glorious queen Elisabeth, of ever blessed memory; and then we shall plainly and perspicuously discover her majesty's great love and royal affection to printing and printers; who, for the sake of them and it, so far descended from her royal throne, as that her highness not only made several gracious grants unto them, for better maintaining their poor, but also graciously recommended (for the special encouragement, and better subsistence of the master printers) the regulation of that mystery, and the professors thereof, to the right honourable and judicious, the Lords of her Majesty's most honourable Privy Council; who, 23 Junii, 28 Elis. made a memorable and noble decree in the Star-Chamber, confining the number of master printers in England to the number of twenty, to have the use and exercise of printing-houses for the time being (besides her majesty's printers, and the printers allowed for the Universities) limiting and confining them within such an excellent method and strict regulation, as tended very much to the peace and security of the church and state. But, as the world waxeth old as doth a garment, and the corruptions and evil manners of times and men grow daily to a greater maturity and ripeness in sin and wickedness; and that all human kind are boldly inclined to rush through any forbidden mischief (like the old race of the giants, and the builders of Babel) so in tract and process of time, and especially in these later days (notwithstanding the severity and authority of that good decree of the queen's time) printing and printers, about the year 1637, were grown to such a inonstrous excess and exorbitant disorder, that the prudent limits and rules of that laudable decrce were as much transgressed and infringed at that time, as the King's- Bench rules in Southwark have been extended and eloined in later days, for want of due execution of justice. Wherefore, by the special command of our late royal and most illustrious king Charles, of blessed memory, the right honourable Thomas Lord Coventry, lord keeper of the great seal of England; the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, his Grace the Lord Bishop of London, lord high treasurer of England, the Lords Chief Justices, and the Lord Chief Baron, being sat together in council in the Star-Chamber, 11 July, 13 Car. and reviewing and maturely considering the said decree and ordinances of the queen's time; in very great wisdom, prudence, and policy of state, thought fit and adjudged not only to confirm the same, but also to make and subjoin thereto several useful and convenient additions and supplements, as the reason of state and the necessity of the times did then require. Which last decree (with due renown to the memory of the makers thereof) was the best and most exquisite form and constitution for the good government and regulation of the press, that ever was pronounced, or can reasonably be contrived, to keep it in due order and regular exercise. But now may we well with sorrow cry out at this day, with the comedian, O tempora! O mores! or, in another sense, with the spouse in the Canticles, ch. ii. v. 15. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." Never was there such an honourable, ingenious, and profitable mystery and science in the world so basely intruded upon, and disesteemed, so carelesly regarded, so unworthily subjected to infamy and disgrace, by being made so common, as printing hath been since 1640, in the days of our miserable confusions and calamities: Neither can it be repaired, or restored to its native worth and regular constitution, so long as such horrid monstrosities and gib. bous excrescences are suffered to remain and tumour in that disorderly and confused body, as now it existeth in itself. The excessive number of printing-houses and master-printers, or such at least as use and exercise the faculty of printing (though some be booksellers only by trade and education, and others are of other trades, not relative to printing) is at present multiplied and increased to above triple the number of twenty, constituted by that decree of the Star-Chamber; so that, by means of that exorbitant and excessive number of above sixty printing-houses in and about London, and the necessitous conditions of many of the prin ters themselves, and the imposition of others upon them (who, if they will not adventure to print for them what is unlawful and offensive to the state and government, being treasonable and seditious, and most profitable for sale, shall not be employed upon things lawful and expedient) all the irregularities, inconveniences, and mischiefs, that can be imagined to be committed and done by the too much liberty and licentiousness of the press, have been and are occasioned at this day, and daily will (without some speedy remedy and restriction, for the better encouragement of the honest and ingenious artists) be continued amongst us. How can it, in reason, be conceived to stand with the royalty and dignity of his most excellent majesty (whom God Almighty prosper and preserve) or with the safety and security of his kingdoms, to pernit and suffer either the fore-mentioned inconveniences for the future, or such notorious impieties and abominable indignities and