Norton (J.) printer of the Eton _Chrysos_A History of the Old English Letter Foundries with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography.

conferred on, 140

Nutt (Richd.) successor to Grover’s foundry, 203

_O’Brien’s Irish Dictionary_, Paris, 1768; 75

Ogilby (Jno.) Roman letter of, 47

_O’Hussey’s Irish Catechism_, Antwerp, 1611; 75: Rome; 1707, 75

_O’Kearney’s Irish Catechism_, Dublin; 1571; 75, 187

Oporinus, Greek type of, 59

_Opusculum Musices_, Bologna, 1487; 76

_Oratio Dominica_, Lond. 1700; 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 154,

177, 190: Lond. 1713; 69, 155, 177, 190: Amsterdam, 1715; 69, 71, 73,

74, 154, 236: Paris, 1805; 72, 76: Parma; 1806, 72

_Oratio in pace nuperrimâ_, Lond. 1518; 44, 92

_Oratio trium linguarum_, Lond. 1524; 51, 64, 66, 91

_Oriental Collections_, Lond. 1797–1800; 339

Ornamental type, introduced, 307, 310

Ornaments, _see_ Type ornaments

_Orthographia Practica_, Saragossa, 1548; 32, 183

Orwin, Arabic type of, 64

Ottley (W. Y.) on early clay moulds, 11

Ouseley (Sir W.) Persian type cut for, 339

_Ovid’s Metamorphoses_, Lond. 1819; 312

Oxford University Press, first printing at 137–9; types of the early

press, 55, 137, 138; Scolar’s press, 139; revival of printing, 140;

early Greek founts, 60, 61, 140, 141, 145; lends Greek type to

Cambridge, 141; Laud’s services to, 142–5, 166; charter in 1632, 142;

early Oriental types, 64, 66, 144: Archi-typographus appointed, 146;

Fell’s services to, 146–150; loyalty of, 146; large purchases in 1672,

149; Junius’ gift to, 150, 151; fine printing at, 159

——— Foundry established, 153; state of, in 1665, 113; matrices lost at,

151; removed to Sheldonian Theatre, 153; first specimen, 153; types

used in the _Oratio Dominica_, 1700, 154; heights to paper in, 155;

removed to Clarendon Building, 156; gift of Elstob Saxon to, 158, 159;

Greek cut for, by Baskerville, 160, 273, 274; specimens, 160, 162;

types cut for, by Caslon, 160, 161, 246; by Figgins, 338; inventory of,

in 1794, 161, 162; relics at, 150, 159, 160, 162, 274

——— Matrices: Amharic, 177; Arabic, 66, 147, 148, 155, 161; Armenian,

69, 148, 153, 161; Coptic, 70, 147, 148, 149, 153, 155, 161; Danish,

73, 151; Ethiopic, 69, 151, 154, 155, 161, 177; Gothic, 73, 151, 155,

161; Greek, 148, 160, 161, 273, 274, 338; Hebrew, 64, 147, 148, 154,

161; Icelandic, 73, 151, 155; Initials, 80; Music, 77, 148, 153,

154, 161, 209; Roman and Italic, 150, 152, 179; Runic, 72, 151, 155,

161; Russian, 71; Samaritan, 70, 148, 154, 161; Saxon, 74, 151, 161;

Sclavonic, 71, 148, 153, 155, 161; Swedish, 73, 151; Syriac, 68, 147,

148, 155, 161

Pacioli (L.) on the shape of letters, 183

Palmer (S.) his note on De Worde, 90; his printing-house, 217; _History

of Printing_, 90, 235, 236; projected account of letter-founding, 114;

discreditable conduct to Caslon, 235, 238

_Pantographia_, Lond. 1799; 72, 76, 306, 307, 308

_Paradigmata de IV Linguis_, Paris, 1596; 67

Paragon, an English Type body, 33, 36, 86, 343; a foreign body, 36

Parker (Archp. M.) patron of Day, 95; Saxon cut for, 95; Roman and

Italic for, 96, 97, 98

Patents relating to letter-founding, 119–122

Pater (Paulus) on wooden types, 4

Paterson, the auctioneer, notice of, 230, 311

_Pauli de Middleburgo Epistola_, Louvain, 1488; 63

Pearl an English type body, 33, 40

Peek (Jno.) type-casting machine of, 120

_Pentateuch_ (Polyglot) Constantinople, 1546; 170

——— (_Coptic_) Lond. 1731; 70, 237

——— (_Irish_) Lond. 1819 (_Gen. and Exod._), 312

Perforated wooden types, 4, 5; sand-cast types, 10; mould-cast types,

22, 25

Perle, a French type body, 40

Persian Matrices: Caslon, 254; Jackson, 317; Figgins, 339, 343

_Persian Moonshee_, Lond. 1801; 339

Petit, a French and German type body, 39

Petit Romain, a French type body, 38

Petrucci, music type of, 77

_Phalaridis Epistolæ_, Oxon. 1485; 137, 138

Philosophie, a French type body, 32, 38

Pica, an English type body, 32, 33, 38

_Picas_ or _Pies_, of the early Church, 38, 87

Pickering (W.) minute Greek used by, 62, 254; book printed for, in

Baskerville’s types, 286

PINE (WM.) Bristol printer and founder; partner with Fry, 298; his

inventions, 300; _Bible_ printed by, 301; retires from founding, 302

Plantin (Chr.) his foundry, 106; supposed silver type of, 106; Types:

Greek, 59; Hebrew, 64; Italic, 51; Lettre de Civilité, 56; Roman, 43;

Syriac, 67

_Plinii Secundi Epistolæ_, Lond. 1790; 306

Ploos van Amstel, Dutch founders, 215

_Polychronicon_, Westminster, 1495; 76, 91

Polyglot _Bibles_, account of, 169

——— the London, _see Bible_ (_Polyglot_) Lond. 1657

POLYGLOT FOUNDRY Matrices: Arabic, 66, 173, 177; Black, 173, 177;

Ethiopic, 69, 173, 174, 177; Greek, 173, 174; Hebrew, 64, 173, 177;

Roman and Italic, 173, 176; Samaritan, 70, 173, 174, 177; Syriac, 68,

173, 174, 177, 241

Polytype, supposed early system of, 12; later attempts at, 122, 220

Porson’s improvement in Greek letter, 62, 342

Postel’s _Arabic Grammar_, Paris 1539–40, 65; Syriac type used by, 67

POUCHEE (L. J.) Letter Founder, starts a foundry, 361; agent for

Didot’s ‘polymatype,’ 121, 361; specimen, 362; abandons business, 362;

dispersion of his foundry, 362

_Practical Sermons_ (Irish) Lond. 1711; 190

_Press, The, a Poem_; Liverpool, 1803; 277, 333

Primer, an English type body, 32, 34; derivation of, 37

_Primers_ of the Early Church, 37, 38

Printing, invention of, 1; degeneration of, in England, 44, 136, 232,

269; comprehensiveness of the early trade of, 123; statutes relating

to, 124–136; rise of fine printing, 269, 272

Printers, their own founders, 88, 102, 103, 123, 125; number of, in

London, 126, 130, 132, 133, 134

_Prodromus Coptus_, Rome, 1636; 67, 69, 236

Propaganda Press, specimens, 66, 67, 69, 70; Types of:—Arabic, 66;

Coptic, 69; Ethiopic, 69; Irish, 75, 191; Samaritan, 70; Sclavonic, 71;

Syriac, 67

‘Proscription’ letter, Matrices:—Caslon, 248; Cottrell, 291, 292, 317;

Thorne, 292, 293; Jackson, 317

_Prosodia Rationalis_, Lond. 1779; 323

Psalmanazar (G.) anecdotes of Palmer by, 114, 238

_Psalms_ (_Polyglot_) Paris, 1513; 82: Genoa, 1516; 63, 65, 170:

Cologne, 1518; 69, 170

——— (_Hebrew_) Tübingen, 1512, (_Septem pœnit._), 63

——— (_Heb. Lat._) Lond. 1736; 238, 239

——— (_Greek_) Milan, 1481; 58: Venice, 1486, 58: Lond. 1812 (_Cod.

Alex._) 322

——— (_Latin_) Mentz, 1457; 11, 13, 53: Mentz, 1490; 76

_Psalms_ (_Arabic_) Rome, 1614; 66: Lond. 1725; 67, 235

——— (_Armenian_) Rome, 1565; 68

——— (_Ethiopic_) Rome, 1513; 69: Frankfort, 1701; 69

——— (_Saxon_) Lond. 1640; 73

——— (_Sclavonic_) Cracow, 1491; 71

——— (_Syriac-Lat._) Paris, 1625; 67

Pump for type-casting machine, 119

Punches, probable earliest, 14; of copper, 15, 16; of wood, 14, 15,

16; small value put on, 113, 209, 225, 229; defects of French, 116;

Barclay’s patent, 119

Punch-cutting, account of, 108, 185; a distinct trade in Holland, 114;

independent artists in England, 117, 338, 358, 360; secrecy of 117,

243, 288, 315, 338

Pynson (R.) servant to Caxton, 91; correspondence with Rouen printers,

91, 92, 103; types of, 91, 92, 93; his Roman, the first in England, 37,

44, 92; his indenture with Horman, 37, 92; Greek types cast by, 93;

apology for, 93

Quatremère, Coptic type used by, 70

Quintilian’s suggestion of mobile types, 3

‘Quousque tandem,’ formula for type specimens, 49, 52

Rabbinical Hebrew, Matrices:—Andrews, 194, 195; James, 65, 227, 303;

Fry, 303

Raphelengius, Arabic type of, 66, 145

Ratdolt, initials of, 79

_Rasselas_, Banbury, 1804; 119

Rastell (W.) types of, 94

_Rastell’s Grete Abridgement_, Lond. 1534; 94

_Readings on Jonah_, Lond. 1579; 64, 98

Record Commission, types cut for, 339, 340

——— _Reports_, Lond. 1800–19; 339: Edinburgh, 1811–16; 340

‘Real Character,’ Moxon’s, cut for Wilkins, 191, 196, 310

_Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_, Bruges, 1474; 86

Redman (R.) Pynson’s quarrel with, 93; types of, 94

REED (CHARLES) partner in the Fann Street Foundry, 296

Registration of founders, 133, 135

_Regulæ Trium Ordinum_, Lond. 1676; 182, 185

_Reliques of Irish Poetry_, Dublin, 1789; 191

RICHARD (MR.) partner of Mr. Miller, 356

RICHARD (J. M.) son of above, 356; ‘Brilliant’ type of, 356; ‘Gem’ type

of 356

RICHARD (W. M.) brother of above, 356

RICHARDS (T.) a letter founder, 351

Richardson (Rev. J.) Irish works of, 190

Richardson (W.) Engrossing type cut for, 289, 290

Ripoli Press, metals used in the foundry of, 19; matrices bought by, 28

Ritchie (Millar), fine printer, 306

Robijn, a Dutch type body, 40, 52

Roccha (Ang.) on early perforated types, 4; his _Bibliotheca Apostolica

Vaticana_, 65, 67, 68

Rolij (or Rolu), Dutch letter cutter, 114, 215, 216

Roman letter, origin of, 40; early founts in Italy, 40, 41; Germany,

42; France, 43, 44; Netherlands, 43, 44, 47; Switzerland, 44

Roman letter, in England: introduction of, 44, 91; Pynson’s, 44; 92; De

Worde’s, 91; Redman’s, 94; Day’s, 47, 96, 97, 98, 144; Vautrollier’s,

46, 98; degeneration of, 44, 232; called ‘White letter,’ 91; mixed

with Black, 45, 97; followed Dutch models, 46; first _Bible_ in, 46;

in Scotland, 46; Roycroft’s, 47, 173, 176; Ogilby’s, 47; Field’s, 47;

