Amenities of Literature Part 64

In the reign of Philip and Mary "the Stationers" were granted a charter of incorporation, and were invested with the most inquisitorial powers.

The favours of a tyrant are usually favours to individuals who profit at the cost of the community, and who themselves overlooking every principle of justice, bind up their own selfish monopoly with the prosperity of criminal power. This we discover in the Company of Stationers, who were the willing dupes of that absolute power in the State which had created the corporation to do its watchful work, to carry on the war against books, and by their pa.s.sive obedience they secured to themselves those privileges, and licenses, and other monopolies, which they now amply enjoyed.

By this charter of the Stationers, it was specified that no one was to exercise the art of printing, unless he was one of the society; and the corporation, with their extraordinary but lawful authority, were to search as often as they pleased any house or chamber, &c., of any stamper or printer, or binder, or seller, of any manner of books, which they deemed obnoxious to the State, or their own interest!--to seize, burn, take away, or destroy, or convert to their own use.[7] The Stationers were, in fact, a Spanish inquisition for the cabinet of Philip and Mary, and whom the queen consulted on critical occasions, for her majesty once sent for the warden to inquire whether they had seen or heard of a sort of books sent from Zurich? The war against books was never pushed to such extremities as in a proclamation of Philip and Mary, which Strype calls, "a short but terrible proclamation." Here we learn that "whoever finds books of heresy, sedition, and treason, and does not forthwith burn the same without showing or reading them to any other person, shall be _executed for a rebel_!"[8] It is evident, that the grant of this incorporation was designed to make the interests of the company subservient to those of the court; for by the intermediate aid of the vigilant Stationers, every printer would be controlled, since none were allowed to be printers who were not members of this corporation, and therefore amenable to its laws.

In the succeeding reign of Elizabeth everything changed except these state-proclamations in the war against books. The object had altered, but not the objection, for though the books were different the Elizabethan style is identical with the Marian. The same plenary powers of the Stationers were strengthened by an additional injunction, by which the government held the whole brotherhood with a closer grasp. The company were commissioned not only "to search into bookbinders' shops, as well as printing-offices, for unlawful and heretical books," but they were responsible for "any unruly printer who might endanger the church and state," and "who for covetousness regard not what they print, whereby ariseth great disorder by publication of unfruitful, vain, and infamous books and papers. None shall print any manner of book except the same be first _licensed by her majesty by express words in writing_, or by _six of her privy council_."[9]

When we recollect that the Stationers' Company under Mary, were composed of the very same individuals who two years after under Elizabeth, were busily ornamenting their shelves with all their late "seditious and heretical" books, and in removing out of sight all their late lawful and loyal ware, this transition of the feelings must have placed them in a position painful as it was ridiculous. But the true genius of a commercial body is of no party, save the predominant; pliant with their interests, a corporation, like a republic, in their zealous union can do that with public propriety which, in the individuals it is composed of, would be incongruous and absurd.

The rage of government in this war against books was still sharper at a later period, provoked by the spread of the Mar-prelate pamphlets. A decree of the Star-chamber in 1586, among other orders, allows no printer to have an additional press without license; awards that there shall be no printing in any obscure part of a house; nor any printer out of the city of London, excepting at the two Universities; and till "the excessive mult.i.tude of printers be abated, diminished, or by death given over," no one shall resume that trade; and that the wardens of the Stationers' Company, with a.s.sistants, shall enter at all times warehouses, shops, &c., to seize all "letter-presses, and other printing instruments, to be defaced, melted, sawed in pieces, broken or battered at the smith's forge."[10] Amid all this book-phobia, a curious circ.u.mstance occurred. The learned could not prosecute their studies for the prohibition against many excellent works, written by those who were "addicted to the errors of Popery in foreign parts," and which also contained "matters against the state of this land." In this dilemma, a singular expedient was adopted. The archbishop allowed "Ascanius de Renialme, a merchant bookseller, to bring into this realm _some few copies_ of every such sort of books, upon this condition only, that they be first brought to me, and so delivered only to such persons whom we deem most meet men to have the reading of them." At this time it must have been an affair of considerable delicacy and difficulty to obtain a quotation, without first hastening to Lambeth Palace, there to be questioned!

