before over their judgements, burning and prohibiting to be read, what they fanfied not; yet fparing in their cenfures, and the Books not many which they fo dealt with: till Martin the 5. by his Bull not only prohibited, but was the first that excommunicated the reading of hereticall Books; for about that time Wicklef and Huffe growing terrible, were they who firft drove the Papall Court to a ftricter policy of prohibiting. Which cours Leo the 10, and his fucceffors follow'd, untill the Councell of Trent, and the Spanish Inquifition engendring together brought forth, or perfeted thofe Catalogues, and expurging Indexes that rake through the entralls of many an old good Author, with a violation wors then any could be offer'd to his tomb. Nor did they stay in matters Hereticall, but any subject that was not to their palat, they either condemn'd in a prohibition, or had it strait into the new Purgatory of an Index. To fill up the measure of encroachment, their last invention was to ordain that no Book, pamphlet, or paper should be Printed (as if S. Peter had bequeath'd them the keys of the Preffe also out of Paradise) unlesse it were approv'd and licenc't under the hands of 2 or 3 glutton Friers. For example:

Let the Chancellor Cini be pleas'd to see if in this prefent work be contain'd ought that may withstand the Printing,

Vincent Rabatta Vicar of Florence.

I have seen this prefent work, and finde nothing athwart the Catholick faith and good manners: In witnesse whereof I have given, &c.

Nicolò Cini, Chancellor of Florence. Attending the precedent relation, it is allow'd that this prefent work of Davanzati* may be Printed,

It may be Printed, July 15.

Vincent Rabatta, &c.

Friar Simon Mompei d'Amelia Chancellor of

the holy office in Florence.

Sure they have a conceit, if he of the bottomlesse

pit had not long fince broke prison, that this quadruple exorcifm would barre him down. I feare their next defigne will be to get into their cuftody the licencing of that which they fay *Claudius intended, but went not through with. Voutsafe to see another of their forms the Roman stamp

:

· Quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emitendi. Sueton.

Imprimatur, If it seem good to the reve- in Claudio. rend Master of the holy Palace,

Imprimatur,

Belcastro, Vicegerent.

Friar Nicolò Rodolphi Master of the holy Palace. Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are seen together dialoguewife in the Piatza of one Title page, complementing and ducking each to other with their shav'n reverences, whether the Author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his Epiftle, fhall to the Preffe or to the spunge. These are the prety responsories, these are the deare Antiphonies that fo bewitcht of late our Prelats, and their Chaplaines with the goodly Eccho they made; and befotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambeth house, another from the West end of Pauls; fo apifhly Romanizing, that the word of command ftill was fet downe in Latine; as if the learned Grammaticall pen that wrote it, would cast no ink without Latine; or perhaps, as they thought, because no vulgar tongue was worthy to expresse the pure conceit of an Imprimatur; but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever famous, and formoft in the achievements of liberty, will not easily finde fervile letters anow to spell fuch a dictatorie prefumption English. And thus ye have the Inventors and the originall of Book-licencing ript up, and drawn as lineally as any pedigree. We have it not, that can be heard of, from any ancient State, or politie, or Church, nor by any Statute left us by our Ancestors, elder or later; nor from the moderne cuftom of any reformed Citty, or Church abroad; but from the most Antichristian Councel, and the most tyrannous Inquifition that

ever inquir'd. Till then Books were ever as freely admitted into the World as any other birth; the iffue of the brain was no more ftifl'd then the iffue of the womb: no envious Juno sate cross-leg'd over the nativity of any mans intellectual off spring; but if it prov'd a Monster, who denies, but that it was justly burnt, or funk in the Sea. But that a Book in wors condition then a peccant foul, should be to stand before a Jury cre it be borne to the World, and undergo yet in darknesse the judgement of Radamanth and his Colleagues, ere it can passe the ferry backward into light, was never heard before, till that mysterious iniquity provokt and troubl'd at the first entrance of Reformation, fought out new limbo's and new hells wherein they might include our Books also within the number of their damned. And this was the rare morfell fo officioufly fnatcht up, and fo ilfavourdly imitated by our inquifiturient Bishops, and the attendant minorites their Chaplains. That ye like not now these most certain Authors of this licencing order, and that all sinifter intention was farre diftant from your thoughts, when ye were importun'd the paffing it, all men who know the integrity of your actions, and how ye honour Truth, will clear yee readily.

