1750-1800
The improvement in printing which Caslon had begun quickly spread to
other parts of the kingdom, even as far north as Scotland, where, before
the middle of the century, there was established at Glasgow a press that
became notable for the beauty of its productions.
Robert and Andrew Foulis, the founders of this press, were the sons of
Andrew Faulls and Marion Paterson, Robert being born at Glasgow on April
20th, 1707, and his brother on November 23rd, 1712.
Robert Foulis was apprenticed to a barber, but his love for literature
led him to study at the University, where he attended the moral
philosophy lectures of Francis Hutcheson, who advised him to become a
bookseller and printer. His brother, Andrew, entered the University at a
later date, destined for the ministry, and during their vacations they
travelled throughout England and on the Continent. In the course of
these travels they sought for and brought back with them many rare and
beautiful books, and gained a wide knowledge of the book trade.
At length, in 1741, Robert Foulis set up as a bookseller in Glasgow. In
some of his earlier publications will be found lists of books printed
and sold by him, which are very interesting. One of these, which
enumerates fifteen books, includes a Greek Testament, Buchanan's edition
of the Psalms, Burnet's _Life of the Earl of Rochester_, seven or eight
classics, among which were a Cicero, Juvenal, Cornelius Nepos, Phædrus,
and Terence, and two of Tasso's works. The Terence was printed for him
by Robert Urie, and shows some excellent founts of small italic and
Roman. Robert Foulis seems to have begun printing on his own account in
1742, and among his earliest patrons was Professor Hutcheson, for whom
he printed a treatise entitled _Metaphysicæ Synopsis_, a duodecimo of
ninety pages, and a work on Moral Philosophy of three hundred and thirty
pages. He also printed in the same year the second and third editions of
a sermon preached by William Leechman before the Synod of Glasgow and
Ayr, _The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus_, and
editions of Cicero and Phædrus. All these were in duodecimo or small
octavo, printed in a clear readable type, that probably came from
Urie's foundry. On the 31st March 1743, Robert Foulis was appointed
printer to the University of Glasgow, and published _Demetrius Phalerus
de Elocutione_ in two sizes, quarto and octavo. This was the first book
printed at Glasgow in Greek type, the Greek and Latin renderings being
printed on opposite pages--the Latin in a fount of English Roman that
cannot be distinguished from Caslon's letter, while the italic also has
a strong resemblance to that of the English founder. Among other
productions of the year 1743 was a specimen of another Glasgow man's
work, Bishop Burnet's translation of Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_, to
which was prefixed Holbein's portrait of the great Chancellor.
In 1744 Dr. Andrew Wilson, who for some years had been furnishing Scotch
and Irish printers with types from his foundry, moved to Camlachie, a
spot within a mile of Glasgow, and at once began to furnish letter for
Robert Foulis. In the same year Robert took his brother Andrew into
partnership, and the firm quickly became famous for the beauty and
correctness of their classics, beginning with the edition of Horace,
which, from the fact of its having only six errors in the text, was
christened the immaculate. Other attractive books were the Sophocles of
1745, quarto; Cicero in twenty volumes, small octavo; the small folio
edition of Callimachus, which took the silver medal offered in
Edinburgh for the finest book of not fewer than ten sheets; the
magnificent Homer, which Reed in his _Old English Letter Foundries_
describes as 'for accuracy and splendour the finest monument of the
Foulis press.' But the Foulis press did not confine itself to classics
only. It published several fine editions of English authors, among them
a folio edition of Milton's _Paradise Lost_, and editions of the poems
of Gray and Pope. In 1775 Andrew Foulis died suddenly. The blow was very
severely felt by his brother, and coming as it did upon the failure of
his Academy of Arts, completely crushed him. He removed his art
collection to London for sale; but here another disappointment awaited
him--the sum realised after paying expenses being fifteen shillings. He
returned to Edinburgh, and was on the point of starting for Glasgow when
he died on the 2nd June 1776. The Foulis press was carried on by the
younger Andrew Foulis until the end of the century.
In England, the chief event of this period was the appearance of John
Baskerville at Birmingham.
