ive and arbitrary powers of search for unlicensed books and
presses were also given to the wardens of the Stationers' Company.
(Strype's _Life of Archbishop Whitgift_, 222.; Records, No.XXIV.) On the
1st July, 1637, another decree of a similar character was made by the Court
of Star Chamber. (Rushworth's _Historical Collections_, Part ii. p.450.)
The Long Parliament, although it dissolved the Star Chamber, seems to have
had no more enlightened views as respects the freedom of the press than
Queen Elizabeth or the Archbishops Whitgift and Laud; for on the 14th June,
1643, the two Houses made an ordinance prohibiting the printing of any
order or declaration of either House, without order of one or both Houses;
or the printing or sale of any book, pamphlet, or paper, unless the same
were approved and licensed under the hands of such persons as both or
either House should appoint for licensing the same. (_Parliamentary
History_, xii. 298.) The names of the licensers appointed are given in
Neal's _History of the Puritans_ (ed. 1837, ii. 205.). It was this
ordinance which occasioned the publication, in or about 1644, of Milton's
most noble defence of the liberty of the press, entitled _Areopagitica; a
Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing, To the Parliament of
England_. After setting out certain Italian imprimaturs, he remarks:

"These are the pretty responsories, these are the dear antiphonies that
so bewitched of late our prelates and their chaplains with the godly
echo they made and besotted, as to the gay imitation of a lordly
imprimatur, one from Lambeth House, another from the west end of
Paul's; so apishly romanising, that the word of command still was set
down in Latin, as if the learned grammatical pen that wrote it would
cast no ink without Latin; or, perhaps, as they thought, because no
vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an imprimatur;
but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever
famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily
find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption
englished."

On the 28th September, 1647, the Lords and Commons passed a still more
severe ordinance, which imposed pains and penalties on all persons
printing, publishing, selling, or uttering any book, pamphlet, treatise,
ballad, libel, or sheet of news, without the licence of both, or either
House of Parlia