us. As I am desirous of pursuing the history of Anglican hostility against presumed heretical literature to its termination, which happily is at no great distance, I proceed to a document of some interest, to be found exclusively in one of the rarest books existing, and with the inspection of which I was favoured in the library of Magdalen College in Oxford-I mean the first edition of Fox's Acts and Monuments. It is a List of condemned books, subjoined to certain Injunctions, issued in the year 1539, which has been omitted in all subsequent editions. Wilkins, who has copied the Injunctions from Fox, has made the same omission. This circumstance will justify a more minute account of the document than it might otherwise seem to require. The omitted termination proceeds thus- Hereafter folow the names of certen bokes, whiche, either after this injunction, or some other in the said kinges daies, were prohibyted, the names of which bokes heare folowe in order expressed. Miles Coverdale. First, the whole Bible. Item'-enumerating other works: First,' and 'Item,' in the same * WILKINS, Concil. Fox, vol. iii., pp. 403, &c., in the reign of Mary, refers to it, and gives it the wrong year of 1531. There was a petition of the Synod of Canterbury, in 1534, to the king, to restrain or punish the publication of suspected books and translations of the Scriptures. WILKINS, ib., p. 776. + Pp. 572, 3, 4. way follow the succeeding names' George Joy, Theodore Baselle alias Thomas Beacon, William Tindall, John Frith, Mels Coverdalle, William Turner, Translated by Fysh, Roberte Barnes, Richard Tracy, John Bale alias Haryson, John Goughe, Rederick Mors, Henry Stalbridg otherwyse Bale, George Joy, Urb. Regius, Apologia Melancthonis, Pomerani, Sawtry, Luther translated by Tindall.' The next royal proclamation for abolishing of English books,' repeating nearly the same names, and followed by an instrument of the bishops, specifying the heresies at length, bears the date 1546, which shews it to be an act of the last year of the reign and life of Henry*. The protestant reign of his son was disgraced by no retaliation; but that of his daughter, the sanguinary, improved upon the heterodox bigotry of the father. In the memorable year 1555, was 'A Proclamation set out by the King and Queen, for the restraining of all Books and Writings, tending against the Doctrine of the Pope and his Church.' It grounds itself upon the statute of the second year of Henry IV., and condemns, with many of the reformers, foreign and English, Hall's Chroniclet. In 1557, a convocation of the * Fox, Acts, &c., vol. ii., pp. 496-508. + Id. ib. vol. iii., pp. 225, 6. Imprinted by John Cawood, Anno 1555.' The statute of Hen. IV., referred to, is given in all complete collections of province of Canterbury repeated, as far as their authority extended, the royal condemnation *. And the crown was put to the whole of these disgraceful operations, when, in the last year of the reign and life of this wretched princess, 1558, appeared a proclamation, which deserves by its brutality to speak for itself. By the King and Queen. 'Whereas divers Books, filled with Heresie, Sedition, and Treason, have of late, and be dayly brought into this Realm out of foreign Countries and places beyond the seas, and some also covertly printed within this Realm, and cast abroad in sundry parts thereof, whereby not only God is dishonoured, but also an incouragement given to disobey lawful Princes and Governors: The King and Queen's Majesties, for redress hereof, do, by this their present Proclamation, declare and publish to all their Subjects, that whosoever shall, after the proclaiming hereof, be found to have any of the said wicked and seditious Books, or finding them, do not forthwith burn the same, without shewing or reading the same to any other the Statutes, and may be found in COLLIER'S Ecc. Hist., vol. i., pp. 614, 5. The preparations for it, in the petition of the clergy and reply of the king, may be seen in WILKINS, Concil., Tom. iii., pp. 252-4. * WILKINS, ib., Tom. iv., pp. 155, &c., particularly 163. person, shall in that case be reputed and taken for a Rebel, and shall without delay be executed for that offence, according to the order of martial law. 'Given at our Manor of Saint James's, the sixth day of June. John Cawood, Printer.'* But it is time we should come to Rome, the fountain of these arbitrary acts. And in the Council of Lateran, assembled in 1511, in the tenth session, 1515, LEO X. then filling the pontifical chair, an ordinance of his was confirmed, with only one dissentient voice in favour of antient writers, that no book should be printed, until, if in Rome, examined and subscribed by the Master of the Sacred Palace; and, if in other places, by the Bishop, or his deputy, or the Inquisitor of the place. The printer who should transgress, besides the loss and public burning of the books printed, and the contribution of two hundred ducats for the building of St. Peter's Cathedral, and suspension of his trade for a year, becomes subject to a sentence of excommunication, and, in case of contumacy, to farther discretionary severities. No *Fox, Acts, &c., iii., p. 732. + As this ordinance is both highly important in itself, and is recognized and adopted in the Tenth of the Tridentine Rules, it will be desirable to thing like a formal Index of condemned books appeared from this quarter until the year 1543, give it in the original, and at length, from the authentic edition printed at Rome, 1521, fol. cl., cli.— Postmodum vero Reverendus pater Dominus Franciscus Episcopus Nanetensis ascendit ambonem, et legit cedulam super Impressione Librorum, cujus tenor talis est: LEO Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei, Ad perpetuam rei memoriam sacro approbante Concilio. Inter sollicitudines nostris humeris incumbentes perpeti cura revolvimus, ut errantes in viam veritatis reducere, ipsoque lucrifacere Deo (sua nobis cooperante gratia) valeamus, hoc est quod profecto desideranter exquirimus, ad id nostre mentis sedulo destinamus affectum, ac circa illud studiosa diligentia vigilamus. Sane licet literarum peritia per librorum lectionem possit faciliter obtineri, ac ars imprimendi libros temporibus potissimum nostris, divino favente numine, inventa seu aucta, et perpolita, plurima mortalibus attulerit commoda, cum parva impensa copia librorum maxima habeatur. Quibus ingenia ad litterarum studia percommode exerceri, et viri eruditi in omni linguarum genere præsertim autem catholici, quibus sanctam Ro. Ecclesiam abundare affectamus, facile evadere possunt, qui etiam infideles sciant et valeant sacris institutis instruere, fideliumque collegio per doctrinam Christiane fidei salubriter aggregare. Quia tamen multorum querela nostrum et sedis apostolice pulsavit auditum, quod nonnulli hujus artis imprimendi magistri in diversis mundi partibus libros, tam Grece, Hebraice, Arabice, et Caldee linguarum in latinum translatos, quam alios, latino, ac vulgari sermone editos errores etiam in fide, ac perniciosa dogmata etiam religioni Christianæ contraria, ac contra famam personarum etiam diguitate fulgentium continentes imprimere ac publice vendere presumunt, ex quorum lectura non solum legentes non edificantur, sed in maximos potius, tam in fide, quam in vita et moribus prolabuntur errores. Unde varia sepe scandala (prout experientia rerum magistra docuit) exorta fuerunt, et majora indies exoriri formidantur. Nos itaque ne id quod ad Dei gloriam et fidei augmentum, ac bonarum artium propagationem salubriter est inventum, in contrarium convertatur, ac Christi fidelium saluti detrimentum pariat, super librorum impressione curam nostram habendam fore duximus, ne de cetero cum bonis seminibus spine coalescant, vel medicinis venena intermisceantur. Volentes igitur de |