Page:Celebrated Trials - Volume 1.djvu/472

some were Mr. Prynn's, some were Mr. Burton's works; and this deponent hath heard Sparkes say, he durst print any thing in parliament-time.

"Another part of the charge was managed by Mr. Mason of Lincoln's-Inn, reckoning up the number of epithets wherewith Mr. Prynn had aspersed ail sorts of people: and he said, that it was a libel, not only against the state, but against every particular person; and proved the charge by divers passages contained in the book, fol. 201, &c."

Afterwards Mr. Noy proceeded in the farther substantiation of his charge against Mr. Prynn.

"May it please your lordships, as he hath fallen foul upon all things, all persons, all sexes; upon the magistrates, upon the household of the king; so he hath not spared the king himself. I am sorry I shall have occasion to speak any thing of it; but there is a great deal too much in his book. My lords, after he hath made all these complaints as intolerable, he faileth upon all indistinctly, and never taketh upon him to discern, to make a distinction, that there may be a toleration; but falleth foul upon every thing, that we are falling into paganism; men and women are naught: he spareth not the king himself, but takes upon him to teach a remedy; the remedy is worse than the disease. What hateful comparisons he bringeth with other princes? as Nero: and speaketh of the consuming of the treasure of the realm with masques, and of the late penurious times; a base word! A declaration of infamy upon princes, with such-like conclusions as these are. When ail this is done, he teacheth the remedy not by way of precept, but by way of example; invites men to read John Mariana, and two grave authors more, he saith, men not censured. I am very sorry I am to speak any thing wherein the king should be named, but he would not forbear it when the pen was in his hand; some of the words are so nasty that I will not speak them."

After Mr. Attorney-General had spoken, he called for these passages, amongst others, in Histrio-mastix, to be read, viz.

To his much-honoured friends, the right worshipful masters of the bench of the honourable flourishing law-society of Lincoln's-Inn.

"Having, upon my first arrival here in London, heard and seen in four several plays (to which the pressing importunity of some ill acquaintance drew me, while I was yet a novice) such wickedness, such lewdness as then made my penitent heart to loath, my conscience to abhor all stage-players ever since; and having then likewise observed some woeful experiments of the lewd, mischievous fruits of plays, of play-houses, in some young gentlemen of my acquaintance, who though civil and chaste at first, became so vicious, prodigal, incontinent, debauched, yea