Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/545

 536

HISTORY OF PRINTING.

no man presume to print another man's copy.

9. Let no printerpresiime either to re-print or change the title ofany book formerly printed, without licence ; or to counterfeit a licence, or knowingly to put any man's name to a book as the author of it, that was not so.

10. Let it be penall to antedate any book ; for, by so doing, new books will be shuffled among old ones to the encrease of the stock.

11. Let the price of books be regulated.

12. Let no joumy-man be employ'd, without a certificate from the master where he wrought last.

13. Let no master discharge a joumy-man, nor hee leave his master, under fourteen dayes notice, unlesse by consent.

14. Let the persons employ'd be of known integrity; so near as may be; free of the sayd mysteries, and able in their trades (according to the late act).

But if sixty presses must be reduced to twenty, what shall all those people do for a livelyhood that wrought at the other forty ?

It is provided by the late act, that as many of them shall be employ'd as the printers can find honest work for, and a sufferance of more, is but a toleration of the rest to print sedition, so that the supemumeraryes are in as ill a condition now, as they will be then ; and yet something may be thought upon for their rehef.

There have been divers treasonous and sedi- tious pamphlets printed since the act of indem- nity; as, the speeches of the late king's judges. Sir Henry Vane's [Pretended] Tryal; the Prodi- gies, 1 Part and 2; and the like. Let any of these necessitous persons make known at whose requKt and for whose behoofe these or the like, seditious libells have been printed, and they shall not only be pardoned for having had a hand in it themselves, but the first enformer shall upon proof or confession be recommended to the first vacancy whereof he is capable in the new regu- lation, and the next to the second, and so suc- cessively : and moreover a fine shall be set upon the heads of the delinquents, to be employ'd toward the maintenance of so many indigent printers as shall be interpreted to merit that regard, by such discovery.

The Stationers are not to be entrusted with the care of the Press, for these following reasom.

1. The^ are both parties and judges ; for diverse of them have brought up servants to the mystery of printing which they still retein in de- pendence : others again are both printers and stationers themselves ; so that they are entrusted (effectually) to search for their own copies, to destroy their own interests, to prosecute their own agents, and to punish themselves ; for they are_ the principal authors of those mischien which they pretend now to redress, and the very persons against whom the penalties of this in- tended regulation are chiefly levelled.

2. It is not adviseable to rely upon the honesty of people (if it may be avoided) where that

honesty is to their loss; especially if they It such as have already given proof that they piela their private gayn before the well-fare of tk publique ; which has been the stationer's cue throughout curtate troubles, some few excepioi, whose integrity deserves encouragement

3. In this trust, they have not only the tempt- ation of profit, to divert them from their datj (i fair part of their stock lying in seditious wait|, but the means of transgressing with great pri- vacy and safety ; for, make them overseen of the press, and the printers become totally ti their devotion ; so that the whole trade ftsea through the fingers of their own creatures, whidi, upon the matter, concludes rather in a combiia. tion, then a remedy.

4. It seems a little too much to reward tk abusers of the press with the credit of siipnii. tending it ; upon a confidence that they that k- stroyed the last king for their benefit, vrill nm make it their businesse to preserve this to tliei! loss.

5. It will cause a great disappointnent i^ searches, when the persons most concened shall have it in their power to spoyl all, by notica, partiality, or delay.

6. As the effectual regulation of the press ii not at all the stationer's interest, so is it stna^ to be suspected that it is as little their aym : foi not one person has been fin'd, and but one m secuted, (as is credibly affirmed) ance the hk act, notwithstanding so much treason and sedi- tion printed and di^erst since that time.

7. It is enjoy n'd by the late act " that no vm shall be admitted to be a master-printer, und they who were at that time actually master- printers, shall be by death or otherwise reduced to the number of twenty :" which provision not- withstanding, several persons have once tlm time been suffer'd to set up masters; vhick gives to understand that the reducing of tk presses to a limited number is not altogether tbt stationers purpose.

T%e Printers are not to be entrusted vitk lit Government of the Press.

1. All the arguments already objected agaiost the stationers, hold good also against the printee, but not fully so strong. That is, they are brtk partyes and judges. Self-ended, (upon eipen- ment) under the temptation of profit Offendas, as well as the stationers ; and, in all abuses of the presse, confederate with them. Seiit, they will have the same influence upon seuito; and. they have probably as little stomadt to > regulation, as the other. Tis true, the printer'! interest is not so great as the stationeis; fi* where hee gets (it may be) 20 or 25 in the IW for printing an unlawful book, the other douUe, nay many times trebles his mony by sellisg il- yet neverthelesse the printer's benefit Ijts " stake too.

2. It were a hard matter to pick out t*a^ master-printers who are both fiee of the trade, ffl ability to menage it, and of integrity to be e«- trusted with it : most of the honester sort intf

VjOOQ IC