[9] In the Lansdowne Manuscripts, 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 titles soever they bear, but to set up an art of making lascivious and ungodly 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] “Archæologia,” 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. extra, but the booksellers sold them for double and treble the cost of other books.