that whereof before hee was so scrupulous And yet at the same time Naevius and Plautus the first Latine comedians had fill'd the City with all the borrow'd Scenes of Menander and Philemon Then began to be consider'd there also what was to be don to libellous books and Authors for Naevius was quickly cast into prison for his unbridl'd pen and releas'd by the Tribunes upon his recantation We read also that lipels were burnt and the makers punisht by Augustus The like severity no doubt was us'd if ought were impiously writt'n against their esteemed gods Except in these two points how the world went in Books the Magistrat kept no reckning And therefore Lucretius without impeachment versifies his Epicurism to Memmius and had the honour to be set forth the second time by Cicero so great a father of the Common-wealth although himselfe disputes against that opinion in his own writings Nor was the Satyricall sharpnesse or naked plainnes of Lucilius or Catullus or Flaccus by any order prohibited And for matters of State the story of Titus Livius though it extoll'd that part which Pompey held was not therefore supprest by Octavius Caesar of the other Faction But that Neso was by him banisht in his old age for the wanton Poems of his youth was but a meer covert of State over some secret cause and besides the Books were neither banisht nor call'd in From hence we shall meet with little else but tyranny in the Roman Empire that we may not marvell if not so often bad as good Books were silenc't I shall therefore deem to have bin large anough in producing what among the ancients was punishable to write save only which all other arguments were free to treat on By this time the Emperors were become Christians whose discipline in this point I doe not finde to have bin more severe then what was formerly in practice The Books of those whom they took to be grand Hereticks were examin'd refuted and condemn'd in the generall Councels and not till then were prohibited or burnt by autority of the Emperor As for the writings of Heathen authors unlesse they were plaine invectives against Christianity as those of Porphyrius and Proclus they met with no interdict that can be cited till about the year 400. in a Carthaginian Councel wherein Bishops themselves were forbid to read the Books of Gentiles but Heresies they might read while others long before them on the contrary scrupl'd more the Books of Hereticks then of Gentiles And that the primitive Councels and Bishops were wont only to declare what Books were not commendable passing no furder but leaving it to each ones conscience to read or to lay by till after the yeare 800. is observ'd already by Padre Paolo the great unmasker of the Trentine Councel After which time the Popes of Rome engrossing what they pleas'd of Politicall rule into their owne hands extended their dominion over mens eyes as they had before over their judgements burning and prohibiting to be read what they fansied not yet sparing in their censures and the Books not many which they so 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 Husse growing terrible were they who first drove the Papall Court to a stricter policy of prohibiting Which cours Leo the 10 and his successors follow'd untill the Councell of Trent and the Spanish Inquisition engendring together brought forth or perfeted those 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 Presse 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 present work be contain'd ought that may withstand the Printing Vincent Rabatta Vicar of Florence I have seen this present 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 present work of Davanzati may be Printed Vincent Rabatta c. It may be Printed July 15. 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 since broke prison that this quadruple exorcism would barre him down I feare their next designe will be to get into their custody the licencing of that which they say * Claudius intended but went not through with Voutsafe to see another of their forms the Roman stamp Imprimatur If it seem good to the reverend Master of the holy Palace Belcastro Vicegerent Imprimatur Friar Nicolò Rodolphi Master of the holy Palace Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue-wise 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 Epistle shall to the Presse or to the spunge These are the prety responsories these are the deare Antiphonies that so bewitcht of late our Prelats and their Chaplaines with the goodly Eccho they made and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur one from Lambeth house another from the West end of Pauls so apishly Romanizing that the word of command still was set 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 formost in the atchievements of liberty will not easily finde servile letters anow to spell such a dictatorie presumption 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 custom of any reformed Citty or Church abroad but from the most Antichristian Councel and the most tyrannous Inquisition that ever inquir'd Till then Books were ever as freely admitted into the World as any other birth the issue of the brain was no more stifl'd then the issue of the womb no envious Juno sate cros-leg'd over the nativity of any mans intellectuall off spring but if it prov'd a Monster who denies
