itive Church or the word of the Gospel--a
thesis that has long since become generally accepted; but his
main offence consisted in saying that the Lord's Prayer ought in
one sentence to have been translated precisely as it now has been
in the Revised Version, and in contending that the frequent
repetition of the prayer in church was contrary to the express
command of Scripture. On these and other points Delaune's book
was never answered--for the reason, I believe, that it never
could be. After the Act of Toleration (1689) it was often
reprinted; the eighth and last time in 1706, when the High Church
movement to persecute Dissent had assumed dangerous strength,
with an excellent preface by Defoe, and concluding with the
letters to Dr. Calamy, written by Delaune from Newgate. Defoe
well points out that the great artifice of Delaune's time was to
make the persecution of Dissent appear necessary, by
representing it as dangerous to the State as well as the Church.

The mention of two other books seems to complete the list of
burnt political literature down to the Revolution of 1688.

One is _Malice Defeated_, or a brief relation of the accusation
and deliverance of Elizabeth Cellier. The authoress was
implicated in the Dangerfield conspiracy, and, having been
indicted for plotting to kill the King and to reintroduce Popery,
was sentenced at the Old Bailey to be imprisoned till she had
paid a fine of L1,000, to stand three times in the pillory, and
to have her books burnt by the hangman. I do not suppose that, in
her case, literature incurred any loss.

The other is the translation of Claude's _Plaintes des
Protestants_, burnt at the Exchange on May 5th, 1686. After the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, people like Sir Roger
l'Estrange were well paid to write denials of any cruelties as
connected with that measure in France; much as in our own day
people wrote denials of the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria. The
famous Huguenot minister's book proved of course abundantly the
falsity of this denial; but, as Evelyn says, so great a power in
the English Court had then the French ambassador, "who was
doubtless in great indignation at the pious and truly generous
charity of all the nation for the relief of those miserable
sufferers who came over for shelter," that, in deference to his
wishes, the Government of James II. condemned the truth to the
flames. Nothing in that monarch's reign proves more conclusively
the depth of deg