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αὐθεντικῶς nunciabatur, &c. Αὐθεντικός is the adjective of αὐθέντης, contracted from avтоévτηs, 'one who does anything with his own hand;' an actual murderer, a suicide, &c. See Eikonoklastes, chap. 28: 'It were extreme partiality and injustice, the flat denial and overthrow of herself [of Justice] to put her own authentic sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked man.' See Trench's Select Glossary.

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22. a Star-chamber decree, &c. See a copy of this Decree, made the eleventh day of July last past, 1637,' in Arber's Reprint, pp. 7-23.

Star-chamber. See Hallam's Constitutional History of England, Student's Edition, pp. 28-30, 227-230. This shameful Court was abolished in 1641, along with that of the High Commission. There were some who would have revived it in 1661, but happily they were unable.

25. with Lucifer. See Isaiah xiv. 12.

29. bind books, &c.; i.e. bind them over,' as we say.

30. your precedent Order. See above.

31. those men, &c. ; i. e. the booksellers.

33. the fraud of some old patentees, &c. These tradesmen had feared that certain privileges of their own might be encroached upon, should all restrictions upon Printing be removed.

P. 58. 1. monopolizers. See above, p. 33.

under pretence of the poor, &c. See the Order: And that no person or persons shall hereafter print, or cause to be reprinted, any Book or Books or part of Book or Books heretofore allowed of and granted to the said Company of Stationers for their relief and maintenance of their poore, without the licence or consent of the Master, Wardens, or Assistants of the said Company,' &c.

3. the just retaining, &c. He refers to this matter of copyright above, p. 5. severall. Several is etymologically connected with separate. See note in Longer English Poems on Hymn on the Nativity, 234:

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Each fettered ghost slips to his severall grave,'

5. colours = specious arguments, disguisings or misrepresentations, exaggerations or extenuations, &c. We still speak of a highly coloured account,' &c. This use of the word comes to us from the Latin rhetoricians. See Quintilian, iv. 2. 88, et seq. &c. Juvenal, vi. 280:

'Dic aliquem, sodes, hic, Quintiliane, colorem,' &c.

See Chaucer's Squier's Tale, Part ii; Bacon's Coulers of Good and Evil, a fragment, 1597, printed in the Golden Treasury edition of the Essays.

6. to exercise, &c. = to retain their advantages over other members of the bookselling trade.

12. malignant = anti-Parliamentary, Royalist, &c. Says the Tory Dr. Johnson: 'It was a word used of the defenders of the church and monarchy by the rebel sectaries in the civil wars.'

14. these Sophisms and Elenchs of marchandize = these trade considerations; more strictly, these fallacious arguments urged by the booksellers, and their refutations.

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elenchs èλéyxo, Aristotle, Analytica Priora, ii. 20. 1. A syllogism by which the adversary is forced to contradict himself was specially so called; but it is often used in a general sense. See Bacon's Advancement of Learning, ii. 14. 5, 6: 'The second method of doctrine [the first is that part of logic which is comprehended in the 'Analytics'] was introduced for expedite use and assurance sake, discovering the more subtile forms of sophisms and illaqueations with their redargutions, which is that which is termed elenches. For although in the more gross sort of fallacies it happeneth (as Seneca maketh the comparison well) as in juggling feats, which, though we know not how they are done, yet we know well it is not as it seemeth to be; yet the more subtile sort of them doth not only put a man besides his answer, but doth many times abuse his judgement. This part concerning elenches is excellently handled by Aristotle in precept, but more excellently by Plato in example; not only in the persons of the Sophists, but even in Socrates himself, who, professing to affirm nothing, but to infirm that which was affirmed by another, hath exactly expressed all the forms of objection, fallace, and redargution,' &c.

19. what hath bin err'd. A classicism. Cp. Quintilian, vi. 5. 7: Si nihil esset erratum,' &c.

20. in highest autority; i. e. for those in highest authority.

a plain advertisement = a mere calling of your attention to the facts of the case, a simple notification, &c.

21. is a vertue, &c. He concludes, as he began, with a lofty panegyric of the Parliament that had done for us such splendid service.

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