harbour'd Our garments also should be referr'd to the licencing of some more sober work-masters to see them cut into a lesse wanton garb Who shall regulat all the mixt conversation of our youth male and female together as is the fashion of this Country who shall still appoint what shall be discours'd what presum'd and no furder Lastly who shall forbid and separat all idle resort all evill company These things will be and must be but how they shall be lest hurtfull how lest enticing herein consists the grave and governing wisdom of a State To sequester out of the world into Atlantick and Eutopian politics which never can be drawn into use will not mend our condition but to ordain wisely as in this world of evill in the midd'st whereof God hath plac't us unavoidably Nor is it Plato's licencing of books will doe this which necessarily pulls along with it so many other kinds of licencing as will make us all both ridiculous and weary and yet frustrat but those unwritt'n or at least unconstraining laws of vertuous education religious and civil nurture which Plato there mentions as the bonds and ligaments of the Commonwealth the pillars and the sustainers of every writt'n Statute these they be which will bear chief sway in such matters as these when all licencing will be easily eluded Impunity and remissenes for certain are the bane of a Commonwealth but here the great art lyes to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment and in what things perswasion only is to work If every action which is good or evill in man at ripe years were to be under pittance and prescription and compulsion what were vertue but a name what praise could be then due to well-doing what grammercy to be sober just or continent many there be that complain of divin Providence for suffering Adam to transgresse foolish tongues when God gave him reason he gave him freedom to choose for reason is but choosing he had bin else a meer artificiall Adam such an Adam as he is in the motions We our selves esteem not of that obedience or love or gift which is of force God therefore left him free set before him a provoking object ever almost in his eyes herein consisted his merit herein in the right of his reward the praise of his abstinence Wherefore did he creat passions within us pleasures round about us but that these rightly temper'd are the very ingredients of vertu They are not skilfull considerers of human things who imagin to remove sin by removing the matter of sin for besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing though some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons it cannot from all in such a universall thing as books are and when this is done yet the sin remains entire Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure he has yet one jewell left ye cannot bereave him of his covetousnesse Banish all objects of lust shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercis'd in any hermitage ye cannot make them chaste that came not thither so such great care and wisdom is requir'd to the right managing of this point Suppose we could expell sin by this means look how much we thus expell of sin so much we expell of vertue for the matter of them both is the same remove that and ye remove them both alike This justifies the high providence of God who though he command us temperance justice continence yet powrs out before us ev'n to a prosusenes all desirable things and gives us minds that can wander beyond all limit and satiety Why should we then affect a rigor contrary to the manner of God and of nature by abridging or scanting those means which books freely permitted are both to the triall of vertue and the exercise of truth It would be better done to learn that the law must needs be frivolous which goes to restrain things uncertainly and yet equally working to good and to evill And were I the chooser a dram of well-doing should be preferr'd before many times as much the forcible hindrance of evill-doing For God sure esteems the growth and compleating of one vertuous person more then the restraint often vitious And albeit what ever thing we hear or see sitting walking travelling or conversing may be fitly call'd our book and is of the same effect that writings are yet grant the thing to be prohibited were only books it appears that this order hitherto is far insufficient to the end which it intends Do we not see not once or oftner but weekly that continu'd Court-libell against the Parlament and City Printed as the wet sheets can witnes and dispers't among us for all that licencing can doe yet this is the prime service a man would think wherein this order should give proof of it self If it were executed you 'l say But certain if execution be remisse or blindfold now and in this particular what will it be hereafter and in other books If then the order shall not be vain and frustrat behold a new labour Lords and Commons ye must repeal and proscribe all scandalous and unlicenc't books already printed and divulg'd after ye have drawn them up into a list that all may know which are condemn'd and which not and ordain that no forrein books be deliver'd out of custody till they have bin read over This office will require the whole time of not a few overseers and those no vulgar men There be also books which are partly usefull and excellent partly culpable and pernicious this work will ask as many more officials to make expurgations and expunctions that the Commonwealth of learning be not damnify'd In fine when the multitude of books encrease upon their hands ye must be fain to catalogue all those Printers who are found frequently offending and forbidd the importation of their whole suspected typography In a word that this your order may be exact and not desicient ye must reform it perfectly according to the model of Trent and Sevil which I know ye abhorre to doe Yet though ye should condiscend to this which God forbid the order still would be but fruitlesse and defective to that end whereto ye meant it If to prevent sects and schisms who is so unread or so uncatechis'd in story that hath not heard of many sects refusing books as a hindrance and preserving their doctrine unmixt for many ages only by unwritt'n traditions The Christian faith for that was once a schism is not unknown to have spread all over Asia ere any Gospel or Epistle was seen in writing If the amendment of manners be aym'd at look into Italy and Spain whether those places be one scruple the better the honester the wiser the chaster since all the inquisitionall rigor that hath bin executed upon books Another reason whereby to make it plain that this order will misse the end it seeks
