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 circumstance which has repeatedly occurred in our own political history. The noble 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.
[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 Verâ Differentiâ inter Regiam Potestatem et Ecclesiasticam,” was called “The King’s Book.” It seems that the scholastic monarch gave some finishing strokes to what had probably passed through the hands of his most expert casuists.
[5] “Archæologia,” 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.