MLR, 105.3, 2,010 841 contribution to our understanding of the politicization of amatory verse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and produces a fascinating account of how theElizabethan literaryachievement was appropriated and remodelled in the years leading up to the execution ofCharles I. Manuscript Verse Collectors and thePolitics ofAnti-Courtly Love Poetry is an exemplary contribution to thehistory of the early modern book. University of St Andrews Alex Davis Censorship and Conflict inSeventeenth-Century England: The Subtle Art ofDivision. By Randy Robertson. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2009. xv+272 pp. ?67.50. ISBN 978-0-271-03466-9. As the author himself warns, 'the topic of censorship in Stuart England is so vast and complex that generalizations founder quickly (p. 4). It is a lesson well heeded in this erudite and enterprising contribution to the scholarly literature. For Robertson focuses with largest profit not on the deep currents of seventeenth century censorship (which he nevertheless acknowledges) but rather on its subtle ripples of often unintended consequence. His delineation?and explication?of the sheer range of government controls is impressive enough; what is of greater mo ment, however, ishis forensic yet sensitive examination of 'the artistic, rhetorical, and political strategies thatwriters used to evade or even exploit' them (p. 1). Robertson's illumination of the nuanced manoeuvrings during the English Re volution of theCavalier poet Richard Lovelace, the cynosure ofChapter 2, is a case in point. That Lovelace, likemany royalist writers of the 1640s and 1650s, faced stringent state-imposed restrictions on his literary activities iswell known. Yet as the author shows, what has been little appreciated is the 'latticework of aims and meanings' (p. 72) underpinning the perforce obliquely polemical style Lovelace exhibited, by way of response, in Lucasta (1649), which enabled him to negotiate his way around and through those restrictions. In thus drawing our attention to the generative qualities of Caroline censorship, Robertson challenges established verities. For the author, the text and context of Lucasta undermine the 'social contract' model of censorship evasion espoused by critics such as Annabel Patterson, inwhich writers and the state find a mutu ally beneficial via media. Instead, evidence of the printer's political loyalties, of partisan commendatory verses being included after the initial print run, and of clandestine strategic alliances with influential parliamentarians is adduced to re veal that thework's 'temperate rhetoric and delicate artistry camouflage a royalist agenda' (p. 71). It is the close textual analysis of Lovelace's poems themselves, however, which underpins Robertson's analysis and fromwhich his emphasis on Lovelace's indirectness derives most force. This analysis features a fine reading of, among other pieces, 'To Lucasta. From Prison. An Epode', inwhich it is claimed? convincingly?that Lucasta is the king himself, and that the representation of a headless parliament may allude to Charles's absence from parliament rather than to his execution. 842 Reviews Any serious account of censorship in this period must, of course, give due attention toAreopagitica (1644). In the following chapter Robertson duly obliges with an innovative slant on the linguistic volatility ofMilton's hymn to press free dom. Robertson's central argument is that the copious anti-popery inAreopagitica fuelled a subversively sceptical iconoclasm. ForMilton, revolutions can be sparked and survive only when their governing ideologies are subjected to theheat of scep tical and free discourse. But while the pretended infallibility of state censors could usefully be exposed by this combustible compound of scepticism and anti-popery, the concept, espoused byMilton, of all worldly authorities being infallible had, as the author shows, even more profound implications for government tolerance of philosophical and religious thought, informing post-Restoration debates on athe ism and, ultimately, Enlightenment polemic. The chronological sweep of the book iswide?other chapters shed new light on the censorship battles faced by, among others,William Prynne and Jonathan Swift; though with a title spanning the entire Stuart dynasty the absence of a chapter dedicated to Jacobean press control and itsevasion?of which there remains much untapped evidence?is a touch anomalous. That minor quibble aside, this is a carefully researched and imaginatively constructed book on a topic of perennial importance. Itwill be of considerable interest to scholars...