instance wherein to shew both that love of truth which ye eminently professe and that uprightnesse of your judgement which is not wont to be partiall to your selves by judging over again that Order which ye have ordain'd to regulate Printing That no Book pamphlet or paper shall be henceforth Printed unlesse the same be first approv'd and licenc't by such or at least one of such as shall be thereto appointed For that part which preserves justly every mans Copy to himselfe or provides for the poor I touch not only wish they be not made pretenses to abuse and persecute honest and painfull Men who offend not in either of these particulars But that other clause of Licencing Books which we thought had dy'd with his brother quadragesunal and matrimonial when the Prelats expir'd I shall now attend with such a Homily as shall lay before ye first the inventors of it to bee those whom ye will be loath to own next what is to be thought in generall of reading what ever sort the Books be and that this Order avails nothing to the suppressing of scandalous seditious and libellous Books which were mainly intended to be supprest Last that it will be primely to the discouragement of all learning and the stop of Truth not only by disexercising and blunting our abilities in what we know already but by hindring and cropping the discovery that might bee yet further made both in religious and civill Wisdome I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how Bookes demeane themselves as well as men and thereafter to confine imprison and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors For Books are not absolutely dead things but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them I know they are as lively and as vigorously productive as those fabulous Dragons teeth and being sown up and down may chance to spring up armed men And yet on the other hand unlesse warinesse be us'd as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature Gods Image but hee who destroyes a good Booke kills reason it selfe kills the Image of God as it were in the eye Many a man lives a burden to the Earth but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit imbalm'd and treasur'd up on purpose to a life beyond life 'T is true no age can restore a life whereof perhaps there is no great losse and revolutions of ages doe not oft recover the losse of a rejected truth for the want of which whole Nations fare the worse We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labours of publick men how we spill that season'd life of man preserv'd and stor'd up in Books since we see a kinde of homicide may be thus committed sometimes a martyrdome and if it extend to the whole impression a kinde of massacre whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elementall life but strikes at that ethereall and and fist essence the breath of reason it selfe slaics an immortality rather then a life But lest I should be condemn'd of introducing licence while I oppose Licencing I refuse not the paines to be so much Historicall as will serve to shew what hath been done by ancient and famous Commonwealths against this disorder till the very time that this project of licencing crept out of the Inquisition was catcht up by our Prelates and hath caught some of our Presbyters In Athens where Books and Wits were ever busier then in any other part of Greece I finde but only two sorts of writings which the Magistrate car'd to take notice of those either blasphemous and Atheisticall or Libellous Thus the Books of Protagoras were by the Iudges of Areopagus commanded to be burnt and himselfe banisht the territory for a discourse begun with his confessing not to know whether there were gods or whether not And against defaming it was decreed that none should be traduc'd by name as was the manner of Vetus Comoedia whereby we may guesse how they censur'd libelling And this course was quick enough as Cicero writes to quell both the desperate wits of other Atheists and the open way of defaming as the event shew'd Of other sects and opinions though tending to voluptuousnesse and the denying of divine providence they tooke no heed Therefore we do not read that either Epicurus or that libertine school of Cyrene or what the Cynick impudence utter'd was ever question'd by the Laws Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old Comedians were supprest though the acting of them were forbid and that Plato commended the reading of Aristophanes the loosest of them all to his royall scholler Dionysius is commonly known and may be excus'd if holy Chrysostome as is reported nightly studied so much the same Author and had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the stile of a rousing Sermon That other leading City of Greece Lacedaemon considering that Lycurgus their Law-giver was so addicted to elegant learning as to have been the first that brought out of Jonia the scatter'd workes of Homer and sent the Poet Thales from Creet to prepare and mollifie the Spartan surlinesse with his smooth songs and odes the better to plant among them law and civility it is to be wonder'd how musclesse and unbookish they were minding nought but the feats of Warre There needed no licencing of Books among them for they dislik'd all but their owne Laconick Apothegms and took a slight occasion to chase Archilochus out of their City perhaps for composing in a higher straine then their owne souldierly ballats and roundels could reach to Or if it were for his broad verses they were not therein so cautious but they were as dissolute in their promiscuous conversing whence Euripides affirmes in Andromache that their women were all unchaste Thus much may give us light after what sort Bookes were prohibited among the Greeks The Romans also for many ages train'd up only to a military roughnes resembling most the Lacedaemonian guise knew of learning little but what their twelve Tables and the Pontifick College with their Augurs and Flamins taught them in Religion and Law so unacquainted with other learning that when Carneades and Critolaus with the Stoick Diogenes comming Embassadors to Rome tooke thereby occasion to give the City a tast of their Philosophy they were suspected for seducers by no lesse a man then Cato the Censor who mov'd it in the Senat to dismisse them speedily and to banish all such Attick bablers out of Italy But Scipio and others of the noblest Senators withstood him and his old Sabin austerity honour'd and admir'd the men and the Censor himself at last in his old age fell to the study of
