[Illustration: THOMAS CREEDE.
T C
VIRESSIT VVLNERE VERITAS]
The natural result, moreover, of this decline was, in the following
century, followed by what practically amounts to extinction; and the few
exceptions to which we shall refer, and which are to some extent
selected at random, prove the truth of that theory. Thomas Creede,
1588-1618, whose shop was at the sign of the Catherine Wheel, near the
Old Swan in Thames Street, was one of the prolific printers of the
period, and his most common Mark is a personification of Truth, with a
hand issuing from the clouds striking on her back with a rod, and
encircled with the motto, “Veritas virescit vulnere.” Among the numerous
books which he printed was Henry Butte’s “Digets Dry Dinner,” 1599, for
William Wood, a bookseller whose shop was at the sign of Time, St.
Paul’s Churchyard, and whose Mark was an almost exact copy of one
employed by Conrad Bade, a sixteenth century printer of Paris and Geneva
(who had apparently adopted his from that of Knoblouch of Strassburg,
which we give on another page): it represents a winged figure of Time
helping a naked woman out of what appears to be a cave, with the motto,
“Tempore patet occulata veritas”; this Mark follows the introductory
matter in the above-named work. Making a leap of over half a century, we
come across another ambitious Mark, which in the present instance served
the additional purpose of a frontispiece; it was employed by John Allen
of the Rising Sun, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and is dated 1656; it is
rather a fine device of the sun rising behind the hills, with a
cathedral on the left-hand side, and the inscription “Ipswiche” and a
coat-of-arms, apparently of that city. Although not exactly a printer’s
or publisher’s Mark, the charming little plate, engraved by Clark, which
John Walthoe, Jr., inserted on the title-page of “The Hive: a collection
of the most celebrated Songs,” 1724, is sufficiently near it to be worth
reproducing here. T. Cox, a bookseller of “The Lamb,” under the Royal
Exchange, Cornhill, was fortunate enough to have a Mark (see page 46),
in which John Pine is seen at his best: Cox was not only an eminent
bookseller, but was also an exchange-broker. Of much less delicate
workmanship, but appropriate nevertheless, is the Mark which we find on
the title-pages of the books printed for R. Ware, at the Bible and Sun
in Warwick Lane, one of whose books, Dr. Warren’s “Impartial Churchman,”
1728, contains at the end of the first chapter another Mark, an
exceedingly rough sketch of a printing-office, with the motto, “vitam
mortuis reddo.” On books intended more or less for particular schools,
the Printer’s Mark usually takes the shape of the arms of the schools
themselves, as in the case of Westminster and Eton; and the same may be
said of books printed at Oxford and Cambridge, in the former case a very
fine view of the Sheldonian Theatre usually appearing on the title-page
of books printed there. John Scolar is an interesting figure among the
very early printers of Oxford, and from 1518 he was the official printer
of the University; in one of the books he issued there is cited an edict
of the Chancellor, under his official seal, enjoining that for a period
of seven years to come, no person should venture to print that work, or
even to sell copies of it elsewhere printed within Oxford and its
precincts, under pain of forfeiting the copies, and paying a fine of
five pounds sterling, and other penalties. Scolar’s Mark is one of the
very few in which a book appears. John Siberch, the first Cambridge
printer, apparently had two Marks, one of which--the Royal Arms, which
was the sign of the house he occupied--appears on four of the eight
books printed by him at Cambridge in or about 1521; of the second we
give a facsimile from his first book, Galen, “De Temperamentis.” The
Mark of the majority of eighteenth century booksellers and printers
consisted of a monogram formed either with their initials or names.
During a portion of his career Jacob Tonson used a bust of what
purported to be Shakespeare, partly from the fact that for many years
the copyright of the great dramatist’s works belonged to him and partly
because one of his shops had for its sign, “The Shakespeare’s Head.”
[Illustration: JOHN WALTHOE.