REMARKABLE IMPRINTS.
More than one pen has considered titles, dedications, and imprints worth a Note, and as there are still gleanings in their track, I take the liberty of sending you a few of the latter; some from my common-place book, others from the fountainheads on my own shelves, but all drawn at random, without much regard to classification or chronological arrangement.
The horrors of the Star Chamber and the Ecclesiastical Courts produced many extraordinary imprints, particularly to those seditious books of the Puritans, better known as the Marprelate Family; works which were printed by ambulatory presses, and circulated by unseen hands, now under the walls of Archiepiscopal Lambeth, and presto! (when the spy would lay his hands upon them) sprite-like, Martin re-appeared in the provinces! This game at hide and seek between the brave old Nonconformists and the Church, went on for years without detection: but the readers of "N. & Q." do not require from me the history of the Marprelate Faction, so well told already in the Miscellanies of Literature and elsewhere; the animus of these towards the hierarchy will be sufficiently exhibited for my purpose in a few of their imprints. An Almond for a Parrot, for example, purports to be—
"Imprynted at a place not farre from a place; by the Assignes of Signior Some-body, and are to be soulde at his shoppe in Trouble-Knave Street."
Again, Oh read ouer D. John Bridges, for it is a worthy work, is
"Printed ouer sea, in Europe, within two forlongs of a Bouncing Priest, at the Cost and Charges of Martin Marprelate, Gent, 1589."
The Return of the renowned Cavaliero Pasquill has the following extraordinary imprint:
"If my breath be so hote that I burne my mouthe, I suppose I was printed by Pepper Allie, 1589."
The original "Marprelate" was John Penri, who at last fell into the hands of his enemies, and was executed under circumstances of great barbarity in Elizabeth's reign. "Martin Junior," however, sprung up, and The Counter-Cuffe to him is—
"Printed between the Skye and the Grounde, wythin a Myle of an Oake, and not many Fields off from the unpriuileged Presse of the Ass-ignes of Martin Junior, 1589."