Learning hath of late years met with an obstruction in many places which
suppresses it from flourishing or increasing, in spite of all its other
helps, and that is the inquisition upon the press, which prohibits any
book from coming forth without an imprimatur; an old relic of popery,
only necessary for the concealing of such defects of government which of
right ought to be discovered and amended.--C. BLOUNT. _A Just
Vindication of Learning_, 1693.