[Illustration: R. PYNSON.
R
Richard Pynson]
Among the 200 odd books which Richard Pynson printed between 1493 and
1527, we find six Marks (besides variants), of which five are very
similar, and of these we give two examples, the smaller being one of the
earliest, in which it will be noticed that the drawing is much inferior
to the larger example; the sixth Mark is a singular one, consisting of a
large upright parallelogram surrounded by a single stout line, within
which are the scroll, supporters, shield and cypher, crest, helmet and
mantling, and the Virgin and St. Catherine, and in many other
particulars differing from the other five examples. Robert Redman, who,
after quarrelling with Richard Pynson, and apparently succeeding him in
business, employed a device almost identical with that which Pynson most
frequently used, and to which therefore we need not further refer. In
chronological sequence the next English printer who employed a device is
Julian Notary, who was printing books for about twenty years subsequent
to 1498, first at Westminster, then near Temple Bar, and finally in St.
Paul’s Churchyard. He had two devices (of which there are a very few
variations), of which we give the more important. The other has only one
stout black line, and not two, and it has also the Latinized form of the
name--Julianus Notarius. About two dozen different works of this printer
are known to bibliographers. In connection with Notary, we may here
conveniently refer to an interesting, but admittedly inconclusive
article which appears in _The Library_, i., pp. 102-5, by Mr. E. Gordon
Duff, in which that able bibliographer publishes the discovery of two
books which would point to the existence of an unrecorded English
printer of the fifteenth century. One of these has the title of
“Questiones Alberti de modis significandi,” and the other, of which only
a fragment is known to exist, is a Sarum “Horæ,” which is dated 1497. In
the colophons of neither does the name of the printer transpire, but his
Mark is given in both--in the former book in black, and in the latter in
red. This mark is identical with Notary’s, with this important
exception, that, whereas in Notary’s device his name occurs in the lower
half of the device, in these the lower half is occupied by the initials
I. H., and the upper half by the initials I N B, the I N being in the
form of a monogram, and not distinct. In 1498 this same block was used
on the title-page of the Sarum “Missal,” printed by Notary, who altered
it to suit his own requirements. We cannot follow Mr. Gordon Duff in his
conjectures as to the probability of who this unknown printer may have
been, but the matter is one of great bibliographical interest. William
Faques, who was the King’s Printer, and who is known to have issued
seven books between 1499 and 1508, had only one Mark, which is totally
different from those of any of his predecessors, as may be seen from the
example given on page 16, where will also be found references to the
sources of the scriptural quotations on the white and black triangles.
[Illustration: JULIAN NOTARY.
I N
Iulyan Notary]
The extreme rarity of this printer’s books will be best understood when
it is stated that there are only two examples in the British Museum; one
of these is a “Psalter,” 1504. With W. Faques we exhaust the fifteenth
century printers who employed marks to distinguish the productions of
their presses.
[Illustration: R. FAWKES.
R F
Richard Fakes]
Notwithstanding the similarity in their surnames it is not at all
certain that Richard Fawkes (1509-1530), who also appears as Faukes,
Fakes, and Faques, was related to the last-mentioned printer. His books
are now of excessive rarity. The unicorn (regardant on either side of
the device) appears for the first time in an English mark. Henry Pepwell
(1505-1539), of the Holy Trinity in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was a
bookseller rather than a printer, and all his earlier books were printed
in Paris; his Mark, in which occurs the heraldic device representing the
Trinity, was suggested by the sign of his shop. The most important
example of the thirty books which issued from the little-known press of
Peter Treveris, who was apparently putting forth books from 1514 to
1535, is “The Grete herball whiche geveth parfyt knowlege and
und[er]standing of all maner of herbes,” etc., 1526, a finely printed
folio (“at the signe of the Wodows”), of which a second edition appeared
in 1529. The earlier edition contains, on the recto of the sixth leaf,
a full-page woodcut of the human skeleton, with anatomical explanations,
whilst the last leaf contains a full-page woodcut of the printer’s Mark,
with the imprint at the foot. Herbert supposes that the sign of the
“Wodows,” mentioned by Treveris in the colophon, might possibly be put
for wode hommes or wild men, and alludes to the supporters used in the
device. Treveris printed for several booksellers, notably John Reyves,
of St. Paul’s Churchyard, and for Lawrence Andrewe, of Fleet Street. In
this printer’s Mark, and in fact nearly every other sixteenth century
example, there is a very evident French influence, whilst many of the
examples are the most transparent imitations of Marks used by foreign
printers. Of the three used by John Scott or Skot, who was printing
books from about 1521 to 1537, two were mere copies of the Marks used by
Denis Roce of Paris. We give an illustration of one example; the second
is of the same design, but with a very rich stellated background, and
the motto, “A l’aventure, tout vient a point qui peut attendre.” His own
device was an exceedingly simple long strip, with the letters Iohn Skot
in antique Roman characters. An example of the last mark will be found
in “The Golden Letanye in Englysshe,” printed by Skot in “Fauster Land,
in Saynt Leonardes parysshe”; but examples of this press are excessively
rare, only one, “Thystory of Jacob and his XII Sones,” fourteen leaves,
in verse, and printed about 1525, being in the British Museum, and
another tract, “The Rosary,” 1537, being in the Althorp Library now
transferred to Manchester.
