in Florence, entrusted to Baskerville the task of printing Ariosto.
The prospectus that he printed for them in 1772 states: “The Brothers
Molini have undertaken to present an Edition which will satisfy the
desires of the Public, and correspond with the reputation of this
great man. They have used the presses of the famous Baskerville, whose
master-pieces of printing all the world knows and admires.” The work
was issued in 1773, with 47 plates by the most eminent artists of the
time. There were 491 subscribers to this book, of whom 230 were in
London, 121 in Paris, 8 in Madrid, 14 in Holland, Russia, and Germany,
and 118 in Italy. It was a great success.
Dibdin says: “The Baskerville edition of Orlando Furioso with the cuts
of Bartolozzi is more exquisite than the splendid edition of Zatta.
I never see, or even think of, the lovely edition of Baskerville, of
1773, 8vo, 4 vols., without the most unmixed satisfaction. Paper,
printing, drawing, plates--all delight the eye, and gratify the heart,
of the thorough-bred bibliomaniacal Virtuoso. This edition has hardly
its equal, and certainly not its superior, in any publication with
which I am acquainted. Look well to the _proofs_ of the plates, which
Brunet tells us are sometimes more brilliant in the first two volumes
of the octavo, than in those of the quarto, or LARGE PAPER form. But
for a drawing-room table, or satinwood book-case, aspire to the quarto:
for a companion in green fields, or along quiet lanes, select the
octavo.” A copy of the quarto impression, bound in green morocco, was
sold for £21.[34] “The engraver Bartolozzi grew weary of the delays
of the publisher of these beautiful volumes, who one day in a passion
called him an ass, a poltroon, an animal. The artist made no reply;
he was working at the moment on the plate of the 43d Chant; without
turning from his task, he lightly traced these three words upon the
tomb which was engraved upon that plate,--_d’asino, de poltrone,
d’animale_.”
Did Baskerville make the paper on which his books were printed?
His latest biographers, Straus and Dent, say: “There is no place,
so far as is known, where the printer himself acknowledges that the
paper used for his book is of his own manufacture.” Derrick says:
“He manufactures his own paper.” He states in several places that he
bought paper for the Bible and for other books; that he has it not in
his power to furnish paper which is required for the book, etc. But in
his introduction to Milton he said that it gave him great satisfaction
to find that his edition of Virgil had been so favorably received,
and then he adds, “The improvement in the manufacture of the paper,
the colour and firmness of the ink were not overlooked.” This clearly
indicates that he had improved the manufacture of the paper.
He advertised superfine post paper, gilt or plain, glazed or unglazed,
of his own manufacture, etc. He was a competitor for the prize at
Birmingham in 1772, “for making paper from waste silk.” His paper
was placed upon the market by Dodsley himself, and went by the name
of “Vellum paper.” Baskerville is frequently spoken of as having
invented that kind of paper. A vellum paper still bears his name. In
the “Dictionary of Inventions” there is this reference to Baskerville
in the article, “Papier Velin:” “This paper is English, at least we
presume it to be, and we believe that Baskerville is the inventor
of it; the first edition of his Virgil, which appeared in 1757, was
printed in great part on that kind of paper.” Augustin Blanché, in his
essay upon the “History of Paper and of its Manufacture” (Paris, 1900,
page 137), states that at the time of the French Exposition of 1851,
the paper manufactured in England was in great part wrapping-paper, but
he says: “In 1750, Baskerville invented the method needed to prepare
wove paper, on which he printed his famous edition of Virgil.”
This view is confirmed by the following from Mores, page 98, note
(Nichols): “When Baskerville came to Cambridge, we told him that the
exceeding sharpness of his letter, and the glossy whiteness of his
paper, both beyond any thing that we had been used to, would certainly
offend; and we spoke much in praise of, and shewed him, the paper with
an yellow cast, on which H. Stephen’s capital editions are printed.
This, he told us, he could easily imitate, and accordingly executed
some sheets; but they were by no means the thing, the colouring not
being uniformly dispersed but clouded or waved like a quire of paper
stained with rain.”
