characteristically, to supplant and extinguish that of Francis
Hare, Dean of Worcester. The text was corrected "in not less
than a thousand places" and in every line the first accented
syllable of every _dipodia_ was marked with an acute accent--"a
laborious task, which must have vastly increased the trouble of
correcting the press." Included in the first half of the volume
were a _Schediasma_ or dissertation upon the metres of Terence and
Bentley's _Commencement Oration_ of 1725, on the occasion of the
creation of seven Doctors of Divinity. The second half of the book
consisted of an edition of Phaedrus and Publius Syrus, the Phaedrus
being undertaken to anticipate an edition projected by Hare
containing emendations "of the most daring class."
_A Sermon upon Popery_, preached by Bentley before the university
on 5 November, 1715, and printed in the same year, is of interest
not only as an expression of the vigorous No-Popery spirit of 1715,
but as supplying material and phraseology for the sermon recited by
Corporal Trim in the second book of _Tristram Shandy_.
It was Bentley, too, who arranged for the publication of a second
edition of Newton's _Principia_ in 1713. "The first impression
being entirely exhausted," says Monk, "the lovers of philosophy
were, in a manner, debarred access to the fountain of truth" and
Bentley engaged Roger Cotes to supervise the new edition.
Into the history of Bentley's many controversies it is fortunately
unnecessary to enter, but one of his pamphlets, which brought the
university printer into the Vice-Chancellor's court on a charge of
libel, must be mentioned.
In 1721 there appeared a pamphlet, written by Conyers Middleton,
but published anonymously in London, entitled _Remarks, Paragraph
by Paragraph, upon the Proposals lately publish'd by Richard
Bentley, for a New Edition of the Greek Testament and Latin
Version_, and full of "sheer personal malice." Bentley's proposals
were described as "low and paltry higgling to squeeze our money
from us," reminiscent of "those mendicants in the streets, who beg
our charity with an _half sheet of proposals_ pinned upon their
breasts."
Bentley's reply was prompt and vigorous; he chose to assume
that the author of the pamphlet was Dr John Colbatch, the
Casuistical Professor[83], and answered him in what Monk describes
as the vocabulary of Billingsgate. "Cabbage-head," "Maggot,"
"Gnawing-rat," "Mountebank" were some of the terms used. "He
never," wrote Bentley, "broaches a piece of mere knavery, without
a preface about his conscience; nor ever offers to us downright
nonsense, without eyes, muscles, and shoulders wrought up into the
most solemn posture of gravity."
This was too much, even for academic controversy of the eighteenth
century; Colbatch, having first disavowed the authorship of
the _Remarks_, appealed to the Heads of Colleges. This body
declared the book to be "a most virulent and scandalous libel"
and Crownfield was prosecuted in the Vice-Chancellor's Court for
having sold it. Dr Crosse, the Vice-Chancellor, was a "quiet and
timid man" and after hazarding a judgment in Crownfield's favour,
adjourned the case. In the next year Bentley was cited to appear
in the Vice-Chancellor's Court to give evidence concerning the
libel. "There was no difficulty," says Monk, "in obtaining the
citation, but a great one in getting it served upon the Master: the
Esquire-beadles ... were all as averse to such perilous service,
as the mice in the fable were to undertake the office of belling
the cat." One of the beadles, however, was bribed with a double
fee, and Bentley offered no resistance. Instead, he contrived, by
an exchange with a brother-chaplain, to be on duty at St James's
during the month in which the Court was to assemble and eventually
the proceedings against him were abandoned.
The most ambitious work which the University Press undertook about
this time was an edition of the Suidas Lexicon in three volumes
folio. For this enterprise Bentley was chiefly responsible. Ludolf
Kuster, a professor from Berlin, had collated three of the Suidas
manuscripts at Paris and was invited by Bentley to take up his
residence at Cambridge and to publish his edition of the lexicon
at the Press. Accordingly on 4 October, 1701, the university made
an agreement with John Owen, an Oxford stationer, by which Owen
undertook to purchase an edition of 1500 copies (150 on large
paper) of Suidas in three volumes at the price of £1 10_s_ 6_d_ per
sheet[84].
The exact relation of Owen to Cambridge is not quite clear.