[Illustration: PETER TREVERIS.
P T
PETRVS TREVERIS]
[Illustration: JOHN SCOTT.
I S
IOHN SCOTT]
[Illustration: ROBERT COPLAND.
¶ Melius est nomen bonum q[uam] diuitie mnlte. Prou. xxu.
R
ROBERT COPLAND]
Robert Copland, who was a beneficiaire and pupil of Wynkyn de Worde, was
a translator as well as a printer and stationer, and his shop was at the
sign of the Rose Garland in Fleet Street. Although he carried on
business from 1515 to about 1548, only a few of his books are now known,
none of which appear to be in the British Museum. The majority were
purely ephemeral. The most interesting phase of this printer’s career
occurs in connection with one or two books printed by Wynkyn de Worde,
notably “The Assembly of Foules,” 1530, at the end of which is “Lenvoy
of Robert Copland boke prynter,” one of the three verses running thus:
“Layde upon shelfe, in leues all torne
With Letters, dymme, almost defaced cleane
Thy hyllynge rote, with wormes all to worne
Thou lay, that pyte it was to sene
Bounde with olde quayres, for ages all hoorse and grene
Thy mater endormed, for lacke of thy presence
But nowe arte losed, go shewe forth thy sentence.”
The three Marks of Copland make allusion to the roses which appeared as
a sign to his shop. The most elaborate design is an upright
parallelogram within which appears a flourishing tree springing out of
the earth, and supporting a shield suspended from its branches by a belt
and surrounded by a wreath of roses; on the left-hand side is a hind
regardant collared with a ducal coronet standing as a supporter, and on
the right is a hart in a similar position and with the same decorations;
there are four scrolls surrounding the centre-piece, on the top one is
“Melius est,” on the right-hand one “nomen bonum,” on the bottom one
“q diuitie,” and on the left-hand one “multe. Prou. xxii,” _i.e._
“A good name is better than much riches.” The second device, of which we
also give an example, is self-explanatory, and is perhaps the more
original. It has also an additional interest from the fact that it was
used by William Copland, 1549-1561, who was probably a son of Robert,
and who simply altered the mark to the extent of substituting his own
Christian name for that of Robert in the scroll at the bottom of the
device. Over sixty books by this printer are described by
bibliographers, and many of them are in the British Museum. Robert Wyer,
whose shop was at the sign of St. John the Evangelist, in St. Martin’s
parish, in the rents of the Bishop of Norwich, near Charing Cross, was
another printer whose works were more remarkable for their number than
for their typographic excellence. His earliest dated work is the
“Expositiones Terminarum Legum Anglorum,” 1527, and his latest
“A Dyalogue Defensyue for Women,” 1542, but as to nearly sixty others of
his works no date is attached, he may have commenced earlier than the
first date and continued after the second. The marks of Wyer consisted
of two or three representations of St. John the Divine writing, attended
by an eagle holding the inkhorn; he is seated on a rock in the middle of
the sea intended to represent the Isle of Patmos. Laurens, or Lawrence,
Andrewe, by Ames stated to be a native of Calais, printed a few books
during the third decade of the sixteenth century, and resided near the
eastern end of Fleet Street at the sign of the Golden Cross. His Mark
consisted of a shield which is contained within a very rudely cut
parallelogram; the escutcheon is supported by a wreath beneath an
ornamental arch, and between two curved pillars designed in the early
Italian style, with a background formed of coarse horizontal lines.
Three of his books are in the British Museum. The Museum possesses only
one book with the imprint of Andrew Hester, who was a bookseller of the
“White Horse,” St. Paul’s Church Yard, and this is an edition of
Coverdale’s Bible, “newly oversene and correcte,” which appears to have
been printed for him by Froschover, of Zurich, 1550. Among English Marks
of the period, Hester’s possesses the merit of being original.
[Illustration: ROBERT COPLAND.
R C
Robert Coplande.]
[Illustration: ROBERT WYER.