THE STATE CONTROL OF ENGLISH LETTER-FOUNDING.
Our Statute Books and Public Records do not throw any very important
light on the early history of English letter-founding. Although a
busy import trade in type appears to have been maintained by the
earliest printers, and although as early as the days of De Worde, as
we have seen, there were English printers who not only cast types
for themselves, but are supposed to have supplied them to others, we
search in vain for any definite reference to letter-founding in the
decrees and proclamations which, prior to 1637, had for their object
the regulation or repression of printing. It is true that the term
printing was at that period wide enough to cover all its tributary
arts, from paper-making to book-selling. At the same time, it is
noteworthy that, whereas in many of the early decrees paper-making,
book-binding and book-selling are distinctly mentioned, letter-founding
is invariably ignored. If any inference is to be drawn from this fact,
it is that type was one of the latest of the printer’s commodities to
go into the public market. A printer’s type was his own, and no one
else’s; and if occasionally one great printer was pleased to part with
founts of his letter to his brother craftsmen, either by favour or
for a consideration, it was not till late in the day—that is, not for
about a century after the introduction of printing into England—that
English-cast types became marketable ware in the country.
It is not our purpose here to review in detail the various decrees and
{124} proclamations which regulated printing in this country[203]; but
it will be interesting to notice such of them as appear to have special
reference to letter-founding.
The earliest Statute relating to printing was made in 1483, before the
art had well taken root in the country; and proclaimed free trade in
all printed matter imported from abroad. In 1533 this enactment was
repealed, on the ground that “at this day there be within this realm
a great number of cunning and expert in the said science or craft of
printing.”[204]
More direct control was assumed in 1556, when the charter was granted
to the Stationers’ Company, constituting that body the “Master and
Keepers, or Wardens and Commonalty, of the Mystery or Art of a
Stationer of the City of London.”[205] Under this comprehensive term,
there is little doubt, founders of type, had any at that time been
practising in London, would be included; and such being the case, it
would become necessary for them, as well as for paper-makers, printers,
binders, booksellers and others, to become members of the Stationers’
Company, and subsequently, in compliance with the enlarged powers
conferred on the Company in 1559 and 1556, to give surety to that body
for the due observance of the ordinances by virtue of which they held
their privileges.
The powers conferred on the Company by its charter related exclusively
to the publication of printed matter; and the rights of search granted
in the subsequent Acts confirming the charter appear to have been
directed rather against the possession of smuggled or illegally printed
books than against the possession of the materials necessary to produce
them.
In 1582 was tried a celebrated lawsuit known as the Star Chamber
case of John Day _versus_ Roger Ward and William Holmes, for illegal
printing of an {125} _A B C_ and _Catechism_.[206] In the course
of the inquiry occurs an interesting reference to the practice of
printers as their own letter-founders, which we reproduce as being
one of the earliest direct notices of letter-founding in the Public
Records. Amongst the questions put to the recalcitrant Roger Ward[207]
the following three were intended to discover whether the illicit _A
B C_ was printed by him in his own type, or whether (with a view to
remove suspicion from himself) he had printed it in the type of another
printer:―
“QUESTION XIII. Did any person or personns Ayde help or assist you
with paper letters (_type_) or other necessaries in this work?
“ANSWER. He was not with paper letters (_type_) or other
necessaryes in the said worke aidyd holpen or assistyd by any
manner of personne or persons but that one Adam a Servant of
Master Purfo(o)ttes dyd lend him some letters wherewith he
imprinted the said boke.
“QUESTION XVIII. Whether were the Letters wherewith you imprinted
the sayd _A B C_ your owne yea or no? If not whose were they and
by what meanse came you by them, And whether with the Consent
of the owner or not? And whether have you redelivered them back
againe and how long since, And what nomber of Reames did you
imprint with the said letter?
“ANSWER. That all the letters wherewith he impryntyd the said _A
B C_ were not his owne for he dyd borrowe of one Adame, a man of
one master Purfott all the Inglisshe (_i.e._, _Black_) Letters to
the said worke and he borrowyd these letters without the consent
of the said master Purfytt and hath the same as yet in this
defendants custodye and have not Redelyvered of the same sithes
he borrowyd the same as aforesaid and to his Remembrance he Did
imprynt with the sayd letter the nomber of Twentie Reames of paper.
“QUESTION XIX. Whether have you cast any new Letter of your owne
since the first printinge of the said _A B C_, and what nomber of
the same have you printed of that letter (_in that type_)?
