Note 1 — Chapter XIII · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION UNDER CHARLES II.

It was said in 18 Car. II. (1666) that "the king by the common law hath a general prerogative over the printing press; so that none ought to print a book for public use without his license." This seems, however, to have been in the argument of counsel; but the court held that a patent to print law-books exclusively was no monopoly. Carter's Reports, 89. "Matters of state and things that concern the government," it is said in another case, "were never left to any man's liberty to print that would." 1 Mod. Reps. 258. Kennet informs us that several complaints having been made, of Lilly's Grammar, the use of which had been prescribed by the royal ecclesiastical supremacy, it was thought proper in 1664 that a new public form of grammar should be drawn up and approved in convocation, to be enjoined by the royal authority. One was accordingly brought in by Bishop Pearson, but the matter dropped. Life of Charles II. 274.