Moxon’s rules for, 47, 182, 184, 185; Caslon’s influence on, 47, 249,

284, 301, 303, 305; narrow faces, 46; Baskerville’s influence on, 47,

284, 299, 305, 332, 333; French influence on, 48; Bodoni’s influence

on, 48, 331; revolutions in, 48, 251, 253, 301, 328, 332, 340; French

obligations to, 48; heavy faced, 48; revival of the Old Face, 49;

Rusher’s improved, 119; Motteroz ideal, 48

——— and Italic matrices: Oxford, 148, 152; Polyglot, 173, 176; Moxon,

181; Andrews, 195; Grover, 198, 199; Mitchell, 206; ‘Anon,’ 207; James,

213, 214, 217, 223; Caslon, 47, 159, 235, 240, 247, 251, 252, 253;

Wilson, 48, 260, 263, 264, 265; Baskerville, 47, 48, 263, 270, 271,

275, 276, 277, 279, 280, 284; Cottrell, 48, 289, 290, 291, 292; Fry,

48, 299, 300, 301, 303, 305, 306, 310; Jackson, 48, 317, 323; Figgins,

48, 336, 337, 340; Thorne, 291, 293, 295; Thorowgood, 295; Martin, 332,

333; Ilive, 347; Stephenson (S. and C.), 353; Miller, 355, 356

Rood (Theo.) Oxford printer, 137, 138

Rosart, music type of, 78

Rouen, an early type market, 91, 93, 103

Rowe (Sir T.) family of, 200

Rowe (Eliz.) married H. Caslon, 200, 250

Roxburghe Club, works printed for, 312, 334

Royal Typography in England, proposal for a, 263

Roycroft (Thos.) printer of the London _Polyglot_, 171, 172;

distinction conferred on, 176; printing house of, 217; fire of his

office, 177; epitaph, 176; types used by, 47, 64, 66, 173–177

Rubbing, a process in founding, 111, 116, 117

Ruby, an English type body, 34

Runic, early foreign founts of, 72

——— Matrices: Oxford, 72, 150, 151, 155, 161; James, 72, 225, 228

Running Secretary, a French Cursiv, 56

Rusher (Ph.) his improved types, 119; his _Rasselas_, 119

Russian type, chief foreign founts, 71, 72; none in England in 1778; 72

——— Matrices: Cottrell, 72, 291; Fry, 72, 309, 312; Thorowgood, 72, 296

St. Alban’s, printing at, 89, 139

St. Augustin, a French type body, 32, 37

_Sallust_, Edinburgh, 1739; 219

Samaritan type, chief founts abroad, 70, 174

——— Matrices: Oxford, 70, 148, 154, 161; Polyglot, 70, 173, 174, 177,

198; Andrews, 70, 195; Grover, 70, 198; James, 70, 223, 225, 227, 303;

Caslon, 70, 240, 241, 247, 254; Caslon III, 326; Fry, 70, 303, 309,

311; Dummers, 70, 241, 345

——— Punches: James, 229 Sand moulds, early use of, 16

Sanscrit matrices: Caslon, 254; Jackson, 319; Wilkins, 318, 319

‘Sanspareil’ matrices invented, 327

Savile (Sir H.) his Eton _Chrysostom_, 60, 140

Saxon, early types of, in England, 73, 74; in Amsterdam, 74

——— Matrices: Day, 73, 95, 96; Oxford, 74, 150, 151, 158, 161; Andrews

(for Elstob), 74, 156, 157, 158, 196, 289; Grover, 199; James, 223,

228; Caslon, 74, 240, 248; Caslon III, 326; Wilson, 74, 264; Fry, 74,

309, 312; Figgins, 74, 343

——— Punches: James, 229

Schoeffer (P.) advertisement of, 28, 49; his Lettre de Somme, 54;

Greek, 57; Initials, 79

Schoepflin on sculpto-fusi types, 7

_Schola Syriaca_, Utrecht, 1672; 70, 174

_Scholar’s Instructor_, Camb. 1735; 247

Sclavonic, various founts abroad, 71

——— Matrices: Oxford, 71, 148, 153, 155, 161

——— modern: _see_ Russian

Scolar (J.) early Oxford printer, 139

Scoloker, Ipswich printer, device of, 106

Scotland, first types in, 103; early use of Dutch types in, 46, 257,

258; condition of printing in, before 1720, 257; no foundry in 1725,

218, 257, 258

Script type, origin of, 56, 204; Dutch, 56; French and German, 56;

Moreau’s, 56; Didot’s, 56, 120, 308, 312; Dawks’, 173

——— Matrices: Caslon, 249; Cottrell, 56, 290, 292; Fry, 308, 312;

Jackson, 56, 317; Thorne, 293, 294, 295

Scriptorial matrices: Grover, 199, 204; James, 228, 303; Fry, 303;

Fenwick, 351

‘Sculpto-fusi’ types, theory of, 7, 8

‘Sculptus,’ use of the word in colophons, 7

Secretary type, early, at Paris, 55; Rouen, 55, 92; Caxton’s, 55, 86,

87, 88; Berthelet’s, 94, 95; variations of, 55; disappearance, 55, 94,

Secretary matrices: Andrews, 196; Grover, 199; James, 228

Sedan, small Roman type at, 40, 46; small Greek, 61, 254

Sedan, a French type body, 35

_Seldeni Opera Omnia_, Lond. 1726; 236

Semi-Nonpareil, a French type body, 40

Set-Court, _see_ Court Hand

Setting-up, an operation in founding, 111, 114, 116, 117

_Shakespeare_, Lond. 1792–1802; 330, 331

Shakespeare Press, established, 331; works issued by, 331–3

Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, 153

Shewell (Mr.) son-in-law of Caslon I, 246

Siberch (Jno.) first Cambridge printer, 141; Greek types of, 60, 141

Signs cut by Moxon, 191

Silver, alleged use of for type metal, 40, 106, 140

SIMMONS, a letter founder, 364

SINCLAIR (DUNCAN) manager for Wilson, 266; starts a foundry in

Edinburgh, 266

SINCLAIR (JNO.) son of above; manager for Wilson, 265; joins his

father, 266

Skeen (W.) on wooden types, 6; on sculpto-fusi types, 8; on ‘getté en

molle,’ 14

SKINNER, a letter founder, 345

Small Pica, an English type-body, 33, 38

Smart (W.) purchased Baskerville remainders, 281

Smith (Jno.) his tribute to Caslon, 243; body-standards given by, 34

Smith, (Dr. T.) his tribute to Laud, 145; note by, on the Alexandrian

_Codex_, 201, 203

Smith (T. W.) manager to H. W. Caslon, 255

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, notice of, 234; their press

at Tranquebar, 234; their Arabic _Psalms and Testament_, 235

Somme, Lettre de, 54

Soncino, Hebrew type at, 62

_Sophologium_ (Wiedenbach? 1465?) 42

Sower (Chr.) early American founder, 350

Spaces, early contrivances for, 21

Specimens, _see_ Type-specimens

Specklin on wooden types, 4

_Speculum_, not printed with wood type, 4, 5, 6; nor with sculpto-fusi

types, 6; possible sand-cast types of, 10; curious ‘turn’ in 10;

possible clay-cast types of, 11; quantity of types and contractions in,

Star Chamber; case of Day _v._ Ward, 124; decrees affecting printers

and founders, 126, 130, 167; abolished, 131

Starr (E.) Type-casting machine of, 122

_Statham’s Abridgments_, Rouen, _n.d._, 92

Stationers, early brotherhood of, 124

Stationers’ Company, incorporation of, 124; powers against printers,

127, 128, 129; minutes relating to founders, 128, 129, 133, 134, 164,

165, 193; schism in, 348

Statutes affecting printers and founders, 124, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134

STEELE (ISAAC) partner of Edmund Fry, 306, 307

STEPHENSON (S. and C.) London founders, 353; first foundry, 353;

specimens, 353, 354; punch-cutter for, 353, 359; foundry sold, 354

——— Matrices:—Roman and Italic, 353; Ornaments, 353

STEPHENSON (HENRY) Sheffield founder, 329

Stereotype, early suggestion of, 13; first attempts at, 218; history of

Ged’s invention, 218; re-invention by Tilloch, 220, 261; perfected by

Wilson and Lord Stanhope, 220; Didot’s method of, 220

Strong (Mr.) married Mrs. H. Caslon, 252

Strype’s note on Day, 98; on early types, 97

Subiaco, Roman type at, 40; Greek, 57

Swedish Matrices:—Oxford, 73, 151

SWINNEY (MYLES) Birmingham founder, 269, 352; specimen of, 352, 353;

poetical tribute to, 353

Swynheim and Pannartz, Roman types of, 40, 41; Greek, 57

SYMPSON (BENJ.) the first recorded English letter-founder, 128, 164

Syriac, chief founts abroad, 67; printed in Hebrew, 67; Usher’s attempt

to procure types of, 67, 68

——— Matrices: Oxford, 68, 147, 148, 155, 160, 161; Polyglot, 68, 173,

174, 177, 198, 241; Andrews, 195, 241; Grover, 198, 241; James, 228,

241; Caslon, 160, 240, 241, 246, 247, 254; Fry, 68, 303, 308, 309, 311,

342; Caslon III, 326; Figgins 68, 342, 343; Watts, 68

——— Punches:—James, 229

Télegú matrices: Figgins, 339, 343

Tertia, a German type body, 37

Teste, a size of type, 32

Testo, a Spanish type body, 32, 37

Thiboust (C. L.) his account of French founding, 114, 115; his

_Typographiæ Excellentia_, 115

Thomas (Isaiah) his _Printing in America_, 17; note on the first

American founders, 350

Thomson (Jas.) his patent for type-casting, 12, 122

_Thomson’s Seasons_, Parma, 1794: 251: Lond. 1799: 336

THORNE (ROBT.) apprentice and successor to Cottrell, 292; removes to

Barbican, 292; and to Fann Street, 294; regulations of his foundry,

117, 294; specimens, 292, 293, 294; new fashions of Roman, 293; sale of

his foundry, 295

——— Matrices: Blacks, 295; Engrossing, 295; Flowers, 293, 295; German,

295; Ornamented, 295; ‘Proscription,’ 292, 294; Roman and Italic, 292,

293, 295; Script, 293, 294, 295; Shaded, 293, 295

THOROWGOOD (WM.) purchases Thorne’s foundry, 295; specimens, 295, 296;

purchases Dr. Fry’s foundry, 296, 313; successors, 296; standards of

type bodies in 1841, 34

——— Matrices: German, 296; Greek, 296; Hebrew, 296; Roman and Italic,

295; Russian, 72, 296

Tilloch’s patent for stereotype, 220, 261

Timmins (S.) Baskerville relics of, 268, 269, 271, 279

Tonson (J.) buys type in Holland, 216, 217, 233

Tory (Geof.) on shapes of types, 32, 53, 183; his _Champfleury_, 32,

183; Greek type of, 58; Initials, 80; Roman, 44

_Tractatus contra Judæos_, Esslingen, 1475 62

Trafalgar, an English type body, 34

Tranquebar, Scriptures printed at, 1714–19; 234

_Treatise of Love_, Westminster, 1491 ?; 89

_Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle_, Lond. 1827; 286

Trithemius on the Invention of Printing, 7

_Turner’s Herbal_, Lond. 1551; 60

Turner, a dishonest Oxford printer, 145

Two-line letters, early mention of, 32; use of, 80, 129

_Twyn’s Tryal and Condemnation_, Lond. 1664; 132

Types, early; first suggestion of mobile, 3; wooden, 3; perforated,

4; Wetter’s specimen of, 5; Laborde’s specimen, 5; ‘sculpto-fusi,’ 7;

sand-cast, 10; clay-cast, 11; irregularities in, 18; 15th century types

at Lyons, 20–23; and at Cologne, 24–26; ligatures and contractions, 22,

27; quantities of, in founts, 26, 27; one size only in a book, 126;

markets for, 20, 28, 90, 103; trade in, 103, 123; early control over,

126

Type-bodies, origin of, 31, 32; names of early, 32–40; irregular, 33;

standards of 33, 34; attempts to regulate, 35, 357; names of foreign, 35

Type-casting, Moxon’s account of, 111; machine for, origin of, 122;

patents for, 119–22; early machines, 265, 356

Type-ornaments, first at Subiaco, 82; Aldus’, 82; Caxton’s, 82; H.