insolences, done and offered to his majesty's most sacred person and estate, to go unpunished in the actors thereof; who are nevertheless in truth and reality his majesty's printers; against whom there is just cause of complaint at this present. As for example, Mr. Christopher Barker and Mr. John Bill, by their education and quality, have little or no skill or experience in the faculty and art of printing, as to the manual operation thereof, being never brought up in that mystery: And the old proverb is and will be true, to wit, Senex Psittacus non capit ferulam. And albeit they are said and intitle themselves (by a very questionable and doubtful authority both in law and equity) to be his majesty's printers; yet indeed are they but nominal and titular; for that the manual work and impression itself, as well of the late acts of parliament, as also of his majesty's proclamations, and other royal acts of state, hath been actually performed by Thomas Newcomb, John Field, and Henry Hills, printers: Which three persons, to give them their proper characters, have been the only insruments and incendiaries against, and enemies to his most sacred majesty, and his friends, in their stations and qualities, before and ever since the detestable and unparalleled murder of our blessed sovereign his royal father, as far as the extent of the press could make them capable or extant. Who printed the pretended act of the commons of England for the setting up an high court of justice, for the tryal of his martyred majesty, in 1648? Or, the acts for abolishing kingship, and renouncing the royal line and title of the Stuarts? Or, for the declaring what offences should be adjudged treason? For taking the engagement? For sale of dean and chapters lands? For sale of the king's, queen's, and prince's goods and lands, and the fee-farm rents? For sale of delinquents lands? Or, the proclamation of the 13th of September, 1652, after the fight at Worcester, offering one-thousand pounds to any person, to bring in his majesty's person? But only John Field, printer to the parliament of England (and since, by Cromwell, was and is continued printer to the University of Cambridge) omitting many other treasonable offences, and egregious indignities done by him and H. Hills to the royal family, and good old cause of the king and kingdom, in all the late tyrannical usurpations. Who printed the Weekly Intelligencer, and Mercurius Politicus, with the Cases of the Commonwealth stated, and that Interest will not lye, for Marchamont Nedham, Gent. from 1650, till the blessed and assured hopes of his majesty's restoration of late, but Thomas Newcomb, printer, dwelling overagainst Baynard's-Castle in Thames-street? And with what familiar titles of honour did they salute his majesty therein, we pray, but of young Tarquin, the son of the late tyrant, the titular king of Scots, the young Pretender, with an infinite more of the like treasonable extraction? Which, for brevity's sake, and for that they are of Milton's strain, and so publickly known, and were the weekly trash and trumpery of every hawker, pedlar, and petty carrier, we omit. But we cannot as yet pass over his majesty's good friends, Hills and Field (take them conjunctim and divisim:) What zealots and factors, or blood-hounds or tarriers rather, they have been for that abstract of traitors, tyrants, and usurpers, Oliver Cromwell, his son Richard, and the pretended Committee of Safety, in searching for, seizing, and suppressing, as far as they could, all books, treatises, and papers, asserting the king's right and title to the crown, or tending to the promotion of his interest, and vindication of his authority, the worst of his majesty's enemies must necessarily, with shame and detestation, confess! And is this all that hath been done by Hills and Field to his majesty only, and his royal relations and interests? No! Their impieties and insolences have mounted as high, as to become actual and professed traitors against the glorious crown and dignity of the King of Kings, blessed for Have they not invaded, and still do intrude upon his majesty's royal privilege, prerogative, and pre-eminence; and, by the pusillanimous cowardice, and insignificant compact of Mr. ever: Christopher Barker, and another of his name, and, not without probable suspicion, by the consent and connivance of Mr. John Bill (though he was artificially defeated in his expectations of profit) have they not obtained (and now keep in their actual possession) the manuscript copy of the last translation of the Holy Bible in English, attested with the hands of the venerable and learned translators in king James's time, ever since the sixth of March, 1655; and thereupon, by colour of an unlawful and forced entrance in the Stationers Registry, printed and published ever since, for the most part, in several editions of bibles (consisting of great numbers) such egregious blasphemies and damnable erratas, as have corrupted the pure fountain, and rendered God's holy word contemptible to multitudes of the people at home, and a ludibrium to all the adversaries of our religion? Have they not suffocated and suppressed all books containing pious and religious prayers and devotions, to be presented and offered to the Blessed Trinity, for the blessing of heaven upon his majesty's royal person and family, and the church and state, by preventing and obstructing the printing of the Common-Prayer, Primmers, and Psalters, contrary to the statute of 1 queen Elisabeth, c. 2. and other good laws and ordinances, and the ecclesiastical canons of the church of England; unless that they contained prayers for their late protector! And are these small offences to be past and pardoned, or such as shall deserve the favour of indemnity and oblivion? God forbid! 