ABSTRACT
Midway through the seventeenth century and beyond, print and manuscript were equally viable and relevant modes of dissemination, not just for literary texts as Arthur Marrotti, Henry Woudhuysen, and Harold Love have shown, and not just as a coterie phenomenon, but for political information relevant to most classes across the social spectrum of early seventeenth-century England.1 There is no evidence that print carried more influence on the formation of public opinion than did manuscript as at least one modern historian has insisted.2
Indeed, the early modern evidence quite often points to the opposite conclusion: much of the rhetoric about print and its functions in the period were negative rather than positive. Take, for example, the admittedly early sentiment: ‘The pen is a virgin, the printing press is a whore.’3 Suspicion of print endured through the age of the handpress, and manuscript retained a cachet. John Donne, for example, was notoriously hesitant about print and believed manuscript would endure when print had faded away and was forgotten.4
