"XIV. That no joiner, carpenter, or other person, should make any printing press, no smith forge any iron work, or founder cast any letters, without similar notice.

"XV. That there should be but twenty master printers * who should have the use of one press or more; their places to be supplied by the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of London, and six other commissioners. The king's and the university printers not included. These persons were to come into the high Commission Court, and enter into bonds, with sureties, of 3007. that they would not print, nor suffer any unlicensed books to be printed.

"XVII. No allowed printer to keep more than two presses, unless he had been upper warden or master of his company.

"XIX. Every master, or upper warden, allowed to have three apprentices, and no more; liverymen, two apprentices; yeomen, or freemen, to have one, and no more; neither by copartnership, binding at the scriveners, nor any other way whatsoever; neither was it lawful for any master printer, when any apprentice or apprentices ran away, or were dismissed, to take another apprentice, except the names of such as were gone away had been erased from the hall book, and never admitted, upon pain of being for ever disabled of the use of a press, or printing house, and such further punishment as the court might decree."

The following Clauses were of such an oppressive nature, that we have thought proper to give them literally:

"XX. Because a great part of the secret printing in corners hath been caused for want of orderly imployment for Iourneymen Printers, Therefore the Court doth hereby require the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers, to take especiall care that all Tourneymen Printers, who are free of the Company of Sta

Their names were Felix Kingstone, Adam Islip, Thomas Purfoot, Miles Flesher, Thomas Harper, John Beale, John Legat, Robert Young, John Haviland, George Miller, Richard Badger, Thomas Cotes, Bernard Alsop, Richard Bishop, Edward Griffin, Thomas Purslow, Richard Hodgkinsonne, John Dawson, John Raworth, and Marmaduke Parsons.

VOL. IV. No. 81.

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tioners,

tioners, shall be set to worke, and imployed within their owne Company of Stationers; for which purpose the Court doth also order and declare, that if any Iourneyman Printer, and free of the Company of Stationers, who is of honest, and good behauiour, and able in his trade, do want imployment, he shall repaire to the Master and Wardens of the Companie of Stationers, and they or one of them, taking with him or them one or two of the Master Printers, shall go along with the said Iourneyman Printer, and shall offer his seruice in the first place to the Master Printer under whom he serued his Apprentiship, if he be liuing, and do continue an allowed Printer, or otherwise to any other Master Printer, whom the Master and Wardens of the said Company shall thinke fit. And euery Master Printer shall bee bound to imploy one Journeyman, being so offered to him, and more, if need shall so require, and it shall be adiudged to come to his share, according to the proportion of his Apprentices and imployments, by the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers, although he the said Master Printer with his Apprentice or Apprentices be able without the helpe of the said Iourneyman or Journeymen to discharge his owne worke, vpon paine of such punishment, &c.

"XXI. If the Master and Wardens of the Companie of Stationers, or any of them, shall refuse or neglect to go along with any honest and sufficient Iourneyman Printer, so desiring their assistance, to finde him imployment, vpon complaint and proofe made thereof, he, or they so offending, shall suffer imprisonment, and such other punishment, as by this court, or the high Commission Court respectiuely, as the seuerall causes shall require, shall bee thought fit to bee imposed. But in case any Master Printer hath more imployment then he is able to discharge with helpe of his Apprentice or Apprentices, it shall be lawfull for him to require the helpe of any Iourney man, or lourneymen Printers, who are not imployed, and if the said Iourneyman, or Iourneymen Printers so required, shall refuse imployment, or neglect it when bce or they haue vndertaken it, he, or they shall suffer imprisonment, &c.

"XXIII. No Master Printer shall imploy either to worke at the Case, or the Presse, or otherwise about his printing, any other person or persons, then such onely as are Freemen, or Apprentices to the Trade or mystery of Printing, vnder paine of being disabled for euer after to keep or vse any Presse or Printing house.

.. XXIV.

"XXIV. The Court doth hereby declare their firme resolution, that if any person or persons, that is not an allowed Printer, shall hereafter presume to set vp any Presse for printing, or shall worke at any such Presse, or Set, or Compose any Letters to bee wrought by any such Presse; hee, or they so offending, shall from time to time, by the Order of this Court, bee set in the Pillorie, and Whipt through the Citie of London.

"XXV. For the better discouery of printing in Corners without licence; the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers for the time being, or any two licensed Master Printers, which shall be appointed by the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, or Lord B. of London for the time being, shall haue power and authority, to take vnto themselues such assistance as they shall think needful, and to search what houses and shops (and at what time they shall think fit) especially Printing-houses, and to view what is in printing, and to call for the licence to see whether it be licensed or no, and if not, to seize vpon so much as is printed, together with the seueral offenders.

