Oldmixons as audaciously assumed that it was interpolated and mutilated, without, however, producing any other evidence than their own surmises, or gross fictions or popular rumours.

66

With the fate of Clarendon before his eyes, a witness of the injury which this mysterious mode of publishing the History of Lord Clarendon had occasioned, the son of Bishop Burnet suffered that congenial work, the History of his own Times," to participate in the same ill-fortune. On the publication of the first volume, this editor promised that the autograph "should be deposited in the Cottonian Library for the satisfaction of the public, as soon as the second volume should be printed." This was not done; the editor was repeatedly called on to perform that solemn contract in which he had engaged with the public. A recent fire had damaged many of the Cottonian manuscripts, and this was now pleaded as an excuse for not trusting the bishop's manuscript to the chance of destruction. Expostulation only met with evasion. We are not now ignorant of the real cause of this breach of a solemn duty. The bishop in his will had expressly enjoined that his History should be given in the state in which he had himself left it. But the freedom of the paternal pen had alarmed the filial editor. He found himself in the exact position which the son of Lord Clarendon had already preoccu

pied. Omissions were made to abate the displeasure of those who would have writhed under the severity of the historian's censure-characters were but partially delineated, and the tale sometimes was left half told. It happened that the bishop had often submitted his manuscript to the eyes of many during his life-time. Curious researchers into facts, and profound observers of opinions, had become diligent extractors, more particularly the supervisor of the printed proofs; and when the printed volumes appeared, most of these omissions stood as living testimonials to the faithlessness of the prudential editor. The margins of various copies, among the curious in Literature, overflowed with the castrations; the forbidden fruit was plucked. We now have the History of Burnet not entirely according to "the will" of the fervid chronicler, but as far as its restored passages could be obtained; for some, it is evident, have never been recovered *. Thus it happened, that the editors of Clarendon and Burnet form a parallel case, suffering under the inconveniences of editors of contemporary memoirs.

The perplexed feeling of the times in regard to both these Histories we may catch from a manuscript letter of the great collector, Dr. Rawlinson :-" Among

* Burnet's History, iv. 552, edition 1823.

Bishop Turner's* manuscripts," Rawlinson writes, "are observations on Lord Clarendon's History, when sent him by old Edward's son, the Nonjuror, who gave it to Alma Mater; if alterations were made, this may be a means of discovering. I have often wondered why the original MS. of that History is not put into some public place to answer all objections; but when I consider a whimsical family, my surprise is the less. Judge BURNET has promised under his hand, on the backside of every title of the second volume of his father's History of his Life and Times, to put in the originals into some public library; but quando is the case. I purchased the MS. of a gentleman who corrected the press, when that book was printed, and amongst his papers I have all the castrations, many of which, I believe, he communicated to Dr. Beach's sons, whom T. Burnet had abused in a life of his father, at the end of the second volumet." Here, then, the world possessed sufficient evidence at the time of their early appearance, that these Histories had suffered variations and omissions-by the heirs of their authors, and the imperfect executors of their solemn and testamentary will.

I cannot quit the present subject without a remark on these great party Histories of Clarendon and Burnet.

* Sic in original, but probably Tanner.

+ Rawlinson's Bodleian MSS., vol. ii., lett. 38.

Both have passed through the fiery ordeal of national opinion, and both, with some of their pages singed, remain unconsumed: the one criticised for its solemn eloquence, the other ridiculed for its homely simplicity; the one depreciated for its partiality, the other for its inaccuracy; both alike, as we have seen, by their opposite parties, once considered as works utterly rejected from the historical shelf.

But Posterity reverences Genius, for posterity only can decide on its true worth. Time, potent over criticism, has avenged our two great writers of the history of their own days. The awful genius of CLARENDON is still paramount, and the vehement spirit of BURNET has often its secret revelations confirmed. Such shall ever be the fate of those precious writings, which, though they have to contend with the passions of their own age, yet, originating in the personal intercourse of the writers with the subjects of their narratives, possess an endearing charm which no criticism can dissolve, a reality which outlasts fiction, and a truth which diffuses its vitality over pages which cannot die*.

*I refer the reader to Curiosities of Literature, art. "Of Suppressors and Dilapidators of Manuscripts;" he will there find that in the case of the Marquis of Halifax' Diary, of which to secure its preservation the writer had left two copies, both were silently destroyed by two opposite partisans, the one startled at some mean deceptions of the Revolutionists of 1688, and the other at the Catholic intrigues of the court.

THE WAR AGAINST BOOKS.

THE history of our literature, at the early era of printing, till the first indications appear of what is termed "copyright," forms a chapter in the history of our civilisation which has not been opened to us.

This history includes two important incidents in our literary annals; the one, an exposition of the complicate arts practised by an alarmed government to possess an absolute control over the printers, which annihilated the freedom of the press; and the other, the contests of those printers and booksellers who had grants and licenses, and other privileges of a monopoly, with the rest of the brotherhood who maintained an equal right of publication, and contended for the freedom of the trade.

Although Caxton, our first printer, bore the title of Regius Impressor, printed books were still so rare in this country under Richard the Third, that an act of parliament in 1483 contains a proviso in favour of aliens to encourage the importation of books. During a period of forty years, books were supplied by foreign printers, some of whom appear to have accompanied their merchandise, and to have settled themselves here. It became necessary to repeal this privilege conceded