praise of a well-ordered rhetoric, points to Mulcaster's Positions," but refers especially to the teachings of Ascham, and ends his pamphlet with "desiring of the learned pardon and of the women patience." Pieces like these from a young writer, whose quick wit is moved by the spirit of the life about him, are very helpful to the full understanding of the past. We shall know how to think fairly of the whole career of Thomas Nash-he died at the age of thirty-two -now that we have looked fairly at his way of first seeking citizenship in the republic of letters.

Ballads of jest or murder, playful or religious-not without many an appeal to popular credulity and superstition

Ballads and Pamphlets: Entries at Stationers' Hall.

settings forth in prose also of monsters, portents, or other appetising bits of public news, with a religious aim predominant, have, at this period of our literature, a large place in the entries on the Register of books licensed by the Company. of Stationers. In the twelve years from 1579 to 1590, including each of those years, the number of publications so licensed was about 1,856—say, an average of 154 for each year-and the predominance of small catchpenny pieces is shown by the fact that after a rapid fall in the number of entries from 192 and 195 in 1579 and 1580, and from 155 and 157 in 1581 and 1582, to 112, 67, and 42 in the next three years, there was a whipping up of defaulters, perhaps on the mere motion of the wardens of the Stationers' Company, perhaps at the suggestion of Archbishop Whitgift, who saw negligence in the administration of this part of the machinery for gagging the Press. The entries rose in 1586 to the unwonted number of 292, but nearly the whole difference was made by long lists of ballads which had in the preceding years escaped the supervision of the licensers. After this the average of entries was more than sustained, the number of licences taken being successively 125, 175, 143, and 201 in the next four years.

Censorship of the Press.

When it was believed that oneness of opinion is essential in matters of religion and government, especially in matters of religion, and the printing press began to scatter men's thoughts broadcast, the Church, naturally enough, endeavoured to sift out before publication whatever might establish or encourage schism, and a systematic censorship began at Rome. Ecclesiastical superintendence, introduced in 1479 and 1496, was more completely established by a Bull of Leo X. in 1515. Bishops and Inquisitors were required by that Bull to examine all books before they were printed, and suppress heretical opinions. An Index of Prohibited Books was begun by the Council of Trent in 1546. It contained all books that might not be read by any member of the Church without a special licence from his bishop. Other books that required only expurgations were put in the Expurgatory Index, and might be read only after each offending passage had been blotted out by the authorities. These lists still appear under the superintendence of a special congregation of cardinals called the Congregation of the Index.

When Henry VIII. threw off the Pope, the censorship for England passed from the care of his Holiness to that of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London. The State added its efforts to prevent publication of discordant political opinions. Elizabeth forbade printing in all parts of England except London, Oxford, and Cambridge, and inthese towns limited the number of the presses. Oxford and Cambridge had only one press each, and by her Injunction of 1559 the Queen's Majesty straightly charged and commanded "that no manner of person shall print any manner of boke or paper, of what sort, nature, or in what language soeuer it be, excepte the same be first licenced, by her maiestie by expresse wordes in writynge, or by vi. of her priuy counsel, or be perused and licensed by the archbysshops of Canterbury and Yorke, the bishop of London,

T-VOL. IX.

the chancelours of both vnyuersities, the byshop beyng Ordinary, and the Archdeacon also of the place where any suche shalbe printed, or by two of them, whereof the Ordinary of the place to be alwaies one."

