nsation, to read tracts which represented King William and Queen
Mary as conquerors?

In that age persons who were not specially interested in a public
bill very seldom petitioned Parliament against it or for it. The only
petitions therefore which were at this conjuncture presented to the two
Houses against the censorship came from booksellers, bookbinders and
printers. [398] But the opinion which these classes expressed was
certainly not confined to them.

The law which was about to expire had lasted eight years. It was renewed
for only two years. It appears, from an entry in the journals of the
Commons which unfortunately is defective, that a division took place on
an amendment about the nature of which we are left entirely in the dark.
The votes were ninety-nine to eighty. In the Lords it was proposed,
according to the suggestion offered fifty years before by Milton and
stolen from him by Blount, to exempt from the authority of the licenser
every book which bore the name of an author or publisher. This amendment
was rejected; and the bill passed, but not without a protest signed by
eleven peers who declared that they could not think it for the public
interest to subject all learning and true information to the arbitrary
will and pleasure of a mercenary and perhaps ignorant licenser. Among
those who protested were Halifax, Shrewsbury and Mulgrave, three
noblemen belonging to different political parties, but all distinguished
by their literary attainments. It is to be lamented that the signatures
of Tillotson and Burnet, who were both present on that day, should be
wanting. Dorset was absent. [399]

Blount, by whose exertions and machinations the opposition to the
censorship had been raised, did not live to see that opposition
successful. Though not a very young man, he was possessed by an insane
passion for the sister of his deceased wife. Having long laboured in
vain to convince the object of his love that she might lawfully marry
him, he at last, whether from weariness of life, or in the hope of
touching her heart, inflicted on himself a wound of which, after
languishing long, he died. He has often been mentioned as a blasphemer
and selfmurderer. But the important service which, by means doubtless
most immoral and dishonourable, he rendered to his country, has passed
almost unnoticed. [400]

Late in this busy and eventful session the attention of the Houses was
called to the state of Ireland. The government of t