Evidently, he was a protegé of Bentley and though there is no
record of his official appointment as a Cambridge printer, several
books bear his imprint as _Typographus_, including Cellarius,
_Geographia_ 1703; Ockley, _Introductio_ 1706; Caesar, 1706;
Minucius Felix, 1707; Sallust, 1710[85]. The word _typographus_, as
Bowes pointed out, is used rather loosely and Owen seems only to
have been the publisher of the books quoted; on the other hand,
there are among Crownfield's vouchers for 1705 the following:
June 23. 1705
Then received of Mr Corn. Crownfield (for the use of Mr Davies,
and for correcting Caesars Commentary) the summe of thirty seven
shillings and four pence, being for 28 sheets at 16_d_ the sheet
from A to Ee, inclusive by me
£ _s_ _d_ JOHN OWEN
01 17 4
Compos'd in Caesar's Commentary's the sheets Ccc, Ddd, Eee, Fff at
8_s_ the sheet--_l_1 12_s_ 0_d_
Sept. 17. 1705
Receiv'd by JOHN OWEN
These receipts appear to show that Owen actually was at work as a
compositor upon Davies's edition of Caesar which appeared with the
imprint _Impensis Joannis Oweni, Typographi_[86].
From passages in Bentley's correspondence it also appears that Owen
travelled in Holland on Bentley's behalf in 1706[87].
But long before this Owen had found himself unable, "through great
poverty and being imprisoned on the amount of debts contracted," to
carry out the Suidas agreement, and on 8 May, 1703, a new contract
was made with Sir Theodore Janssen, who had already supplied Owen
with large quantities of paper, for the completion of the work at
the joint expense of the university and of Janssen himself, the
editor's fee being fixed at £200[88].
As has been noted above, however, the Press continued to print
certain other books for Owen. Thus Janssen writes to Crownfield on
19 October, 1704:
I have sent you to-day 150 Reams of fine genoa paper which is to
be for yͤ use of Mͬ Jͦⁿ Owen when he hath signed an agreement such
as Dͬ Bentley doth require ...[89].
In later years Owen seems to have laid his misfortunes at Bentley's
door, since, in a dedication written by him to "Elias Abenaker of
London, Gent." and prefixed to Ockley's translation of Modena,
_History of the present Jews_ (ed. 1711), he writes:
I ... want Words to tell the World how much I am your Debtor,
how often you have rescued me and my whole Family from the Jaws
of Destruction; what noble Assistances you have supplied me
with, to raise my Fortune in the World, and put my Affairs into
a prosperous and flourishing Condition, had not a Person of an
high Character, and a pretending Encourager of Arts and Sciences,
and Printing in particular, (by the Encouragement of whose
specious Promises I was induced to leave Oxford) been as Sedulous
and Industrious to ruine and destroy me, by such Injustice and
Cruelties, which if I should particularize, would gain Credit with
few but those of the University of Cambridge, where the Fact is
notoriously known[90].
In the meantime Kuster's edition of Suidas had duly appeared in
1705:
Kuster (writes Monk) having now, by means of his [Bentley's]
patronage, completed the three noble volumes of his Suidas, their
appearance raised the fame of the editor, while it excited public
admiration at the spirit and liberality of the University of
Cambridge in undertaking so magnificent a publication.
Correspondence between Janssen and Crownfield throws some
interesting side-lights on business details--the fixing of the
price and the choice of selling agents[91]:
Now that yͤ hurry of treating her Majᵗʸ is over[92] (writes
Janssen) I hope yͤ University will come speedily to a resolution
at what rate to sell Suidas, I would not have them to think of too
high a price and I believe 3£ will be rather too much hoever I
leave it to them but I hope they will not exceed 3£ which is 20_s_
a volume.
[Illustration: KUSTER'S RECEIPT FOR A PORTION OF HIS FEE]
Dͬ Bentley had told me you would write to some booksellers in
Hollͩ. Since we refused Mͬ Mortier's offers it might perhaps be
of service but I think we could not pitch on a fitter person for
disposing of a good quantity of Suidas beyond sea.
Bentley's financial negotiations with the Dutch booksellers were
apparently not successful, since copies of the _Lexicon_ were
disposed of to foreign booksellers by the method of exchange:
Feby 1ᵗʰ 1705/6. Agreed then also yͭ foreign booksellers be
treated with for an exchange of an hundred[93] Suidas's, for
a number of bookes wͨͪ shall be esteem'd of equal value, & yͭ
Catalogues of proper bookes wᵗʰ their respective prises, be
procur'd from them to be approv'd of by yͤ University.
The succession of troubles encountered by the university both
in the production and distribution of this book illustrates the
difficulties of the Curators in attempting to grapple with the
details of stock-keeping and accountancy. By 1732 "part of yͤ
impression was in yͤ University warehouse and yͤ rest was got into
Mͬ Innys's[94] hands in London, but in such manner, yͭ neither had
a perfect book."