The paper on which Virgil and Milton were printed has no watermark,
and is of a thicker texture, more yellow in color and less glossy in
appearance, than the paper on which he subsequently printed. I think
he manufactured this paper, but that, finding it more expensive to
manufacture it than to buy Dutch paper, he abandoned making paper for
printing books, but continued making ornamented post paper for some
time. The paper upon which most of Baskerville’s books were printed
was made in Holland, and it bears four watermarks. These consist of
a fleur-de-lis (_cf._ “Edwin and Emma,” 1760, and Congreve, 1761),
and in another part of the sheet a star and shield with a bar dexter,
surmounting the letters L. V. G. This was a Dutch-made paper. Another
watermark is found in some sheets of Baskerville’s paper. It consists
of a crown, a shield bearing a horn, and certain letters of the maker.
This is very clearly seen in the end papers of the copy of Addison
in the original boards. A slight modification of this watermark is
found in a very finely laid paper used only in the second edition of
“Aesop’s Fables” (1764). The first edition of Aesop was printed on wove
paper furnished by Dodsley.
Franklin wrote Baskerville in 1773, acknowledging the receipt of some
specimens, and said: “The Specimen I shall distribute by the first ship
among the printers of America, and I hope to your advantage. I suppose
no orders will come unaccompanied by bills or money, and I would
not advise you to give credit, especially as I do not think it will
be necessary. The Sheet of Chinese paper, from its size, is a great
curiosity. I see the marks of the mould in it. One side is smooth,
that, I imagine, is the side that was applied to the smooth side of the
kiln on which it was dried. The little ridges on the other side I take
to be marks of a brush passed over it to press it against that face in
places where it might be kept off by air between, which would otherwise
prevent it receiving the smoothness.”
Baskerville delivered most of his books in sheets, as was the custom
of his day, but one or two were issued in blue paper covers, _i.e._,
“Avon,” and “Edwin and Emma;” and others in boards covered with marbled
paper. I do not think he issued any books in morocco bindings. They
were expensive volumes, and were probably bound up to please themselves
by persons who bought them.
All of Baskerville’s printing was done in about sixteen years.
During this period he printed, as near as can be ascertained, about
sixty-seven books. This number is reduced by reprints of the Virgil,
the Prayer Books, and some others, so that in reality only between
fifty and sixty original books were printed by him. They are not all
of equal merit, and I think his reputation as a great printer must
ultimately rest upon not more than twelve. These, I take it, will
be found to be, Virgil, of 1757; Milton, of 1758; the Book of Common
Prayer, of 1760; Folio Bible, of 1763; Aesop’s Fables, of 1761;
Addison, of 1761; Horace, duodecimo, of 1762; Horace, octavo, of 1770;
his editions of the Latin Classics, in 1772, comprising Lucretius,
Catullus, Terence, and Sallust and Florus, octavo, in 1774; and Terence
and Lucretius, duodecimo; and Orlando Furioso in 1773.
Kippis, in “Biographia Britannica” (1778), page 671, has an article
upon Baskerville. He says: “These publications rank the name of
Baskerville with those persons who have the most contributed, at least
in modern times, to the beauty and improvement of the art of printing.
Indeed, it is needless to say to what perfection he has brought this
excellent art. The paper, the type, and the whole execution of the
works performed by him are the best testimonies of their merit.”
Baskerville certainly brought the art of printing to a degree of
perfection till then unknown in England. He trusted nothing to the
manufacture of others. “He was at once his own manufacturer of ink,
presses, chases, moulds for casting, and all the apparatus for
printing, and he also made some of the paper upon which he printed his
books. The means by which he produced these masterpieces of printing
are excluded from the province of printing in these days, by the triple
incongruities of _fine_ as possible--_quick_ as possible--_cheap_
as possible,” and as has before been said, his trade of japanning
book-work was conducted as follows: “He had a constant succession of
hot plates of copper ready, between which, as soon as printed ... the
sheets were inserted. The wet was thus expelled, the ink set, and a
glossy surface put on all simultaneously.”[35]
Reed says that “However well the method of hot pressing may have
answered at the time, the discoloration of his books still preserved
in the British Museum and elsewhere, shows that the brilliance thus
imparted was most tawdry and ephemeral.” This is not true, as is shown
by the specimens I have. They are nearly all in perfect condition. Of
course some of them are foxed, or spotted, but no more than other books
of the time, while the most of them are in absolutely perfect condition.
