Mon May 03 2004 08:17 Weekly stats:
147, 13308
Rate: 94.67%
Mon May 03 2004 14:25 NST8NDT:
Because social norms governing egalitarian modes of address changed every eight months or so, she had been able to run ad hoc experiments on the two prevailing fashions. Normed universal camaradarie made you hate yourself, and normed universal respect made you resent everyone else. It was almost enough to make you long for one or the other--this was her working mechanism for the change.
...
Correctness was a property of translations, not of peoples' lives.
Tue May 04 2004 06:41:
notebook doesn't get reset on multi-page portal view
Tue May 04 2004 09:37:
amazon thinks 'the reginald perrin omnibus' doesn't exist, so it disappeared from my wish list. this is a reminder that it is in the set of books i want even though it's not on the list i keep on amazon.
Tue May 04 2004 10:47:
trilobite, mola mola
Thu May 06 2004 07:36:
does this work in reverse? if so, i was a hero! "The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else."
Thu May 06 2004 09:24:
The Strange Case of Harry Dexter White
Thu May 06 2004 15:10:
technical support for concepts
Thu May 06 2004 15:11:
"Yes," said Jake."Well," said Jake.
Fri May 07 2004 13:41 NST8NDT:
Vindication! http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0417/essay.php Until 50 years ago, the book's paper wrapper was there to draw attention in a store, and to protect the book until someone actually sat down and read it. At that time it was commonly discarded�which is why so few books with intact dust jackets survive from those early days.
Fri May 07 2004 14:32:
i can't even think of a silly add-on that's not already in there: http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm (ml)
Fri May 07 2004 17:43 NST8NDT:
nb release titles: REDACTED
Mon May 10 2004 08:10:
"your george w bush nickname is..."
Mon May 10 2004 09:34:
can you download the drugs? Online drugs are offered online at savings!
Mon May 10 2004 10:17 NST8NDT:
newsbruiser community, wiki
Mon May 10 2004 11:05 NST8NDT Unmaintained Free Software -- Index:
Like Freshmeat, only it only has the projects you don't want to see.
Mon May 10 2004 14:14:
"The direction for use is easy very at the degree which also the developer mom will use and (the developer mom talk is being recorded in home page)." http://www.pserang.co.kr/main_article/coverstory/content.php?no2=462&page_num=&search2=&searchstr=&msearch=&num=18&content_num=4
Tue May 11 2004 10:38:
kool-aid flavor of the month
Tue May 11 2004 14:12:
"gains momentum" == "here, look at this again"
Tue May 11 2004 16:10:
Subject: Leonardr, your girlfriend will thank you BIG time!
Wed May 12 2004 07:16:
nonexistent notebook broken
Wed May 12 2004 10:32 NST8NDT Hummus recon:
Recipes:
http://www.askachef.com/recipe/recipeDetails.cfm?RecipeID=1093
http://www.here.vi/Recipes/vb12.htm (also Tzatziki)
http://www.yankeeharvest.com/recipes/recipe18.html
http://veggietable.allinfo-about.com/recipes/hummus.html
http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/ubbs/archive/DIPS/Hummus_Recipes_by_Maree.html
http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/ubbs/archive/BEANSandGRAINS/Beans_Oil-Free_Tofu_Hummus.html
^-Assuming a recipe where the tahini is optional can be trusted
http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/getrecipe.zsp?id=89524
http://www.egyptmonth.com/mag03012001/mag5.htm
Common incredients: garbanzo, olive oil, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt+pepper
Custom ingredients: cumin+, soy sauce?, ground sesame!, oregano, paprika, chopped parsley, chopped chilis, coriander, yogurt!, coriander, cayenne, turmeric, cilantro
Possible secrets: soaked garbanzos, reserved liquid, lots of tahini, ground sesame, yogurt, cumin
Ali Baba probably uses Sysco ingredients, so "use fancy x" and "soak the garbanzos" are probably not the secret. Bet fresh lemon juice is better than squeeze-bottle though.
Wed May 12 2004 11:03:
His hand lay on the windowsill like a lizard in the sun.