No satisfactory biography of Baskerville has yet been written, but the
best sketches of his life are those by the late T. B. Reed in his
_History of the Old English Letter Foundries_ (chap, xiii.), which
contains some highly interesting and valuable correspondence between
Baskerville and his publisher, R. Dodsley, and the more recent
article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, from the pen of Mr.
Tedder.
[Illustration: JOHN THOMAS BASKERVILLE.]
John Baskerville was born in 1706 at Wolverley, a village in
Worcestershire. No one has discovered where he was educated: yet this is
one of the points upon which we should like to know something, because
it is generally admitted that he was a very beautiful writer; indeed, it
was to his love of calligraphy that we owe the regular and
well-proportioned letters associated with his name. For some time he
earned his living as a writing-master; after which he appears to have
gone into the japanning trade, and in 1750 embarked some capital in a
letter foundry. Another point upon which his biographers are silent is
the place where he learnt the art of printing. For we know that the
punches of his foundry were not cut by himself, and that he was not in
any sense a practical printer; yet he must have obtained some knowledge
of the rudiments of the art before taking over the responsibilities of a
foundry of his own. Baskerville appears to have employed the most
skilled artists he could obtain, and it is said that he spent upwards of
£600--some say £800--before he obtained a fount to suit him. His letters
to Dodsley show how anxious he was to attain perfection. The result of
all this care and labour was shown in the quarto edition of _Virgil_
which appeared in 1757, and was followed by quarto editions of Milton's
_Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_.
The appearance of Baskerville's publications gave rise to no little
controversy. By some they were hailed with unstinted praise; while
others, such as Mores and Dr. Bedford, looked upon them with something
little short of contempt. Yet it is difficult to understand the grounds
of these adverse criticisms. As regards type, there is very little to
choose between Caslon's Roman and that of Baskerville, while the italic
of Baskerville was unquestionably the most beautiful type that had ever
been seen in England; and the ridiculous criticism passed on it that its
very fineness was injurious to the eyesight, was shown to be utterly
worthless by Franklin's letter to the printer, which is printed in
Reed's _Old English Letter Foundries_. But there are also other features
of excellence about these books of Baskerville's. They are simplicity
itself. There is not a single ornament or tail-piece introduced into
them to divide the attention. The books were printed with deep and wide
margins, and the lines were spaced out with the very best effect.
The first public body to recognise Baskerville's ability was the
University of Oxford, which in July 1758 empowered him to cut a fount of
Greek types for 200 guineas. This order proved to be beyond his power.
It is generally admitted that his Greek type was a failure, and he
wisely made no further attempts at cutting learned characters. Some of
the punches of Baskerville's Greek types are still preserved at Oxford,
and are the only specimens of his foundry that we have.
In his Preface to _Paradise Lost_, Baskerville stated that the extent of
his ambition was to print an octavo Prayer Book and a folio Bible. In
connection with this ambition, he applied to the University of Cambridge
for appointment as their printer, a privilege which was granted to him,
but at the cost of such a heavy premium that he obtained no pecuniary
profit from it. The Prayer Book printed in two forms appeared in 1760,
and the same year saw the prospectus and specimen of the Bible issued,
the Bible itself appearing in 1763 in imperial folio. Both are beautiful
specimens of the printer's art.
But Baskerville soon became disgusted with the ill-natured criticism to
which he was subjected, coupled with the failure of booksellers to
support him, and was anxious to have done with the business. The year
before the publication of the Bible, he wrote to Horace Walpole a letter
given by Reed (p. 278) in which he says that he is sending specimens of
his foundry to foreign courts in the hope of finding among them a
purchaser for the whole concern, and during the next few years he was in
correspondence with Franklin with the same object. Fortunately for his
country, these attempts were unsuccessful during his life-time, and
between the years 1760-1773 he produced not only several editions of the
Bible and Common Prayer, but the works of Addison, 4 vols. 1761, 4to;
the works of Congreve, 3 vols. 1761, 8vo; _Æsop's Fables_; and in 1772 a
series of the classics in quarto, which, Reed says, 'suffice, had he
printed nothing else, to distinguish him as the first typographer of his
time' (p. 281).
