Sir Edward Dering complained to Parliament that ’the most learned labours of our ancient and best divines must now be corrected and defaced with a ‘deleatur’ by the supercilious pen of my Lord’s young chaplain, fit, perhaps, for the technical arts, but unfit to hold the chair of Divinity.’ (Rushworth’s Hist.  Coll. iv. 55.) Historical works seem to have been submitted to the Secretary of State for his sanction.  To May’s poem of the ‘Victorious Reign of King Edward the Third’ is prefixed, ’I have perused this Book, and conceive it very worthy to be published.  Io.  Coke, Knight, Principal Secretary of State, Whitehall, 17 of November, 1634.’  But Aleyn’s metrical ‘History of Henry VII.’ (1638) is licensed by the Bishop of London’s domestic chaplain, who writes:  ’Perlegi historicum hoc poema, dignumque judico quod Typis mandetur.  Tho.  Wykes R. P. Episc.  Lond.  Chapell.  Domest.’  The first newspaper had been ’the Weekly Newes’, first published May 23, 1622, at a time when, says Sir Erskine May (in his ‘Constitutional History of England’, 1760-1860), ’political discussion was silenced by the licenser, the Star Chamber, the dungeon, the pillory, mutilation, and branding.’  The contest between King and Commons afterwards developed the free controversial use of tracts and newspapers, but the Parliament was not more tolerant than the king, and against the narrow spirit of his time Milton rose to his utmost height, fashioning after the masterpiece of an old Greek orator who sought to stir the blood of the Athenians, his Areopagitica, or Defence of the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing.  In the reign of Charles II. the Licensing Act (13 and 14 Charles II. cap. 33) placed the control of printing in the Government, confined exercise of the printer’s art to London, York, and the Universities, and limited the number of the master printers to twenty.  Government established a monopoly of news in the London Gazette.  ‘Authors and printers of obnoxious works,’ says Sir E. May, citing cases in notes, were hung, ’quartered, and mutilated, exposed in the pillory and flogged, or fined and imprisoned, according to the temper of their judges:  their productions were burned by the common hangman.  Freedom of opinion was under interdict:  even news could not be published without license...  James II. and his infamous judges carried the Licensing Act into effect with barbarous severity.  But the Revolution brought indulgence even to the Jacobite Press; and when the Commons, in 1695, refused to renew the Licensing Act, a censorship of the press was for ever renounced by the law of England.’  There remained, however, a rigorous interpretation of the libel laws; Westminster Hall accepting the traditions of the Star Chamber.  Still there was enough removal of restriction to ensure the multiplication of newspapers and the blending of intelligence with free political discussion.  In Queen Anne’s reign the virulence of party spirit produced bitter personal attacks and willingness on either side to bring an antagonist under