Attending the precedent relation, it is allow'd that this prefent work of Davanzati may be Printed, Vincent Rabatta, &c. It may be printed, July 15, Frior Simon Mompei d'Amelia Chancellor of the holy office in Flo rence. Sure they have a conceit, if he of the bottomleffe 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 ** * Quo veniam daret flatum crepitumque ventris in convivio emittendi. Sueton. in Claudio. through through with. Voutfafe to fee another of their forms the Roman ftamp: Imprimatur, If it seem good to the reverend Master of the holy Palace, Belcaftro Vicegerent. Imprimatur, Friar Nicolò Rodolphi Master of the holy Palace. Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are feen together dialogue-wife in the Piatza of one Title page, complementing and ducking éach to other with their fhav'n reverences, whether the Author, who ftands. by in perplexity at the foot of his Epiftle, fhall to the Preffe or to the spunge. These are the pretty refponfories, thefe are the deare Antiphonies that fo bewicht of late our Prelats, and their Chap laines with the goodly Eccho they made; and befotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambeth houfe, another from the Weft 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 caft no ink without Latine: or perhaps, as they thought, becaufe no vulgar tongue was worthy to expreffe 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 atchievements of liberty, will not eafily finde fervile letters anow to spell fuch a dictatorie prefumption Englifht. And thus ye have the Inventors and the ori ginall ginal 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, not by any Statute left us by our Ances tors elder or later; nor from the moderne cuftom of any reformed Citty, or Church abroad; but from the most Antichriftian 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 fate crof-leg'd over the nativity of any mans intellectual off-fpring; but if it prov'd a Monster, who denies, but that it was justly burnt, or funk into the Sea. But But that a Book in wors condition then a peccant soul, fhould 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 paffe the ferry backward into light, was never heard before, till that mystérious 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 alfo within the number of their damned. And this was the rare morfell fo officiously snatcht 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 finister intention |