Wed May 12 2004 13:44:
"Huckabee's Hot & Happy Cajun Jambalaya": http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/0rec/governor.htm (No wonder the slogan was "Get the Huck out!")
Wed May 12 2004 13:51:
PS: http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/ct/gov/ctgov13.htm looks like an undertaker
"so sorry for your loss. but at least your loved one is in heaven now, along with these carrots"
Wed May 12 2004 13:58:
video on publish on demand: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/help/learn_book.aspx http://www.lulu.com/ <-Also does music, but no better than just putting it up for download could
Wed May 12 2004 14:44:
(please don't actually do this): write good stories based on stupid concepts found in published-on-demand book summaries
Thu May 13 2004 09:38:
"Get out! The elephant is coming from inside the room!"
Thu May 13 2004 10:34:
"a place undergoing relativistic time dilation wouldn't have a constant timezone"
Thu May 13 2004 13:42:
"They are probably not more than one standard deviation smarter than you."
Thu May 13 2004 14:41:
those are good tamales (and he's standing where gert clark was standing when I talked to her) http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/040513/480/dcn10605132126&e=1&ncid=705
Thu May 13 2004 16:03:
sadly taken: "relationshop"
Thu May 13 2004 16:18:
i.. will eat... this fucking.. steak! http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/040513/480/dcn10705132154&e=6&ncid=705
Fri May 14 2004 08:33:
brain teaser: find circular sublist in linked list without using hashtable
Fri May 14 2004 15:19:
pete peterson II wants bokbarlava
Mon May 17 2004 04:36:
no time for math: 216, 18242
Mon May 17 2004 06:37:
mt has an export format--what is it?
Mon May 17 2004 08:27 NST8NDT:
import in general is broken
Tue May 18 2004 23:22 NST8NDT:
take another stab at me: http://gibeo.net/ from jeremie miller
Wed May 19 2004 09:39:
"i would like to see a statue of ganesha holding a little icon of ganesha and looking bemused"
Thu May 20 2004 09:32:
Too many times I've seen "The client wants to do x." "All right, we can give them x under the condition that they can't do y." "The client agrees!" [A month passes.] "The client wants to know why they can't do y." "They promised not to do y when we gave them x." "Yes, but they really need to do y now!"
Fri May 21 2004 11:55 NST8NDT:
adult swim dilemma: "who's more sympathetic? fry, or... fries?" "fry's? electronics?" "fries! from aqua teen!" "oh, frylock!"
Fri May 21 2004 14:23 NST8NDT:
inadvertent new word: "workflop"
Fri May 21 2004 14:40 NST8NDT:
cool, but fallacious: http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/cousined/lego/5-Machines/Turing/Turing.html Indirectly, it shows that humans are also Turing machines since we can emulate them.
Not the reason why humans are Turing machines! I can emulate a calculator but that doesn't mean my brain runs on the same principle as does a calculator.
Mon May 24 2004 16:01 NST8NDT:
i don't think janeway and chakotay were in love any more than picard and riker were in love
hmmm
the fanfic writer solves this dilemma by making picard and riker be in love too
Mon May 24 2004 16:42 NST8NDT Edit this:
Here is the Macaulay you requested:
It is also to be observed that few of those who showed at this
time the greatest desire to increase the political power of the
people were as yet prepared to emancipate the press from the
control of the government. The Licensing Act, which had passed,
as a matter of course, in 1685, expired in 1693, and was renewed,
not however without an opposition, which, though feeble when
compared with the magnitude of the object in dispute, proved that
the public mind was beginning dimly to perceive how closely civil
freedom and freedom of conscience are connected with freedom of
discussion.
On the history of the Licensing Act no preceding writer has
thought it worth while to expend any care or labour. Yet surely
the events which led to the establishment of the liberty of the
press in England, and in all the countries peopled by the English
race, may be thought to have as much interest for the present
generation as any of those battles and sieges of which the most
minute details have been carefully recorded.
