We, the town and village mayors,
regional officials and councillors of the
Protestant towns and localities of the Swiss Confederation,
Zurich, Bern, Glarus, Basel,
Schaffhausen, Appenzell-Outer Rhodes, St
Gallen, Müllhausen and Biel, hereby make it publicly
known that: since our dear and faithful Johann
Heinrich Bürckli, book printer in Zurich, has duly
let us know that he is presently working on the publication
of the Hamburg Senator B. H. Brockes's
"Earthly Delight inGod, consisting of Physical and Moral Poems,Accompanied by Musical Compositions by JohannCaspar Bachofen, Reverend and Cantor of the High Schoolin Zurich", and he is rightly worried
that profit-greedy persons might venture to
reprint this book both locally and abroad, and
thereby inflict losses on him, for which reason he has
urgently applied to us for a general privilege; that hereupon
We have graciously acceded to his request, and that on
the strenght of the present privilege We have decided and decreed that
not only shall it be forbidden, during the next ten years,
for all and sundry of our fellow-citizens to
reprint the aforementioned
"Poems with MusicalCompositions" by Brockes - wholly or partially,
anywhere and in every conceivable way - but also
that, if, contrary to what we expect, suchlike should
happen outside of the praiseworthy Protestant Confederation,
then no such reprinted copies are to be imported or sold in
all of Our cities, towns, districts, and territories, always
on pain of confiscation of these copies and of incurring other severe
punishments and disgrace.
In confirmation whereof, We have arranged for this privilege
in the name of us all to be archived and issued with
the Privy Seal of Our City of Zurich,
on the 13th day of July, in the year - counting from
the merciful birth of our Redeemer, One thousand, seven
hundred and thirty-nine.
[place of the seal]