Printing and literature, during the long reign of Elizabeth, in spite of all these Star-chamber edicts, amazingly increased; there seemed to be a swell from all the presses. Of 175 stationers, 140 had taken their freedom since this queen's accession. "So much had printing and learning come in request under the Reformation," observes our historical antiquary Strype. And such was the proud exultation of the great printer John Day, that when he compared the darkness of the preceding period with what this publisher of Fox's mighty tomes of Martyrology deemed its purer enlightenment, he never printed his name without this pithy insinuation to the reader, "Arise, for it is DAY!" Books not only multiplied, but unquestionably it was at this period that first appeared the art of aiding these ephemeral productions of the press which supplied the wants of numerous readers. The rights of authors had hitherto derived a partial existence in privilege conceded by the royal patron, but it was now that they first gathered the fuller harvests of public favour. We shall shortly find a notice among the book-trade of what is termed "copyright."[11]

If the freedom of the press had been wholly wrested from the printers, it was not the sole grievance in the present state of our literature, for another custom had been a.s.sumed which hung on the royal prerogative--that of granting letters patent, or privileged licenses, under the broad seal to individuals, to deal in a specific cla.s.s of books, to the exclusion of every other publisher. Possibly the same secret motive which had contrived the absolute control of the press, suggested the grants of these privileges. One enjoyed the privilege of printing Bibles; another all law-books; another grammars; another "almanacks and prognostications;" and another, ballads and books in prose and metre. These privileges a.s.suredly increased the patronage of the great, and the dispensations of these favours were doubtless often abused. A singing man had the license for printing music-books, which he extended to that of being the sole vendor of all ruled paper, on the plea that where there were ruled lines, musical notes might be p.r.i.c.ked down; and a private gentleman, who was neither printer nor stationer, had the privilege of printing grammars and other things, which he farmed out for a considerable annual revenue, by which means these books were necessarily enhanced in price.

Such monopolies, which entered into the erroneous policy of that age, and the corrupt practices of patronage, long continued a source of discontent among the generality. This was now a period when the spirit of the times raised up men who would urge their independent rights. A struggle ensued between the monopolists and the excluded, who clamoured for the freedom of the trade. "Unruly printers" not only resisted when their own houses were besieged by "the searchers" of the stationers, but openly persisted in printing any "lawful books" they chose, in defiance of any royal privilege. A busy lawyer had been feed, who questioned this stretch of the prerogative. But the patriotism or the despair of these "unruly printers" led to the Clink or to Ludgate--to imprisonment or to bankruptcy! The day had not yet arrived when civil freedom, though youthful and bold, with impunity could "kick against the p.r.i.c.ks" of the prerogative. It is curious here to discover that the aggrieved had even formed "a trade-union" for contributions to defend suits at law against the privileged; and when they were reminded that this mode only aggravated their troubles, and were asked by the sleek monopolists what they would gain if all were in common, which, as the privileged a.s.sumed, "would make havoc for one man to undo another," that is, those who were patentless would undo the patentees--these Cains, in the bitterness of their hearts, fiercely replied to their more favoured brothers, "We should make you beggars like ourselves!"[12]

Amid these clamours in the commonwealth of literature, the patentees became alarmed at the danger of having their patents revoked. The booksellers had become the more prosperous race, and some of these, combining with the Stationers' Company, opposed the privileged few. The advocates for the freedom of the trade advanced a proposition too tender to be handled by the Doctor of Civil Law, who was chosen for the arbitrator. At once these boldly impugned the prerogative royal itself in its exercise of granting privileges to printers, which they declared was against law; and however they might more successfully urge, that the better policy for the public was to admit of compet.i.tion, and moderating of prices by this freedom of publication, they add, "So, too, let every man print what 'lawful book' he choose, without any exceptions, even 'any book of which the copies thereof had been _bought of the authors_ for their money.'" Here we find the first notice of "copyright," and the very inadequate notions yet entertained of its nature.

The plea of the patentees more skilfully addressed the Doctor of Civil Law by their a.s.sumption of the irrefragable rights of the royal prerogative. Their own privileges they maintained by the custom, as they showed that "all princes in Christendom had granted privileges for printing, sometimes for a term of years, or for life; that ancient books bore this inscription, _c.u.m privilegio ad imprimendum solum_; that the queen's progenitors had exercised this right, and would any dare to lessen her majesty's prerogative?" All infringers had ever been punished. They further urged, that the good of the commonwealth required that printing should be in the hands of known men, being an art most dangerous and pernicious if it were not straitened and restrained by politic order of the prince or magistrates. With truer arguments they alleged that many useful books were now published unprofitable to the patentees, who had no other means of repaying themselves but by the sale of other books restricted to them by the protection of their privileges; and finally, they declared that the public were incurring some danger that good books might not be printed at all if privileges were revoked, for _the first printer was at charge for the author's pains and other extraordinary cost_; but should any succeeding printer who had "_the copy gratis_" sell cheaper on better paper, and with notes and additions, it would put an end to the sale of the original edition; and they pithily conclude with the old wisdom, that "It is easier to amend than to invent." Here again we see specified the cost of "copyright" in the publication of a new book.