During the first three years of William's reign scarcely a voice
seems to have been raised against the restrictions which the law
imposed on literature. Those restrictions were in perfect
harmony with the theory of government held by the Tories, and
were not, in practice, galling to the Whigs. Roger Lestrange, who
had been licenser under the last two Kings of the House of
Stuart, and who had shown as little tenderness to Exclusionists
and Presbyterians in that character as in his other character of
Observator, was turned out of office at the Revolution, and was
succeeded by a Scotch gentleman, who, on account of his passion
for rare books, and his habit of attending all sales of
libraries, was known in the shops and coffeehouses near Saint
Paul's by the name of Catalogue Fraser. Fraser was a zealous
Whig. By Whig authors and publishers he was extolled as a most
impartial and humane man. But the conduct which obtained their
applause drew on him the abuse of the Tories, and was not
altogether pleasing to his official superior Nottingham.379 No
serious difference however seems to have arisen till the year
1692. In that year an honest old clergyman named Walker, who had,
in the time of the Commonwealth, been Gauden's curate, wrote a
book which convinced all sensible and dispassionate readers that
Gauden, and not Charles the First, was the author of the Icon
Basilike. This book Fraser suffered to be printed. If he had
authorised the publication of a work in which the Gospel of Saint
John or the Epistle to the Romans had been represented as
spurious, the indignation of the High Church party could hardly
have been greater. The question was not literary, but religious.
Doubt was impiety. In truth the Icon was to many fervent
Royalists a supplementary revelation. One of them indeed had gone
so far as to propose that lessons taken out of the inestimable
little volume should be read in the churches.380 Fraser found it
necessary to resign his place; and Nottingham appointed a
gentleman of good blood and scanty fortune named Edmund Bohun.
This change of men produced an immediate and total change of
system; for Bohun was as strong a Tory as a conscientious man who
had taken the oaths could possibly be. He had been conspicuous as
a persecutor of nonconformists and a champion of the doctrine of
passive obedience. He had edited Filmer's absurd treatise on the
origin of government, and had written an answer to the paper
which Algernon Sidney had delivered to the Sheriffs on Tower
Hill. Nor did Bohun admit that, in swearing allegiance to William
and Mary, he had done any thing inconsistent with his old creed.
For he had succeeded in convincing himself that they reigned by
right of conquest, and that it was the duty of an Englishman to
serve them as faithfully as Daniel had served Darius or as
Nehemiah had served Artaxerxes. This doctrine, whatever peace it
might bring to his own conscience, found little favour with any
party. The Whigs loathed it as servile; the Jacobites loathed it
as revolutionary. Great numbers of Tories had doubtless submitted
to William on the ground that he was, rightfully or wrongfully,
King in possession; but very few of them were disposed to allow
that his possession had originated in conquest. Indeed the plea
which had satisfied the weak and narrow mind of Bohun was a mere
fiction, and, had it been a truth, would have been a truth not to
be uttered by Englishmen without agonies of shame and
mortification.381 He however clung to his favourite whimsy with a
tenacity which the general disapprobation only made more intense.
His old friends, the stedfast adherents of indefeasible
hereditary right, grew cold and reserved. He asked Sancroft's
blessing, and got only a sharp word, and a black look. He asked
Ken's blessing; and Ken, though not much in the habit of
transgressing the rules of Christian charity and courtesy,
murmured something about a little scribbler. Thus cast out by one
faction, Bohun was not received by any other. He formed indeed a
class apart; for he was at once a zealous Filmerite and a zealous
Williamite. He held that pure monarchy, not limited by any law or
contract, was the form of government which had been divinely
ordained. But he held that William was now the absolute monarch,
who might annul the Great Charter, abolish trial by jury, or
impose taxes by royal proclamation, without forfeiting the right
to be implicitly obeyed by Christian men. As to the rest, Bohun
was a man of some learning, mean understanding and unpopular
manners. He had no sooner entered on his functions than all
Paternoster Row and Little Britain were in a ferment. The Whigs
had, under Fraser's administration, enjoyed almost as entire a
liberty as if there had been no censorship. But they were now as
severely treated as in the days of Lestrange. A History of the
Bloody Assizes was about to be published, and was expected to
have as great a run as the Pilgrim's Progress. But the new
licenser refused his Imprimatur. The book, he said, represented
rebels and schismatics as heroes and martyrs; and he would not
sanction it for its weight in gold. A charge delivered by Lord
Warrington to the grand jury of Cheshire was not permitted to
appear, because His Lordship had spoken contemptuously of divine
right and passive obedience. Julian Johnson found that, if he
wished to promulgate his notions of government, he must again
have recourse, as in the evil times of King James, to a secret
press.382 Such restraint as this, coming after several years of
unbounded freedom, naturally produced violent exasperation. Some
Whigs began to think that the censorship itself was a grievance;
all Whigs agreed in pronouncing the new censor unfit for his
post, and were prepared to join in an effort to get rid of him.