but that it was justly burnt or sunk into the Sea But that a Book in wors condition then a peccant soul should be to stand before a Jury ere it be borne to the World and undergo yet in darknesse the judgement of Radamanth and his Collegues 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 sought 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 morsell so officiously snatcht up and so ilfavourdly imitated by our inquisiturient Bishops and the attendant minorites their Chaplains That ye like not now these most certain Authors of this licencing order and that all sinister intention was farre distant from your thoughts when ye were importun'd the passing it all men who know the integrity of your actions and how ye honour Truth will clear yee readily But some will say What though the Inventors were bad the thing for all that may be good It may so yet if that thing be no such deep invention but obvious and easie for any man to light on and yet best and wisest Commonwealths through all ages and occasions have forborne to use it and falsest seducers and oppressors 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 use out of such an invention Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit as certainly it deserves for the tree that bore it untill I can dissect 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 sort they be and whether be more the benefit or the harm that thence proceeds Not to insist upon the examples of Moses Daniel Paul who were skilfull in all the learning of the AEgyptians Caldeans and Greeks which could not probably be without reading their Books of all sorts in Paul especially who thought it no defilement to insert into holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek Poets and one of them a Tragedian the question was notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the Primitive Doctors but with great odds on that side which affirm'd it both lawfull and profitable as was then evidently perceiv'd when Julian the Apostat and suttlest enemy to our faith made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen learning for said he they wound us with our own weapons and with our owne arts and sciences they overcome us And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this crafty means and so much in danger to decline into all ignorance that the two Apollinarii were fain as a man may say to coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible reducing it into divers forms of Orations Poems Dialogues ev'n to the calculating of a new Christian Grammar But saith the Historian Socrates The providence of God provided better then the industry of Apollinarius and his son by taking a way that illiterat law with the life of him who devis'd it So great an injury they then held it to be depriv'd of Hellenick learning and thought it a persecution more undermining and secretely decaying the Church then the open cruelty of Decius or Dioclesian And perhaps it was the same politick drift that the Divell whipt St. Jerom in a lenten dream for reading Cicero or else it was a fantasm bred by the feaver which had then seis'd him For had an Angel bin his discipliner unlesse it were for dwelling too much upon Ciceronianisms had chastiz'd the reading not the vanity it had bin plainly partiall first to correct him for grave Cicero and not for scurrill Plautus whom he confesses to have bin reading not long before next to correct him only and let so many more ancient Fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of such a tutoring apparition insomuch that Basil teaches how some good use may be made of Margites a sportfull 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 vision recorded by Eusebius far ancienter then this tale of Jerom to the Nun Eustochium and besides has nothing of a feavor in it Dionysius 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 conversant in their Books untill a certain Presbyter laid it scrupulously to his conscience how he durst 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 suddenly a vision sent from God it is his own Epistle that so averrs it confirm'd him in these words Read any books what ever come to thy hands for thou art sufficient both to judge aright and to examine each matter To this revelation he assented the sooner as he confesses because it was answerable to that of the Apostle to the Thessalonians Prove all things hold fast that which is good And he might have added another remarkable saying of the same 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 consequently the books if the will and conscience be not defil'd For books are as meats and viands are some of good some of evill substance and yet God in that unapocryphall vision said without exception Rise Peter kill and eat leaving the choice to each mans discretion Wholesome meats to a vitiated stomack differ little or nothing from unwholesome and best books to a naughty mind are not unappliable to occasions of evill Bad meats will scarce breed good nourishment in the healthiest concoction but herein the difference is of bad books that they to a discreet and judicious Reader serve in many respects to discover to confute to forewarn and to illustrate Wherof what better witnes can ye expect I should produce then one of your own now sitting in Parlament the chief of learned men reputed in this Land Mr. Selden whose volume of naturall national laws proves not only by great autorities brought together but by exquisite reasons and theorems almost mathematically demostrative that all opinions yea errors known read and collated are of main service assistance toward the speedy attainment of what is truest I conceive therefore that when God did enlarge the universall diet of mans body saving ever the rules of temperance he then also as before left arbitrary the dyeting and repasting of our