This attempt to open the freedom of the trade, which occurred about 1583, the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Elizabeth, at length was not wholly unsuccessful; the monopolists conceded certain advantages,[13]

and about twenty years subsequently, towards the end of that queen's reign, when the craft of authors.h.i.+p, adapting its wares to the fas.h.i.+on of the day, was practised by a whole race of popular writers, the booksellers became almost the sole publishers of books, employing the printers in their single capacity.[14]

In this war against books, the severe decree of the Star Chamber, 1586, was renewed with stricter prohibitions, and more penal severity by a decree of the Star Chamber, under Charles the First, in 1637. Printing and printers were now placed under the supervision of the great officers of state; law-books were to be judiciously approved by the lord chief-justice; historical works were to be submitted to the secretaries of state; heraldry was left to the lord marshal; divinity, physic, philosophy, and poetry, were to be sanctioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. Two copies of every work were to be preserved in custody, to prevent any alterations being made in the published volumes, which would be detected on their comparison.

Admirable preparatory and preventive measures! Here would ensue a general purgation of every atom in the human system, occasioning obstructions to the doctrines and discipline of the Church of England, and the state of government. The aim of all these decrees and proclamations was to abridge the number of printers, and to invigorate the absolute power conferred on the Stationers' Company, who had long delivered themselves, bound hand and foot, to the government, for the servile possession of their privileges. Printers were still limited to twenty, as in the reign of Elizabeth, and only four letter-founders allowed. Every printed book on paper was to bear the impress of the printer's name, on pain of corporal punishment. They held books in such terror, that even those which had formerly been licensed, were not allowed to be reprinted, without being "reviewed," as they express it, and re-watched by placing on guard this double sentinel. There are some extraordinary clauses which betray the feeble infancy of the rude policy of that day. The decree tells us that "printing in corners without license had been usually done by journeymen out of work," and to provide against this source of inquietude, it compels the printers to employ all journeymen out of employ, "though the printer should be able to do his own work without these journeymen;" and in the same spirit of compulsion, it ordains that all such unemployed shall be obliged to work whenever called on.[15] Masters and men were equally amenable to fines impossible to be paid, and penal pains almost too horrible to endure, short of life, but not of ruin: a dark, a merciless, a mocking tribunal where the judges sate the prosecutors, and whose unwritten laws hung on their own lips; and where to discharge any accused person as innocent was looked on as a reproach of their negligence, or an imputation of their sagacity.

Did the severity of these decrees produce the evils they encountered, or was it the existence of the evils which provoked the issue of these edicts? Did the terrific executions eradicate the political mischief?

There was no free press in Elizabeth's reign, and yet libels abounded!

The government compulsively contracted the press by their twenty stationary printers; and behold! moveable presses, whose ubiquity was astonis.h.i.+ng as their ceaseless working. An invisible printer mysteriously scattered his publications here and there, during the contest of the Mar-prelate faction with the bishops; and the libels of the Jesuit Parsons, and others of the Roman party, were as rife against her majesty and her minister. The same occurred when the Star-chamber was guided by the genius of Laud; the altar was raised, and the sacerdotal knife struck! but the groans of the immolated victims were a shout of triumph. A clear demonstration that nothing is really gained by the temporary suppressions which power may enforce; the sealed book circulates till it is h.o.a.rded, and the author pilloried, mutilated, or hanged, obtains a popularity, which often his own genius afforded him no chance to acquire.

