r
an address was welcomed with acclamation, and Campion promised to
undertake it, suggesting on his side that Persons should arrange
ways and means for printing the tract when finished, and any
other which might seem needed.

This agreed to, all separated once more, and Campion rode
northwards on a tour which he took in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and
Lancashire, and which was not over for six months. Meantime
Father Persons had set up his "magic press" near London, and
issued from it five volumes of small size indeed, but of
remarkable vigour and merit. As soon as any notable attack was
made on the Catholics, an answer was brought out in a wonderfully
short time, and these answers were pithy, vigorous, and pointed,
in no ordinary degree. When one remembers how much co-operation
is needed to bring out even the slightest volume, one is truly
astonished at the feat of bringing out so many and such good
ones, while the hourly fear of capture, torture, and death hung
over the heads of all. When threatened with danger in one place
the press was bodily transported to another.

However, our business at present is not with Persons, but with
Campion. His book was finished and sent up to Persons in March,
1581, with a title altered to suit the controversy which had
already begun. It was now _Decem Rationes: quibus fretus,
certamen adversariis obtulit in causa Fidei, Edmundus Campianus
&c._ "Ten Reasons, for the confidence with which Edmund Campion
offered his adversaries to dispute on behalf of the Faith, set
before the famous men of our Universities." Persons was charmed,
as he had expected to be, with its literary grace. It was in
Latin, as had been agreed, and Campion's Latin prose, (though
critics of our time find it somewhat silvery and Livian), suited
the tastes of that day to perfection. The only thing which made
Persons at all thoughtful was the number of references. Campion
declared that he was sure he had verified them, as he entered
them in his notebook, but Persons, with greater caution, declared
that they must be verified anew.

The difficulty of this for men living under the ban, and cut off
from access to large libraries, was of course great, but through
the help of others, especially through Mr. Thomas Fitzherbert of
Swynnerton, the task was happily accomplished. Campion came up
from the north to Stonor, on the Oxfordshire border where the
secret press then was; and there, amid a thousand fears, alarms
and dange