3

"XXVI. That it shall be lawful also for the said Searchers, if vpon search they find any booke or bookes, or part of booke or bookes which they suspect to containe matter in it or them, comtrary to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, or against the State and Gouvernment, vpon such suspition to seize upon such booke or bookes, or part of booke or bookes, and to bring it, or them, to the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, or the Lord Bishop of London for the time being, who shall take such further course therein, as to their Lordships, or either of them shall seeme fit."

The twenty-seventh section appointed that there should be only four letter-founders; John Grismand, Thomas Wright, Arthur Nichols, and Alexander Tifield, who were under similar restrictions with respect to themselves, their journeymen, and apprentices.

And by the thirty-second section it was ordered, that no port should be open for the importation of books, except London, that the books might more readily and easily be inspected.

This decree was produced by lord keeper COVENTRY; archbishop LAUD; and bishop JuxON, lord treasurer, assisted by the judges, and Sir JoHN BANKES, attorney ge

neral.

The consequence of this and other atrocious acts of arbitrary power, might easily be conceived; the press sent forth additional libels, complaining of these encroachments on its liberty; the community took part with the injured; such an imposition of tyranny, urged the resentment of the whole country; and a tremendous civil war, the overthrow of government, and the destruction of all considerations, human or divine, was the consequence.

A similar restriction from the same cause, took place through the means of James II. and it produced his abdi

cation.

It is to be observed, however, that there is a material difference between the Liberty, and the Licentiousness of the Press. The. former produced and protected the ingenuity and labours of a Bowyer, a Baskerville, and other celebrated and excellent characters in this profession. Whilst the latter, on account of the mischiefs it has disseminated, should be execrated by all thinking and good men as the compounder of intellectual poison, as well as the anguis in herba, the snake in the grass, which pollutes the soil where it exists, and renders a fine science the opprobrium, rather than, as it ought to be, a blessing to society.

His majesty's printer, by patent, has the sole printing of all acts of Parliament, Proclamations, Forms of Prayer, a share of Bibles, Prayer Books, and Law-decrees; his majesty's speeches in parliament, and all other documents of government authority. The London Gazette is, by appointment, now printed and published by the king's printer.

GUNPOWDER ALLEY is famous for having been the residence of two characters, the one an elegant poet of the se venteenth century; the other one of the greatest impostors ' of his time.

Sir RICHARD LOVELACE, eldest son of Sir William Lovelace, of Woolwich, in Kent, and nephew to lord Lovelace, was born in 1610, received his education at the Charterhouse; and, in the year 1634, became a gentleman commoner of Glocester Hall, Oxford; " being then," as Wood observes, "accounted the most amiable and beau

tiful person that eye ever beheld; a person also of innate modesty, virtue, and courtly deportment," &c. In 1636, he was created M, A. and leaving the university, became a courtier; where being taken into favour by lord Goring, he became a soldier, and was first an ensign, and afterwards a eaptain. On the peace of Berwick, he returned to his native country, took possession of his patrimony in Kent, and was deputed by the county to deliver the Kentish petition to the House of Commons, which giving offence, he was ordered into custody, and confined in the Gatehouse, whence he was released on giving bail not to go beyond the lines of communication, without a pass from the speaker. During the time of his confinement to London, he lived beyond the income of his estate, chiefly to support the credit of the royal cause; and in the year 1646, he formed a regiment for the service of the French king, of which being colonel, he was wounded at Dunkirk. In 1648, on his return to England, with his brother, he was committed to Petre House, in Aldersgate Street, where he remained till after the king's death. He was then set at liberty; " but having consumed all his estate, he grew very melancholy (which at length brought him into a consumption) became very poor in body and purse, was the object of charity, went in ragged cloaths (whereas when he was in his glory he wore cloth of gold and silver), and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars, and poorest of servants. He died in this alley, in 1658, and was buried at the west end of St. Bride's church. He wrote two dramatic pieces, The Scholar, a comedy, acted at Glocester Hall, and Dorset Gardens; and The Soldier, a tragedy *.

It is not improbable that Love Court, in this avenue, might have taken its name from him, and been originally Lovelace Court.

JOHN EVANS, the the ill-favoured astrologer, was by birth a Welshman, a master of arts, and in sacred orders;

Hasted's Kent, Baker's Biographia Dramatica: see Granger, 11. 305.

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