The secret design of all these entangling edicts was to hold the printers in pa.s.sive obedience to the government, whatever that government might be; for each separate government, though acting on opposite principles, manifested a remarkable uniformity in their proceedings with the press. In the arbitrary days of Charles the Second, an extraordinary, if not an audacious, attempt was made to wrest the art of printing out of the hands of its professors, and to place the press wholly at the disposal of the sovereign. This usurping doctrine was founded on a startling plea. As our monarchs had granted privileges to the earliest printers, and, from the introduction of the art into England, had never ceased their patronage or their control, it was inferred, that our kings had never yielded _the royal prerogative of printing_ any more than they had that of _coining_. The "mystery" of printing, in the style of the lawyers, was "a flower of the crown!"--the exercise of the prerogative; and therefore every printer in England must be a sworn servant of the crown. At such a period we are not surprised to find an express treatise put forth to demonstrate to his sacred majesty, that "printing belonged to him, in his public and private capacity, as supreme _magistrate_ and as _proprietor_;" in reality there was to be but one printer for all England, and that printer the king!

This was giving at once the most elevated and the most degraded notions of "the divine art," which this servile a.s.sumer describes can "not only bereave the king of his good name, but of the very hearts of his people."[16]

We observe the lamentations of these advocates of arbitrary power over the freedom of the press, or, as such maintained, the confusion produced "by the exorbitant and unlawful exercise of printing in modern times."

They appeal to the miseries and calamities not only recently witnessed in our own country, but in Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. Wherever they track a footstep of the liberty of the press, they pause to discover its accompanying calamity. One of these writers, to convey an adequate notion of the spread and political influence of the press, has thrown out a very excitable remark:--"Had this art been known in the time of the grand profession of the Donatist and Arian heresy, it would have drowned the world in a second deluge of blood and confusion, to its utter destruction long time since." A stroke of church history which might suggest a whole volume!

The interests of the printers had coincided with the designs of government, in limiting the number of presses; for the policy of their narrow confederacy was, the fewer printers the more printing! But the interests of the booksellers were quite opposite; they were for encouraging supernumerary printers, and overstocking the printing-offices with journeymen, and by this means they succeeded in bringing the printers down to their price or their purpose; and it is insinuated, on the Machiavelian principle, that the number being greater than could live honestly by the trade, one-half must be knaves, or starve. And it seems that "knaves" were in greater requisition by the publishers of "the unlawful," or, as these were afterwards called on the establishment of a licenser of the press, "the unlicensed books," who revelled in their seductive profits.[17]

Among the effusions of the political Literature of the egregious Sir ROGER L'ESTRANGE, versed in the arcana of the publis.h.i.+ng system of his day, I discover a project which terminated in renewing the office of the Licenser of Books, in his own person; the only pitiful preferment the Restoration brought the clamorous Loyalist. Our literary knight addressed Charles the Second, to impress on his Majesty the urgency of an immediate regulation of the press; "this great business of the press being now engrossed by Oliver's creatures, and the _honest_ printers being impoverished by the late times."

This project to regulate the press by L'Estrange, chiefly turned on the dexterous management of the printers. He calculated, for four thousand pounds, to buy up the presses of the poor printers, who were willing to be reimbursed, and look to better trades. The bolder project was to emanc.i.p.ate the printers from the tyranny of the booksellers, by which means they would no longer be necessitated to print whatever their masters ordered. The printers at this moment had menaced to separate themselves from the stationers, with a view of their own.

The printers had been gradually deprived of any shares in new publications; they had been thrown out of all copyright, and probably had grown somewhat jealous of their prosperous masters; the printers complained that they were nothing else than slaves to the booksellers.

They called for an independent company of "the mystery," and reverting to the custom of the early printers, they desired to have their own presses under their own management, and to print only the copies of which they themselves were the proprietors.

The future licenser of the press, who was throwing his net to haul in all these fish at a cast, took advantage of this project, which at once was levelled at the freedom of the trade, and the freedom of the press.

Printers solely working on their own copies, would indeed check "the ungovernable ambition of the booksellers," by diminis.h.i.+ng their copyrights; while those "unhappy printers" would be relieved, who at present have no other work than what "the great dealers in treasonous or seditious books" furnished them. All these were but the ostensible motives, for the real object designed was that the printers should become the creatures of the patronage of government, and, by the diminution of their number, the contracted circle would be the more easily managed.

Such were the systematic struggles of our governments in the revival of the severe acts for the regulation of printing at various periods. It was long a.s.sumed that printing was not a free trade, but always to remain under regulation.

