The Isle of Pines | Page 2

and
was a trained printer; but these advantages were partially neutralized by
indolence and by Green's better standing before the magistrates.{1}
[ 3 ]In England the excesses of the printing-press during the civil war
and commonwealth led to a somewhat strict though erratically applied
censorship under the restoration. A publication must be licensed, and
the Company of Stationers still sought, for reasons of profit, to control

printers by regulating their production. The licensing agent in chief was
a character of picturesque uncertainty and spasmodic action, Roger
L'Estrange, half fanatic, half politician, half hack writer, in fact half in
many respects and whole only in the resulting contradictions of purpose
and performance. On one point he was strong--a desire to suppress
unlicensed printing. So when in 1668 warrant was given to him to
make search for unauthorized printing, he entered into the hunt with the
zeal of a Loyola and the wishes of a Torquemada, harrying and rushing
his prey and breathing threats of extreme rigor of fine, prison, pillory,
and stake against the unfortunates who had neglected, in most cases
because of the cost, to obtain the stamp of the licenser.{2}
New England was at this time England in little, with troubles of its own;
but, having imitated the mother country in introducing supervision of
the press, it also started in to investigate the printers of the colony, two
in number, seeking to win a smile of approval from the foolish man on
the throne. With due solemnity the inquisition was made. Green could
show that all then passing through his press had been properly licensed.
1 See the chapters on Green and Johnson in Littlefield, The Early
Massachusetts Press, 197, 209.
2 L'Estrange was called the "Devil's blood hound." Col. S. P., Dom.
1663-1664, 616.
[ 4 ]Johnson, less fortunate, was caught with one unlicensed
piece--"The Isle of Pines." A fine of five pounds was imposed upon
him, as effectual in suppressing him as though it had been one of five
thousand pounds. He could now turn with relish to two books then on
his press, "Meditations on Death and Eternity" and the "Righteous
Man's Evidence for Heaven;" for Massachusetts Bay, with its then
powerful rule of divinity without religion, or religion without mercy,
held out small hope of his meeting such a fine within the expedition of
his natural life. But he made his submission, petitioned the General
Court in properly repentant language, acknowledged his fault, his crime,
and promised amendment{1} The fine was not collected, and the
principal result of the incident was to further the very natural union of
Johnson and Green, but with Johnson as the lesser member in

importance.
No copy of Marmaduke Johnson's issue of the "Isle of Pines" has come
to light in a period of 248 years. It might well be supposed that the
authorities caught him before the tract had gone to press, and so snuffed
it out completely. Our sapient bibliographers have dismissed the matter
in rounded phrase: "'The Isle of Pines' was a small pamphlet of the
Baron Munchausen order, which in its day passed through several
editions in England and on the Continent,"{2} a description which
would fit a hundred titles of the period. In July, 1917, Sotheby
announced the sale of a portion of the Americana collected by "Bishop
White Kennett (1660-1728) and given by him to the Society for the
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts."
1 The petition it in Littlefield, i. 248.
2 Mats. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, xi. 247.
[ 5 ]Lot No. 113 was described as follows:
[Neville (Henry)] The Isle of Pines, or a late Discovery of a fourth
Island in Terra Australis, Incognita, being a True Relation of certain
English persons who in the dayes of Queen Elizabeth, making a
Voyage to the East Indies, were cast away and wracked upon the Island,
wanting the frontispiece, head-line of title and some pagination cut into,
Bishop Kenneths signature on title. sm. 4to S. G. for Allen Banks, 1668.
The pamphlet was sold, I am told, for fourteen shillings,{1} and resold
shortly after to a New York bookseller for fifty-five dollars. He was
attracted by the imprint, which read in full, "London, by S. G. for Allen
Banks and Charles Harper at the Flower-Deluice near Cripplegate
Church." The general appearance of the pamphlet was unlike even the
moderately good issues of the English press, and the "by S. G." not
only did not answer to any London printer of the day, except Sarah
Griffin, "a printer in the Old Bailey,"{2} but was in form and usage
exactly what could be found on a number of the issues of the press of
Samuel Green, of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1 The sale took place July 30, 1917.
2 Only once does her name occur in the Term