n
England, only a decree in the Star-chamber," said the learned
Selden.[107] Proclamations were occasionally issued against authors and
books; and foreign works were, at times, prohibited. The freedom of the
press was rather circumvented, than openly attacked, in the reign of
Elizabeth, who dreaded the Roman Catholics, who were at once disputing
her right to the throne, and the religion of the state. Foreign
publications, or "books from any parts beyond the seas," were therefore
prohibited.[108] The press, however, was not free under the reign of a
sovereign, whose high-toned feelings, and the exigencies of the times,
rendered as despotic in _deeds_, as the pacific James was in _words_.
Although the press had then no restrictions, an author was always at the
mercy of the government. Elizabeth too had a keen scent after what she
called treason, which she allowed to take in a large compass. She
condemned one author (with his publisher) to have the hand cut off which
wrote his book; and she hanged another.[109] It was Sir Francis Bacon,
or his father, who once pleasantly turned aside the keen edge of her
regal vindictiveness; for when Elizabeth was inquiring whether an
author, whose book she had given him to examine, was not guilty of
treason, he replied, "Not of treason, madam, but of robbery, if you
please; for he has taken all that is worth noticing in him from Tacitus
and Sallust." With the fear of Elizabeth before his eyes, Holinshed
castrated the volumes of his History. When Giles Fletcher, after his
Russian embassy, congratulated himself with having escaped with his
head, and on his return wrote a book called "The Russian Commonwealth,"
describing its tyranny, Elizabeth forbad the publishing of the work. Our
Russian merchants were frightened, for they petitioned the queen to
suppress the work; the original petition, with the offensive passages,
exists among the Lansdowne manuscripts. It is curious to contrast this
fact with another better known, under the reign of William the Third;
then the press had obtained its perfect freedom, and even the shadow of
the sovereign could not pass between an author and his work. When the
Danish ambassador complained to the king of the freedom which Lord
Molesworth had exercised on his master's government, in his Account of
Denmark, and hinted that, if a Dane had done the same with a King of
England, he would, on complaint, have taken the author's head off--"That
I cannot do," replie