Page:Plomer Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers 1907.djvu/29

Rh have known condemned a fellow printer to death, for so trivial an offence, is the saddest part of the story. There is, however, abundant evidence that Sir Roger L'Estrange met with great opposition from the trade, and ultimately gave up his office in disgust.

Subjected to unfair competition and merciless restriction, it is not much to be wondered at that the stationers, whether printers or booksellers, did not bear a very high character for commercial probity, and that George Wither's sketch of the "Dishonest Stationer" in his Schollars Purgatory was applicable to only too many of them. On the other hand, we may hope he also drew his companion picture of the "Honest Stationer" from some of his acquaintance.

The closing years of the period under review were marked by two great disasters, the outbreak of plague in London, in the autumn of 1665, and the great fire of 1666. By the first, trade in the City was brought to a standstill and printers and stationers were reduced to idleness. By the second, the chief printing houses and booksellers' shops, with all their contents, were destroyed, and the ashes of books and manuscripts were carried by the wind as far as Eton and Windsor. Happily for us the Thomason Collection was out of reach of the flames.