Estienne’s, 82; used in combination, 82

Type patented, Rusher’s, 119; Caslon III, 120, 327

Type-mould, invention of, 9; of sand, 10; clay, 11, plaster, 15;

earliest adjustable, 14; in four pieces, 17, 120; peculiarities of

early, 23, 105; Garamond’s, 23; Dutch, of brass, 113, 216; ‘drags’ in

26; Moxon’s description of, 108, 186; abandonment of hand, 119; lever

introduced, 120, 186

Type-specimens, English, 49, 50; Dibdin on, 49; Bodoni’s, 50, 251

Type Street Foundry established, 305

‘Typi tornatissimi,’ initials, 79

_Typographical Antiquities_, Lond. 1749; 52, 242

_Typographiæ Excellentia, Carmen_, Paris, 1718; 115

Typography, essence of, 2; and xylography, 2; two early schools of, 9;

a mathematical science, 184

Union-Pearl matrices: Grover, 199, 204; James, 228, 303; Fry, 303

_Universal Magazine_, 1750: account of letter-founding in, 108, 116,

243, 288, 316

_Unterweissung der Messung_, Nuremburg, 1525; 32, 183

Usher’s attempt to procure Oriental types, 67, 69, 141

Van Dijk (Chr.) Dutch letter cutter, 114, 215; Moxon’s praise of, 182,

184; Roman letter of, 40, 44, 47, 182, 184; Italic, 52; Black, 47

Vatican Press, Oriental types of, 65, 67, 69

Vautrollier (Th.) Roman type of, 46, 98; Italic, 51; Music, 77

_Virgil_, Paris, 1648; 56: Lond. (Ogilby’s) 47: Florence, 1741; 204:

Birmingham, 1757; 272, 273

Vitré, French printer, Arabic types of, 66; Samaritan, 70; Syriac, 67

Vizitelly, Branston and Co.’s cast ornaments, 360

_Vocabularia_, St. Petersburg, 1786–9; 72

_Vocabulary_ (_Arabic_), Granada, 1505; 65

_Vocabulary, Persian, Arabic and English_, Lond. 1785; 319

_Voltaire, Œuvres de_, Kehl, 1784–9; 286

Voskens (Dirk) Dutch founder, 114, 215, 216, 290

——— Matrices of: Coptic, 70; Runic, 72; Russian, 71; Samaritan, 70;

Saxon, 74; Sclavonic, 71

Wages in Caslon’s foundry, dispute concerning in, 1757; 243: in

Thorne’s foundry, 1806; 118

Waldegrave (R.) a disorderly printer, 127

WALPERGEN (P.) Oxford founder, 149, 207; book printed by, at Batavia,

207; his Music type, 77, 148, 153, 162, 208, 209; inventory of his

chattels, 209; small value of his punches, 209

Walpole (Horace) Baskerville’s letter to, 278

_Walsingham, Historia Brevis_, Lond. 1574; 95, 96

Walton (Brian) editor of the London _Polyglot_, 170; his Proposals and

Specimen, 170; his _Introductio ad lectionem_, 172; timeservice of,

175; rewards to, 176; note by, on the Alexandrian _Codex_ facsimile,

201

Wanley (Humphrey) designs Saxon letter for Miss Elstob, 157

Ward (Roger) a disorderly printer, 125, 127

Watson (Jas.) Scotch printer, 257; his _History of Printing_, 257;

Specimen, 46, 49, 258; his Dutch Initials, 80, 258

WATTS (RICHARD) Cambridge University printer, 362; printer and founder

in London, 362; Oriental types of, 363; specimen by his successors, 363

——— Matrices: Syriac, 68

Watts (Jno.) printer, assists Caslon, 233, 234; Franklin his

apprentice, 233, 235

Wechels, Frankfort printers, Greek types of, 58, 60, 140; Hebrew, 63

Wertheimer (Jno.) Hebrew type cut for, 264

Weston, _see_ Wetstein

Westfalia (Jno. de) Roman type of, 43

Wetstein, Dutch founders, 346, 349; Greek types of, 61

Wetter’s unhistorical wooden types, 5

White (Elihu) type-casting machine of, 120

White (Thos.) printer, uses Baskerville’s types, 286

‘White letter,’ a name for Roman, 91

Whittaker (Jno.) Caxtonian restorations by, 344

Whittingham (C.) printer, revives the Old Style Roman, 255

_Whitintoni Grammatices_, Lond. 1519; 60, 91: _De heteroclytis

nominibus_, Lond. 1523; 91: _Lucubrationes_, Lond. 1527; 91

Wiedenbach, typographical school at, 41, 42; Roman type at, 42

Wilkins (Dr. C.) Librarian to East India Company, 318; typographical

achievements of, 318, 319; Bengal type cut by, 319; Deva Nagari cut by,

319, 320; fire at his office, 319; Sanscrit cut for, 254

Wilkins (Dr. D.) notice of, 236; Coptic works of, 236

Wilkins (Dr. Jno.) Philosophical or Real character of, 191, 196, 310

WILSON (ALEX.) the First; begins as a doctor’s assistant in London,

258; patronised by Lord Isla, 258; starts a foundry, 259; his partner

Baine, 259, 260; attempts new method of founding, 259; earliest founts

of, 260; settles at St. Andrew’s, 260; Irish and foreign business, 260,

264; removes to Camlachie, 260; casts types for the Foulis, 261; the

Glasgow _Homer_ Greek type, 262; retires, 262; tributes to, 262, 263;

specimens, 263; foundry removed to Glasgow, 263

——— Matrices: Black, 264; Greek, 61, 261, 262, 264, 265; Hebrew, 261,

265; Roman and Italic, 48, 260, 263, 264, 265; Saxon, 74, 264

WILSON (ANDREW) son of above; assists and succeeds his father, 264;

state of the foundry in 1825; 264

——— Matrices: Greek, 264; Roman, 264, 355

WILSON (ALEX.) the Second, son of above, joins his father, 264;

succeeds to the foundry, 264; establishes branches at Edinburgh, 264,

London, 265, and Two Waters, 265; type casting machine of, 122, 265;

fails in business, 265; sells foundry, 265; joins Mr. Caslon, 255, 265

WILSON (PATRICK) brother and partner of above, 264

Wilson Foundry, type standards in 1841; 34: division and dispersion of,

255, 265

Woide (Dr.) his facsimile of the Alexandrian _Codex_, 311, 321

Wolfe (Jno.) disorderly City printer, 125

Wolfe (Rey.) types of, 95; Greek of, 60

Wolsey (Cardinal) his influence on printing, 139

Women, employment of, in foundries, 117

WOOD AND SHARWOODS, founders, successors to Austin, 360; Cast Ornaments

of, 360

Wooden types, the legend of, 3–6; Specimens of at Oxford, 6; used in

England, 129

Worde (Wynkyn de) account of, 89–91; used Caxton’s types, 87, 89; and

Faques’, 94; bought type abroad, 103; employed a Paris printer, 91; his

own letter founder, 89, 90, 103; types of: Arabic, 66, 91; Black, 53,

89, 90, 91, 197, 199, 225, 239; Greek, 60, 91; Hebrew, 64, 91; Italic,

51, 91; Music, 76, 91; Roman, 91

WRIGHT (THOS.) Star Chamber Founder, 165, 166; nominated, 130, 165

Wyer (R.) types of, 94

_Xenophon’s Anabasis_, Glasgow, 1783; 220

Xylography, a distinct art from Typography, 6; extinction of, 2

Ycair on the shapes of letters, 32, 53; his _Orthographia Practica_,

32, 53, 183

York, early printing at, 89, 139

Young (Patrick) Royal Librarian, 143, 167; his _Catena on Job_, 98,

144, 176, 198, 201, 228; his facsimile from the Alexandrian _Codex_,

201, 321

Zainer (Gunther) Roman type of, 42

Zell (Ulric) his narrative of the invention of printing, 1

[Illustration]

ENDNOTES:

[1] _The Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing by Lourens

Janszoon Coster, critically examined._ From the Dutch by J. H. Hessels,

with an introduction and classified list of the Costerian Incunabula.

London, 1871. 8vo.

[2] Xylography did not become extinct for more than half a century

after the invention of Typography. The last block book known was

printed in Venice in 1510.

[3] “Hic ego non mirer esse quemquam qui sibi persuadeat . . . .

mundum effici . . . . ex concursione fortuitâ! Hoc qui existimet

fieri potuisse, non intelligo cur non idem putet si innumerabiles

unius et viginti formæ litterarum, vel aureæ, vel qualeslibet, aliquò

conjiciantur, posse ex his in terram excussis, annales Ennii, ut

deinceps legi possint, effici” (_De Nat. Deor._, lib. ii). Cicero was

not the only ancient writer who entertained the idea of mobile letters.

Quintilian suggests the use of ivory letters for teaching children

to read while playing: “Eburneas litterarum formas in ludum offere”

(_Inst. Orat._, i, cap. 1); and Jerome, writing to Læta, propounds the

same idea: “Fiant ei (Paulæ) litteræ vel buxeæ vel eburneæ, et suis

nominibus appellentur. Ludat in eis ut et lusus ipse eruditio fiat.”

[4] _In Commentatione de ratione communi omnium linguarum et

literarum._ Tiguri, 1548, p. 80.

[5] In _Chronico Argentoratensi_, _m.s._ ed. Jo. Schilterus, p. 442.

“Ich habe die erste press, auch die buchstaben gesehen, waren von holtz

geschnitten, auch gäntze wörter und syllaben, hatten löchle, und fasst

man an ein schnur nacheinander mit einer nadel, zoge sie darnach den

zeilen in die länge,” etc.

[6] _De Bibliothecâ Vaticanâ._ Romæ, 1591, p. 412. “Characteres enim a

primis illis inventoribus non ita eleganter et expedite, ut a nostris

fieri solet, sed filo in litterarum foramen immisso connectebantur,

sicut Venetiis id genus typos me vidisse memini.”

[7] _De Germaniæ Miraculo_, etc. Lipsiæ, 1710, p. 10. “ . . . .

ligneos typos, ex buxi frutice, perforatos in medio, ut zonâ colligari

unâ jungique commode possint, ex Fausti officina reliquos, Moguntiæ

aliquando me conspexisse memini.”

[8] _Essai sur les Monumens Typographiques de Jean Gutenburg._ Mayence,

an 10, 1802, p. 39.

[9] _Débuts de l’ Imprimerie à Strasbourg._ Paris, 1840, p. 72.

[10] _Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst._ Mainz, 1836. Album, tab. ii.

[11] The history of these “fatal, unhistorical wooden types” is

worth recording for the warning of the over-credulous typographical

antiquary. Wetter, writing his book in 1836, and desirous to illustrate

the feasibility of the theory, “spent,” so Dr. Van der Linde writes,

“really the amount of ten shillings on having a number of letters made

of the wood of a pear-tree, only to please Trithemius, Bergellanus,

and Faust of Aschaffenburg. . . . His letters, although tied with

string, did not remain in the line, but made naughty caprioles.

