Page:The works of Anne Bradstreet in prose and verse.djvu/28

 XX INTRODUCTION.

ficial as the current of real piety is acknowledged to have been, we find, in addition to all the secular books above referred to, a mass of sermons, books of devotion, religious tracts, and controversial pamphlets. Many productions, too, of more importance and of greater size and pretensions, were the results of deeper delvings in theology and di- vinity. The " Ecclesiastical Polity " of the illustrious Hooker had been in part published, the whole work com- plete not appearing until 1632, the author himself having died at the beginning of the century. There were also, besides Archbishop Usher, Andrews, and Donne, the "humble and heavenly minded" Dr. Richard Sibbs, whose sermons, collected under the title of "The Saint's Cordial," were highly prized by the Puritans ; the " Englifti Seneca," Bishop Hall, a thorough Calvinist, whose " pious Medita- tions are still a household volume read by all classes, pub- lished in all forms." * One reason for the small number of strictly sectarian, Puritan, or Calvinistic works during this period was, that the censorship of the press, the right of licensing books, was almost entirely arrogated to himself by the untiring enemy of the Nonconformists, Laud, Bishop of London, whose watchful eye few heretical writings could escape. Some such, however, managed to satisfy some of the more liberal censors, and thus appeared with the " cum privilegio ; " while many of the most ultra pam- phlets and tracts were the fruits of foreign presses, secretly introduced into the country without the form of a legal entry at Stationers' Hall.f


 * Marsden's " Early Puritans," p. 393.

t Craik's English Literature. New York : 1S63. — Masson's Life of Mil- ton. London: 1S59. Vol. I. ch. vi. — Bohn's Bibliographer's Manual, &c., Sic.

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