“ANSWER. He confessyth that he hath sythes the first imprintyng of
the said _A B C_, cast a newe letter of his owne and yet he hath
not pryntyd any of that letter (_in that type_).”
This testimony was generally corroborated by the other printers and
persons examined, to many of whom it appeared to be notorious that
Roger Ward had printed the book in a letter not his own, and that he
had since cast a new fount of type for his own use. The whole inquiry
throws a curious light on the methods of business of the printers of
the day. Composition then, as Mr. Arber points out, was not necessarily
done in the master-printer’s house where he kept {126} his press.
Of course that which was done by himself and his apprentices was
done there, but work given out to journeymen (who were generally
householders), was probably done in their houses and paid for by
piecework. “A custom which,” continues Mr. Arber, “was facilitated by
most of the books then printed being almost always in some one size of
type. Therefore there could not be so much control exercised over the
literature in respect to the guardianship of the type—however easy it
was for printers of that day to identify the printer of a book by its
typography—neither do we find any such attempted; but only in respect
to the custody of the hand printing press, which was doubtless well
secured every night as a dangerous instrument, lest secret nocturnal
printing should go on without the owner’s consent.”[208]
In the same year, 1582, Christopher Barker, the Queen’s printer, drew
up an able report on the condition of printing as it then existed, in
which, among other matters, he referred to the cost of making type,
and its consequent effect on publishers and printers. “In King Edward
the Sixt his Dayes,” he says, “Printers and printing began greatly to
increase; but the provision of letter, and many other thinges belonging
to printing was so exceeding chargeable, that most of those printers
were Dryven throughe necessitie, to compound before[hand] with the
booksellers at so low value, as the printers themselves were most tymes
small gayners and often loosers . . . The Bookesellers . . now (1582)
. . keepe no printing howse, neither beare any charge of letter, or
other furniture, but onlie paye for the workmanship . . . so that the
artificer printer, growing every Daye more and more unable to provide
letter[209] and other furniture . . . will in tyme be an occasion of
great discredit to the professours of the arte.”
The report goes on to mention that at that time (December 1582) “there
are twenty-two printing howses in London, where eight or ten at the
most would suffise for all England, yea, and Scotland too.”[210]
In May of the following year there were twenty-three printers with
fifty-three presses among them, and during the next two years the
number appears to have increased so considerably as to call for that
sweeping enactment, the Star Chamber decree of 1586. This famous
measure prohibits all presses out of London, except one each at the
two Universities, and “tyll the excessive {127} multytude of Prynters
havinge presses already sett up be abated,” permits no new press
whatsoever to be erected.[211] The Stationers’ Company have authority
to inspect all printing offices, “to search take and carry away all
presses, letters and other pryntinge instrumentes sett up, used or
employed . . contrary to the intent and meaninge hereof; . . . and
thereupon shall cause all suche printing presses, or other printing
instruments, to be Defaced, melted, sawed in peeces, broken, or
battered . . . and the stuffe of the same so defaced, shall redelyver
to the owners thereof againe within three monethes next after the
takinge or seizinge thereof as aforesayd.”[212]
The Company were not slow in making use of their enlarged powers, and
the refractory Roger Ward appears to have had considerable experience
of the rigours of the new decree. In October 1586 the wardens seized on
his premises “3 presses and divers other parcells of pryntinge stuffe,”
and ordered them to be defaced and rendered unserviceable, according to
the tenor of the decree. In 1590 they made a further visitation, and
discovered that “he did kepe and conceale a presse and other pryntinge
stuff in a Taylor’s house near adjoyninge to his owne, and did hide
his letters in a hen house near St. Sepulchure’s Churche, expressely
against the Decrees of the Star Chamber. All the whyche stuff were
brought to Stacioners Hall” and duly destroyed. But the dauntless Roger
Ward was not thus to be extinguished, and scarcely six months later, at
Hammersmith, another press, “with 5 formes of letters of Divers sortes
and 3 cases with other printing stuffe,” were impounded and rigorously
defaced.