The supposition—that by these few dancing lines the possibility is

demonstrated of printing with 40,000 wooden letters, necessary to the

printing of a quarternion, a whole folio book—is dreadfully silly. The

demonstrating facsimile demonstrates already the contrary. Wetter’s

letters not only declined to have themselves regularly printed, but

they also retained their pear-tree-wood-like impatience afterwards.”

The specimen of these types may be seen in the _Album_ of plates

accompanying Wetter’s work, where they occupy the first place, the

matter chosen being the first few verses of the Bible, occupying

nineteen lines, and the type being about two-line English in body.

M. Wetter stated in his work that he had deposited the original

types in the Town Library of Mentz, where they might be inspected by

anyone wishing to do so. From this repository they appear ultimately

to have returned to the hands of M. Wetter’s printer. M. Bernard,

passing through Mentz in 1850, asked M. Wetter for a sight of them,

and was conducted to the printing office for that purpose, when it was

discovered that they had been stolen; whereupon M. Bernard remarks,

prophetically, “Peutêtre un jour quelque naïf Allemand, les trouvant

parmi les reliques du voleur, nous les donnera pour les caractères de

Gutenberg. Voilà comment s’établissent trop souvent les traditions.”

This prediction, with the one exception of the nationality of the

victim, was literally fulfilled when an English clergyman, some

years afterwards, discovered these identical types in the shop of

a curiosity-dealer at Mayence, and purchased them as apparently

veritable relics of the infancy of printing. After being offered to the

authorities at the British Museum and declined, they were presented in

1869 to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, where they remain to this day,

treasured in a box, and accompanied by a learned memorandum setting

forth the circumstances of their discovery, and citing the testimony

of Roccha and other writers as to the existence and use of perforated

types by the early printers. The lines (which we have inspected)

remain threaded and locked in forme exactly as they appear in Wetter’s

specimen. It is due to the present authorities of the Bodleian to say

that they preserve these precious “relics,” without prejudice, as

curiosities merely, with no insistence on their historic pretensions.

[12] Van der Linde, _Haarlem Legend_. Lond., p. 72.

[13] Skeen, in his _Early Typography_, Colombo, 1872, takes up

the challenge thrown down by Dr. Van der Linde on the strength of

Enschedé’s opinion, and shows a specimen of three letters cut in

boxwood, pica size, one of which he exhibits again at the close of

the book after 1,500 impressions. But the value of Skeen’s arguments

and experiments is destroyed when he sums up with this absurd dictum:

“Three letters are as good as 3,000 or 30,000 or 300,000 to demonstrate

the fact that words are and can be, and that therefore pages and whole

books may be (and therefore also that they may have been) printed from

such separable wooden types.”—P. 424.

[14] _Annales Hirsaugienses_, ii, p. 421: “Post hæc inventis

successerunt subtiliora, inveneruntque modum fundendi formas omnium

Latini Alphabeti literarum quas ipsi matrices nominabant; ex quibus

rursum æneos sive stanneos characteres fundebant, ad omnem pressuram

sufficientes, quos prius manibus sculpebant.” Trithemius’ statement, as

every student of typographical history is aware, has been made to fit

every theory that has been propounded, but it is doubtful whether any

other writer has stretched it quite as severely as Meerman in the above

rendering of these few Latin lines.

[15] _Origines Typographicæ_, Gerardo Meerman auctore. Hagæ Com., 1765.

Append., p. 47.

[16] The constant recurrence in more modern typographical history of

the expression “to cut matrices,” meaning of course to cut the punches

necessary to form the matrices, bears out the same conclusion.

[17] _Origine et Débuts de l’Imprimerie en Europe._ Paris, 1853, 8vo,

i, 38.

[18] _Life and Typography of William Caxton._ London, 1861–3, 2 vols,

4to, ii, xxiv.

[19] _The Invention of Printing._ New York, 1876. 8vo.

[20] _Origine de l’Imprimerie_, i, 40.

[21] Mr. Blades points out that there are no overhanging letters in

the specimen. The necessity for such letters would be, we imagine,

entirely obviated by the numerous combinations with which the type of

the printers of the school abounded. The body is almost always large

enough to carry ascending and descending sorts, and in width, a sort

which would naturally overhang, is invariably covered by its following

letter cast on the same piece.

[22] It is well known that until comparatively recently the large

“proscription letters” of our foundries, from three-line pica and

upwards, were cast in sand. The practice died out at the close of last

century.

[23] _An Enquiry Concerning the Invention of Printing._ London, 1863,

4to, p. 265.

[24] In a recent paper, read by the late Mr. Bradshaw of Cambridge,

before the Library Association, he points out a curious shrinkage

both as to face and body in the re-casting of the types of the Mentz

_Psalter_, necessary to complete the printing of that work. The

shrinking properties of clay and plaster are well known, and, assuming

the new type to have been cast in moulds of one of these substances

formed upon a set of the original types, the uniform contraction of

body and face might be accounted for. If, on the other hand, we hold

that the types of this grand work were the product of the finished

school of typographers, the probability is that the new matrices (of

the face of the letter only) were formed in clay, as suggested at p.

15, and that the adjustable mould was either purposely or inadvertently

shifted in body to accommodate the new casting.

[25] In connection with the suggested primitive modes of casting, the

patent of James Thomson in 1831 (see Chap. iv, _post_), for casting by

a very similar method, is interesting.

[26] _Origine de l’Imprimerie._ Paris, 1810, 2 vols., 8vo, i, 97.

[27] _Origine de l’Imprimerie_, i, 99, etc. The following are

the citations:—“_Escriture en molle_,” used in the letters of

naturalisation to the first Paris printers, 1474. “_Escrits en moule_,”

applied to two Horæ in vellum, bought by the Duke of Orleans, 1496.

“_Mettre en molle_,” applied to the printing of Savonarola’s sermons,

1498. “_Tant en parchemin que en papier, à la main et en molle_,”

applied to the books in a library, 1498. “_Mettre en molle_,” applied

to the printing of a book by Marchand, 1499. “_En molle et à la main_,”

applied to printed books and manuscripts in the Duke of Bourbon’s

library, 1523. “_Pièces officielles moulées par ordre de l’Assemblée._”

Procès verbaux des Etats Généraux, 1593.

[28] _Coster Legend_, p. 6.

[29] _Ibid._, p. viii.

[30] A calculation given in the _Magazin Encyclopédique_ of 1806, i,

299, shows that from such matrices 120 to 150 letters can be cast

before they are rendered useless, and from 50 to 60 letters before any

marked deterioration is apparent in the fine strokes of the types.

[31] Several writers account for the alleged perforated wooden and

metal types reputed to have been used by the first printers, and

described by Specklin, Pater, Roccha and others, by supposing that they

were model types used for forming matrices, and threaded together for

safety and convenience of storage.

[32] _Works of the late Dr. Benjamin Franklin, consisting of his Life,

written by himself_, in 2 vols. London, 1793, 8vo, i, 143. It is a

very singular fact that in a later corrected edition of the same work,

edited by John Bigelow, and published in Philadelphia in 1875, the

passage above quoted reads as follows: “I contrived a mould, made use

of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the _matrices in lead_, and

thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies.” Whichever

reading be correct, the illustration is apt, as proving the possibility

of producing type from matrices either of clay or lead in a makeshift

mould.

[33] _Origine de l’Imprimerie_, i, 144.

[34] From this method of forming the matrices (says a note to

the Enschedé specimen) has arisen the name Chalcographia, which

Bergellanus, among others, applies to printing.

[35] _Printer’s Grammar._ Lond., 1755, p. 10.

[36] It has been suggested by some that wood could be _struck_ into

lead or pewter; but the possibility of producing a successful matrix

in this manner is, we consider, out of the question. In 1816 Robert

Clayton proposed to cast types in metal out of _wooden_ matrices

punched in wood with a cross grain, which has been previously slightly

charred or baked.

[37] In the specimen of “_Ancienne Typographie_” of the Imprimerie

Royale of Paris, 1819, several of the old oriental founts are thus

noted: “les poinçons sont en cuivre.”

[38] In the 2nd edition of Isaiah Thomas’ _History of Printing in

America_, Albany, 1874, i, 288, an anecdote is given of Peter Miller,

the German who printed at Ephrata in the United States in 1749, which

we think is suggestive of the possible expedients of the first printers

with regard to the mould. During the time that a certain work of Miller

was in the press, says Francis Bailey, a former apprentice of Miller’s,

“particular sorts of the fonts of type on which it was printed ran

short. To overcome this difficulty, one of the workmen constructed a

mold that could be moved so as to suit the body of any type not smaller

than brevier nor larger than double-pica. The mold consisted of four

quadrangular pieces of brass, two of them with mortices to shift to a

suitable body, and secured by screws. The best type they could select

from the sort wanted was then placed in the mold, and after a slight

corrosion of the surface of the letter with aquafortis to prevent

soldering or adhesion, a leaden matrix was cast on the face of the

type, from which, after a slight stroke of a hammer on the type in the

matrix, we cast the letters which were wanted. Types thus cast answer

tolerably well. I have often adopted a method somewhat like this to

obtain sorts which were short; but instead of four pieces of brass,

made use of an even and accurate composing-stick, and one piece of

iron or copper having an even surface on the sides; and instead of a

leaden matrix, have substituted one of clay, especially for letters

with a bold face.” De Vinne describes an old mould preserved among the

relics in Bruce’s foundry at New York, composed (with the matrix) of

four pieces, and adjustable both as to body and thickness. Bernard also

mentions a similar mould in use in 1853.

[39] A curious instance of this occurs in the battered text of the _De

Laudibus Mariæ_, shown at p. 24, where the rubricator has added his

red dashes to capital letters at the beginning, middle and end of a

palpably illegible passage.

[40] _Notizie storiche sopra la Stamperia di Ripoli._ Firenze, 1781, p.

49. _Prezzi de’ generi riguardanti la Getteria (letter foundry)._

_s._ _d._

Acciaio (steel) liv. 2 8 0 la lib. ( = 9 0 per lb.)

Metallo (type-metal?) 〃 0 11 0 〃 ( = 2 0 3/4 〃 )

Ottone (brass) 〃 0 12 0 〃 ( = 2 3 〃 )

Rame (copper) 〃 0 6 8 〃 ( = 1 3 〃 )

Stagno (tin) 〃 0 8 0 〃 ( = 1 6 〃 )

Piombo (lead) 〃 0 2 4 〃 ( = 0 5 1/4 〃 )

Filo di ferro (iron wire) 〃 0 8 0 〃 ( = 1 6 〃 )

[41] It would be more correct to say the discovery of the properties of

antimony, which were first described by Basil Valentin about the end of

the 15th century, in a treatise entitled _Currus triumphalis Antimonii_.

[42] Printing was practised at Lyons in 1473, three years only later

than at Paris. From the year 1476 the art extended rapidly in the

city. Panzer mentions some 250 works printed here during the 15th

century by nearly forty printers, among whom was Badius Ascensius. The

earlier Lyons printers are supposed to have had their type from Basle,

and their city shortly became a depôt for the supply of type to the

printers of Southern France and Spain.

[43] _Histoire de l’Invention de l’Imprimerie par les Monuments._

Paris, 1840, fol., p. 12.

[44] _Lettres d’un Bibliographe._ Paris, 1875, 8vo, Ser. iv, letter 16.

[45] Begins “_Incipit Liber de Laudibus ac Festis Gloriose Virginis

Matris Marie alias Marionale Dictus per Doctores eximeos editus et

compilatus_”; at end, “_Explicit Petrus Damasceni de laudibus gloriose

Virginis Marie_.” The book is mentioned in Hain, 5918. The drawn-up

type occurs on the top of folio b 4 verso.

