[1438] Schelhorn, Amœnit. Liter. vii. 98. viii. 342 and 485. The two dissertations on prohibited books here quoted are full of curious information.

Its effects. 71. In its principle, which was apparently that of preserving obedience, the prohibitory system might seem to have untouched many great walks of learning and science. It is of course manifest that it fell with but an oblique blow upon common literature. Yet, as a few words or sentences were sufficient to elicit a sentence of condemnation, often issued with little reflection, it was difficult for any author to be fully secure; and this inspired so much apprehension into printers, that they became unwilling to incur the hazard of an obnoxious trade. These occupations, says Galluzzi, which had begun to prosper at Florence, never recovered the wound inflicted by the severe regulations of Paul IV. and Pius V.[1439] The art retired to Switzerland and Germany. The booksellers were at the mercy of an Inquisition, which every day contrived new methods of harassing them. From an interdiction of the sale of certain prohibited books, the church proceeded to forbid that of all which were not expressly permitted. The Guinti, a firm not so eminent as it had been in the early part of the century, but still the honour of Florence, remonstrated in vain. It seems probable, however, that after the death of Pius V., the most rigorous and bigoted pontiff that ever filled the chair, some degree of relaxation took place.

[1439] Ist. del Gran Ducato, iii. 442.

Restrictions in England. 72. The restraints on the printing and sale of books in England, though not so overpowering as in Italy, must have stood in the way of useful knowledge under Elizabeth. The Stationers’ Company, founded in 1555, obtained its monopoly at the price of severe restrictions. The Star Chamber looked vigilantly at the dangerous engine it was compelled to tolerate. By the regulations it issued in 1585, no press was allowed to be used out of London, except one at Oxford, and another at Cambridge. Nothing was to be printed without allowance of the council; extensive powers both of seizing books and of breaking the presses were given to the officers of the crown.[1440] Thus every check was imposed on literature, and it seems unreasonable to dispute that they had some efficacy in restraining its progress, though less, perhaps, than we might in theory expect, because there was always a certain degree of connivance and indulgence. Even the current prohibition of importing popish books, except for the use of such as the council should permit to use them, must have affected the trade in modern Latin authors beyond the bounds of theology.

[1440] Herbert, iii. 1668.

Latin more employed on this account. 73. These restrictions do not seem to have had any material operation in France, in Germany, or the Low Countries. And they certainly tended very considerably to keep up the usage of writing in Latin; or rather, perhaps, it may be said, they were less rigorously urged in those countries, because Latin continued to be the customary tongue of scholars. We have seen that great license was used in political writings in that language. The power of reading Latin was certainly so diffused, that no mystery could be affected by writing it; yet it seemed to be a voluntary abstaining from an appeal to the passions of the multitude, and passed better without censure than the same sense in a modern dress.

Influence of literature. 74. The influence of literature on the public mind was already very considerable. All kinds of reading had become deeper and more diffused. Pedantry is the usual, perhaps the inevitable, consequence of a genuine devotion to learning, not surely in each individual, but in classes and bodies of men. And this was an age of pedants. To quote profusely from ancient writers, seemed to be a higher merit than to rival them; they furnished both authority and ornament, they did honour to the modern, who shone in these plumes of other birds with little expense of thought, and sometimes the actual substance of a book is hardly discernible under this exuberance of rich incrustations. Tacitus, Sallust, Cicero, and Seneca (for the Greeks were in comparison but little read), and many of the Latin poets, were the books that, directly, or by the secondary means of quotation, had most influence over the public opinion. Nor was it surprising that the reverence for antiquity should be still undiminished; for, though the new literature was yielding abundant crops, no comparison between the ancients and moderns could as yet fairly arise. Montaigne, fearless and independent as he was, gave up altogether the pretensions of the latter; yet no one was more destined to lead the way to that renunciation of the authority of the former which the seventeenth century was to witness. He and Machiavel were the two writers who produced the greatest effect upon this age. Some others, such as Guevara and Castiglione, might be full as much read, but they did not possess enough of original thought to shape the opinions of mankind. And these two, to whom we may add Rabelais, seem to be the only writers of the sixteenth century, setting aside poets and historians, who are now much read by the world.

INDEX.