260
HISTORY OF PRINTING.
mentioned hy Ames and Herbert for his receiving a royal licence to print. In this year John Byd- dell printed for him, thefine Reformed or Pro- tettatU Primer from Uie Cantabrians or Oxoniam casting off the pope's supremacy the year before. A patent was granted to Marshall, as the pub- lisher, prohibiting all printers, booksellers, mer- chants, and others, without license of him, from gelling the same, during the space of six years. Most of his books were executed for him, as the Defence of Peace, 1545, of which he has been supposed to have been the author, printed by Robert Wyer; An Abridgment of SehastianMun- tten Chronicle, 1 642 ; and Erasmus on Confet- rion, by John Byddell. Marshall had likewise printed for him. Pictures and Images, without date, 12mo ; and Chrysten Bysshop and Counter- fayte Bysskop, without date, 8vo.
1535. RooER Latrem, according to Ames, resided in the Old Bailey, and printed a work entitled A Grammar of the Latin Tongue, 1635. Quarto. For this work, Ames cites a book in the collection of Uie late eail of Oxford ; but Her- bert states, that such work was not to be found in the Bibl. Harleiana.
1635, Ju/« 5. Sir Thomas More, beheaded on Tower hill, for denying or speaking ambigu- ously about the supremacy of the king. He was the son of sir John More, a judge, and born in London in 1480. As soon as he came of age he obtained a seat in parliament, where he opposed a subsidy demanded by Henry VII. with such force that it was refused by the house. At the accesdon of Henry VIII. he was called to the bar, and in 1508 appointed judge of the sheriff's court, in London, which was then a considerable post. By the interest of Wolsey he obtained the honour of knighthood, and a place in the privy-council. In 1520 he was made treasurer of the exchequer, and in 1623 chosen speaker of the house of commons,* where he resisted a motion for an oppressive subsidy, which gave great offence to cardinal Wolsey. Sir Thomas was made lord chancellor in 1530, and by his in- defatigable application in tHat office there was in a short time not a cause left undetermined.
The following lines are attributed to Sir Tho- mas More ; if they do not establish his reputation as a poet, says Mr. Beloe, they at least confirm the account of the more than philosophic indif- ference with which he went to his execution : —
If evils come oot,^ then our feari are vain j And if thejr do, rear bnt augments the pain.
- In the uth year of Henr7 VIII. sir Thqmas More
was speaker to the house of commonSp and chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and was treated by the king with slngnlar fkmiUaritr. The king having once dined with siT Thomas at his hoose at Chelsea, walked with him near an hoar in the garden, with his arm roimd liis neck. After the king was gone, Mr. Roper, sir Thomas's son-in- law, observed he was to be envied to be so familiarly treated by the king ; to which sir Thomas replied, " I thank our lord, son Roper, I find his grace my very good loni indeed, and bdieve he doth as sUigularly bvoor me as any snitiect within this realm i howbeit, I must tell Uiee, I have no canse to be proad thereofj for if my heed would win liim a casUe In Fiance, it would not tsll to f>o off." From this anecdote, it appears, that sir lliomas knew the king to lie a Tillain.
Sir Thomas wrote several pieces against the reformation, and epistles to Erasmus and other learned men. The best of his works is a kind of political romance, entitled Utopia,* which was translated into English by bishop Burnet.
The king also had John Fisher,t bishop of Rochester, executed for a similar offence, who was created a cardinal while in prison. When this was reported in Italy, numerous libels were published all over the kingdom, comparing the king of England to Nero, Domitian, Caligula, and the tyrants of antiquity.
The following Epigram upon bishop Fisher, is from a work callea Tv>o Centuries ofJEpigramt, written by John Heath, B. A. Oxford. London, printed by John Windet, 1610.
Fisher, by being the pope's humble tbiaU, Missed not much of being cardinall ; A cap there was prepared, a legate sent, Ttnvcst his brow with that pure ornament ; But see bow things fell out, see how he sped, B^ore his cap came he had lost his head.
1636, Oct. 4. The first edition of the tcAoZr Bible in the English language, being the trans- lation by Miles Coverdale, and generally called Coverdale's Bible, with the following title.
Bibla^ The Bible, that is, the holy scripture of the Olde and New Testament, failhfiilly and truly translated out of the Douche and Latyn isUo Englyslte. M. D. xxxv. The last page has these words : — Prynted in the yeare of our Lorde M. D. xxxv. and fynithed the fourth daye of October. It is in folio, and irom the appearance of the ^pes, it is now generally considered to have been printed at Zurich, in the printing- office of Christopher Froschover, an eminent printer of that place.
This noble work had been conducted under the patronage of lord Cromwell. Six copies were presented to archbishop Cranmer and Cromwell. It was dedicated to the King in the following manner: —
Unto the moost victorious prynce and onr moost gracyous soveraygne lord kynge Henry the eyghth, kynge of Englande and. of Fiance, lorde of Irelonde, &c. defendour of the fayth, and under God the chefe suppreme heade of the church of Englande.
The ryght and just administracyon of the lawes of God gave unto Moses and unto Josua : the testimonye of faythfulness that God gave of David : the plenteous abundance of wysedome that God gave unto Salomon : the lucky and prosperous age with the multiplicacyon of sede
- The Ultfia is a political romance which lepreacBta a
perfect, bnt visionary republic, in an island snppoaed to hare tieen newly discovered in America. " As this was the age of discovery," says Granger, " the learned Bndeaus, and others, took it for a genuine history, and considered it highly expedient, that missionaiiea shoold be sent thither, in order to convert so wise a nation to chiistlMity."
- Jofp Usher was born at Beveiley, in YorkiUre, in
14(9, and educated at Cambridge. He became oonfeaaor to Margaret countess of Richmond, mother to Uennr VII. who by his advice founded St. John's and Chilsfs caOecM, Cambridge. He was a man of considerable learning, sMct integrity, and fervent piety. He was tieheaded on Tower hill, Jnne », ISU, in the SOth year of his age.
Diaitized by
