■WILLIAM AND MAEY.

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freedom of thought had really added to the security of theState? Had not recent experience proved that the licenser-might himself be an enemy of their Majesties, or, worse still,an absurd and perverse friend; that he might suppress a bookof which it would be for their interest that every house in thecountry should have a copy, and that he might readily give hissanction to a libel which tended to make them hateful to theirpeople, and which deserved to be torn and burned by the handof Ketch? Had the government gained much by establishing aliterary police which prevented Englishmen from having theHistory of the Bloody Circuit, and allowed them, by way ofcompensation, to read tracts which represented King Williamand Queen Mary as conquerors?

In that age persons who were not specially interested in apublic bill very seldom petitioned Parliament against it orfor it. The only petitions therefore which were at this con-juncture presented to the two Houses against the censorshipcame from booksellers, bookbinders and printers.* But theopinion which these classes expressed was certainly not con-fined to them.

The law which was about to expire had lasted eight years. Itwas renewed for only two years. It appears, from an entry inthe Journals of the Commons which unfortunately is defective,that a division took place on an amendment about the nature ofwhich we are left entirely in the dark. The votes were ninetynine to eighty. In the Lords it was proposed, according to thesuggestion offered fifty years before by Milton and stolen fromhim’by Blount, to exempt from the authority of the licenserevery book which bore the name of an author or publisher.This amendment was rejected; and the bill passed, but notwithout a protest signed by eleven peers who declared that theycould not think it for the public interest to subject all learning

* Commons’Journals, Feb. 27. 169|; Lords’ Journals, Mar. 4.

ClIAP.

XIX.