[46] It will be understood that in each case the outline of the types

being merely a depressed edge in the original, the black outline of the

facsimiles represents shadow only, and not, as might appear at first

glance, inked surface. M. Madden’s facsimile is apparently drawn. In

the photograph facsimile of the “_De laudibus_” type, the distribution

of black represents the distribution of shadow caused by the somewhat

uneven or tilted indentation of the side of the type in the paper.

[47] Such projections or “drags” in the mould are not unknown in modern

typefounding, where they are purposely inserted so as to leave the

newly cast type, on the opening of the mould, always adhering to one

particular side.

[48] _Life of Caxton_, i, 39. Later on (p 52), Mr. Blades points out,

as an argument against the supposed typographical connection between

Caxton and Zel of Cologne, that the latter, from an early period,

printed two pages at a time.

[49] _Haarlem Legend_, p. xxiii.

[50] Mr. Skeen (_Early Typography_, p. 299) speaks of 300 matrices as

constituting a complete fount; he appears accidentally, in calculating

for two pages instead of one, to have assumed that a double number of

matrices would be requisite for the double quantity of type.

[51] _Origin and Progress of Writing._ London, 1803. 4to. Chapter ix.

[52] The cost-book of the Ripoli press contains several entries

pointing to an early trade in type and matrices. In 1477 the directors

paid ten florins of gold to one John of Mentz, for a set of Roman

matrices. At another time they paid 110 livres for two founts of Roman

and one of Gothic: and further, purchased of the goldsmith, Banco of

Florence, 100 little initials, three large initials, three copper

vignettes, and the copper for an entire set of Greek matrices.

[53]

“Natio quæque suum poterit reperire caragma

Secum nempe stilo præminet omnigeno.”

[54] _Unterweisung der Messung._ Nuremberg, 1525. Fo.

[55] _Champfleury._ Paris, 1529. 8vo.

[56] _Orthographia Practica._ Caragoça, 1548. 4to.

[57] Both _Testo_ and _Glosilla_ subsequently became the names of

Spanish type-bodies, the former being approximately equivalent to our

Great Primer, and the latter to our Minion.

[58] _Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders and Founderies._

London, 1778. 8vo.

[59] See _post_, chap. v.

[60] See _post_, chap. v.

[61] Hansard’s _Typographia_. London, 1825, 8vo, p. 388.

[62] See _post_, chap. xxi.

[63] In several of the German specimens thus examined, not only do

the bodies of one founder differ widely from those of others, but the

variations of each body in the same foundry are often extraordinary.

Faulman, in his _Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst_, Vienna, 1882, 8vo,

p. 488, has a table, professing to give the actual equivalents of each

body to a fraction; but we conceive that, in the absence of a fixed

national standard, such an attempt is futile.

[64] Two-line English, Mores points out, was originally a primitive,

and not a derivative body, corresponding to the old German Prima.

[65] Henry VIII, in 1545, allowed his subjects to use an English Form

of Public Prayer, and ordered one to be printed for their use, entitled

_The Primer_. It contained, besides prayers, several psalms, lessons

and anthems. _Primers_ of the English Church before the Reformation

were printed as early as 1490 in Paris, and in England in 1537.

[66] We have nowhere met with the suggestion that Primer may be

connected with the Latin “premere,” a word familiar in typography, and

naturalized with us in the old word “imprimery.” Great Primer might

thus merely mean the large print letter.

[67] The religious origin of the names of types is in harmony with the

occurrence in typographical phraseology of such words as _chapel_,

_devil_, _justify_, _hell_ (the waste type-pot), _friars_ and _monks_

(white and black blotches caused by uneven inking), etc.

[68] Ulric Hahn’s _St. Augustini De Civitate Dei_, Rome, 1474, is

printed in a letter almost exactly this body. Others derive the name

from the great edition of _St. Augustine_ printed by Amerbach at Basle

in 1506.

[69] “Liber presens, directorium sacerdotum, quem _pica_ Sarum vulgo

vocitat clerus,” etc., is the commencement of a work printed by Pynson

in 1497.

[70] Both the _Cicero_ of Fust and Schoeffer at Mentz, 1466, and of

Hahn at Rome, 1469, were in type of about this size.

[71] _This Prymer of Salysbury use, is set out a long, wout ony

serchyng_, etc. Paris, 1532. 16mo. Many editions were printed in

England and abroad.

[72] Fournier (ii, 144) shows a specimen of the lettre de Somme with

exactly a Bourgeois face.

[73] The first of the family of Paris printers of this name, mentioned

by De la Caille, flourished in 1615.

[74] The German Brevier, corresponding to our Small Pica, is of more

frequent occurrence in these works.

[75] _De Germaniæ Miraculo._ Lipsiæ, 1710, 4to, p. 37.

[76] The _Lactantius_, published the same year, and usually claimed

as the first book printed in Italy, appears, according to a note of

M. Madden’s (_Lettres d’un Bibliographe_, iv, 281), not to have been

completed for a month after the _Cicero de Oratore_.

[77] “Il (Jenson) forma un caractère composé des capitales latines, qui

servirent de majuscules; les minuscules furent prises d’autres lettres

latines, ainsi que des espagnoles, lombardes, saxones, françoises ou

carolines.” (_Man. Typ._, ii, 261.)

[78] M. Philippe, in his _Origine de l’Imprimerie à Paris_, Paris,

1885, 4to, p. 219, mentions two books printed in this fount, which

contain MS. notes of having been purchased in the years 1464 and 1467

respectively.

[79] _Lettres d’un Bibliographe_, iv, 60.

[80] For a full account and analysis of Jenson’s Roman and other type,

the reader is referred to Sardini’s _Storia Critica di Nic. Jenson_.

Lucca, 1796–8, 3 parts, fol.

[81] _Annales de l’Imprimerie des Alde._ Paris, 1803–12, 3 vols., 8vo.

[82] Sardini (iii, 82) cites an interesting document wherein Zarot, in

forming a typographical partnership with certain citizens of Milan,

covenants to provide “tutte le Lettere Latine, e Greche, antique, e

moderne.” Bernard points out that “antique” undoubtedly means Roman

type, the traditional character of the Italians, while “moderne”

applies to the Gothic, which was at that time coming into vogue as a

novelty among Italian printers.

[83] Renouard and others claim that these famous characters were cut by

the French artists Garamond and Sanlecques. This legend is, however,

disposed of by Mr. Willems, in his work, _Les Elzevier_. Brussels,

1880, 8vo.

[84] Pynson was the first to introduce diphthongs into the

typographical alphabet.

[85] Garamond’s Roman was cut for Francis I. The Roman character was

an object of considerable royal interest in France during its career.

In 1694, on the re-organisation of the press at the Louvre under Louis

XIV, arbitrary alterations were made in the recognised form of several

of the “lower-case” letters, to distinguish the “_Romain du Roi_”

from all others, and protect it from imitations. The deformity of the

letters thus tampered with was their best protection.

[86] Amongst which should be named Vautrollier’s edition of Beza’s _New

Testament_ in 1574, which, both in point of type and workmanship, is an

admirable piece of typography. The small italic is specially beautiful.

Renouard says this type was cut by Garamond of Paris.

[87] _History of the Art of Printing._ Edinburgh, 1713. 8vo.

[88] The _Horace_, printed in 1627, may be mentioned as one of the most

interesting of these little typographical curiosities. The type is

exactly the modern pearl body. The text is 2 5/6 inches in depth, and

1 1/2 inch wide.

[89] _The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments._ London,

printed by John Field, 1653, 32mo. The inexperience of English

compositors and correctors in dealing with this minute type is

illustrated by the fact that Field’s Pearl Bibles are crowded with

errors, one edition, so it is said, containing 6,000 faults.

[90] In one of the Bagford MSS. (Harl. 5915) appear, with the title

“Mr. Ogilby’s Letters,” the drawings and proofs of this alphabet in

capital and lower-case.

[91] See Specimen No. 21, _post_.

[92] Tradition has asserted that Hogarth designed Baskerville’s types.

[93] In recent years a French typographer, M. Motteroz, has attempted

to combine the excellences of the Elzevir and modern Roman, with a

view to arrive at an ideally legible type. The experiment is curious

but disappointing. For though the new “typographie” of M. Motteroz

justifies its claim to legibility, the combination of two wholly

unsympathetic forms of letter destroys almost completely the beauty of

each.

[94] _Specimen Bibliorum Editionis Hebr. Gr. Lat._ (folio sheet); no

date.

[95] _Bibliographical Decameron_, ii, 381–2.

[96] _Origine de l’Imprimerie de Paris_, Paris, 1694, 4to, p. 110.

Chevillier gives a curious instance of this tendency of the old

printers to contract their words. The example is taken from _La

Logique d’Okam_, 1488, fol., a work in which there scarcely occurs a

single word not abbreviated. “Sic̃ hic ẽ faɫ s̃m q̃d ad simpɫr a ẽ

[*pro]ducibile a Deo g̃ a ẽ & sir hic a ñ ẽ g̃ a ñ ẽ [*pro]ducibile a

Do,”-which means: “Sicut hic est fallacia secundum quid ad simpliciter;

A est producibile a Deo; ergo A est. Et similiter hic. A non est; ergo

A non est producibile a Deo.”

[97] Sir A. Panizzi, in his tract, _Chi era Francesco da Bologna ?_

London, 1858, 16mo, shows that this artist was the same as the great

Italian painter, Francesco Francia.

[98] The German practice of inserting proper names and quotations,

occurring in a German book, in Roman type, probably suggested a similar

use of the Italic in books printed in the Roman letter.

[99] This reform, which was an incident in the general typographical

revolution at the close of last century, is usually credited to John

Bell, who discarded the long ſ in his _British Theatre_, about 1791.

Long before Bell’s time, however, in 1749, Ames had done the same thing

in his _Typographical Antiquities_, and was noted as an eccentric in

consequence. Hansard notes the retention of the long ſ in books printed

at the Oxford University press as late as 1824.

[100] The suggestion that _Lettres de Forme_ may have meant merely

letters commonly used in print (adopting the early printers’ use of the

word _forma_ as type), appears to be somewhat far-fetched. The term,

though apparently distinctly typographical, was used both by Tory and

Ycair to denote a class of letter which the former denominated _Canon_,

or cut according to rule, as opposed to the more fanciful _lettres

bâtardes_.

[101] Petrarch expressed a strong aversion to the character; but some

Italian and French printers adopted it, to the exclusion of the Roman,

and, like Nicholas Prevost in 1525, boasted of it as the type “most

beautiful and most becoming for polite literature.” Gothic printing

began in Italy about 1475 and in France in 1473.

[102] See specimen No. 15, _post_.

[103] See specimen No. 49, _post_.

[104] _Bibliographical Decameron_, ii, 407.

[105] The first part of this work is without date or printer’s name;

but the types are those of the 1462 Bible. The _Secunda Secundæ_ was

printed by Schoeffer at Mentz in 1467, in the types of the _Rationale_.

[106] See specimens Nos. 5 and 6, _ante_, and 18A, _post_.

[107] See specimen No. 27, _post_.

[108] See specimen No. 52, _post_.

[109] See specimen No. 73, _post_.

[110] See specimen No. 51, _post_.

[111] Thus, Ὁτι ἶσα τὰ ἁμαρτήματα appears Oτίcaτaaκaρτηaκaτa.

[112] Lascaris caused to be printed at Florence, in 1494, an

_Anthologia Græca_, and several other works wholly in Greek capitals,

“litteris majusculis.” In the preface to the _Anthologia_ he vindicates

his use of these characters, which he says he has designed after the

genuine models of antiquity to be found in the inscriptions on medals,

marbles, etc.

[113] Robert Estienne was not the first to hold this title, Conrad

Néobar, his predecessor, having enjoyed it from 1538–40. In some of his

early impressions before 1543, Estienne used occasionally Greek types,

apparently the same as those of Badius.