“Baskerville first introduced into England what is generally termed
‘_fine printing_,’ by producing a type of superior elegance, and an
ink which gave additional beauty to the type. The peculiar excellence
attached to his types and the celebrity he consequently attained gave
a stimulus to the exertions and called forth the emulation of British
printers.”[36] Fine work has therefore been progressively improving.
In the “Bibliography of Printing,” published in 1880, Baskerville is
termed a celebrated printer. It is said his type is “admired for its
elegance even at the present day, and books printed by him now bear
a very high value. He introduced great improvements in nearly every
branch of printing, and produced many masterpieces of typography.”[37]
“Baskerville is the only English printer who, up to his time, had
received the stamp of foreign reputation or approbation. He was an
artistic printer, for to secure beauty in typography, art must be
applied to the paper, and tone of the paper, margin, ink, spacing, size
of type, &c. The secret is a finding out an elegant proportion in all,
_i.e._, in a small book the type should not be thick or too black, nay,
even in the shape, cutting of a letter, quality and fitness is evoked.
It should harmonise with the mass of letters, and yet be distinct.”[38]
In 1762 Baskerville found that he was carrying his type-founding and
printing at the expense of his japanning business; as he wrote to
Franklin, “Had I no other dependence than type-founding and printing,
I must starve.” Apparently he became tired of his typographic work,
considering it too expensive and too much unappreciated, and desired to
sell it. One of his friends suggested that he apply to the government
for aid, the result of which was that he wrote the following letter
to Horace Walpole, then a member of Parliament, and an author of high
repute:
To the Honble Horace Walpole, Esq. Member
of Parliament: in Arlington Street
London
this
_Easy Hill, Birmingham, 2 Nov. 1762_
Sʳ
As the Patron and Encourager of Arts, and particularly of that of
Printing, I have taken the Liberty of sending you a Specimen of
mine, begun ten years ago at the age of forty seven, and prosecuted
ever since with the utmost Care and Attention, on the strongest
Presumption, that if I could fairly excel in this divine Art, it
would make my Affairs easy or at least give me bread. But alas! in
both I was mistaken. The Book-sellers do not chuse to encourage me,
tho I have offered them as low terms as I could possibly live by; nor
dare I attempt an old Copy, till a Lawsuit relating to that affair is
determined.
The University of Cambridge has given me a Grant to print there 8vo.
& 12mo. Common prayer Books; but under such Shackles as greatly hurt
me. I pay them for the former twenty, & for the latter twelve pound
ten shillings the thousand, & to the Stationers Company thirty two
pound for their permission to print one Edition of the Psalms in Metre
to the small prayer book: add to this the great Expence of double and
treble Carriage, & the inconvenience of a Printing House an hundred
Miles off. All this Summer I have had nothing to print at Home. My
folio Bible is pretty far advanced at Cambridge, which will cost me
near £2000. all hired at 5 p Cent. If this does not sell, I shall be
obliged to sacrifice a small Patrimony which brings me in [£74] a Year
to this Business of Printing; which I am heartily tired of & repent I
ev[er] attempted. It is surely a particular hardship that I should not
get Bread in my own Country (and it is too late to go abroad) after
having acquired the Reputation excelling in the most useful Art known
to Mankind; while every one who excels as a Player, Fidler, Dancer,
&c not only lives in Affluence, but has it [in] their power to save a
Fortune.
I have sent a few Specimens (same as the enclosed) to the Courts of
Russia and Denmark, and shall endeavour to do the same to most of the
Courts of Europe; in hopes of finding in some one of them a purchaser
of the whole Scheme, on the Condition of my never attempting another
Type. I was saying this to a particular Friend, who reproached me with
not giving my own Country the Preference, as it would (he was pleased
to say) be a national Reproach to lose it. I told him, nothing but the
greatest Necessity would put me upon it; and even then I should resign
it with the utmost Reluctance. He observed, the Parliament had given a
handsome Premium for a quack Medecine; & he doubted not, if my Affair
was properly brought before the House of Commons, but some Regard
would be paid to it; I replyed, I durst not presume to petition the
House, unless encouraged by some of the Members, who might do me the
Honor to promote it, of which I saw not the least hopes or Probability.
