_Licensing acts._--It might easily be anticipated, from the general spirit of Lord Clarendon's administration, that he would not suffer the press to emancipate itself from these established shackles.[2] A bill for the regulation of printing failed in 1661, from the Commons' jealousy of the Peers who had inserted a clause exempting their own houses from search.[3] But next year a statute was enacted, which, reciting the well-government and regulating of printers and printing-presses to be matter of public care and concernment, and that by the general licentiousness of the late times many evil-disposed persons had been encouraged to print and sell heretical and seditious books, prohibits every private person from printing any book or pamphlet, unless entered with the stationers' company, and duly licensed in the following manner; to wit, books of law by the chancellor or one of the chief justices, of history and politics by the secretary of state, of heraldry by the kings at arms, of divinity, physic or philosophy, by the bishops of Canterbury or London, or if printed in either university, by its chancellor. The number of master-printers was limited to twenty; they were to give security, to affix their names, and to declare the author, if required by the licencer. The king's messengers, by warrant from a secretary of state, or the master and wardens of the stationers' company, were empowered to seize unlicensed copies wherever they should think fit to search for them, and, in case they should find any unlicensed book suspected to contain matters contrary to the church or state, they were to bring them to the two bishops before mentioned, or one of the secretaries. No books were allowed to be printed out of London, except in York and in the universities. The penalties for printing without licence were of course heavy.[4] This act was only to last three years; and after being twice renewed (the last time until the conclusion of the first session of the next parliament), expired consequently in 1679; an æra when the House of Commons were happily in so different a temper that any attempt to revive it must have proved abortive. During its continuance, the business of licensing books was entrusted to Sir Roger L'Estrange, a well-known pamphleteer of that age, and himself a most scurrilous libeller in behalf of the party he espoused, that of popery and despotic power. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the objections that were raised to one or two lines in _Paradise Lost_.