ave ready assent to a Bill from the Lords "for the
more effectual suppressing of atheism, blasphemy, and
profaneness." But it would seem that these efforts had but a
qualified success, for on February 12th, 1720, the Lords
condemned a work which, "in a daring, impious manner, ridiculed
the doctrine of the Trinity and all revealed religion," and was
called, _A Sober Reply to Mr. Higgs' Merry Arguments from the
Light of Nature for the Tritheistic Doctrine of the Trinity, with
a Postscript relating to the Rev. Dr. Waterland_. This work,
which was the last to be burnt as an offence against religion,
was the work of one Joseph Hall, who was a gentleman and a
serjeant-at-arms to the King, and in this way won his small title
to fame.

By the beginning of the eighteenth century, the House of Lords
had come to assume a more active jurisdiction over the Press.
Thus in 1702, within a few days we find them severely censuring
the notorious Dr. Drake's _History of the Last Parliament, begun
1700_; somebody's _Tom Double, returned out of the Country; or,
The True Picture of a modern Whig_; Dr. Blinke's violent sermon,
preached on January 30th, 1701, before the Lower House of
Convocation; and a pamphlet, inviting over the Elector of
Hanover. In the same month they condemned to be burnt by the
hangman a book entitled, _Animadversions upon the two last 30th
of January Sermons: one preached to the Honourable House of
Commons, the other to the Lower House of Convocation. In a
letter._ They resolved that it was "a malicious, villainous
libel, containing very many reflections on King Charles I., of
ever-blessed memory, and tending to the subversion of the
Monarchy."

But the more general practice was for the House of Lords to seek
the concurrence of the other House in the consignment of printed
matter to the flames; a concurrence which in those days was of
far more easy attainment over book-burning or anything else than
it is in our own time, or is ever likely to be in the future. It
would also seem that during the eighteenth century it was
generally the House of Lords that took the initiative in the
time-honoured practice of condemning disagreeable opinions to the
care of the hangman.

The unanimity alluded to between our two Houses was displayed in
several instances. Thus on November 16th, 1722, the Commons
agreed with the resolution of the Peers to have burnt at the
Exchange the Declaration of the Pretender, beginning:
"Declaratio