Baskerville died on January 8th, 1775, and for a few years his widow
carried on the foundry; but at the same time endeavoured to dispose of
it. Both our Universities refused it, and no London foundry would touch
it, because the booksellers would have nothing but the types of Caslon
and Jackson. The type was eventually sold in 1779 to the Société
Littéraire-typographique of France for £3700, and was used in a
sumptuous edition of the works of Voltaire.
Yet one firm was found bold enough to model its letter on that of
Baskerville. In 1764 Joseph Fry, a native of Bristol, began
letter-founding in that city. He took as a partner William Pine,
proprietor of the _Bristol Gazette_, but the business was not carried on
in their name but in that of Isaac Moore, their manager. In 1768 they
removed the foundry to London, and issued a prospectus. But so strong
was the prejudice against Baskerville's letter--or, perhaps, it would be
better to say, so strong was the hold which Caslon's foundry had
obtained--that they were compelled to recast the whole of their stock.
This took them several years; meanwhile, they issued one or two editions
of the Bible in their first fount. In 1776 Isaac Moore severed his
connection with the firm. In 1782 Mr. Pine also withdrew, and Joseph Fry
admitted his two sons, Edmund and Henry, into partnership. At length in
1785 appeared the first specimen-book of Fry's foundry, and it was
frankly admitted in the preface that the founts of Roman and italic were
modelled on those of Caslon.
Joseph Fry retired from the business in 1787. Amongst the books printed
with his later type may be mentioned the quarto edition of the classics
edited by Dr. Homer.
Caslon the First died at Bethnal Green on January 23rd, 1766. His son,
Caslon the Second, died intestate on the 17th August 1778, when the
business came to his son, William Caslon the Third. In the same year
that Joseph Fry published his Specimen of Types, Caslon the Third also
published a specimen-book of sixty-two sheets, in every way worthy of
the reputation the firm had established. It included, besides Romans and
italics of great beauty and regularity, every variety of oriental and
learned founts, and several sheets of ornaments and flowers, arranged in
various designs. This book was dedicated to the king, and contained an
address to the reader in which, after reviewing the establishment of
the foundry, Caslon referred bitterly to the eager rivalry of other
printers and their open avowal of imitation. In 1793 Caslon the Third
disposed of his share in the Chiswell Street business to his mother and
his brother Henry's widow.
Mrs. William Caslon, senior, died in October 1795, when the business was
sold by auction and bought by Mrs. Henry Caslon for £520.
Joseph Jackson, who shared with the Caslons the favour of the London
booksellers, was one of two apprentices formerly in the employ of
William Caslon II. Some dispute arose in the foundry about the price of
certain work, and Joseph Jackson and Thomas Cottrell, having acted as
ringleaders in the movement, were dismissed, and being thrown on their
own resources, set up a foundry of their own in Nevil's Court, Fetter
Lane. Of the two Jackson proved far the more skilful, but seems to have
been of a roving disposition. After working for a year or two with
Cottrell he went to sea, leaving Cottrell to carry on the business
alone. This he did with a fair measure of success, though his foundry
was never at any time a large one. After a few years' absence Jackson
returned to England in 1763, and again turned his attention to
letter-cutting, serving for a time under his old partner Cottrell; but
having obtained the services and, what was of more value, the pecuniary
help of two of Cottrell's workmen, he set up for himself, and quickly
took a foremost place in the trade. Among his most successful work was a
fount of English 'Domesday,' for the Domesday Book published by order of
Parliament in 1783, which was preferred to that cut by Cottrell for the
same purpose. Jackson also cut a fount for Dr. Woide's facsimile of the
Alexandrian Codex with great success. But perhaps his most successful
effort was the two-line English which he cut for Macklin's edition of
the Bible, begun in 1789. At the time of his death in 1792 he was at
work upon a fount of double pica for Bowyer's edition of Hume's _History
of England_. After his death his foundry was purchased by William Caslon
III.