[114] The Imprimerie Royale at the Louvre, of which the present

Imprimerie Nationale is the direct successor, was not founded till

1640, by Louis XIII. Francis I granted the letters patent in 1538,

whereby Néobar and his successors received the title of Royal Printers,

but did not create a royal printing establishment.

[115] Renouard states that the last of the Greek founts of the Aldine

press was without doubt designed from Garamond’s models.

[116] Gresswell mentions an _Alphabetum Græcum_, published in 1543, as

a preliminary specimen.

[117] The history of these famous types, the matrices of which for some

years lay in pawn at Geneva, whence they were released at a cost of

3,000 livres in 1619, may be read in M. Bernard’s _Les Estienne et les

types grecs de François I^{er}_. Paris, 1856. 8vo.

[118] Greek printing did not become common in Spain till a later

period. A book printed at Oriola in 1603 contains an apology for the

want of Greek types.

[119] See specimen No. 28, _post_.

[120] See specimen No. 29, _post_.

[121] See specimen No. 69, _post_.

[122] See specimen No. 71, _post_.

[123] _De Hebraicæ typographiæ origine._ Parma, 1776. 4to.

[124] _Les Incunables Orientaux._ Paris, 1883. 8vo.

[125] _Recherches . . sur la Vie et les Editions de Thierry Martens._

Alost, 1845. 8vo.

[126] See specimens Nos. 34 and 35, _post_.

[127] See specimen No. 47, _post_.

[128] The English were in negotiation for the founts when Vitré

received his orders to purchase.

[129] See _Calendar State Papers_, 1637–8, p. 245. Raphlengius died in

1597. Among Laud’s MSS. at the Bodleian is a printed work by Bedwell,

entitled _The Arabian Trudgman_, London, 1615, 4to, but no Arabic type

is used in it. An attempt to buy the Oriental matrices of Erpenius for

Cambridge, in 1626, was forestalled by the Elzevirs, who secured them

for their own press.

[130] See specimen No 37, _post_.

[131] See specimen No. 61, _post_.

[132] Parr’s _Life and Letters of Usher_. London, 1686, fol., p. 488.

[133] See specimen No. 38, _post_.

[134] See specimen No. 41, _post_.

[135] See specimen No. 63, _post_.

[136] See specimen No. 39, _post_.

[137] See specimen No. 66, _post_.

[138] See specimen No. 40, _post_.

[139] See specimen No. 36, _post_.

[140] See specimen No. 62, _post_.

[141] See specimen No. 42, _post_.

[142] See specimen No. 78, _post_.

[143] James’s foundry also had a set of punches in Long Primer, but

these appear never to have been struck.

[144] See specimen No. 64, _post_.

[145] See specimen No. 65, _post_.

[146] See facsimile No. 20, _post_.

[147] See specimen No. 48, _post_.

[148] See specimen No. 45, _post_.

[149] Music engraved on wood was used as late as 1845, in Oakley’s

_Laudes Diurnæ_.

[150] See specimen No. 54, _post_.

[151] _Essai sur l’Education des Aveugles._ Dedié au Roi. À Paris.

Imprimé par les Enfants Aveugles. 1786. 4to. The work is printed in

the large script letter of the press, but not in relief. Appended are

specimens of circulars, addresses, etc., printed in ordinary type, for

the use of the public.

[152] A curious collection of these may be seen in the _Quincuplex

Psalterium_, printed by Henri Estienne I, at Paris, in 1513.

[153] _The Life and Typography of William Caxton, England’s first

Printer._ 2 vols. London, 1861–3. 4to.

[154] Mr. Figgins, apparently misled by the irregularities in form

consequent on the touching-up of Type No. 2, concluded that the whole

of the types in which this book was printed were cut separately by hand.

[155] _The General History of Printing._ London, 1732, 4to, p. 343.

[156] Among the rubbish of James’s foundry, Mores, who evidently

credited the legend, states that he discovered some of the punches from

which the two-line Great Primer matrices had been struck. “They are,”

he observed, “truly _vetustate formâque et squalore venerabiles_, and

we would not give a lower-case letter in exchange for all the leaden

cups of Haerlem” (_Dissertation_, p. 76). Hansard, in 1825, appears

also to have believed in the survival of De Worde’s punches, the form

of which he professed to recognise among the Black-letter shown in

Caslon’s specimen-book of 1785.

[157] The first Roman, or (as it was sometimes called) White-letter,

noticed by Herbert in any of De Worde’s books was in the _Whitintoni de

heteroclytis nominbus_, 1523.

[158] _Roberti Wakefeldi . . . oratio de laudibus et utilitate trium

linguarum Arabice, Chaldaicæ et Hebraice atque idiomatibus Hebraicis

quæ in utroque testamento inveniuntur. Londini apud Winandum de Vorde_

(1524). 4to.

[159] This is probably the first appearance of Italic type in England.

[160] Pynson was not the first English printer who “put out” his work

to foreign typographers. Caxton, in 1487, employed W. Maynyal of Paris

to print a Sarum _Missal_ for him; and one book, at least, is known to

have been printed for De Worde by a Parisian printer.

[161] _Oratio in Pace nuperrimâ, etc. Impressa Londini, Anno Verbi

incarnati_ MDXVIII _per Richardum Pynson, Regium Impressorem_. 4to.

[162] _Thomæ Linacri de emendatâ structurâ Latini sermonis. Londini,

apud Richardum Pinsonum._ 1524. 4to.

[163] _i.e._, “Greeting to the Reader: Of thy candour, reader, excuse

it if any of the letters in the Greek quotations are lacking either in

accents, breathings or proper marks. The printer was not sufficiently

furnished with them, since Greek types have been but lately cast by

him; nor had he the supply prepared necessary for the completion of

this work.”

[164] Redman, who began to print about 1525, in Pynson’s old house, is

supposed to have succeeded to the types of his predecessor. His edition

of _Littleton’s Tenures_ (no date) shows the Roman letter in Long

Primer body.

[165] _D. Joannis Chrysostomi homiliæ duæ, nunc primum in lucem æditæ_

(Greek and Latin) _a Joanne Cheko. Londini_ 1543. 4to.

[166] _Ælfredi Regis Res Gestæ_ (without imprint or date), fol. The

work was bound up and published with Walsingham’s _Historia Brevis_,

printed by Binneman, and his _Ypodigma Neustriæ_, printed by Day, both

in 1574. The text of the _Ælfredi_, though in Saxon characters, is in

the Latin language.

[167] _i.e._, “And inasmuch as Day, the printer, is the first (and,

indeed, as far as I know, the only one) who has cut these letters in

metal; what things have been written in Saxon characters will be easily

published in the same type.”

[168] Astle, in his _History of Writing_, p. 224, remarks: “Day’s Saxon

types far excel in neatness and beauty any which have since been made,

not excepting the neat types cast for F. Junius at Dort, which were

given to the University of Oxford.”

[169] Parker, who, according to Strype (_Life of Parker_, London,

1711, fol., p. 278), extended his patronage to Binneman as well as to

Day, and at whose expense the _Historia_ was published, may possibly

have claimed the disposal of founts specially cut for his own use, and

in this manner secured for Binneman founts cast from Day’s matrices.

Binneman is described as a diligent printer, who applied through Parker

for the privilege of printing certain Latin authors, accompanying his

petition by a small specimen of his typography, “which the Archbishop

sent to the Secretary to see the order of his print. The Archbishop

said he thought he might do this amply enough, and better cheap than

they might be brought from beyond the seas, standing the paper and

goodness of his print. Adding, that it were not amiss to set our

own countrymen on work, so they would be diligent, and take good

characters.”

[170] Timperley, _Encyclopædia_, p. 381.

[171] _Life of Parker_, pp. 382, 541.

[172] _Typographical Antiquities_, i, 656.

[173] _Fidelis servi, subdito infideli Responsio. Lond._ 1573. 4to.

[174] _De Visibili Romanarchia. Londini, apud J. Dayum._ 1572. 4to.

[175] _De Antiquitate Britannicæ Ecclesiæ. Londini in ædibus Johannis

Daij._ 1572. Fol.

[176] An illustration of this maybe seen in Vautrollier’s Latin

Testaments, where both Roman and Italic are exquisitely cut founts, but

not being of uniform gauge, mix badly in the same line.

[177] _Introduction of the Art of Printing into Scotland._ By R.

Dickson. Aberdeen, 1885. 8vo. Appendix.

[178] _Eygentliche Beschreibung aller Stände und . . . Handwerker.

Frankfurt_, 1568. 4to. _Der Schrifftgiesser._

[179] _Harleian MS._ 5915, No. 201. The cut is undated. The following

sentence from Mr. T. C. Hansard’s _Treatises on Printing and

Typefounding_, Edinburgh, 1841, 8vo, p. 223, may possibly refer to the

same device. “This evidence” (of the process employed by the early

letter-founders) “is afforded us by the device of Badius Ascensius, an

eminent printer of Paris and Lyon, in the beginning of the sixteenth

century, and also by that of an English printer, Anthony Scoloker

of Ippeswych, who modified and adopted the device of Ascensius, as

indeed did many other printers of various countries. This curious

design exhibits in one apartment the various processes of printing,

the foreground presenting a press in full work, the background on the

left the cases and the compositor, and on the right the foundery; the

matrix and other appliances bearing a precise resemblance to those at

present in use.” If the above be a description of the block here shown

(in which case Mr. Hansard has confused the matrix with the mould), we

are able to fix the date approximately at 1548, in which year Scoloker

printed at Ipswich.

[180] A description of this interesting establishment will be found in

M. De George’s _La Maison Plantin à Anvers_. 2nd ed. Brussels, 1878,

8vo.

[181] The legend of the silver types has been a favourite one in the

romance of typography. Giucciardini states that Aldus Manutius used

them; and Hulsemann describes the Bible printed by Robert Estienne in

1557 as “typis argenteis sanè elegantissimis.” The same extravagance

was attributed to Plantin. Possibly the famous productions of these

great artists impressed their readers with the notion that their

beautiful and luxurious typography was the result of rare and costly

material; and, ignoring the fact that silver type would not endure the

press, they credited them with the absurdity of casting their letters

in that costly material. It is difficult to believe that any practical

printer, however magnificent, would make even his matrices of silver,

when copper would be equally good and more durable. Didot was said, as

late as 1820, to have cast his new Script from steel matrices inlaid

with silver. The use of the term “silver” as a figurative mode of

describing beautiful typography is not uncommon. Sir Henry Savile’s

Greek types, says Bagford, “on account of their beauty were called

the Silver types.” Field’s Pearl Bible in 1653 has been spoken of as

printed in silver types. Smith, in 1755, referred to the fiction,

still credited, that “the Dutch print with silver types.” On the

other hand, we have the distinct mention in the inventory of John

Baskett’s printing-office at Oxford, in 1720, of “a sett of Silver

Initiall Letters,” which we can hardly believe to be a purely poetic

description, and probably referred to the coating of the face of the

letter with a silver wash. It should be stated here that Ratdolt, the

Venetian printer, in 1482 was reported to have printed one work in

types of gold!

[182] Among the itinerant punch-cutters of Plantin’s day was the famous

French artist Le Bé who came to Antwerp to strike the punches for the

Antwerp _Polyglot_.

[183] _Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-Works applied to

the Art of Printing._ The Second Volume. London, 1683. 4to.

[184] The index-letters following each part refer to Moxon’s

illustration of a mould in the _Mechanick Exercises_, a reduced copy of

which is placed by the artist of the _Universal Magazine_, 1750, at the

foot of his View of the Interior of Caslon’s Foundry, of which we give

a facsimile in the frontispiece.