After some two or three years of negotiation for the mutual
purchase of sheets at ½_d_ a piece, the university, having bought
the whole of Innys's stock for £400, acquired 410 complete sets of
the work and appointed a Syndicate to dispose of them. The Syndics,
however, found remaindering difficult:
It were well (says the writer of a memorandum of 1749) if we could
get some one to take them all off our hands at almost any rate. I
have tried Knapton and Whiston in vain. They durst not venture on
the whole: but advise to advertize them at 30ˢ a Book, and let yͤ
Booksellers have them at 25ˢ....
I have hopes yͭ Vailliant may take them all at 25ˢ a book,
especially if he be allowed time for payment of the money, & yͤ
University would take some of it in books, which we really want
for yͤ Rustat Library[95].
Eventually, in 1752, 75 sets were disposed of to T. Merrill (a
Cambridge bookseller) at one guinea each and the rest seem to
have been exchanged[96]. So ended the most ambitious of the early
publishing enterprises of the university.
Amongst the other books printed during this period, editions of
the classics are prominent. The titles of these will be found in
Appendix II and Davies's editions of Cicero, Barnes's Anacreon
(1705) and Homer (1711), Taylor's Lysias (1740) may be specially
noted. The edition of the _Medea_ and _Phoenissae_ of Euripides by
W. Piers (1703) contains, in its preface, an interesting tribute to
the renovation of Cambridge typography:
Si _Typorum elegantiam_ mireris, gratias merito ingentes
habeto _Illustrissimo Principi_ Carolo _Duci_ Somersetensium
_munificentissimo nostrae Academiae Cancellario_, cui Cordi est
_nostrum_ imo _suum_ denuò revixisse _Typographéum_.
Mathematics is represented primarily by the second edition of
Newton's _Principia_ (1713), by Le Clerc's _Physica_ (1700 etc.),
by Robert Green's _Principles of Natural Philosophy_ (1712--an
anti-Newtonian treatise) and by the _Praelectiones_ (1707 and
1710) and other works of W. Whiston; biography by Knight's _Life
of Erasmus_ (1726); Oriental studies by Ockley's _Introductio ad
Linguas Orientales_ (1706) and Lyons's _Hebrew Grammar_ (1735).
A work of more general interest is the first edition of Sir Thomas
Browne's _Christian Morals_, published from the MS of the Author by
John Jeffery and printed by Crownfield in 1716.
[Illustration: A COMPOSITOR'S RECEIPT, 1705]
(Among the items may be noted one of Sir Isaac Newton's works and
the Vice-Chancellor's order putting Sturbridge Fair out of bounds)
These, of course, are only a few titles selected from the
bibliography of the period.
[Illustration: TITLE PAGE OF _CHRISTIAN MORALS_, 1716]
Between 1725 and 1738/9 there are no entries in the Curators'
minute-book; the driving power of Bentley's energy and enthusiasm
was flagging and the Press had become a source of pecuniary
loss to the university. The agreements of 1706 and 1727 with
the Stationers, by which the university surrendered the right
of printing a large number of school books in return for money
payments, no doubt represent an attempt to meet this difficulty[97].
Similarly in December, 1730, it was resolved to lease the
university's right of printing bibles and prayer-books to "Mr
James & Company" for the sum of £100 per annum, an additional £5
per annum to be paid during the lifetime of Jonathan Pindar, whose
formal resignation had been arranged by a grace of 28 August[98].
This arose out of an application which has a special interest in
the history of printing.
About the beginning of 1730 William Fenner, a London stationer,
did bring up from Edinburgh a Scotsman named Wᵐ Ged; who had or
pretended to have found out the Art of casting, upon Plates, whole
Pages of Letters ... wͨͪ 'twas thought would be of great advantage
to the publick, as well as to the proprietors of the Invention.
This invention came to the notice of a type-founder named Thomas
James who was so much struck by its possibilities that he was
of opinion that the Design of printing by such plates would in
short time be brought to such perfection as would greatly injure
if not wholly ruine the business of letter-founding, by wͨͪ he
then made shift to support a large family.
Accordingly a partnership was formed between Ged, Fenner, and
Thomas James. The design, it was alleged, "had at that time all
imaginable appearance of Success"; Thomas James, being unable to
get any help from his father ("a Clergyman then living upwͩˢ of 85
years of age, who had, upon a small Endowmͭ in Hampshire, brought
up a numerous family"), applied to his brother John, an architect
at Greenwich, for financial assistance. John James came into the
partnership, paying an entrance fee of £100, and, as the invention
of stereotype plates was likely to be used with most advantage for
the printing of bibles and prayer-books, undertook to apply for a
licence to the University of Cambridge--"the only one at that time
unemploied."[99]
This application was successful and the lease was granted to Fenner
on 23 April, 1731; Fenner's name was used as that of the only
member of the partnership who was a stationer, and John James gave
a bond for £100.
