XXX.—_Item_, That no Master-Founder of letters, shall imploy any other person or persons in any worke belonging to the casting or founding of letters, than such only as are freemen or apprentices to the trade of founding letters, save only in the pulling off the knots of mettle hanging at the ends of the letters when they are first cast, in which work it shall be lawfull for every Master-Founder, to imploy one boy only that is not, nor hath beene bound to the trade of Founding letters, but not otherwise, upon pain of being for ever disabled to use or exercise that art, and such further punishment, as by this Court, or the high Commission Court respectively, as the severall causes shall require, be thought fit to be imposed. XIV.—_Item_, That no Joyner, or Carpenter, or other person, shall make any printing-Presse, no Smith shall forge any Iron-Worke for a printing Presse, and no Founder shall cast any Letters for any person or persons whatsoever, neither shall any person or persons bring, or cause to be brought in from any parts beyond the Seas, any Letters Founded or Cast, nor buy any such Letters for Printing, Unlesse he or they respectively shall first acquaint the said Master and Wardens, or some of them, for whom the same Presse, Iron-works, or Letters, are to be made, forged, or cast, upon paine of such fine and punishment, as this Court, or the high Commission Court respectively, as the severall causes shall require, shall thinke fit. Respecting the four founders thus nominated, and their types, we shall have occasion to speak in a following chapter. Continuing here our cursory review of the Statutes which affected letter-founding, it is necessary to remind the reader that this tremendous decree, which for severity eclipsed all its predecessors, was short-lived. On November 3, 1640, the Long Parliament assembled, and with it the Star Chamber disappeared, and its decrees became dead letters. Then for a season there was virtually free trade in printing, and advantage was taken of the new condition of affairs to infringe existing rights on every hand, the King’s Patent Printers (if we are to believe the “London Printer,” above quoted) being the chief and most unscrupulous transgressors. Parliament was not slow to take up the mantle dropped by the late Star Chamber, and in 1643 attempted to stem “the very grievous” liberty of the press, reinvesting the Stationers’ Company with powers to search and seize all unlicensed presses and books, and to apprehend the “authors, printers and other persons whatsoever employed in compiling, printing, stitching, binding, {132} publishing and dispersing the said scandalous, unlicensed and unwarrantable papers, books and pamphlets.”