[185] Iron does not appear to have continued much longer as a staple

ingredient of English type-metal. There was, however, no rule as to the

composition of the alloy. The French type-metal at the beginning of

the eighteenth century was notoriously bad, and drove many printers to

Frankfort for their types, where they used a very hard composition of

steel, iron, copper, brass, tin and lead.

[186] See _post_, chapter ix.

[187] See _post_, chapter x.

[188] Psalmanazar, in referring to Samuel Palmer’s projected second

part to his _History of Printing_, which should describe all the

branches of the trade, says that this project, “though but then as

it were in embryo, met with such early and strenuous opposition from

the respective bodies of letter-founders, printers and bookbinders,

under an ill-grounded apprehension that the discovery of the mystery

of those arts, especially the two first, would render them cheap and

contemptible . . . that he was forced to set it aside” (_Timperley_, p.

647).

[189] _Typographiæ Excellentia. Carmen notis Gallicis illustratum à C.

L. Thiboust, Fusore-Typographo-Bibliopôlâ._ Paris, 1718. 8vo.

[190] “LIQUATOR.

“Ecce Liquator adest; en crebris ignibus ardet

Ejus materies; præbet Cochleare, Catillum

Et Formas queis mixto ex ære fideliter omnes

Conflat Litterulas; Hic paret sponte Peritis,

Sive Latina velint conscribere, Græcáve dicta;

Sive suam exoptent Hebræâ dicere mentem

Linguâ, seu cupiant Germanica verba referre,

Cunctas ille suâ fabricabitur arte figuras.

Cernis quâ fiat cum dexteritate character

Singulus Archetypo, quod format splendida signa,

Cum mollis fuerit solers industria scalpri.

Illum opus est fusi digito resecare metalli

Quod superest, Ferulisque Typos componere lêves,

Ut queat exæquans illos Runcina parare.

Sed solet esse gravis nimiis ardoribus æstus.”

[191] _Fonderie en caractères de l’Imprimerie._ 4 pp., and 4 pp. of

plates. Fol. No date.

[192] Smith (_Printers’ Grammar_, p. 8) blames the French founders of

his day for the shallow cut of their punches, which being naturally

reproduced in the types, was the cause of much bad printing. Some

sorts, he said, as late as 1755, only stood in relief to the thickness

of an ordinary sheet of paper. He contrasts English punch-cutting

favourably with French in this particular.

[193] _Manuel Typographique, utile aux gens de lettres._ 2 tom. Paris,

1764–6. 8vo.

[194] _Patents for Inventions.—Abridgments of Specifications relating

to Printing_ (1617 to 1857). London, 1859. 8vo.

[195] This misguided reformer lived at Banbury, where, in 1804, he

printed an edition of _Rasselas_, 8vo, in his “improved” types. The

result is more curious than beautiful, and the public remained loyal

still to the alphabets of Aldus, Elzevir, Caslon, Baskerville, and

Bodoni. Nevertheless, Rusher’s edition of _Rasselas_, “printed with

patent types in a manner never before attempted,” will always claim a

place among typographical curiosities.

[196] This is apparently the first suggestion in England of the

“hand-pump,” which was subsequently adopted by all the founders, and

formed, in combination with the lever-mould, the intermediate stage

between hand and machine casting.

[197] The origin of type-nicks is doubtful. Some have considered them

to have resulted from a modification of the old alleged system of

perforation, and to have been intended as a receptacle for the wire or

string used to bind the lines together. The types of the first printers

were certainly without them, and as late as 1540 French moulds had

none. A nick forms part of Moxon’s moulds in 1683. In French founding

the nick is at the back of the type, while in England it is always on

the front. In Fournier’s day the Lyonnaise types were an exception to

the general French rule, and had the nick on the front, as also did the

types of Germany, Holland and Flanders. Some of the old founts procured

abroad by English founders were struck in the copper inverted, so that

when cast in English moulds they have always had the nick at the back.

[198] The lever mould was first used in America about 1800.

[199] Clayton issued a pamphlet printed from plates produced by this

process.

[200] It was calculated that 75,000 types could be produced by two men

in an hour.

[201] See _post_, chap. xxi. Prior to Pouchée’s introduction of this

system of casting into England, Hansard informs us, Henry Caslon made

trial of it, but it was not found eligible to pursue it.

[202] The type-casting machine, of which this is the first patented

attempt in England, was not generally adopted till after the

International Exhibition of 1851, at which the hand-mould alone was

shown. The model generally adopted was the machine patented in America

in 1838, by David Bruce, which Alexander Wilson introduced in this

country about 1853. Previous to David Bruce’s machine, a machine

invented by Edwin Starr had been introduced at Boston in 1826, and

tried for five years.

[203] The reader is referred to the concise summary given under the

title “Parliamentary Papers,” in Bigmore and Wyman’s _Bibliography

of Printing_, also to the _Abridgments of Specifications relating to

Printing_, 1617 to 1857, published by the Commissioners of Patents in

1859, and for more minute particulars to Mr. Arber’s _Transcript of the

Registers of the Stationers’ Company_, and the _Calendars of Domestic

State Papers_.

[204] Notwithstanding this flattering announcement, we find that

five years later Grafton and Whitchurch, who held the King’s Bible

patent, received the royal permission to print the revised edition of

Matthews’s Bible in Paris, “because at that time there were in France

better printers and paper than could be had here in England.” The

project, as history records, was cut short by the Inquisition; but the

presses, types, and workmen were with great difficulty brought over

from Paris to London, where the Bible was finished in 1539.

[205] A brotherhood of Stationers, consisting of “writers of text

letter,” “lymners of bokes,” and subsequently admitting printers to its

fellowship, had existed since 1403. The term Stationer, at the time

of the incorporation, included booksellers, printers, bookbinders,

publishers, type-founders, makers of writing-tables, and other trades,

amongst which were “joiners and chandlers.”

[206] Arber’s _Transcripts_, ii, 753–69.

[207] This unruly printer troubled the Company’s peace for eleven

years, and demonstrated, by his persistent defiance of their authority,

the insufficiency of their powers to execute the control they nominally

possessed. John Wolfe, the City printer, distinguished himself in a

similar way.

[208] Arber’s _Transcripts_, ii, 22.

[209] A commission appointed to inquire into the disputes at that

time agitating the Company, gave as one of its chief reasons why the

monopolies should be sustained, that if anyone were to print any book

he chose, this inconvenience would follow, viz., “want of provisions of

good letters,” in other words, the quality both of type and printing

would degenerate.

[210] Arber’s _Transcripts_, i, 114, 144.

[211] A return of presses and printers made in the same year to the

Master and Wardens of the Company after the publication of the decree,

shows that this provision had reduced the number to twenty-five

printers, with fifty-three presses. A list of these is given in Mr. C.

R. Rivington’s _Records of the Company of Stationers_ (London, 1883,

8vo), p. 28.

[212] The provisions of this decree were commended in The _London

Printer his Lamentation_, published in 1660, and reprinted in the third

volume of the _Harleian Miscellany_. The writer contrasts it favourably

with subsequent decrees.

[213] Arber’s _Transcripts_, ii, 816.

[214] A licensed stationer might, with the leave of the Company, employ

an unlicensed stationer to reprint a work of his own, on payment of a

fine. (_Ibid._, ii, 19.)

[215] In France, as early as 1539, typefounding had been legally

recognised as a distinct trade. The edict of 1539 contains the

following clause, applying the provisions and penalties of the decree

to typefounders: “Et pour ce que le métier des fondeurs de lettres

est connexe à l’art de l’imprimeur, et que les fondeurs ne se disent

imprimeurs, ne les imprimeurs ne se disent fondeurs, lesdicts articles

et ordonnances auront lieu . . . aux compagnons et apprentifs fondeurs,

ainsi qu’en compagnons et apprentifs imprimeurs, lesquels oultre les

choses dessus dictes seront tenus d’achever la fonte des lettres par

eux commencée et les rendre bonnes et valables.” The whole decree is

in curious contrast with the Acts regulating English printing and

founding. The French “compagnons” are forbidden to band together for

military, festive, or religious purposes, to carry arms, to beat and

neglect their apprentices, to leave any work incomplete, to use any

printer’s marks but their own; and so great is the fatherly solicitude

of the Crown for the honour of the press, that printers are made

amenable to law for typographical errors in their books. (Lacroix,

_Histoire de l’Imprimerie_. Paris, 8vo, pp. 124–8.)

[216] In 1635 the journeymen printers presented a petition to the

Stationers’ Company respecting certain abuses which they desired to

have reformed. The report of the referees appointed to inquire into

the matter, with their recommendations, is still preserved. Amongst

other things is a provision against standing formes; also that no

books printed in Nonpareil should exceed 5,000 copies, in Brevier

3,000 (except the privileged books); and further, that compositors

should keep their cases clean, and dispose of “all wooden letters, and

two-line letters, and keep their letter whole while work is doing, and

after bind it up in good order.” The Company approved of the report,

and ordered it to be entered on the books. (_Calendar of State Papers,

Domestic_, 1635. London, 8vo, 1865, p. 484.)

[217] _A Decree of Starre-Chamber, concerning Printing. Made the

eleventh day of July last past, 1637._ London, 1637, 4to. The “London

Printer,” previously quoted, writing in 1660, styles this decree “the

best and most exquisite form and constitution for the good government

and regulation of the press that ever was pronounced, or can reasonably

be contrived to keep it in due order and regular exercise.” It was the

lapse of its authority in 1640 which led to the abuses over which he

lamented.

[218] This famous speech has been reprinted by Mr. Arber among his

_English Reprints_, together with a verbatim copy of the decrees which

evoked it. London, 1868, 12mo.

[219] That is, the Master and Wardens are obliged to find employment

for all honest journeymen out of work, the master-printers and founders

being bound to give work to anyone thus brought to them. Masters

requiring additional hands can compel the services of any journeyman

out of work, who can only refuse the summons at his peril.

[220] In a rare tract entitled _An Exact Narrative of the Tryal and

Condemnation of John Twyn, for Printing and Dispersing of a Treasonable

Book, etc._ (London, 1664, 4to), several curious particulars are

given as to the operation and enforcement of this Act as regards

printers. But although a bookseller and bookbinder were arraigned at

the same time, no reference was made to the founder of the types, who

was apparently not held responsible for a share in the offence. In

the evidence given by L’Estrange, however, as to Dover, one of the

prisoners, we have a curious glimpse of the technical duties devolving

on the Surveyor of the Imprimery and Printing Presses under this Act.

He states, “I was at his (Dover’s) house to compare a _Flower_ which

I found in the _Panther_ (a dangerous Pamphlet), that flower, that

is, the very same _border_, I found in his house, the same mixture of

Letter, great and small in the same Case; and I took a Copy off the

Press.” The sentence passed upon the unfortunate John Twyn gives a

vivid idea of the amenities of a printer at that period: “That you be

led back to the place from whence you came, and from thence to be drawn

upon an Hurdle to the place of Execution, and there you shall be hanged

by the Neck, and being alive shall be cut down, and your privy Members

shall be cut off, your Entrails shall be taken out of your body, and

you living, the same to be burnt before your eyes: your head to be cut

off, your body to be divided into four quarters, and your head and

quarters to be disposed of at the pleasure of the King’s Majesty. And

the Lord have mercy upon your soul.”

[221] Printers were ordered to enter into a bond of £300 to the Crown

not to misconduct themselves, but no bond appears to have been exacted

by this Act from letter-founders.

[222] The Act of 1662 was a probationary Act for two years. In 1664 it

was continued till the end of the next session, and again until the end

of the session following; and in 1666 again until the end of the first

session of the next Parliament. In 1685 it was revived for seven years,

at the end of which, in 1692, it was continued for one year more, after

which it dropped. According to this account, it must have been dormant

at any rate between 1679 and 1685.

[223] In 1724, according to the list presented by Samuel Negus to

Lord Townsend, the number of printers in London had increased to

seventy-five, and in the provinces to twenty-eight. There were also at

that time eighteen newspapers.