66 Impunitas peccati præbet ansum peccandi. The not punishing of offences emboldeneth offenders to commit greater enormities with brazen brows, as if they were incorrigible: And, as the proverb saith, He, that saves a thief from the gallows, shall be first robbed himself." Is not the king as the breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, his person sacred, his authority dreadful? And is not all our present and future security and happiness involved in his majesty's preservation and prosperity? And shall his majesty's most apparent and implacable enemies be chiefly entrusted in the great concernments of his state and government, as Newcomb, Hills, and Field are under his titular printers? God forbid. Are there not honest and well affected printers in London, sufficient and able and willing to serve his majesty, but his grandest adversaries must be picked out for his service? And are there not lodgings enough about the city to be had for convenience, but Mr. Christopher Barker and his family must now be entertained at the house of that libidinous and professed adulterer Henry Hills in Aldersgate-street? One that for his heresy in religion (being an anabaptist) and his luxury in conversation (having hypocritically confessed his fact in print, and been imprisoned for his adultery with a taylor's wife in Blackfriars) would scandalise a good christian, and an honest man, to be in his company. But, it seems, the old confederacy compacted between Barker, Hills, and Field, by the agitation of Nedham, upon their conversion of the copy of the Bible, cannot yet be forgotten; albeit it tend never so much to the dishonour, disparagement, and prejudice of his majesty's affairs? And therefore it is more than time, as is humbly conceived, that as well the establishment of his majesty's office of printer, as also the regulation of the number of printers in England within good rules and limits, were speedily provided for and determined; and not any longer be carelesly and improvidently left and subjected to such extreme mischiefs, and fatal inconveniences. And moreover, it is very fit to be taken into consideration, how much mischief and sedition a press at New England may occasion and disperse, in this juncture of time, if the licentiousness thereof be connived at, and any longer tolerated; whenas we daily see such ventilations of opinions, inclining to factions and seditions, are the common merchandise of the press about the city of London; which, to a sober christian and loyal subject, are plainly destructive both of church and state; which God for his glory unite, preserve, and propagate in the old good order and govern. ment. Having thus truly represented to publick view the cause of our lamentation, we will never despair of his majesty's seasonable and timely redress; being humbly confident, that, for want of loyal and dutiful information presented to his majesty, many fanaticks and disaffected persons to his person and government, by a little counterfeit conversion and hypocritical subjection, do continue and creep into his majesty's service, in many great places of trust and profit, who, being dyed in grain in the principles of popular liberty, would willingly cast off his majesty's sacred authority, and abandon his person, as they did his royal father's, if God, for our sins, in judgment, should permit them the least opportunity. Quod malum infandum avertat Deus! But, briefly to conclude, we most humbly submit the necessity of our speedy reformation and redress, upon consideration of the many great miseries and calamities, that have happened not only in England, Scotland, and Ireland, but also in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and other countries and places, by the exorbitant and unlawful exercise of printing in modern times. Which, had the science and use thereof been known in the time of the grand profession of the Donatist and Arian heresies, would have immerged and drowned the whole world in a second deluge of blood and confusion, to its utter destruction, long time since. Yet however, if our mystery be confined within fit and convenient bounds, and not permitted transilire limites, it is and will be of singular use and convenience to his majesty and his dominions: Otherwise, though the art be so exquisite and excellent in itself, yet, by corruption and depravation, it will became the more pernicious and perillous: As the strongest and richest wine, for want of good curing, will turn to the sharpest vinegar; and a little wound or contusion, neglected, will soon mortify and corrupt itself to an immedicable gangrene. Ignis, ab exiguo nascens, extinguitur undâ ; Sed postquàm crevit, volitantq; ad sydera flammæ, |