But fome will fay, what though the Inventors were bad, the thing for all that may be good? It may fo : yet if that thing be no fuch deep invention, but obvious, and eafie for any man to light on, and yet best and wifest Commonwealths through all ages, and occafions have forborne to use it, and falfeft feducers, and oppreffors of men were the first who tooke it up, and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of Reformation; I am of those who beleeve, it will be a harder alchymy then Lullius ever knew, to sublimat any good ufe out of fuch an invention. Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason, that it may be held a dangerous and fufpicious fruit, as certainly it deferves, for the tree that bore it, untill I can diffect one by one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, as was propounded, what is to be

thought in generall of reading Books, what ever fort they be, and whether be more the benefit, or the harm that thence proceeds?

Not to in upon the examples of Mis. Daniel and Fral, who were kifell in all the learning of the Egyptians Caldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their Books of all forts, in Frul effecially, who thought it no deflement to intert into boly Scripture the fentences of three Greek Poets, and one of them a Tragedian, the question wis notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the Primitive Doctors, but with great odds on that de which aff'd it both lawtill and produble, as was then endently perceiv & when all the Apoldan, and famlet enemy to our bith, made a decree forbidding Chritians the fudy of heathen learning: for, and be. they wound us with our own weapons and with our owne arts and Sciences they overcome us. And indeed the Chritians were put to to their hits by this craty Beans and so much danger to decline into al ynorance, that the two Apulkuri were din us 1 Tản TAY fav, to coin all the leven Eberall Sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into divers forms of Orations Poems, Dialogues, evi to the calculating of a new Car Grammar. But ith the Horas Sarms. The provis dence of God provided better then the månder of dallinurias and is in, by aking away that literat law with the lie of him who devis din So great in jury they then heid in to be depryd of Halon KIT ing, and mought it a perfecution more undermining and fecrecy decaying the Church then the open cruelty of Dectus or Dia Ür And perhaps it was the ame perzak frit dat ve Divell weige & Fam in lenten irezam, for reading Cure; or elle a wis 1 Santin bred or me ferver which had then leis 3 him. For had in Ange dia is Coghner, unlede it were for veiling be much upen Cceroplanins, and had chacz i the reading, not be vanity, it had bin plainly parnai intu ored in i grave Chen, and not

for fcurrill Plautus whom he confeffes to have bin reading not long before; next to correct him only, and let fo many more ancient Fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid ftudies without the lash of such a tutoring apparition; infomuch that Bafil teaches how fome good ufe may be made of Margites a fportfull Poem, not now extant, writ by Homer; and why not then of Morgante an Italian Romanze much to the same purpose. But if it be agreed we shall be try'd by visions, there is a vision recorded by Eufebius far ancienter then this tale of Jerom to the nun Euftochium, and befides has nothing of a feavor in it. Dionyfius Alexandrinus was about the year 240, a person of great name in the Church for piety and learning, who had wont to avail himself much against hereticks by being converfant in their Books; untill a certain Presbyter laid it fcrupulously to his confcience, how he durft venture himselfe among those defiling volumes. The worthy man loath to give offence fell into a new debate with himselfe what was to be thought; when fuddenly a vision fent from God, it is his own Epiftle that fo averrs it, confirm'd him in these words: Read any books what ever come to thy hands, for thou art fufficient both to judge aright, and to examine each matter. To this revelation he affented the fooner, as he confeffes, because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to the Theffalonians, Prove all things, hold faft that which is good. And he might have added another remarkable saying of the fame Author; To the pure all things are pure, not only meats and drinks, but all kinde of knowledge whether of good or evill; the knowledge cannot defile, nor confequently the books, if the will and confcience be not defil'd. For books are as meats and viands are, fome of good, fome of evill substance; and yet God in that unapocryphall vifion, faid without exception, Rife Peter, kill and eat, leaving the choice to each mans difcretion. Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or nothing from unwholefome; and best books to a naughty mind