did call the bishops "limbs of the
Beast," "ravening wolves," and so forth, the language of Laud's
party against the Puritans was not one whit more refined. So
convinced was Burton of the justice of his cause, that he
declared that all the time he stood in the pillory he thought
himself "in heaven, and in a state of glory and triumph if any
such state can possibly be on earth."

It is in connection with Bastwick's _Letany_ and Prynne's _News
from Ipswich_ that Lilburne, of subsequent revolutionary fame,
first appears on the stage of history, as responsible for their
printing in Holland and dispersion in England. At all events he
was punished for that offence, being whipped with great severity,
by order of the Star Chamber, all the way from the Fleet Prison
to Westminster, where he stood for some hours in the pillory. He
was then only twenty. Laud had the second instalment of the books
seized upon landing, and then burnt.

In this matter of book-burning the Archbishop seems at that time
to have had sole authority, and doubtless many more books met
with a fiery fate than are specifically mentioned. Laud himself
refers in a letter to an order he issued for the seizure and
public burning in Smithfield of as many copies as could be found
of an English translation of St. Francis de Sales' _Praxis
Spiritualis; or, The Introduction to a Devout Life_, which, after
having been licensed by his chaplain, had been tampered with, in
the Roman Catholic interest, in its passage through the press. Of
this curious book some twelve hundred copies were burnt, but a
few hundred copies had been dispersed before the seizure.

The Archbishop's duties, as general superintendent of literature
and the press, constituted, indeed, no sinecure. For ever since
the year 1585, the Star Chamber regulations, passed at Archbishop
Whitgift's instigation, had been in force; and, with unimportant
exceptions, no book could be printed without being first seen,
perused, and allowed by the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of
London. Rome herself had no more potent device for the
maintenance of intellectual tyranny. The task of perusal was
generally deputed to the Archbishop's chaplain, who, as in the
case of Prynne's _Histriomastix_, ran the risk of a fine and the
pillory if he suffered a book to be licensed without a careful
study of its contents.

But the powers of the Archbishop over the press were not yet
enough for Laud, and in July 1637 the Star