in which Pepys tells us of a disturbance in ters, or, as he expressed it himself, "Im- his time; "a great many young people pingitur horrendum crimen quod infulis et knotting together and crying Porridge, apicibus jus divinum negaverim, quod often and seditiously in the church; and Episcopi et Presbyteri paritatem asser- they took the Common Prayer Book, they

"That it was impolitic and dangerous to publish the Book of Sports' is doubtless true, but that, under the circumstances of the case, advisers to do this, or abandon their own opinit was almost necessary for the King and his The Puritans by no means neglected must be remembered that the King and the ions, is perhaps also capable of proof. It the cheap and easy way of answering an High Church party were not the movers in the adversary by burning his books. It was, matter. The judges had taken it upon themperhaps, of very little consequence that selves to forbid the celebration of the village such effusions as Coppe's "Fiery Flying feasts or wakes on the Sunday, and had ordered Roll," or Lawrence Clarkson's "Single most unwarrantably, the clergy to publish their Eye," or "The accuser shamed, or a pair'decrees in the time of service. This was as di

rect and distinct an invasion of ecclesiastical Letter of an English Bishop fell into the jurisdiction as could well be devised, and it ex- hands of the hangman, yet such was the cited, as might be expected, the wrath of the fate in 1693 of one of Bishop Burnet's, Archbishop. But the Chief Justice (Richard-printed in 1689. The account of it is son) seemed determined to set him and the given by Burnet himself in the rough King at defiance, and repeated, on his next circuit, his former order. An inquiry was then draught of the "History of his Time," now made through the Bishop of Bath and Wells, He omitted it for some reason or other in in the British Museum (Harl. MSS. 6584). his printed edition.

as to how the dedication feasts were observed

in the villages, and seventy-two grave divines reported that they were observed religiously and orderly. Upon this the Chief Justice was called before the Council and received such a rattle' for his former contempt that he came out complaining that he had almost been choked by a pair of lawn sleeves.' ” *

"In the last Session of Parliament some began to find fault with a notice by which some divines had urged obedience to the present Government, that here was a conquest over King James, and that conquest in a just way gave a good title. This some had carried so far as to In 1644, however, when Puritan influ-say, in all wars, just or unjust, conquests were to be considered as God's transferring ence had become supreme in Parliament, the dominion from the conquered to the cona resolution was passed by both Houses queror; yet all these writers had taken care that the obnoxious, book should be burnt to distinguish between a conquest of a nation by the Justices of the Peace, in Cheap- and a conquest of King James: the latter beside, and at the Exchange. The Sheriffs of London and Middlesex had instructions to assist effectually in carrying out the order of the 10th of May; all persons were required to deliver up their copies to the proper authorities. On that day accordingly all that could be laid hold of were destroyed.

ing only that which was pretended, that, as they said, gave the King all King James's right. This doctrine was condemned by a vote of both Houses, and a book that had set it forth with great modesty and judgment was in great heat condemned to be burnt; and because in a treatise that I had writ, immediately after I was a bishop, to persuade my clergy to take the oaths, I had only mentioned this as a received opinion among lawyers, and had put it in among other topics, but had put the strength of all upon the lawfulness and justice of the present establishment, they fell upon that little book, and ordered it likewise to be burnt. So it looked somewhat extraordinary that I, who perhaps was the greatest asserter of public liberty, from my first setting out, of any writer in the age, should be so severely treated as an enemy to it. But the truth was, the Tories never liked me, and the Whigs hated me, because I went not into their notions and passions; but even this and worse things that may happen to me shall not, I hope, be able to make me depart from moderate principles and the just asserting of the liberty of mankind."

After the Restoration, the custom of book-burning soon came into use. On the 16th of June, 1660, the House of Commons passed a resolution that his Majesty be humbly moved to call in three books written in justification of the murder of the late King, and order them to be burnt by the common hangman. Two of these were by Milton; the "Elkovokλdors, in answer to Elkov Bachкn," published in 1649, and "Defensio pro populo Anglicano contra Claudii Salmasii Defensionem regiam" in 1650. The third work was by John Goodwin, and was entitled "pioтodikia, the Obstructors of Justice, or a Defence of the honourable Sentence passed upon the late King by the High Court of The book the Bishop alludes to is an Justice, 1649." In accordance with this anonymous publication, entitled King resolution, the King issued a proclamation William and Queen Mary Conquerors." on August 13, ordering the suppression The author was Charles Blount, a person of these books, and stating that Milton of some talent, but an infidel; one of his had fled from justice. By the next assize works had been seriously curtailed by day, August 27th, a considerable number Sir Roger L'Estrange, the first "Licenser of copies of the prohibited works had been of the Press," and finally suppressed by brought to the sheriffs of the different order of the Bishop of London. In concounties, and on that day they were burnt. sequence of this treatment, and the prosThe authorities were satisfied with this ex- pect of a repetition of it if he ventured pression of feeling, and three days after- on any new work, he issued from some unwards an act of indemnity was passed, licensed press a pamphlet called "A just which included Milton. Vindication of Learning and of the Liberty of the Press: by Philopatris." It is a curious proof of the little acquaintance which readers in those days had with

It was very seldom that the Pastoral

Perry, vol. i. pp. 464-466.
VOL. XXIII.