Nor was Ward the only victim. In a Secret Report presented in September
1589 to Lord Burleigh respecting the authors of the famous Marprelate
Tracts, it is stated that the printer of the first three of these,
“all beinge printed in a Dutch letter,” was Robert Waldegrave; and
“towchinge the printinge of the two last Lebells in a litle Romaine and
Italian letter,” the report states—once more showing how in those days
a printer was known by his types—“the letter that these be printed in
is the same that did printe the _Demonstration of Discipline_ aboute
Midsommer was twelve moneth (24 June, 1588), which was printed by
Waldegrave neere Kingston upon Thames, as is discovered. When his other
letters and presse were defaced about Easter was twelve moneth {128}
(7th April, 1588) he saved these lettres in a boxe under his Cloke, and
brought them to Mistris Cranes howse in London, as is allso confessed;
and they are knowen by printers to be Waldegrave’s letters; And it is
the same letter that was taken with Hodgkys. These two last Libells
came abroade in July (1589) last. Now it is confessed by the Carier
that John Hodgkys that is taken, did send from a gentlemans howse in
Woltonam in Warwikeshier unto Warrington immediatlye after whitsontyde
last (18 May 1589), a printinge presse, two boxes of letter, a barrell
of nicke (_incke ?_), a baskett and a brasse pott, which were delyvered
to him at Warrington,” etc.[213]
The Stationers’ Company, on the whole, had a busy time during the few
years following the Star Chamber decree, in hunting up and destroying
disorderly presses and the “stuffe” appertaining thereto. The numerous
monopolies and patents of which they were the appointed guardians
provoked a regular secret organisation of unprivileged printers,[214]
who pirated right and left, sometimes with impunity, sometimes at the
cost of losing their whole plant and stock-in-trade by a raid of the
authorities.
These raids must have kept the typecasters of the day well occupied,
and it is even possible that the “stuffe” which from time to time fell
into the hands of the Company may have included punches, matrices and
moulds, which it would be far less easy to replace than presses, ink
and balls.
A printer liable to such visitations would prefer, if possible, to
procure his type out of doors, rather than maintain the valuable plant
requisite to make it himself; and it is probable that the outside
demand thus created may have been among the causes which led to the
establishment of one or two small foundries, unconnected with any one
printing office in particular, whose business it would be to supply any
purchaser with type from its matrices.
The Stationers’ Company, who from time to time supplemented the powers
conferred upon them by the Star Chamber with regulations of their own
on matters such as standing formes, apprentices and prices, would
naturally recognise a source of danger in a new foundry starting under
the circumstances described, and were prompt to assert their authority.
Accordingly we find the following entry in the Index to the Court Books
of the Company under date 1597:―
“BENJAMIN SYMPSON, letter founder, to enter into a £40 bond not
to cast any letters or characters, or to deliver them, without
advertising the Master and Wardens in writing, with the names of
the parties for whom they are intended.—1597.” {129}
Here we have the first historical record of letter-founding as a
distinct and recognised trade.[215] Of Benjamin Sympson and his types
nothing is known. His name does not occur in any of the lists of
printers of the period, nor does it appear that he was even a member of
the Stationers’ Company. Whether he was called upon at his own request
to qualify as a typefounder, or whether the resolution of the Court was
arrived at in consequence of his previous transactions with one or more
of the disorderly printers, is equally uncertain.
In 1598 the Stationers’ Company made a regulation respecting the price
of work, which is also of interest, as indicating the bodies of type at
that time most commonly in use for bookwork. It was as follows:―
“No new copies without pictures to be printed at more than the
following rates: those in pica Roman and Italic and in English
(_i.e._, _Black letter_) with Roman and Italic at a penny for two
sheets; those in brevier and long primer letters at a penny for
one sheet and a half.”[216]
A further regulation regarding typefounders shows that in 1622 the
trade had more than one recognised representative:―
“The Founders bound to the Company by bond, not to deliver
any fount of new letters, without acquainting the Master and
Wardens—1622.”
The Act of 1586, despite the rigour with which, at first at any rate,
it was enforced, appears to have fallen into contempt, and to have been
openly {130} disregarded by the printers of the first quarter of the
seventeenth century. According to the account of the “London Printer,”
who wrote his _Lamentation_ in 1660, printing and printers, about 1637,
were grown to such “monstrous excess and exorbitant disorder” as to
call for the prompt and serious attention of the Court of Star Chamber,
who in that same year, because the former “Orders and Decrees have been
found by experience to be defective in some particulars; and divers
abuses have sithence arisen and been practiced by the craft and malice
of wicked and evill disposed persons,” put forward the famous Star
Chamber Decree of 1637.[217]
In this decree, the severity of which called forth from Milton his
noble protest, the _Areopagitica_,[218] letter-founding is formally
recognised as a distinct industry, and shares with printing the rigours
of the new restrictions. The following is the text of the clauses
relating to founders:―
XXVII.—_Item_, The Court doth order and declare, that there
shall be foure Founders of letters for printing allowed, and no
more, and doth hereby nominate, allow, and admit these persons,
whose names hereafter follow, to the number of foure, to be
letter-Founders for the time being, (viz.) _John Grismand_,
_Thomas Wright_, _Arthur Nichols_, _Alexander Fifield_. And
further the Court doth Order and Decree, that it shall be lawfull
for the Lord Arch-bishop of _Canterbury_, or the Lord Bishop of
_London_ for the time being, taking unto him or them, six other
high Commissioners, to supply the place or places of those who are
now allowed Founders of letters by this Court, as they shall fall
void by death, censure, or otherwise.