Of the transactions which terminated in Bohun's dismission, and
which produced the first parliamentary struggle for the liberty
of unlicensed printing, we have accounts written by Bohun himself
and by others; but there are strong reasons for believing that in
none of those accounts is the whole truth to be found. It may
perhaps not be impossible, even at this distance of time, to put
together dispersed fragments of evidence in such a manner as to
produce an authentic narrative which would have astonished the
unfortunate licenser himself.
There was then about town a man of good family, of some reading,
and of some small literary talent, named Charles Blount.383 In
politics he belonged to the extreme section of the Whig party. In
the days of the Exclusion Bill he had been one of Shaftesbury's
brisk boys, and had, under the signature of Junius Brutus,
magnified the virtues and public services of Titus Oates, and
exhorted the Protestants to take signal vengeance on the Papists
for the fire of London and for the murder of Godfrey.384 As to
the theological questions which were in issue between Protestants
and Papists, Blount was perfectly impartial. He was an infidel,
and the head of a small school of infidels who were troubled with
a morbid desire to make converts. He translated from the Latin
translation part of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, and appended
to it notes of which the flippant profaneness called forth the
severe censure of an unbeliever of a very different order, the
illustrious Bayle.385 Blount also attacked Christianity in
several original treatises, or rather in several treatises
purporting to be original; for he was the most audacious of
literary thieves, and transcribed, without acknowledgment, whole
pages from authors who had preceded him. His delight was to worry
the priests by asking them how light existed before the sun was
made, how Paradise could be bounded by Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel and
Euphrates, how serpents moved before they were condemned to
crawl, and where Eve found thread to stitch her figleaves. To his
speculations on these subjects he gave the lofty name of the
Oracles of Reason; and indeed whatever he said or wrote was
considered as oracular by his disciples. Of those disciples the
most noted was a bad writer named Gildon, who lived to pester
another generation with doggrel and slander, and whose memory is
still preserved, not by his own voluminous works, but by two or
three lines in which his stupidity and venality have been
contemptuously mentioned by Pope.386
Little as either the intellectual or the moral character of
Blount may seem to deserve respect, it is in a great measure to
him that we must attribute the emancipation of the English press.
Between him and the licensers there was a feud of long standing.
Before the Revolution one of his heterodox treatises had been
grievously mutilated by Lestrange, and at last suppressed by
orders from Lestrange's superior the Bishop of London.387 Bohun
was a scarcely less severe critic than Lestrange. Blount
therefore began to make war on the censorship and the censor. The
hostilities were commenced by a tract which came forth without
any license, and which is entitled A Just Vindication of Learning
and of the Liberty of the Press, by Philopatris.388 Whoever reads
this piece, and is not aware that Blount was one of the most
unscrupulous plagiaries that ever lived, will be surprised to
find, mingled with the poor thoughts and poor words of a
thirdrate pamphleteer, passages so elevated in sentiment and
style that they would be worthy of the greatest name in letters.
