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 multitude 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 assistants, 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 circumstance 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 assumed 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 class 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 assuredly 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 pricked 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 pricks” 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 assumed, “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 competition, 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 assumption 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, Cum 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 authorship, adapting its wares to the fashion 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 astonishing 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 hoarded, and the author pilloried, mutilated, or hanged, obtains a popularity, which often his own genius afforded him no chance to acquire.