BOOKS BURNT BY THE HANGMAN.
(Vol. ix., pp. 78. 226.)
As the subject is interesting, you will probably permit me to cite a few more examples:—In Geo. Chalmers' Catalogue, "Burnt by the hangman" is appended to a copy of Wm. Thomas' Historie of Italie, 1549; but I do not find this stated elsewhere. The opinions emitted in this work are of a free nature certainly, in respect to the governed and governing powers; but whatever was the fate of his book, I rather think Thomas (who was executed in Mary's reign) suffered for some alleged act of overt treason, and not for publishing seditious books. An Information from the States of the Kingdome of Scotland to the Kingdome of England, showing how they have bin dealt with by His Majesty's Commissioners, 1640: in a proclamation (March 30, 1640) against seditious pamphlets sent from Scotland, this tract was prohibited on account of its containing many most notorious falsehoods, scandals, &c.; it was ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. (Rymer's Fœd., as quoted by Chalmers.)
There is now before me a modern impression of an old cut in two compartments: the upper representing the demolition of the "Crosse in Cheapeside on the 2nd May, 1643;" and the lower a goodly gathering of the public around a bonfire, viewing, with apparent satisfaction, the committal of a book to the flames by the common executioner, with this inscription:
"10th May, the Boocke of Spartes vpon the Lord's Day, was burnt by the hangman in the place where the Crosse stoode, and at (the) Exchange."
That great lover of sights, Master Pepys, notices one of these exhibitions:
"1661, 28th May, with Mr. Shipley," says our gossip, "to the Exchange about business; and there, by Mr. Rawlinson's favour, got into a balcone over against the Exchange, and there saw the hangman burn, by vote of Parliament, two old acts: the one for constituting us a Commonwealth, and the other I have forgot; which still do make me think of the greatness of this late turne, and what people will do to-morrow against what they all, thro' profit or fear, did promise and practise this day."
A note to this passage in the Diary (vol. i. p. 236., 3rd edit.) supplies the defective memory of Pepys, by informing us that the last was an "Act for subscribing the Engagement;" and adds, on the same day there had been burnt by the hangman, at Westminster Hall, the "Act for erecting a High Court of Justice for trying and judging Charles Stuart." They seem to have been just then cleansing out the Augean stable of the Commonwealth: for it is added, "two more acts" were similarly burnt next day.
In A Letter to a Clergyman, relating to his Sermon on the 30th Jan., by a Lover of Truth, 1746, the lay author (one Coade, I believe), inveighing against high churchmen, reminds the preacher that he—