of
the two: but the _unique_ appendage of the Latin epistle
shews that the editor considered the cardinal a more
distinguished bibliomaniac than the monarch.]

We have now reached the REFORMATION; upon which, as Burnet, Collier,
and Strype, have written huge folio volumes, it shall be my object to
speak sparingly: and chiefly as it concerns the history of the
Bibliomania. A word or two, however, about its origin, spirit, and
tendency.

It seems to have been at first very equivocal, with Henry the Eighth,
whether he would take any decisive measures in the affair, or not. He
hesitated, resolved, and hesitated again.[303] The creature of caprice
and tyranny, he had neither fixed principles, nor settled data, upon
which to act. If he had listened to the temperate advice of CROMWELL
or CRANMER,[304] he would have attained his darling object by less
decisive, but certainly by more justifiable, means. Those able and
respectable counsellors saw clearly that violent measures would
produce violent results; and that a question of law, of no mean
magnitude, was involved in the very outset of the transaction--for
there seemed, on the one side, no right to possess; and, on the other,
no right to render possession.[305]

[Footnote 303: "The king seemed to think that his subjects
owed an entire resignation of their reasons and consciences
to him; and, as he was highly offended with those who still
adhered to the papal authority, so he could not bear the
haste that some were making to a further reformation, before
or beyond his allowance. So, in the end of the year 1538, he
set out a proclamation, in which he prohibits the importing
of all foreign books, or the printing of any at home without
license; and the printing of any parts of the scripture,
'till they were examined by the king and his council," &c.
"He requires that none may argue against the presence of
Christ in the Sacrament, under the pain of death, and of the
loss of their goods; and orders all to be punished who did
disuse any rites or ceremonies not then abolished; yet he
orders them only to be observed without superstition, only
as remembrances, and not to repose in them a trust of
salvation."--Burnet's _Hist. of the Reformation_. But long
before this obscure and arbitrary act was passed, Henry's
mind had been a little shaken against papacy from a singular