regulations for the control of printing which provided that “No book, pamphlet, or paper shall be henceforth printed unless the same be first approved and licensed by censors that shall be thereto appointed.” Milton had been a persistent opponent of the policy of censorship and of licensing, and one result of the enactment was the publication of the famous _Areopagitica_, an oration in the form of a pamphlet, which presented with fierce eloquence a protest against the whole theory of the exercise by Government licensers of a supervision and control of literature, or of the delegation of such control to a commercial company (the Stationers’ Company) which was the creation of Government. =9. Oxford. Index Generalis. James. 1627.=--In 1627, Thomas James, the librarian of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, brought into print, under the title of an _Index Generalis_, a summary or catalogue which had been made up from the Church Indexes that had thus far come into print and of which James had been able to secure copies. It was his purpose to present in this general catalogue the titles of the more important of the books condemned under the censorship of the Church, copies of which books it was, as he pointed out, important to secure for the Bodleian collection. The so-called James Index came to be a working guide for book-buyers and its publication had a direct effect upon the circulation in England of the books specified. It has, therefore, seemed in order to make reference to it in this chapter on the influence of censorship on the book-trade of England. This catalogue of James was utilised during the succeeding years by English scholars generally, as a convenient guide to the literature condemned by the Church and which on the very ground of its condemnation might be assumed to possess interest and value for scholars who were not troubled by the dread of ecclesiastical penalties. The recommendation of James that copies of these works should be secured for the Bodleian has been carried out quite effectively. The copy of the James Index which has been preserved for the reference library of the Bodleian has been checked by successive librarians as copies of the books recommended have been secured and the list is now very nearly complete. The copies secured for the Bodleian represent in large part editions printed in Holland; as before pointed out, the publishers of Amsterdam, Leyden, and Utrecht had, from the date of publication in 1546 of the Index of Louvain, interested themselves in bringing promptly into print works condemned by Roman authorities and in furthering the distribution of these books throughout Europe.