Thus Sʳ I have taken the Liberty of laying before You my Affairs,
without the least Aggravation; & humbly hope Your Patronage; To whom
can I apply for protection but the Great, who alone have it in their
Power to serve me?
I rely on your Candor as a Lover of the Arts; to excuse this
Presumption in
Yʳ most obedient
and most humble Servant
JOHN BASKERVILLE
PS. The folding of the Specimens will be taken out by laying them a
short time between damped Papers. NB. the Ink, Presses, Chases, Moulds
for casting & all the apparatus for printing were made in my own Shops.
This letter is interesting as showing not only the embarrassments under
which Baskerville labored, but the relation which existed between the
type-founder and printer and the member of Parliament at that time.
Baskerville was a British tradesman, and dearly loved anybody that was
in power. Nothing came of this letter. I cannot ascertain that Walpole
paid any attention to it. Baskerville then went to Paris to endeavor
to sell his letter-founding and printing establishment. He asked
£8000, which was declined as being too much. Negotiations were again
renewed, in 1765, through the medium of Franklin, who was in Paris,
and the price was reduced to £6000. But Franklin wrote that the French
government was too poor to buy it; that they had not money enough
to keep their public buildings in repair, and so nothing came of the
attempt to sell during Baskerville’s life. Upon his death his widow
advertised the business for sale, and stated at the same time that she
continued the business of letter-founding in all parts. Apparently she
received no offer, and on December 11, 1775, she advertised all the
printing material for sale at auction on the third of January, 1776,
saying that it consisted of “Four accurate improved Printing Presses;
several large Founts of Type, different Sizes; with Cases, Frames,
screwed Chases, and every other useful Apparatus in that Branch of
Trade.” For some reason this auction was postponed until April 1, when
a few founts of type were sold. Apparently the printers were afraid of
the popular prejudice against Baskerville’s type.
It was then suggested by Dr. Harwood, the distinguished bibliographer,
that the nation should purchase the types as a nucleus of a national
typography, which he wished to see established. Unfortunately his
efforts came to nothing, and then Mrs. Baskerville advertised the types
for sale again, saying that she would “conform to sell them at the same
Prices with other Letter founders.” Only one purchaser appears to have
embraced this offer, Mr. James Bridgewater, who printed an edition
of Hervey’s “Meditations” “with a new type cast on purpose by Mrs.
Baskerville.” Having exhausted all efforts to sell the type in England,
Sarah Baskerville, in 1779, sold it for £3700 to a French society,
which was founded by Beaumarchais for the purpose of buying the type
and printing a complete edition of Voltaire. As, however, nearly
half of Voltaire’s works were prohibited in France at that time, and
frequently editions were burned, and men who bought and read them were
sent to prison, it was found necessary to establish the printing-press
at Kehl, near Strassburg, in a deserted fort. Toward the end of 1780
proposals appeared and were secretly circulated through France, and two
years later proposals in English were distributed openly in England.
Finally, after repeated delays from various causes, the edition of
15,000 copies was printed in 1789. Of these only 2000 copies found
subscribers, and the entire enterprise was a financial disaster.
Perhaps the greatest compliment paid to the memory of Baskerville was
this edition of the works of Voltaire. The Kehl Press was finally
broken up about 1810, although before that time some of the type was
sent to Paris and sold. This is shown by the fact that certain books
printed in Paris between 1790 and 1806 were printed with Baskerville’s
type, and an advertisement of the sale of Baskerville type, printed
with the types themselves in black and red, which is in the possession
of the Merrymount Press, Boston, was issued early in the nineteenth
century. This begins: “The store-room of the Foundry of Baskerville,
which presents to printers a new resource in this art, contains the
types hereafter mentioned,” and closes as follows: “We will send out
a sample of proofs of said types, with their price, while we are
completing a Specimen or Book of Proofs of all that the Foundry of
Baskerville contains.”
Reed also calls attention to four works of Alfieri, all bearing the
imprint, _dalla Tipografia di Kehl, co’ caratteri di Baskerville_, and
dated severally 1786, 1795, 1800, and 1809. These trace the survival
of the Baskerville types to a date twenty years later than that at
which they are commonly supposed to have perished. “It is to be
hoped,” says Reed, “that their discovery may in due time reward the
patience of those whose ambition it is to recover for their native
land these precious relics of the most brilliant of all the English
letter-founders.”[39] It is impossible to say precisely what became
of the Baskerville founts which had gone to France, but so late as
1891, a book appeared in France professedly printed _en Caractère
Baskerville du xviii siècle_. This may be a contemporary French copy
of Baskerville’s work. The last book printed in England with the
Baskerville imprint and with his types was a reprint of Berners’s
“Treatyse of Fysshinge wyth an Angle,” published by Pickering in 1827.