Both Macklin's Bible and Hume's _History_ were printed at the press of
Thomas Bensley in Bolt Court, Fleet Street. As a printer of sumptuous
books Bensley had only one rival, William Bulmer, who is generally
accorded the first place. But Bensley was certainly earlier in the
field. His work was quite equal to that of Bulmer, and, apart from this,
the world owes more to his enterprise than it has ever yet acknowledged.
Thomas Bensley was the son of a printer in the Strand, and in 1783 he
succeeded to the business of Edward Allen in Bolt Court, a house
adjoining that in which Johnson had lived. He at once turned his
attention to printing as a fine art. Dibdin, in his _Bibliographical
Decameron_ (vol. ii. p. 397, etc.), gives a list of the works printed by
Bensley, and says that he began with a quarto edition of Lavater's
_Physiognomy_ in 1789, following this up with an octavo edition of Allan
Ramsay's _Gentle Shepherd_ in 1790. In this list, however, Dibdin has
omitted the folio edition of Bürger's poem _Leonora_, printed by Bensley
in 1796, with designs by Lady Diana Beauclerc. In 1797 he printed a very
beautiful edition of Thomson's _Seasons_, in royal folio, with
engravings by Bartolozzi and P. W. Tomkins from pictures by W. Hamilton.
But the chief glories of his press are the Bible and Hume's _History_.
The first was begun in 1789; but Jackson's death caused some delay when
the Book of Numbers had been reached, owing to more type being required.
For some reason, not clearly shown, Bensley would not employ Caslon, but
applied to Vincent Figgins, who for ten years had been in the service of
Jackson, to complete the type. Figgins' foundry was in Swan Yard,
Holborn, where he had established himself after Jackson's death in 1792.
He succeeded with the task set him, and his type, which was an exact
facsimile of Jackson's, was brought into use in the Book of Deuteronomy.
The whole work was completed in seven volumes, in the year 1800, and
this date appears on the title-page; but the dedication to the king was
dated 1791, and the plates, which were the work of Loutherbourg, West,
Hamilton, and others, were variously dated between those years. The text
was printed in double columns, in a handsome two-line English, with the
headings to chapters in Roman capitals, no italic type being used, and
no marginalia.
Robert Bowyer's edition of _Hume_ was in the press at the time of
Jackson's death, but was not completed until 1806. The type used in this
is a double pica, and the founder, it is said, declared that it should
'be the most exquisite performance of the kind in this or any other
country.' He died before its completion, and the work was completed by
Figgins; but the book is a lasting memorial to the skill both of the
founder and the printer.
In January 1791 appeared the first number of Boydell's Shakespeare. The
history of this notorious undertaking was briefly this. Boydell was an
art publisher in Pall Mall, where he had established a gallery and
filled it with the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West, Opie, and
Northcote, chiefly in Shakesperian subjects. George Nicol the bookseller
proposed to the Boydells that William Martin, brother of Robert Martin
of Birmingham, should be employed to cut a set of types with which to
print an edition of Shakespeare's works, to be illustrated with the
drawings then in Boydell's gallery. This William Martin had learnt his
art in the foundry of Baskerville; and such is the irony of fate, that
less than twenty years after the death of that eminent founder, his
work, scorned by the booksellers of London in his own day, was imitated
in what was certainly one of the most pretentious books that had ever
come from the English press. The printer selected for the work was
William Bulmer, a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was
apprenticed to Mr. Thomson, the printer, of Burnt House Entry, St.
Nicholas Churchyard. At that time he formed a friendship with Thomas
Bewick, the engraver, who in his _Memoir_ tells us that Bulmer used to
'prove' his cuts for him.
After serving his time, Bulmer came to London and entered the
printing-office of John Bell, who was then issuing a miniature edition
of the poets. A fortunate accident won him his acquaintance with Boydell
and Nicol, and so led to his subsequent employment at the Shakespeare
press.