The truth is that the just Vindication consists chiefly of
garbled extracts from the Areopagitica of Milton. That noble
discourse had been neglected by the generation to which it was
addressed, had sunk into oblivion, and was at the mercy of every
pilferer. The literary workmanship of Blount resembled the
architectural workmanship of those barbarians who used the
Coliseum and the Theatre of Pompey as quarries, who built hovels
out of Ionian friezes and propped cowhouses on pillars of
lazulite. Blount concluded, as Milton had done, by recommending
that any book might be printed without a license, provided that
the name of the author or publisher were registered.389 The Just
Vindication was well received. The blow was speedily followed up.
There still remained in the Areopagitica many fine passages which
Blount had not used in his first pamphlet. Out of these passages
he constructed a second pamphlet entitled Reasons for the Liberty
of Unlicensed Printing.390 To these Reasons he appended a
postscript entitled A Just and True Character of Edmund Bohun.
This character was written with extreme bitterness. Passages were
quoted from the licenser's writings to prove that he held the
doctrines of passive obedience and nonresistance. He was accused
of using his power systematically for the purpose of favouring
the enemies and silencing the friends of the Sovereigns whose
bread he ate; and it was asserted that he was the friend and the
pupil of his predecessor Sir Roger.
Blount's Character of Bohun could not be publicly sold; but it
was widely circulated. While it was passing from hand to hand,
and while the Whigs were every where exclaiming against the new
censor as a second Lestrange, he was requested to authorise the
publication of an anonymous work entitled King William and Queen
Mary Conquerors.391 He readily and indeed eagerly complied. For
in truth there was between the doctrines which he had long
professed and the doctrines which were propounded in this
treatise a coincidence so exact that many suspected him of being
the author; nor was this suspicion weakened by a passage to which
a compliment was paid to his political writings. But the real
author was that very Blount who was, at that very time, labouring
to inflame the public both against the Licensing Act and the
licenser. Blount's motives may easily be divined. His own
opinions were diametrically opposed to those which, on this
occasion, he put forward in the most offensive manner. It is
therefore impossible to doubt that his object was to ensnare and
to ruin Bohun. It was a base and wicked scheme. But it cannot be
denied that the trap was laid and baited with much skill. The
republican succeeded in personating a high Tory. The atheist
succeeded in personating a high Churchman. The pamphlet concluded
with a devout prayer that the God of light and love would open
the understanding and govern the will of Englishmen, so that they
might see the things which belonged to their peace. The censor
was in raptures. In every page he found his own thoughts
expressed more plainly than he had ever expressed them. Never
before, in his opinion, had the true claim of their Majesties to
obedience been so clearly stated. Every Jacobite who read this
admirable tract must inevitably be converted. The nonjurors would
flock to take the oaths. The nation, so long divided, would at
length be united. From these pleasing dreams Bohun was awakened
by learning, a few hours after the appearance of the discourse
which had charmed him, that the titlepage had set all London in a
flame, and that the odious words, King William and Queen Mary
Conquerors, had moved the indignation of multitudes who had never
read further. Only four days after the publication he heard that
the House of Commons had taken the matter up, that the book had
been called by some members a rascally book, and that, as the
author was unknown, the Serjeant at Arms was in search of the
licenser.392 Bohun's mind had never been strong; and he was
entirely unnerved and bewildered by the fury and suddenness of
the storm which had burst upon him. He went to the House. Most of
the members whom he met in the passages and lobbies frowned on
him. When he was put to the bar, and, after three profound
obeisances, ventured to lift his head and look round him, he
could read his doom in the angry and contemptuous looks which
were cast on him from every side. He hesitated, blundered,
contradicted himself, called the Speaker My Lord, and, by his
confused way of speaking, raised a tempest of rude laughter which
confused him still more. As soon as he had withdrawn, it was
unanimously resolved that the obnoxious treatise should be burned
in Palace Yard by the common hangman. It was also resolved,
without a division, that the King should be requested to remove
Bohun from the office of licenser. The poor man, ready to faint
with grief and fear, was conducted by the officers of the House
to a place of confinement.393
But scarcely was he in his prison when a large body of members
clamorously demanded a more important victim. Burnet had, shortly
after he became Bishop of Salisbury, addressed to the clergy of
his diocese a Pastoral Letter, exhorting them to take the oaths.
