a lamb in the lowest fold.
The inscription on this scroll is as follows:--

"Tigre . Reo.
Animale . Del.
Adam . Vecchio.
Figliuolo . Merce.
L'Evangelio . Fatto.
N'Estat . Agnello."

I venture my own solution:--The tiger, the wicked animal, of the old Adam,
being made, thanks to the Gospel, a son, is hence become a lamb."

I presume _N'Estat_ to be an abbreviation of "ne e stato." Any correction
or illustration of this will oblige.

C.W. BINGHAM.

Bingham's Melcombe, Blandford.

* * * * *

REPLIES.

LICENSING OF BOOKS.

(Vol. ii., p.359.)

On the 12th November, 5 & 6 Philip and Mary, 1558, a bill "That no man
shall print any book or ballad, &c., unless he be authorized thereunto by
the king and queen's majesties licence, under the Great Seal of Englande,"
was read for the first time in the House of Lords, where it was read again
a second time on the 14th. On the 16th it was read for the third time, but
it did not pass, and probably never reached the Commons; for Queen Mary
died on the following day, and thereby the Parliament was dissolved.
(_Lords' Journal_, i. 539, 540.) Queen Elizabeth, however did by her high
prerogative what her sister had sought to effect by legislative sanction.
In the first year of her reign, 1559, she issued injunctions concerning
both the clergy and the laity: the 51st Injunction was in the following
terms:--

"Item, because there is great abuse in the printers of books, which for
covetousness chiefly regard not what they print, so they may have gain,
whereby ariseth the great disorder by publication of unfruitful, vain,
and infamous books and papers; the queen's majesty straitly chargeth
and commandeth, that no manner of person shall print any manner of book
or paper, of what sort, nature, or in what language soever it be,
except the same be first licensed by Her Majesty by express words in
writing, or by six of her privy council; or be perused and licensed by
the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishop of London, the
chancellors of both universities, the bishop being ordinary, and the
archdeacon also of the place, where any such shall be printed, or by
two of them, whereof the ordinary of the place to be always one. And
that the names of such, as shall allow the same, to be added in the end
of every such work, for a testimony of the allowance thereof. And