Provided that they exceede not the number of foure, set down by
this Court. And if any person or persons, not being an allowed
Founder, shall notwithstanding take upon him, or them, to Found,
or cast letters for printing, upon complaint and proofe made of
such offence, or offences, he, or they so offending, shal suffer
such punishment, as this Court, or the high Commission Court
respectively, as the severall causes shall require, shall think
fit to inflict upon them.
XXVIII.—_Item_, That no Master-Founder whatsoever shall keepe
above two Apprentices at one time, neither by Copartnership,
binding at the Scriveners, nor any other way whatsoever, neither
shall it be lawfull for any Master-Founder, when any Apprentice,
or Apprentices shall run, or be put away, to take another
Apprentice, or other Apprentices in his, or their place or places,
unless the name or names of him, or them so gone away, be rased
out of the Hall-booke of the Company, whereof the Master-Founder
is free, and never admitted again, upon pain of such punishment,
as by this Court, or the high Commission respectively, as the
severall causes shall require, shall be thought fit to bee
imposed. {131}
XXIX.—_Item_, That all Journey-men-Founders be imployed by the
Master-Founders of the said trade, and that idle Journey-men
be compelled to worke after the same manner, and upon the same
penalties, as in case of the Journey-men-Printers is before
specified.[219]
XXX.—_Item_, That no Master-Founder of letters, shall imploy any
other person or persons in any worke belonging to the casting or
founding of letters, than such only as are freemen or apprentices
to the trade of founding letters, save only in the pulling off
the knots of mettle hanging at the ends of the letters when they
are first cast, in which work it shall be lawfull for every
Master-Founder, to imploy one boy only that is not, nor hath beene
bound to the trade of Founding letters, but not otherwise, upon
pain of being for ever disabled to use or exercise that art, and
such further punishment, as by this Court, or the high Commission
Court respectively, as the severall causes shall require, be
thought fit to be imposed.
XIV.—_Item_, That no Joyner, or Carpenter, or other person, shall
make any printing-Presse, no Smith shall forge any Iron-Worke
for a printing Presse, and no Founder shall cast any Letters for
any person or persons whatsoever, neither shall any person or
persons bring, or cause to be brought in from any parts beyond the
Seas, any Letters Founded or Cast, nor buy any such Letters for
Printing, Unlesse he or they respectively shall first acquaint
the said Master and Wardens, or some of them, for whom the same
Presse, Iron-works, or Letters, are to be made, forged, or cast,
upon paine of such fine and punishment, as this Court, or the
high Commission Court respectively, as the severall causes shall
require, shall thinke fit.
Respecting the four founders thus nominated, and their types, we shall
have occasion to speak in a following chapter. Continuing here our
cursory review of the Statutes which affected letter-founding, it is
necessary to remind the reader that this tremendous decree, which for
severity eclipsed all its predecessors, was short-lived.
On November 3, 1640, the Long Parliament assembled, and with it the
Star Chamber disappeared, and its decrees became dead letters. Then
for a season there was virtually free trade in printing, and advantage
was taken of the new condition of affairs to infringe existing rights
on every hand, the King’s Patent Printers (if we are to believe the
“London Printer,” above quoted) being the chief and most unscrupulous
transgressors.
Parliament was not slow to take up the mantle dropped by the late Star
Chamber, and in 1643 attempted to stem “the very grievous” liberty of
the press, reinvesting the Stationers’ Company with powers to search
and seize all unlicensed presses and books, and to apprehend the
“authors, printers and other persons whatsoever employed in compiling,
printing, stitching, binding, {132} publishing and dispersing the said
scandalous, unlicensed and unwarrantable papers, books and pamphlets.”
