Page:Plomer Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers 1907.djvu/21

Rh Another Ordinance of the year 1643 must not be passed over, as it shows that amongst the much despised Roundheads, there were some in authority who sympathized with the book lover. It was the outcome of the wholesale sequestration of Royalist property that was then taking place, and let us hope that it had the effect of preventing the dispersal of many a valued library of books. This Ordinance, which was dated the 18th November, 1643, directed that books, evidences, records, and writings, sequestered or taken by distress, were not to be sold, but that an account of such books, etc, was to be rendered to Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, Theophilus, Earl of Lincoln, William, Lord Viscount Say and Seale, John Selden, Francis Rous, Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Samuel Browne, Edward Prideaux, Gilbert Millington, Roger Hill, and Walter Young, or any two of them. Nor is there wanting other evidence that Milton and his literary friends were exerting themselves to preserve what was worth preserving, as witness the order made in 1645 for printing the Codex Alexandrinus, a project that unfortunately came to nothing, and also Milton's own pamphlet on the Liberty of the Press. But in this the great thinker was at least two centuries ahead of his time. The din of battle was too loud and his voice was drowned. Yet for the next four years there was a lull in the persecution of the book-trade, and it was not until the 28th September, 1647, that any further attempt was made to regulate "the press." The Ordinance then issued by Parliament closely resembled those that had preceded it, but it went a step further, by fixing the penalties that were to be inflicted upon offenders. The author of the offending pamphlet or book was to be fined forty shillings, or imprisoned for a term not exceeding forty days, the printer was to be fined twenty shillings or twenty days, besides having his press and implements destroyed, the bookseller or stationer issuing the offending publication was liable to a fine of ten shillings or ten days' imprisonment, and the hawker or pedlar was to forfeit all his stock and be whipped as a common rogue.

Still the cry went up News! More News! and still the warring sectaries, mountebank astrologers, and frenzied politicians flooded the country