JOHN GOODWIN'S SIX BOOKSELLERS' PROCTOR NONSUITED.
The London booksellers of the present day (good harmless men!) are satisfied with endeavouring to put down heresies as to discounts. Their predecessors, in the year 1655, set to work in good earnest, associated to purify the faith by denouncing in an Index expurgatorius, under the alarming titles of A Beacon set on Fire, and A Second Beacon set on Fire, all publications of a blasphemous, heretical, or improper kind. Six booksellers, viz. Luke Fawne, Samuel Gellibrand, Joshua Kirton, John Rothwell, Thomas Underhill, and Nathaniel Webb, took the lead on the occasion; and the battle waxed hot and fierce between them and the apologists of the books condemned. Amongst the latter was the famous John Goodwin, whose part in the controversy Mr. Jackson, in his elaborate Life of him, has adverted to, and has noticed his pamphlet entitled The High Presbyterian Spirit, written in answer to the Second Beacon Fired. John Goodwin, however, published a second pamphlet in the same controversy, neither noticed by Mr. Jackson, nor any one else that I am aware of, in which he finishes up his first charge upon the unfortunate booksellers, and lays on them with a vigour and determination that it does one good to see so well bestowed, scattering their arguments and quotations to the winds, and sending them back to their proper occupation of printing and publishing, instead of clipping and suppressing. The title of this very rare pamphlet, which is to be found in vol. xviii. of a collection of tracts (between 1640 and 1660) in ninety-six vols. 4to., made by President Bradshaw, and containing many of his MS. notes and observations now in my possession, is as follows:
"Six Booksellers' Proctor Nonsuited, wherein the gross Falsifications and Untruths, together with the inconsiderate and weak Passages found in the Apologie for the said Booksellers, are briefly noted and evicted. And the said Booksellers proved so unworthy both in their Second Beacon Fired, and likewise in their Epistle written in Defence of it, that they are out of the Protection of any Christian or reasonable Apologie for either. By J. G., a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. London printed for H. Cripps and L. Lloyd, 1655, 4to., pages 23."
I might give an extract or two from this very interesting tract, but do not wish to trespass too much upon your space. Perhaps, next to Milton, there is no writer of the time of the Commonwealth equal to John Goodwin, in power and elevation of composition; and I am glad therefore to be able to add one more to the series of his pamphlets which his biographer has with so much industry and research enumerated at the close of the Life.
Jas. Crossley.