In 1583, when John Whitgift became, on the twentyfourth of September, Archbishop of Canterbury, determined to repress opinion on each side of the queen's Via Media, there were in London only twenty-three authorised printers, and they owned, in all, fifty-three hand-presses. On the twenty-third of June, 1583, Whitgift and other members of the High Court of Commission had passed the Star Chamber decree on printing under which action was taken against the Marprelate pamphleteers of 1589. This decree subjected the printer of an unlicensed book to six months' imprisonment, besides destruction of his presses and types and permanent deprival of his licence to print, if he had one. While the Earl of Leicester lived, his influence in the Privy Council put some check on Whitgift's zeal. He was impatient of the check. "It is strange," he said, "that a man of my place, dealing by so good a warrant as I do”—he was strictly seeking to enforce the queen's own policy—“ should be so encountered, and for not yielding, be counted wilful. But I must be content, vincit qui patitur. There is a difference between wilfulness and constancy. upon me, by the place which I hold under her Majesty, the defence of the Religion and the Rites of the Church of England, to appease the Schisms and Sects therein, to reduce all the Ministers thereof to uniformity and to due obedience, and not to waver with every wind; which also my place, my person, my duty, the laws, her Majesty, and the goodness of the cause do require of me, and wherein the Lords of her Highness's most honourable Privy Council, all things considered, ought in duty to assist and countenance me."

I have taken

Lord Burghley-and more especially Sir Christopher

Hatton-did support Whitgift, whose policy of strong suppression was prompted by Elizabeth herself. When the Earl of Leicester was away in the Low Countries, Burghley and Hatton slipped the Archbishop quietly into the Privy Council, with Lord Cobham. Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst a good friend of Whitgift's-was sworn to the same office on the following day. This gave the archbishop free access to the queen. In April, 1587, Sir Christopher Hatton was made Lord Chancellor. The change added to Whitgift's strength, and the last check on his zeal, for compelling English Christians to be of one opinion on all points of faith and discipline that were determined for them by the Government, was removed by the death of the Earl of Leicester on the fourth of September, 1588. Religiously and honestly, thenceforward, without any hindrance from the queen's advisers, Whitgift tried his plan of firm coercion. The result was that, under his rule, conflicts of opinion became more resolute, debate was embittered, and the foundations of nonconformity were laid. Whitgift went forward boldly on what he believed to be the only way to a staying of divisions among Churchmen in opinions touching ceremonial and doctrine. In his days the lesson had yet to be learnt by nearly all men that many, even in our own time, have only begun to learn. God made us to differ in opinion that, by action and reaction of opposing forms of honest thought, each having for its principle of life some part of truth, we may slowly work our way towards the highest truth, seeking and loving it with all our hearts and all our souls and all our minds and all our strength, and taught by it a like love of our neighbour. In the ideal Church there will still be the natural and wholesome differences of opinion. In that respect, shaped as we are by a wise Creator for the evolution of an ever-growing life by energies through which alone our human life is kin to the divine, there can be no change till reason sinks into the instinct of the ants and bees. But

we attain Church unity when we find God in all truth, and know that He is Love. The Christian Church will become one when its worshippers grow one in spirit by humbly seeking to live in accordance with the spirit of their Master. Then Christians will find in differences of opinion, that once angered them, one of the charms that guide men in the choice of closest friendship-a likeness in essentials with difference in accidents; one love and one allegiance to highest truth, much difference in ways of showing it.

John Penry, born in 1559 in Brecknockshire--probably at Cefnbrith, in Llangamanch-entered Cambridge in December, 1580, as a pensioner at Peterhouse. He

John
Penry.

graduated as B.A. early in 1584, then passed to Oxford, where he became a commoner of St. Alban's Hall, and graduated as M. A. in July, 1586. He married Eleanor, daughter of Henry Godly, of Northampton.

Penry's "Equity of an Humble Supplica. tion.'

In 1587 John Penry wrote, on behalf of spiritual teaching in his native country, "A Treatise containing the Æquity of An Humble Supplication which is to be exhibited vnto hir gracious Maiesty and this high Court of Parliament in behalf of the Countrey of Wales, that some order may be taken for the preaching of the Gospell among those people. Wherein also is set downe as much of the estate of our people as without offence could be made known, to the end that our case (if it please God) may be pitied by them who are not of this assembly, and so they also may bee driuen to labour on our behalfe. At Oxford, Printed by Joseph Barnes, and are to be sold in Pauls Church-yard at the signe of the Tyger's head. 1587." A notice to the reader says that rumour of the dissolution of Parliament caused the printing to be hurried, and more than two parts of it omitted: "The nearer I came to the end the more haste I made." The sixty-four pages published contained