LIVING AGE.

1060

66

the prose works of Milton, that though, Westminster, and a reward of 1,000l. was Blount's pamphlet consisted of little else offered for the discovery of the author. but garbled extracts from the "Areopa- The Duke of Buckingham was at one time gitica," the gross plagiarism was never thought to be responsible for it. All, howdiscovered. Blount, encouraged by this, ever, that could be extracted from the compounded on similar principles another printer, David Edwards, was that two wopamphlet, "Reasons for the Liberty of men, one of them wearing a mask, brought Unlicensed Printing." At the end of it the manuscript to him with directions for he added" A Just and True Character of the printing of 350 copies, and that these Edmund Bohun," who had succeeded were delivered to four persons sent to his Catalogue" Fraser, the State Licenser office to receive them. The author was a appointed at the Revolution, and this physician of some eminence and a F. R. S., work he contrived should be widely but J. Drake, though Mr. Pooley, the Member privately circulated. Meanwhile he laid a for Ipswich, seems to have supplied him very clever trap for Bohun, who, though a with the legal information contained in it. very strong Tory, had taken the oaths to So determined were the Government to the Prince of Orange, and justified his so suppress it that a book-seller having printdoing by arguments which mightily offend- ed it with an answer, paragraph by paraed Whigs and Tories alike. In his new graph, all the copies were seized immediwork Blount enunciated opinions exactly ately and destroyed. The libel was rethe contrary to those he really held, of printed in Dublin, and very impudently course for the sake of deceiving Bohun. dedicated to the Lord Lieutenant. This "The trap was laid and baited with much edition also was destroyed by authority. skill. The republican succeeded in per- Four years afterwards another person of sonating a high Tory. The atheist suc- great notoriety appeared upon the world's ceeded in personating a high Church-stage Dr. Sacheverell. At the age of fifBohun gladly gave permission teen he had gained a demyship at Magdalen for its publication, but he soon found cause College, Oxford, and afterwards became to repent of so doing. The House of Fellow and Tutor of the same college. Commons sat in judgment upon it; con- Whilst residing there he became acquaintdemned it to the care of the hangman, and ed with Addison, who had migrated to Magpetitioned the King that Bohun should be dalen from Queen's. So much attached removed from his office. Their sentence were they to each other, that Addison dedwas carried out. Some expressions in icated his "Account of the Greatest EngBishop Burnet's Pastoral were thought too lish Poets," written at the time when he much akin to the spirit of this work to be purposed entering holy orders, to his "dearallowed to pass unnoticed any longer. est friend and colleague," H. Sacheverell. Some wag in the House during the debate In 1705 he was appointed preacher at St. called out Burn it, burn it," and burnt it Saviour's, Southwark, and it was whilst was accordingly, but only by a majority holding this appointment that he delivered of 7 votes in a House of 317 members. the two sermons which bronght him into such notoriety. Party-feeling in those days ran high both in religion and politics, and Sacheverell was an outspoken High Church Tory of the most extreme kind. On the 14th of August, 1709, he preached his sermon at Derby; and on the 9th of November what Lord Campbell calls his " contemptible sermon," Perils among False Brethren," at St. Paul's.

man." *

In 1705 a pamphlet appeared which caused great excitement. It was called "The Memorial of the Church of England, humbly offered to the consideration of all true Lovers of our Church and Communion," the name of the author being withheld. The occasion of its being written was that a bill against "occasional conformity" had three times failed in passing the House of Lords. The pamph et was alluded to by the Queen in her speech to Parliament; both Houses addressed her Majesty, requesting her to punish the author of so groundless and malicious an assertion as that the Church was in danger under her administration. The grand jury of Middlesex condemned it to be burnt before the Court, and again before the Royal Exchange and the Palace Yard,

Macaulay's History of England, vol. iv. p. 356.

66

These sermons, however, brought him under the notice of Government. Notwithstanding Lord Somers's better advice, it was determined by the Cabinet, the Prime Minister, Lord Godolphin, whom Sacheverell had attacked under the name of Volpone, being especially urgent in the matter, to proceed by way of impeachment. The Member for Liskeard, Mr. Dolben, was intrusted with bringing the matter before the House of Commons, which voted that the sermons were "ma