were capable of producing; and, as was shown, later, in the criticisms of correspondents of the Elzevirs and in other expressions, there was a strong feeling among scholarly readers that the printing of a work of literature in a sixteenmo or twelvemo volume, showed a lack of respect for the author, for his public, and for literature itself. This prejudice in favour of portly volumes was very largely modified, although by no means entirely overcome, by the publications of the Reformation. The intense interest in the theological issues and the revival of religious fervour, brought into existence a new reading public. The buying of books was no longer confined to princes and scholars;--the masses of the people wanted to have in their hands the writings of the Reformers or the replies of the defenders of the Roman Church, and to an extent which is still cause for wonderment, a very large proportion of the common people were able to read and were eager to read the long series of argumentative essays many of which were devoted to themes and discussions that could be described as scholastic, and that the average citizen of to-day would certainly consider hard reading. To meet the requirements of this new reading public, requirements which called for material of small cost and in a form convenient for distribution, the pamphlet came into existence, and this was followed by the _Flugschriften_, or fly-leaf literature, comprising papers or tracts of such brief compass that they could be printed in four or even in two pages. These _Flugschriften_ were carried in the packs of pedlars into the market-places of towns and villages and from farmhouse to farmhouse, and they secured a wide distribution even in territories in which their circulation was strictly prohibited under the severest of penalties. Some description of this feature of the literary work of the Reformation is given in the chapter on Luther. While one result of the literary activity of the Reformation was to popularise the work of the printing-press, another was an immediate development of the censorship of the Press, both heretical and ecclesiastical. The contention that the productions of the printers must be subjected to the approval of the authorities of the State was made promptly after the printing-press began its work. It was, however, only when the Press came to be utilised as the most effective ally of the heretical reformers, that the Church found it necessary to put into force its ecclesiastical censorship, and that the never-ending task began of advertising through the various _Indices Expurgatorii_ the titles of the long series of wicked or dangerous books which the faithful believers were warned not to read, and which brought very serious perils indeed upon the faithless heretics who persisted in writing, printing, selling, or possessing them.