This ordinance, in which once more typefounders are conspicuous by
their absence, was strengthened by a further decree in 1647, and two
years later the Act of Sept. 20, 1649, virtually reimposed the old Star
Chamber regulations, requiring, among other provisions, that printers
should enter into a £300 bond not to print seditious or scandalous
matter; also that no house or room should be let to a printer, nor
implements made, press imported, or letters founded, without notice
to the Stationers’ Company. The penalties attached to a breach of
these orders were severe. This Act was renewed in 1652, but it failed
to remedy the abuses it was intended to meet. Private presses sprung
up on all hands; the art was degraded and prostituted to all manner
of base uses; workmen as well as master printers joined in their
complaints against disorders which were working their ruin. The number
of printers, restricted since 1586 to twenty, had grown to sixty; the
Royal printers themselves were interlopers, two of them not even being
practical printers, and all of them being political incendiaries.
Such being the condition of affairs, it is not surprising that in
1662 the remonstrances raised on all sides should result in an Act of
Parliament intended to dispose finally of the abuses complained of.
The Act of 1662 (13 and 14 Charles II, c. 33) reimposes the provisions
of the Star Chamber decree of 1637 with additional rigour.[220] It
enacts that no type is to be founded or cast, or brought from abroad,
without licence from the Stationers’ Company. The number of founders
is again limited to four, and all {133} vacancies in the number are
to be filled up by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of
London.[221] Masters of the Stationers’ Company, past and present,
may have three apprentices, liverymen two, and the commonalty only
one. Master founders must see that their journeymen are kept at work;
and these journeymen must be all Englishmen and freemen, or sons of
freemen. Founders working for the trade who offend are to be disabled
from following their craft for three years, and on a second offence to
be permanently disqualified, besides suffering punishment by fine or
imprisonment, or “other corporal punishment not extending to life and
limb.”
This uncompromising Act was continued from time to time, with temporary
lapses, until 1693,[222] when, in the tide of liberty following the
Revolution, it disappeared. Despite its stern provisions, we find from
a petition entitled _The Case of the Free Workmen Printers_, presented
to the House about 1665, praying for its renewal, that the number of
printing-houses had already grown to seventy, with one hundred and
fifty apprentices; and in 1683 we have the evidence of Moxon that the
number of founders, as well as of printers, was grown “very many.” It
does not, however, appear that at any time during the continuance of
the Act, that the number of founders ever exceeded four. How far they
complied with the regulation requiring them to account to the Company
for all type cast, we are unable, in the absence of any register of
such accounts, to say; but that a register was duly kept is evident
from the following important minute of the Court in 1674:―
“All the Letter-founders to give timely notice to the Master and
Wardens, of all such quantities of letter as they shall cast
for any person; which notice shall be entered by the Clerk in a
register book to be provided for that purpose.—1674.”
In 1668, as will be seen in a subsequent chapter, the Company had, in
discharge of their authority, nominated Thomas Goring to the Archbishop
of Canterbury as “an honest and sufficient man” to be one of the four
founders allowed by the Act, there being then a vacancy in the number.
And that the penal clauses were not neglected is equally evident
from the resolution of the Court in 1685, withholding Godfrey Head’s
dividend until he should comply with the Act by giving an account to
the Company of what type he was casting. {134}
The latest minute on the Court Books relating to letter-founding was
in 1693—the year in which the Act expired—when the following order was
made:―
“Printed papers to be delivered to all Founders, Press Makers and
others concerned, requiring obedience to that Clause in the Act
for preventing abuses in Printing, whereby all Letter Founders,
Press Makers, Joiners, and others are commanded to acquaint the
Master or Wardens what Presses or Letters they shall at any time
make or cast.—1693.”
After 1693, letter-founding came from under all restraint. Laws of
copyright and patent still clung to printing,[223] but, except for a
proposal made about 1695 by one W. Mascall[224] that every printer,
letter-founder and press-maker should enter with a statement on oath
the number of his presses, the weight of his letter and the extent of
his other utensils, we find no reference to letter-founding in the
Public Records for upwards of a century.
Notwithstanding this liberty, the number of founders during the
eighteenth century appears rarely to have exceeded the figure
prescribed by the Star Chamber Decree of 1637, and occasionally to have
been less.