confute Seeing therefore that those books those in great abundance which are likeliest to taint both life and doctrine cannot be supprest without the fall of learning and of all ability in disputation and that these books of either sort are most and soonest catching to the learned from whom to the common people what ever is hereticall of dissolute may quickly be convey'd and that evill manners are as perfectly learnt without books a thousand other ways which cannot be stopt and evill doctrine not with books can propagate except a teacher guide which he might also doe without writing and so beyond prohibiting I am not able to unfold how this cautelous enterprise of licencing can be exempted from the number of vain and impossible attempts And he who were pleasantly dispos'd could not well avoid to lik'n it to the exploit of that gallant man who thought to pound up the crows by shutting his Parkgate Besides another inconvenience if learned men be the first receivers out of books dispredders both of vice and error how shall the licencers themselves be confided in unlesse we can conferr upon them or they assume to themselves above all others in the Land the grace of infallibility and uncorruptednesse And again if it be true that a wise man like a good refiner can gather gold out of the drossiest volume and that a fool will be a fool with the best book yea or without book there is no reason that we should deprive a wise man of any advantage to his wisdome while we seek to restrain from a fool that which being restrain'd will be no hindrance to his folly For it there should be so much exactnesse always us'd to keep that from him which is unfit for his reading we should in the judgement of Aristotle not only but of Salomon and of our Saviour not voutsafe him good precepts and by consequence not willingly admit him to good books as being certain that a wise man will make better use of an idle pamphlet then a fool will do of sacred Scripture 'T is next alleg'd we must not expose our selves to temptations without necessity and next to that not imploy our time in vain things To both these objections one answer will serve out of the grounds already laid that to all men such books are not temptations not vanities but usefull drugs and materialls wherewith to temper and compose effective and strong med'cins which mans life cannot want The rest as children and childish men who have not the art to qualifie and prepare these working mineralls well may be exhorted to forbear but hinder'd forcibly they cannot be by all the licencing that Sainted Inquisition could ever yet contrive which is what I promis'd to deliver next That this order of licencing conduces nothing to the end for which it was fram'd and hath almost prevented me by being clear already while thus much hath bin explaining See the ingenuity of Truth who when she gets a free and willing hand opens her self faster then the pace of method and discours can overtake her It was the task which I began with To shew that no Nation or well instituted State if they valu'd books at all did ever use this way of licencing and it might be answer'd that this is a piece of prudence lately discover'd To which I return that as it was a thing slight and obvious to think on so if it had bin difficult to finde out there wanted not among them long since who suggested such a cours which they not following leave us a pattern of their judgement that it was not the not knowing but the not approving which was the cause of their not using it Plato a man of high autority indeed but least of all for his Commonwealth in the book of his laws which no City ever yet receiv'd fed his fancie with making many edicts to his ayrie Burgomasters which they who otherwise admire him wish had bin rather buried and excus'd in the genial cups of an Academick night-satting By which laws he seems to tolerat no kind of learning but by unalterable decree consisting most of practicall traditions to the attainment whereof a Library of smaller bulk then his own dialogues would be abundant And there also enacts that no Poet should so much as read to any privat man what he had writt'n untill the Judges and Law-keepers had seen it and allow'd it But that Plato meant this Law peculiarly to that Commonwealth which he had imagin'd and to no other is evident Why was he not else a Law-giver to himself but a transgressor and to be expell'd by his own Magistrats both for the wanton epigrams and dialogues which he made and his perpetuall reading of Sophron Mimus and Aristophanes books of grossest infamy and also for commending the latter of them though he were the malicious libeller of his chief friends to be read by the Tyrant Dionysius who had little need of such trash to spend his time on But that he knew this licencing of Poems had reference and dependence to many other proviso's there set down in his fancied republic which in this world could have no place and so neither he himself nor any Magistrat or City ever imitated that cours which tak'n apart from those other collaterall injunctions must needs be vain and fruitlesse For if they fell upon one kind of strictnesse unlesse their care were equall to regulat all other things of like aptnes to corrupt the mind that single endeavour they knew would be but a fond labour to shut and fortifie one gate against corruption and be necessitated to leave others round about wide open If we think to regulat Printing thereby to rectifie manners we must regulat all recreations and pastimes all that is delightfull to man No musick must be heard no song be set or sung but what is grave and Dorick There must be licencing dancers that no gesture motion or deportment be taught our youth but what by their allowance shall be thought honest for such Plato was provided of It will ask more then the work of twenty licencers to examin all the lutes the violins and the ghittarrs in every house they must not be suffer'd to prattle as they doe but must be licenc'd what they may say And who shall silence all the airs and madrigalls that whisper softnes in chambers The Windows also and the Balcone's must be thought on there are shrewd books with dangerous Frontispices set to sale who shall prohibit them shall twenty licencers The villages also must have their visitors to enquire what lectures the bagpipe and the rebbeck reads ev'n to the ballatry and the gammuth of every municipal sidler for these are the Countrymans Arcadia's and his Monte Mayors Next what more Nationall corruption for which England hears ill abroad then houshold gluttony who shall be the rectors of our daily rioting and what shall be done to inhibit the multitudes that frequent those houses where drunk'nes is sold and