William Martin, who cut the types for the famous Shakespeare Press
of Boydell and Nicol, acquired his first knowledge of the art of
type-founding at the Baskerville, Birmingham, Foundry. He produced
the founts of type from which the works of the Shakespeare Press were
printed, and, regarded simply as type-specimens, the productions of
the Shakespeare Press justify his reputation as a worthy disciple of
his great master, Baskerville. His Roman and Italic types were cut in
decided imitation of the famous Birmingham models; although Hansard
points out with disapproval that in certain particulars he attempted
unwisely to vary the design. “As to the type,” he says, “the modern
artist, Mr. Martin, has made an effort to cut the ceriphs and hair
strokes excessively sharp and fine; the long ſ is discarded, and some
trifling changes are introduced; but the letter does not stand so true
or well in line as Baskerville’s, and, as to the Italic, the Birmingham
artist will be found to far excel.”[40]
When, on the 25th day of March, 1779, Charles Whittingham was
apprenticed to learn “the art and mysteries of printing, bookbinding
and stationery,” the “art and mysteries of printing” had very much
fallen into decay in England. Only one man, John Baskerville, seemed to
have had the ambition, the skill, or the courage to make the business
anything better than a plain trade. Even he, with money at his command,
after six years of experiment and ten years of production, abandoned
his attempt to create an English taste for fine printing. He produced
books that astonished people who were sufficiently interested to
examine them, and delighted the smaller number who purchased them,
but when one went into the manufacture of paper, type, and all the
apparatus of printing, it was not enough that he should be called one
of the best printers of the world, he needed profit. The fact was
that English people did not concern themselves with Baskerville’s
enterprise in printing because they knew little, and cared less, about
fine printing. The young Whittingham, who was learning his trade at
Coventry as an apprentice, undoubtedly heard of Baskerville’s strange
hazard at Birmingham, which was only a few miles away. A tradition
survives that he saw some of Baskerville’s admirable volumes and
conceived an ambition to excel in the same direction. It is probable
that Whittingham went from Coventry to Birmingham when he was free of
his apprenticeship, and studied at the famous Baskerville Press, which
was then in existence. However that may be, he went to London and set
up a press in a garret in Dean Street, Fetter Lane, hence the Chiswick
Press and the productions of Pickering.
Baskerville considered the title-page to be a part of the book which
required the most painstaking care, and he certainly produced a series
of title-pages that have never been excelled. It had been the custom
to crowd as much information about the book as possible upon the
title-page. On the other hand, Baskerville endeavored to make his
title-pages as concise as possible, and wherever a long title was
necessary, as it was in the Prayer Books, he so chose the type and
spaced the lines that there was no fault to be found. The title-page
to his Bible is probably the most beautiful of them all, although the
title-page to the New Testament is even more simple than the title-page
to the book itself. It is a beautiful page and fine printing, without
a superfluous line or an irritating decoration. It is a relief to turn
from the crowded and rubricated red-line title-pages of the period to
the restful simplicity of the title-pages of Baskerville.
And yet the master of the art of printing in the twentieth century
wrote of Baskerville’s title-pages as follows: “There was then and
there is now a rule obeyed by many printers that the main display line
of a title must always be a full line. If the letters are too few
the type must be widely spaced and one or more of these lines must
fill the measure. No printer observed this rule more rigidly than
Baskerville. Not only in his edition of Catullus, but in his quarto
editions of Virgil, Juvenal, and Persius, the letters of the titles
are spread over the page as if they had been dislocated by explosion.
Even in the title-page of his Book of Common Prayer, for which he
laid out more lines of display than could be gracefully put upon the
page with a needed relief of white space, the letters in some lines
are wedged widely apart in a useless attempt to give the lines the
desired prominence. It is a handbill, not a title.”[41] He should have
reproduced the title-page of the New Testament as an answer to this
harsh criticism.