When Dr. Johnson, labouring under the pressure of his ancient notions, contending with the clear perception of his sceptical sagacity, once stood awed before the sublime effusion of Milton's "Areopagitica," he hazarded this opinion, for by balancing his notions it cannot be accepted as a decision: "The danger of such unbounded liberty, and the danger of bounding it, have produced a problem in the science of government which human understanding seems unable to solve."

And whatever either the advocates or the adversaries of the freedom of the press may allege, this problem in the science of government remains as insoluble at this day as at any former period--a truth demonstrated by a circ.u.mstance which has repeatedly occurred in our own political history. The n.o.ble treatise of Milton for a free press had not the slightest influence on that very parliament whose members had long suffered from its oppression. The Catholics clamoured for a free press under Charles the Second, but the same act operating against them under James the Second, from the use of the press by the Protestant party--the liberty of the press was then condemned as exorbitant and intolerable.

The advocates of a free press thus become its adversaries whenever they themselves form the ruling power. Orators for the freedom of the press suddenly send forth outcries against its abuses; but as those, whoever the party may be, who are in place, are called the government, it always happens that the opposition, whatever may be their principles, must submit to the risk of being deemed seditious libellers.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See a curious note of Hearne's in his Glossary to "Peter Langtoft's Chronicle," p. 685. Also Herbert's "Typog. Antiq." p.

1435.

[2] Strype's "Memorials," i. 344 and 218.

[3] A curious and a copious catalogue of these books, "though the books themselves are almost perished," may be seen in Strype's "Ecclesiastical Memorials," i. 165.

[4] The book, "De Vera Differentia inter Regiam Potestatem et Ecclesiasticam," was called "The King's Book." It seems that the scholastic monarch gave some finis.h.i.+ng strokes to what had probably pa.s.sed through the hands of his most expert casuists.

[5] "Archaeologia," vol. xxv. 104.

[6] Pegge, in his "Anecdotes of the English Language," has somewhat crudely remarked that "the term _Stationers_ was appropriated to _Booksellers_ in the year 1622;" but it was so long before. It is extraordinary that Mr. Todd, well read in our literary history, admits this imperfect disclosure of Pegge into the "Dictionary of the English Language." The term _Stationer_ and _Bookseller_ were synonymous and in common use in the reign of Elizabeth, and may be found in Baret's "Alvearie," 1573.

[7] The Charter may be found in Herbert's "Typographical Antiquities," p. 1584.

[8] Strype's "Memorials," iii: part 2nd. p. 130.

[9] In the Lansdowne Ma.n.u.scripts, 43, fol. 76, will be found "an act to restrain the licentious printing of unprofitable and hurtful books," 1580. After declaring that the art of printing is "a most happy and profitable invention," it is pointed at those "who pen or translate in the English tongue poesies, ditties, and songs, serving for a great part of them to none other end, what t.i.tles soever they bear, but to set up an art of making lascivious and unG.o.dly love, to the intolerable corruption of life and manners--_and to the no small or sufferable waste of the treasure of this realm, which is thereby consumed in paper, a forren and chargeable commoditie_." The first paper made in England was at Dartford, in 1588, by a German, who was knighted by the queen.

[10] This decree of the Star-chamber is printed in Herbert's "Typographical Antiquities," p. 1668.

[11] The privilege of a royal grant to the author was the only protection the author had for any profits of his work. Henry the Eighth granted Palsgrave his exclusive right for the printing of his book for seven years. Bishop Cooper obtained a privilege for the sale of his "Thesaurus" for twelve years; and a translator of Tacitus, for his version, during his natural life.

[12] "Archaeologia," xxv. 112.

[13] Nichols on the Stationers' Company.--"Lit. Anecdotes," iii.

We have a list "of books yielded by the richer printers who had licenses from the queen;" but whether they were only copies bestowed in charity for the poorer "stationers," or given up by the monopolists, I do not understand.--Herbert's "Typographical Antiq."

p. 1672.

[14] Herbert's "Typographical Antiq."--preface.

[15] This remarkable "Decree of Starr-chamber concerning Printing"

was in the possession of Thomas Hollis, and is printed in the Appendix to his curious Memoirs, p. 641.

[16] "The Original and Growth of Printing, collected out of History and the Records of this Kingdom," &c., by Richard Atkyns, Esq., 1664.

In this rare tract first appeared a narrative of the introduction of printing into Oxford, _before Caxton_, by the printer Francis Corsellis, to prove that printing was brought into England by Henry the Sixth.

[17] For "unlicensed books" the printer charged twenty-five per cent.