In one paragraph of this letter he had held language bearing some
resemblance to that of the pamphlet which had just been sentenced
to the flames. There were indeed distinctions which a judicious
and impartial tribunal would not have failed to notice. But the
tribunal before which Burnet was arraigned was neither judicious
nor impartial. His faults had made him many enemies, and his
virtues many more. The discontented Whigs complained that he
leaned towards the Court, the High Churchmen that he leaned
towards the Dissenters; nor can it be supposed that a man of so
much boldness and so little tact, a man so indiscreetly frank and
so restlessly active, had passed through life without crossing
the schemes and wounding the feelings of some whose opinions
agreed with his. He was regarded with peculiar malevolence by
Howe. Howe had never, even while he was in office, been in the
habit of restraining his bitter and petulant tongue; and he had
recently been turned out of office in a way which had made him
ungovernably ferocious. The history of his dismission is not
accurately known, but it was certainly accompanied by some
circumstances which had cruelly galled his temper. If rumour
could be trusted, he had fancied that Mary was in love with him,
and had availed himself of an opportunity which offered itself
while he was in attendance on her as Vice Chamberlain to make
some advances which had justly moved her indignation. Soon after
he was discarded, he was prosecuted for having, in a fit of
passion, beaten one of his servants savagely within the verge of
the palace. He had pleaded guilty, and had been pardoned; but
from this time he showed, on every occasion, the most rancorous
personal hatred of his royal mistress, of her husband, and of all
who were favoured by either. It was known that the Queen
frequently consulted Burnet; and Howe was possessed with the
belief that her severity was to be imputed to Burnet's
influence.394 Now was the time to be revenged. In a long and
elaborate speech the spiteful Whig--for such he still affected to
be--represented Burnet as a Tory of the worst class. "There
should be a law," he said, "making it penal for the clergy to
introduce politics into their discourses. Formerly they sought to
enslave us by crying up the divine and indefeasible right of the
hereditary prince. Now they try to arrive at the same result by
telling us that we are a conquered people." It was moved that the
Bishop should be impeached. To this motion there was an
unanswerable objection, which the Speaker pointed out. The
Pastoral Letter had been written in 1689, and was therefore
covered by the Act of Grace which had been passed in 1690. Yet a
member was not ashamed to say, "No matter: impeach him; and force
him to plead the Act." Few, however, were disposed to take a
course so unworthy of a House of Commons. Some wag cried out,
"Burn it; burn it;" and this bad pun ran along the benches, and
was received with shouts of laughter. It was moved that the
Pastoral Letter should be burned by the common hangman. A long
and vehement debate followed. For Burnet was a man warmly loved
as well as warmly hated. The great majority of the Whigs stood
firmly by him; and his goodnature and generosity had made him
friends even among the Tories. The contest lasted two days.
Montague and Finch, men of widely different opinions, appear to
have been foremost among the Bishop's champions. An attempt to
get rid of the subject by moving the previous question failed. At
length the main question was put; and the Pastoral Letter was
condemned to the flames by a small majority in a full house. The
Ayes were a hundred and sixty-two; the Noes a hundred and fifty-
five.395 The general opinion, at least of the capital, seems to
have been that Burnet was cruelly treated.396
He was not naturally a man of fine feelings; and the life which
he had led had not tended to make them finer. He had been during
many years a mark for theological and political animosity. Grave
doctors had anathematized him; ribald poets had lampooned him;
princes and ministers had laid snares for his life; he had been
long a wanderer and an exile, in constant peril of being
kidnapped, struck in the boots, hanged and quartered. Yet none of
these things had ever seemed to move him. His selfconceit had
been proof against ridicule, and his dauntless temper against
danger. But on this occasion his fortitude seems to have failed
him. To be stigmatized by the popular branch of the legislature
as a teacher of doctrines so servile that they disgusted even
Tories, to be joined in one sentence of condemnation with the
editor of Filmer, was too much. How deeply Burnet was wounded
appeared many years later, when, after his death, his History of
his Life and Times was given to the world. In that work he is
ordinarily garrulous even to minuteness about all that concerns
himself, and sometimes relates with amusing ingenuousness his own
mistakes and the censures which those mistakes brought upon him.