The plates were at first made in London, at a house in Bartholomew
Close, but in the summer of 1732 a house was hired in Cambridge
and all the materials and implements moved thither. "For yͤ better
prosecuting the Affair," a certain James Watson was sent to Holland
"as well as to hire Men, as to buy Presses" and several Dutchmen
were employed in printing the nonpareil bible and the small book of
common prayer by the new process.
But the business did not prosper. Ged quarrelled with Fenner and
"left the whole business at a stand, Secreting or taking with him
several Tools and other things to which he had no Right"[100];
Baskett, the king's printer, filed a Bill in Chancery against
Fenner for printing bibles; the injunction was subsequently
withdrawn, but meanwhile John James was losing confidence in the
scheme and growing anxious about his money; he urged Fenner to
"go on with the Cambridge Patent Work in common Type Way by the
Assistance of Mr Watson, _and have nothing farther to do in the
Plate Way_." "As far as I can learn," wrote James in another letter
(28 Nov. 1732), "the Booksellers all agree that the Prayer-Book
that is done will by no means pass. So that to proceed farther in
this Way will but run us more and more out of Pocket." Finally,
Fenner died in debt in 1734; four specimens of his work in
Cambridge have survived: an octavo Book of Common Prayer, Thomas
Johnson's _Letter to Mr Chandler_, John Colbatch's _Examination of
the marriage treaty of Charles II_, and _A Collection of Poems_,
by the Author of _A Poem on the Cambridge Ladies_.
His widow, Mary Fenner, carried on such business as was left and
a bitter controversy, recalling the days of Thomas Buck, arose
between her and her deceased husband's partners. The brothers
James declared that they were £1000 out of pocket and had received
not a penny in return; that Fenner had taken a grossly unfair
advantage of the lease being in his name. Mrs Fenner, in reply,
maintained that her husband had borne the brunt of many business
difficulties alone and that his appeals to his partners for help
and co-operation had been neglected.
In their complaints to the Vice-Chancellor Thomas and John James
did not mince their words:
I humbly request (writes Thomas) that my Brother and I may be
heard; that so the Scene of Iniquity carried on by Mr Fenner and
now prosecuted by his Widow may be laid open ... for I do not find
the change of Mrs Fenner's Religion has made any alteration in her
morals.
As to what Fenner's wife (writes John) (who I fear is of as bad a
principle as he was) may alledge, I can only say, she has no other
cause of complaint, than that I refused to throw away all I had in
yͤ world, for the Knave her husband to make Ducks and Drakes with.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF BENTLEY'S _BOYLE LECTURES_, 1735]
The details of the controversy need not be examined here[101], but
one short letter from Mrs Fenner to the Vice-Chancellor is worth
preserving:
London 19 Jun. 1735
Honͬͩ
Sͬ
these wates on you to beg the favour you will be so good as to
stay three weeaks & then will wate on you, in that time will Do my
indaver to See Mͬ James & if it is possable to bringe him to Some
agreament I Rely upon your Goodness till that time & then Shall
have an oppertuneyty to inform your worship of my case & will do
wat is in my power to make you eassey as to the Deate is oing to
the university
I am Sͬ your
Dutyful Sarvant
Mary Fenner
Only one book bearing the imprint of Mary Fenner (the sixth edition
of Bentley's _Boyle Lectures_, 1735) has been preserved and her
association with the university came to an end in 1738. In that
year she relinquished her lease and John James agreed to pay
£150 in settlement of the university's claim upon the ill-fated
partnership.
The chief cause of the failure of the Press to fulfil the high
hopes of 1696 appears, in Monk's words,
to have been the want of a permanent committee of management, a
measure which, however obvious, was not adopted till many years
afterwards. In the meantime, the receipt and disbursement of large
sums of money, as well as the necessary negotiations with persons
of business, were entrusted to the individuals holding the annual
office of Vice-Chancellor, who in many cases possessed no previous
acquaintance with the concern; a system which inevitably led to
injurious and almost ruinous consequences.
This state of affairs is reflected in the preamble of the grace of
1737:
Cum prelum typographicum in usum et commoditatem Academicam olim
destinatum per quadraginta retro annos ita negligenter fuerit
administratum, ut Academiam oneraverit sumptu ultra bis mille et
trecentas libras....