The Shakespeare was followed by the works of Milton in three volumes
folio in 1794-5-7, and again in 1795 by the Poems of Goldsmith and
Parnell in quarto. In the advertisement to this work, Bulmer pointed out
how much had been done by English printers within the last few years to
raise the art of printing from the low depth to which it had fallen--a
work in which the Shakespeare press had borne no little part. He went on
to say that much pains had been taken with this edition of Goldsmith to
make it a complete specimen of the arts of type and block printing. The
types were Martin's, the woodcuts Bewick's, and the paper Whatman's. One
copy of this book was printed on white satin, and three on English
vellum.
Among the books that appeared within the last five years of the century
was an edition of _Lucretius_ in three volumes large quarto, which
certainly ranks for beauty of type and regularity of printing with any
book of that period. Like most of the works of Baskerville, this book
was quite free from ornament, and claims admiration only from the
excellence of the press-work. The notes were printed in double columns
in small pica, the text itself in double pica. In the whole three
volumes not a dozen printer's errors have been found. This work came
from the press of Archibald Hamilton.
Time has not dealt kindly with some of these specimens of what was
called 'fine' printing. After the lapse of a century, we begin to see
that though the type and press-work were all that could be desired, and
placed the English printers on a level with the best of those on the
Continent, there was something radically wrong with the production of
illustrated books. Whether it was due to the ink, or to the paper, or,
as some suppose, to insufficient drying, in all these sumptuous volumes
the oil has worked out of the illustrations, leaving an ugly brown
stain on the opposite pages, and totally destroying the appearance of
the books. This applies not only to large and small illustrations, but
in many cases to the ornamental wood blocks used for head and tail
pieces. In Macklin's Bible, and in the 'Milton' printed at the
Shakespeare press, this discoloration has completely ruined what were
undoubtedly, when they came from the press, extremely beautiful works.
Before leaving the work of the eighteenth century, a word or two must be
said about the private presses that were at work during that time. The
first place must, of course, be given to that at Strawberry Hill. None
of the curious hobbies ridden by Horace Walpole became him better, or
was more useful, than his fancy for running a printing-press. He was not
devoid of taste, and though no doubt he might have done it better, he
carried this idea out very well. The productions of his press are very
good examples of printing, and are far above any of the other private
press work of the eighteenth century. His type was a neat and clear one,
though somewhat small, and the ornaments and initial letters introduced
into his books were simple and in keeping with the general character of
the types, without being in any sense works of art. The following brief
account of the Strawberry Hill press is compiled from Mr. H. B.
Wheatley's article in _Bibliographica_, and from Austin Dobson's
delightful _Horace Walpole, a Memoir_, 1893.
The press was started in August 1757 with the publication, for R.
Dodsley, of two 'Odes' by Gray. 'I am turned printer, and have converted
a little cottage into a printing office,' he tells one friend; and to
another he writes, 'Elzevir, Aldus, and Stephens are the freshest
persons in my memory'; and referring to the 'Odes,' he writes to John
Chute in July 1757, 'I found him [Gray] in town last week; he had
brought his two Odes to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's
hands.'
Walpole's first printer was William Robinson, an Irishman, who remained
with him for two years. The Odes were followed by Paul Hentzner's _A
Journey into England_, of which only 220 copies were printed. In April
1758 came the two volumes of Walpole's _Catalogue of Royal and Noble
Authors_, of which 300 copies were printed and sold so rapidly, that a
second edition--_not_ printed at Strawberry Hill--was called for before
the end of the year.
In 1760 Walpole wrote to Zouch, in reference to an edition of Lucan,
'Lucan is in poor forwardness. I have been plagued with a succession of
bad printers, and am not got beyond the fourth book.' It was published
in January 1761, and in the following year appeared the first and
second volumes of _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, with plates and
portraits, and having the imprint, 'Printed by Thomas Farmer at
Strawberry Hill, MD.CCLXII.' Then another difficulty appears to have
arisen with the printers, and the third volume, published in 1763, had
no printer's name in the imprint. The fourth volume, not issued till
1780, bears the name of Thomas Kirgate, who seems to have been taken on
in 1772, and held his post until Walpole's death. Between 1764 and 1768
the Strawberry Hill press was idle, but in the latter year Walpole
printed in octavo 200 copies of a French play entitled _Cornélie
Vestale, Tragédie_, and from that time down to 1789 it continued at work
at intervals, its chief productions being _Mémoires du Comte de
Grammont_, 1772, 4to, of which only 100 copies were printed, twenty-five
of which went to Paris; _The Sleep Walker_, a comedy in two acts, 1778,
8vo; _A description of the villa of Mr. Horace Walpole_, 1784, 4to, of
which 200 copies were printed; and _Hieroglyphic Tales_, 1785, 8vo.