One more attempt was made in the closing days of the eighteenth century
to control the freedom of the press by law. There is something almost
grotesque in the efforts made by legislators in 1799 to refit, on a
full-grown and invincible press, the worn-out shackles by which the
Stuarts had tried to curtail the growth of its childhood; and the
Act of the 39th George III, cap. 79,[225] in so far as it deals with
printing, will always remain one of the surprises, as well as one of
the disgraces, of the Statute-book. Among its worst provisions, the
following affect letter-founders and letter-founding:―
Sec. 23 ordains that no one, under penalty of £20, shall be allowed
to possess or use a printing-press or types for printing, without
giving notice thereof to a Clerk of the Peace, and obtaining from him a
certificate to that effect.
Sec. 33 provides that any Justice of the Peace may issue a warrant
to search any premises, and seize and take away any press or
printing-types not duly certificated. {135}
The following sections we give in full:―
Sec. 25. “That from and after the Expiration of Forty Days after
the passing of this Act, every Person carrying on the Business
of a Letter Founder or Maker or Seller of Types for Printing or
of Printing Presses, shall cause Notice of his or her Intention
to carry on such Business to be delivered to the Clerk of the
Peace of the . . . Place where such Person shall propose to carry
on such Business, or his Deputy in the Form prescribed in the
Schedule of this Act annexed.[226] And such Clerk of the Peace
or his Deputy shall, and he is hereby authorized and required
thereupon to grant a Certificate in the Form also prescribed in
the said Schedule,[227] for which such Clerk of the Peace or his
Deputy shall receive a Fee of One Shilling and no more, and shall
file such Notice and transmit an attested Copy thereof to one of
his Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State; and every Person
who shall, after the expiration of the said Forty Days, carry on
such Business, or make or sell any Type for Printing, or Printing
Press, without having given such Notice, and obtained such
Certificate, shall forfeit and lose the Sum of Twenty Pounds.”
Sec. 26. “And be it further enacted, That every Person who shall
sell Types for Printing, or Printing Presses as aforesaid, shall
keep a Fair Account in Writing of all Persons to whom such Types
or Presses shall be sold, and shall produce such Accounts to any
Justice of the Peace who shall require the same; And if such
Person shall neglect to keep such Account, or shall refuse to
produce the same to any such Justice, on demand in Writing to
inspect the same, such Person shall forfeit and lose, for such
offence, the Sum of Twenty Pounds.”
Such was the law with regard to typefounding at the time when the
widows of the two Caslons were struggling to revive their then ancient
business, when Vincent Figgins was building up his new foundry, and
Edmund Fry, Caslon III and Wilson were busily occupied in cutting
their modern Romans to suit the new fashion. And such the law remained
nominally until the year 1869,[228] {136} just upon four centuries
after the introduction of the Art into this country. It is probable
that, during the first few disturbed years of its existence, the Act
may have been enforced, that certificates may have been registered,
and accounts dutifully furnished.[229] But its provisions appear very
soon to have fallen into contempt, and certainly, as far as we can
ascertain, failed to trouble the peace of any British letter-founder.
* * * * *
Such is a hasty and very cursory review of the various laws which from
time to time have taken letter-founding under control. Whether they
succeeded in placing any real check on the progress of the art, it is
difficult to determine. But it is certain that the heaviest restrictive
measures have generally been accompanied not only by the most grievous
abuses in the spirit of the press, but by distinct degeneration in
the quality of the typographical work executed. A privileged printer,
sure of his monopoly and safe from competition, would have little
or no inducement to execute his work at more cost or pains than was
necessary. Old type would do as well as new, and bad type would do as
well as good. Free trade and open competition were the great evils to
be dreaded, because free trade and open competition would demand the
best paper, and type and workmanship. The typography of the entire
Stuart period is a disgrace to English art. Fine printing was an art
unknown; and only a few works like Walton’s _Polyglot_, which were
produced in an atmosphere untainted by mercenary considerations, stand
out to redeem the period from unqualified reproach.
On the other hand, the removal of the restrictions was the signal for a
revival which may be traced in almost every printed work of the early
eighteenth century. In the absence of any great English founder, the
best Dutch types came freely into the English market. Books came to be
legible, paper became white, ink black, and press-work respectable.
Caslon came in on the tide of the revival, as also did Bowyer, Watts,
Bettenham, and artists of their rank; and the emancipated press, among
them, made up the leeway of a wasted century, and, no longer in the
grip of faction, but the free servant of the great and wise of the
land, raised for itself monuments which will remain a lasting glory not
only to English scholarship and English eloquence, but also to English
typography, for which liberty has been, and always will be, the surest
road to achievement.
{137}
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