A Syndicate was accordingly appointed with plenary powers over the
Press for three years.
This Syndicate "took the State of the Press into Consideration"
purchasing new types, presses and other materials; and "that they
might be able to retain good Hands there, by securing them constant
Employment, began to print an Impression of the Bible in 12ᵐͦ."
The further measures taken for the development of the bible trade
will be recorded in the next chapter. Here it may be noted that
one important modification of the Copyright Act, which had been
finally passed in 1710, was made in 1739; in that year a new act
repealed the clause which empowered the Vice-Chancellors of the two
universities to set and reform the prices of books.
In 1712, 1735, and subsequent years clauses were also included in
the acts imposing duties on paper by which, "for the Encouragement
of Learning" the University Presses were allowed a "drawback" on
paper used "in the printing any Bookes in the Latin Greek Orientall
or Northern Languages."[102]
VI
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PRINTERS
Crownfield retired from the office of printer in 1740 and received
a pension from the university until his death in 1743[103]. He
was a bookseller as well as a printer and seems to have done some
binding as well[104]. His bookselling business was carried on after
his death by his son James, and a book of 1744 is described on the
title-page as "printed for J. Crownfield."
His successor was Joseph Bentham, appointed first by the Curators
as 'Inspector' on 28 March, 1740[105], and elected printer on 14
December of the same year.
Bentham was the son of Samuel Bentham, Vicar of Wichford, near Ely;
one of his brothers was James Bentham the historian of Ely and
another, Edward Bentham, of Oxford, author of _Funebres Orationes_
and other works.
Joseph Bentham was free of the Stationers' Company and Carter, the
historian of Cambridge, refers to him as "allowed by all Judges to
be as great a Proficient in the Mystery as any in _England_; which
the _Cambridge_ Common Prayer Books and Bibles ... printed by him,
will sufficiently evince."[106]
Before Bentham's appointment, steps had already been taken by the
university to revive the business of printing and selling bibles.
Thus, in December, 1740, the Curators agreed to print small bibles
(9000) price 2_s_ and 1000 on large paper at 2_s_ 6_d_, and six
months later 11,000 small nonpareil bibles and 1000 on large paper.
The services of Charles Bathurst, of London, were secured as agent
and from 1738 to 1744 he was engaged in "buying, procuring, and
expediting Paper, Types, Servants, and other necessaries."
Bathurst's memorandum of 1751, though an _ex parte_ statement,
throws an interesting light on printing conditions at Cambridge:
The Insolvency (he writes) of the University's late Lessees for
Bibles and the wishes and power of the King's Printer considered,
it was then a prevailing opinion, that no advantage could well
be made by printing Bibles and Com. Prayers: therefore the
Syndics were very diffident and cautious in undertaking other
Impressions[107].
However, having previously passed a resolution that Bentham was
to sell no bibles without authority from one of themselves, the
Syndics in March, 174¾, covenanted with Bathurst that he should
be the sole selling agent for all books printed at Cambridge.
Several editions of the bible and prayer-book were put in hand and
subsequently reprinted, "but not near so fast as they were sold."
Bathurst grew impatient: "If two presses will not do," he wrote
to the Vice-Chancellor, "[I hope that] three shall [be] employ'd
in it: for truly the jests People make here of the negligence of
our Advantage and Honour are very irksome." The university, on
the other hand, found itself unable to make the necessary outlay
of money for paper. Bathurst had, according to his own account,
spent considerable sums in the purchase of type and had made a six
weeks' voyage to Holland in 1747 to procure a good stock of paper.
One parcel was duly received by Bentham at Cambridge, but by the
time that the second consignment arrived, a new Vice-Chancellor (Dr
Parris, Master of Sidney Sussex College) had taken office and the
paper was promptly returned.
I have returned your paper again (wrote the Vice-Chancellor) which
yet I would not have done, if we had either wanted it, or had
money left to have paid for it.... The Welsh Bible is paid for
within a trifle: works of authors bring in but a trifle: our chief
dependance must be on what our books in your hands produce.... I
am reduced to yͤ necessity of either returning your paper, or,
what is still worse, putting an intire stop to yͤ press[108].
A fresh arrangement was therefore proposed by which Bathurst should
pay ready money for books printed and the university should not be
required to advance money to carry on the business.
Another source of trouble both to the Press and to Bathurst during
this period was a second attack made by Baskett, the king's
printer, upon the rights of the university.