Page:Books Condemned to be Burnt - James Anson Farrer.djvu/117

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Book-Fires of the Rebellion.
101

the Scots and English Forces in the North of Ireland. This was thought to be dishonouring to the Scots, and was accordingly ordered to be burnt (June 8th, 1642).

3. King James: his Judgment of a King and a Tyrant (September 12th, 1642).

4. A Speedy Post from Heaven to the King of England (October 5th, 1642).

5. Letter from Lord Falkland to the Earl of Cumberland, concerning the action at Worcester (October 8th, 1642).

Thus did Parliament, and the House of Commons especially, improve upon the precedent first set by the Star Chamber; and the practice must soon have somewhat lost its force by the very frequency of its repetition. David Buchanan's Truth's Manifest, containing an account of the conduct of the Scotch nation in the Civil War, was condemned to be burnt by the hangman (April 13th, 1646), but may still be read. An Unhappy Game at Scotch and English, pamphlets like the Mercurius Elenchicus and Mercurius Pragmaticus, the Justiciarius Justificatus by George Wither, perished about the same time in the same way; and in 1648 such profane Royalist political squibs as The Parliament's Ten Commandments; The Parliament's Pater Noster, and Articles of the Faith; and Ecce the New Testament