But about the ignominious judgment passed by the House of Commons
on his Pastoral Letter he has preserved a most significant
silence.397
The plot which ruined Bohun, though it did no honour to those who
contrived it, produced important and salutary effects. Before the
conduct of the unlucky licenser had been brought under the
consideration of Parliament, the Commons had resolved, without
any division, and, as far as appears, without any discussion,
that the Act which subjected literature to a censorship should be
continued. But the question had now assumed a new aspect; and the
continuation of the Act was no longer regarded as a matter of
course. A feeling in favour of the liberty of the press, a
feeling not yet, it is true, of wide extent or formidable
intensity, began to show itself. The existing system, it was
said, was prejudicial both to commerce and to learning. Could it
be expected that any capitalist would advance the funds necessary
for a great literary undertaking, or that any scholar would
expend years of toil and research on such an undertaking, while
it was possible that, at the last moment, the caprice, the
malice, the folly of one man might frustrate the whole design?
And was it certain that the law which so grievously restricted
both the freedom of trade and the freedom of thought had really
added to the security of the State? Had not recent experience
proved that the licenser might himself be an enemy of their
Majesties, or, worse still, an absurd and perverse friend; that
he might suppress a book of which it would be for their interest
that every house in the country should have a copy, and that he
might readily give his sanction to a libel which tended to make
them hateful to their people, and which deserved to be torn and
burned by the hand of Ketch? Had the government gained much by
establishing a literary police which prevented Englishmen from
having the History of the Bloody Circuit, and allowed them, by
way of compensation, to read tracts which represented King
William and Queen Mary as conquerors?
In that age persons who were not specially interested in a public
bill very seldom petitioned Parliament against it or for it. The
only petitions therefore which were at this conjuncture presented
to the two Houses against the censorship came from booksellers,
bookbinders and printers.398 But the opinion which these classes
expressed was certainly not confined to them.
The law which was about to expire had lasted eight years. It was
renewed for only two years. It appears, from an entry in the
journals of the Commons which unfortunately is defective, that a
division took place on an amendment about the nature of which we
are left entirely in the dark. The votes were ninety-nine to
eighty. In the Lords it was proposed, according to the suggestion
offered fifty years before by Milton and stolen from him by
Blount, to exempt from the authority of the licenser every book
which bore the name of an author or publisher. This amendment was
rejected; and the bill passed, but not without a protest signed
by eleven peers who declared that they could not think it for the
public interest to subject all learning and true information to
the arbitrary will and pleasure of a mercenary and perhaps
ignorant licenser. Among those who protested were Halifax,
Shrewsbury and Mulgrave, three noblemen belonging to different
political parties, but all distinguished by their literary
attainments. It is to be lamented that the signatures of
Tillotson and Burnet, who were both present on that day, should
be wanting. Dorset was absent.399
Blount, by whose exertions and machinations the opposition to the
censorship had been raised, did not live to see that opposition
successful. Though not a very young man, he was possessed by an
insane passion for the sister of his deceased wife. Having long
laboured in vain to convince the object of his love that she
might lawfully marry him, he at last, whether from weariness of
life, or in the hope of touching her heart, inflicted on himself
a wound of which, after languishing long, he died. He has often
been mentioned as a blasphemer and selfmurderer. But the
important service which, by means doubtless most immoral and
dishonourable, he rendered to his country, has passed almost
unnoticed.400
Tue May 25 2004 08:44 NST8NDT:
(paraphrased) "...the owner was running the concession" "i guess it wasn't a concession, then, was it?" "ha!"
Tue May 25 2004 09:45 NST8NDT:
still need to use "but in fact it was slightly contaminated %s juice" (qv) but i did come up with a funny use for %s
Wed May 26 2004 15:32 NST8NDT:
email lion about newsbruiser
Thu May 27 2004 10:21 NST8NDT:
does nb do feed autodiscovery? it better! (find out)
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