Next to the press of Horace Walpole, that of George Allan, M. P. for
Durham, at the Grange, Darlington, must be noticed. The owner was an
enthusiastic antiquary, and he used his press chiefly for printing
fugitive pieces relating to the history of the county of Durham. The
first piece with a date was _Collections relating to St. Edmunds
Hospital_, printed in 1769, and the last a tract which he printed for
his friend Thomas Pennant in 1788, entitled _Of the Patagonians_, of
which only 40 copies were worked off.
The productions of his press were very numerous, but of no great merit.
Allan was his own compositor, and gave much time to his hobby; but his
printer appears to have been a dissolute and dirty workman, who caused
him much annoyance and trouble. Altogether it may safely be said that
Allan's press cost him a great deal more than it was worth.
Another of those who tried their hand at amateur printing was Francis
Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk, who started a press at his rectory
at Fersfield. Here he printed the first volume of his _History_ in 1736,
and also the _History of Thetford_, a thin quarto volume, in 1739. But
the result was an utter failure. The type was bad to begin with, and the
attempt to use red ink on the title-pages only made matters worse. The
press-work was carelessly done; and it is not surprising to find that
the second volume of the _History_, published in 1745, was entrusted to
a Norwich printer.
The celebrated John Wilkes also carried on a private printing-office at
his house in Great George Street, Westminster. Three specimens of its
work have been identified: _An Essay on Woman_, 1763, 8vo, of which only
twelve copies are said to have been printed[19]; a few copies of the
third volume of the _North Briton_; and _Recherches sur l'Origine du
Despotisme Orientale_, Ouvrage posthume de M. Boulanger, 1763, 12mo. A
note in a copy of this volume states that it was printed by Thomas
Farmer, who had also assisted Horace Walpole at the Strawberry Hill
press.
During the last four years of the century the Rev. John Fawcett, a
Baptist minister of some repute, established a press in his house at
Brearley Hall, near Halifax, which he afterwards removed to Ewood Hall.
He used it chiefly for printing his own sermons and writings, among the
most important issue's being _The Life of Oliver Heywood_, 1796, pp.
216; _Miscellanea Sacra_, 1797; _A Summary of the Evidences of
Christianity_, 1797, pp. 100; _Constitution and Order of a Gospel
Church_, 1797, pp. 58; _The History of John Wise_, 1798; Gouge's _Sure
Way of Thriving_; Watson's _Treatise on Christian Contentment_; and Dr.
Williams's _Christian Preacher_. Most of these were in duodecimo.
The type used in this press was a very good one, and the press-work was
done with care. Owing to his growing infirmities Fawcett was obliged to
dispose of the press in 1800. There is reason to believe that the above
list might be considerably increased.
At Bishopstone, in Sussex, the Rev. James Hurdis printed several works
at his own press, the most important being a series of lectures on
poetry, printed in 1797, a quarto of three hundred and thirty pages, and
a poem called _The Favorite Village_, in 1800, a quarto of two hundred
and ten pages.
To these must be added a press at Lustleigh, in Devon, made and worked
by the Rev. William Davy, and at which was printed some thirty copies of
his _System of Divinity_, 26 vols. 1795, 8vo, a copy of which remarkable
work is now in the British Museum, and is considered one of its
curiosities; a press at Glynde, in Sussex, the seat of Lord Hampden,
from which at least one work can be traced; and a press at Madeley, in
Shropshire, from which several religious tracts were printed in 1774 by
the Rev. John Fletcher, and in 1792 a work entitled _Alexander's Feast_,
by Dr. Beddoes.
[Footnote 19: Chalmers' _Life of Wilkes_.]