The earliest Printers’ Marks of Scottish printers are not of the first
importance, but they are sufficiently interesting to merit notice.
Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar were granted a patent for the erection
of a printing-press at Edinburgh on September 15, 1507, the former
finding the money and the latter the knowledge. Each had his distinctive
Mark, both of which are of French origin--a theory which is easily
proved so far as Myllar’s is concerned from the fact that it displays
two small shields at the top corners, each charged with the
_fleur-de-lys_. Myllar’s device, in which we see a windmill with a
miller ascending the outside ladder, carrying a sack of grain on his
back, is an obvious pun on his name, and was, perhaps, suggested by the
Mark of Jehan Moulin, Paris. Chepman’s is a very close copy of that of
Pigouchet, Paris, the male and female figures being carefully copied
even to the small crosses on their knees; the initials W C are elegantly
interlaced. Thomas Davidson is a very interesting figure in the early
history of Scottish typography; he appears to have been the first king’s
printer of his country, and one of his earliest works is “Ad
Serenissimum Scotorum Regem Jacobum Quintum de suscepto Regni Regimine a
diis feliciter ominato Strena,” _circa_ 1525; about ten years later came
a translation of the “Chronicles of Scotland,” compiled by Boece, and
“translatit be maister Johne Bellenden;” Davidson’s Mark is of the same
character as Chepman’s, but is, if possible, even more roughly drawn and
engraved; whilst Bassandyne copied the device of Crespin of Geneva, with
the initials T. B. instead I. C. Arbuthnot’s device of the Pelican,
which he used in two sizes, and the Marks of Thomas Vautrollier, have
been already referred to. Coming down to the last twenty years of the
sixteenth century, we find the few books of Henry Charteris of
considerable and varied interest, and his Mark, if by no means carefully
drawn and engraved, has at all events the merit of being fairly
original.
[Illustration: ANDRO MYLLAR.