[224] _A Proposal for Restraining the great Licentiousness of the Press

throughout Great Britain, etc._ No date.

[225] _An Act for the more effectual Suppression of Societies

established for Seditious and Treasonable Purposes; and for better

preventing Treasonable and Seditious Practices._ [12 July, 1799.]

[226] “VI. FORM _of Notice to the Clerk of the Peace that any person

carries on the Business of a Letter Founder, or Maker or Seller of

Types for Printing, or of Printing Presses_.—To the Clerk of the Peace

for (_as the case may be_) or his Deputy.—I, A. B., of ———— do hereby

declare, That I intend to carry on the Business of a Letter Founder,

or Maker or Seller of Types for Printing, _or_ of Printing Presses

(_as the case may be_), at ———— and I hereby require this Notice to be

entered in pursuance of an Act passed in the 39th Year of the Reign of

His Majesty, King _George_ the Third.”

[227] “VII. FORM _of Certificate that the above Notice has been

given_.—I, G. H., Clerk (or Deputy Clerk) of the Peace for ———— do

hereby certify that A. B. of ———— hath delivered to me a Notice in

Writing, appearing to be signed by him, and attested by E. F. as a

Witness to his signing the same, that he intends to carry on the

Business of a Letter Founder, or Maker or Seller of Types for Printing

or of Printing Presses, at ———— and which Notice he has required to be

entered in pursuance of an Act of the 39th Year of His Majesty, King

_George_ the Third.”

[228] The clauses relating to printers and typefounders were repealed

by the 32 and 33 Vict., cap. 24: _An Act to Repeal certain enactments

relating to Newspapers, Pamphlets, and other Publications, and to

Printers, Type-founders, and Reading Rooms_. [12 July, 1869.]

[229]

“Now register’d—now ticketed we move,

Our slightest works the double label prove.”

(McCreery, _The Press_, p. 25.)

[230]

. . . . . “O Veneti,

Que fuerat vobis ars primum nota Latini,

Est eadem nobis ipsa reperta premens.”

[231] In the following observations on the first Oxford types we

are mainly indebted, in common with all students of the subject, to

the careful researches and notes of the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw of

Cambridge.

[232] Bagford attributes this general cessation of printing in Oxford,

Cambridge, York, Tavistock, St. Albans, Canterbury and Worcester to

Cardinal Wolsey’s interference while legate.

[233] _S. Joannis Chrysostomi opera Græce, octo voluminibus. Etonæ,

in Collegio Regali, Excudebat Joannes Norton, in Græcis &c. Regius

Typographus._ 1610–13. Fol.

[234] Sir Henry Savile (who is not to be confounded with his kinsman

and namesake, Long Harry Savile, Camden’s friend) was formerly Greek

tutor to Queen Elizabeth. In 1585 he was made Warden of Merton, and in

1596 became Provost of Eton College, where he died in 1621, ætat. 72.

[235] _Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books._ London, 1807–12. 6

vols., 8vo, v, 111, 122.

[236] The passage referred to is the following vague reply to an

inquiry addressed by Sir Henry Savile to Casaubon: “De characteribus

Stephanicis longa historia, longæ ambages. Itaque melius ista coram.”

[237] Dupont, _Histoire de l’Imprimerie_. Paris, 1854. 2 vols., 8vo, i,

488.

[238] _Diary and Correspondence._ London, 1850–2. 4 vols. 8vo, iii, 300.

[239] Printing was introduced into Cambridge in 1521, when John Siberch

printed Bullock’s _Oratio_ and seven other works. He styled himself

the first printer in Greek in England, although none of his works were

wholly printed in that language. The fount used for the quotations

in the _Galeni de Temperamentis_ was probably procured from abroad.

The residence of Erasmus at Cambridge lent undoubted impetus to the

art, which progressed actively while the Oxford press was idle. The

first University printers, three in number, were appointed in 1534, by

virtue of a charter granted by Henry VIII, in terms considerably more

liberal than those first granted to Oxford. At no period of its career

has the Cambridge press boasted of a type-foundry. In 1626 Archbishop

Usher made an effort to procure from Leyden, for the use of the press,

matrices of Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic and Samaritan letters, which,

had he been successful, might have formed the nucleus of a foundry.

Unfortunately, the Archbishop was forestalled by the Elzevirs, who

secured the matrices for their own press (Parr’s _Life of Usher_.

London, 1686, fol., p. 342–3). The University made an effort in 1700

to enrich their press by the purchase of a fount of the famous Paris

Greek types of Francis I, known as the King’s Greek. But as the French

Academy insisted, as a condition of the purchase, that all works

printed in these characters should bear the imprint “characteribus

Græcis e Typographeo regio Parisiensi,” the Cambridge Syndics, unable

to accede to the terms, withdrew from the negotiations (Gresswell’s

_Early Parisian Greek Press_. Oxford, 1833, i, 411; and De Guignes’

_Typographie Orientale et Grecque de l’Imprimerie Royale_. Paris, 1787,

p. 85).

[240] _Novum Testamentum. Cantabrigiæ. Apud Tho. Buck._ 1632. 8vo.

[241] _Anecdotes_, i, 119. Elsewhere (v, 111) Beloe asserts that the

type thus used was the Greek of Sir Henry Savile. Although the same

size, and in many points closely resembling this letter, it differs

from it materially in other respects. This may possibly be accounted

for on the supposition that some of the Savile characters having been

lost, they had been replaced either by new matrices, or by the addition

of letters from some other fount. Buck discarded many of the cumbrous

abbreviations used in the _Chrysostom_, greatly to the advantage of his

text (see _4th Report Historical MSS. Commission_, p. 464).

[242] _Rushworth’s Collections_, ii, 74.

[243] _Works of Laud._ Oxford, 1847–60. 7 vols., 8vo, v, 80.

[244] _The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New, etc.

Printed at London by Robert Barker . . . and by the Assignes of John

Bill._ _Anno_ 1631. 8vo.

[245] Bagford and others erroneously mention the fine as £3,000.

[246] _Clementis ad Corinthios Epistola prior._ 4to. Oxonii, 1633.

[247] Augustin Linsdell.

[248] _Wilkins (D.) Concilia_, iv, 485.

[249] According to documents in the Record Office, the fine was entered

Feb. 18, 163 3/4, “Fined for errors in printing the Bible, Barker

£200, Lucas £100.” It was allowed to stand over from time to time, “to

see whether they would set up their press for the printing of Greek.”

On June 23, 1635, it was ordered that all Bibles now in Stationers’

Hall which had been erroneously printed should be redelivered to them

“with charge to see all the gross faults amended before they vent the

same.”

[250] _Catena Græcorum Patrum in Beatum Job . . . operâ et studio

Patricii Junii, Bibliothecarii Regii, etc. Londini, ex Typographio

Regio._ 1637. Fol. In his dedication to the Archbishop, Young thus

refers to the care taken by Laud in the purchase of the type: “Quod

quidem si eâ fronte acceperis . . . quâ Britanniam denique characterum

elegantiâ in omni linguarum genere locupletas, ac vicinis gentibus, non

minus pulchrâ, quam politâ et accuratâ veterum scriptorum editione,

invidendam reddis, etc.”

[251] The matrices of this fount, as will be seen hereafter, passed

into Grover’s foundry, and were sold at the dispersion of James’s

foundry in 1782.

[252] _State Papers, Domestic_, 1637–8. No. 75.

[253] Probably from the Elzevirs, who in 1626 (as noticed p. 66,

_note_) had succeeded in outbidding the representatives of Cambridge

University for the Oriental press and matrices of Erpenius.

[254] Thomas Smith at a later date referred to the same gift:—“Circa

id temporis . . . D. Guilielmus Laudus . . . postquam ingentem Codicum

omne genus manu exaratorum molem pecuniis largissime effusis, ubi ubi

merx ista literaria erat reperienda, conquisivisset, elegantissimos

typos, omnium ferè linguarum, quæ hodie obtinent, efformari procuravit”

(_Vitæ, quorundam Virorum . . . Patricii Junii_, London, 1707, 4to., p.

27).

[255] _Works of Laud_, v. 168.

[256] _Ibid._, v, 236.

[257] Latham’s _Oxford Bibles and Printing in Oxford_. 1870, p. 46.

[258] The University supplied a press and type to King Charles I during

the Civil War (Gutch, _Collectanea Curiosa_. Oxford, 1781. 2 vols.,

8vo., i, 281).

[259] Lemoine, _Typographical Antiquities_. London, 1797. 8vo, p. 87.

The office of Archi-typographus had been instituted by Laud, about 1637.

[260] He it was on whom Tom Brown wrote his famous epigram:―

“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,

The reason why, I cannot tell;

But this alone I know full well,

I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.”

[261] Bagford (_Harl. MS._ 5901, fo. 89) mentions that Dr. Fell

encouraged the fitting-up of a paper mill at Wolvercote, by Mr. George

Edwards, “who was a cutter in wood of the great letters, and engraved

many other things made use of in the printing of books, and had a

talent in maps, although done with his left hand.” Of this mill, Hearne

wrote in 1728, “Some of the best paper made in England is made at

Wolvercote Mill” (_Reliq._, ii, 85, ed. 1869).

[262] This list, which was appended to the specimen of 1695, doubtless

includes a few items acquired by the Press since Dr. Fell’s death.

(_Harl. MSS._ 5901, 5929.)

[263] The Coptic fount included in his gift is said to have been cut,

not only at his expense, but under his personal supervision, from a

character (Mores states) delineated by Mr. Wheeler, rector of St.

Ebbe’s, in Oxford.

[264] _Harl. MS._ 5901, fol. 85.

[265] Gutch, _Collect._, i, 271.

[266] _Athenæ Oxonienses._ London, 1691–2. 2 vols., fol., ii, 604.

Wood, in speaking of Mill’s _Greek Testament_, begun in 1681, says that

the first sheets were begun at his Lordship’s cost, “at his Lordship’s

printing house, _near the Theater_” (_Fasti Oxon._, 3rd ed., ii, 381).

This was probably the hired house occupied by the University press

prior to its removal to the Theatre, concerning the site of which

Hearne remarks (_Reliq._, i, 254), “One part of the wall, being a sort

of bastion, is now to be seen, just as we enter into the Theater-yard,

at the west corner of the north side of the Schools, viz., where the

late printing-house of Bp. Fell stood.” Moxon, in 1683, recognised the

Bishop’s “ardent affections to promote Typographie” in England, by

dedicating to him the second volume of his _Mechanick Exercises_, the

first practical work on printing written by an Englishman.

[267] A copy of this letter may be seen in the preface to Hickes’

_Thesaurus_, 1705, p. xliii.

[268] The Gothic and Runic punches, and the punches and matrices of the

Saxon, formed part of the interesting exhibit of the Oxford University

Press at the Caxton Exhibition in 1877.

[269] Nichols, _Literary Anecdotes_, iv, 147.

[270] The Oxford Ethiopic types appear to have gone astray, if not

at this period, shortly afterwards; for Dr. Mawer, writing to the

Archbishop of Canterbury in 1759 respecting his proposed Supplement

to Walton’s _Polyglot_, says that the use of the University types had

been offered him (in 1743) for printing a specimen of his work, “but,”

he adds, “an obstruction was here thrown in my way by reason of the

Ethiopic types being most of them lost, and incapable of printing half

a page.” (Todd’s _Life of Walton_, London, 1821, i, 332.)

[271] Nichols, _Lit. Anec._, iv., 146. One of the first works printed

in the recovered types was King Alfred’s Saxon version of Boethius’

_Consolationis Philosophiæ Libri_. Oxford, 1698, 8vo. It was edited by

Mr. Christopher Rawlinson, from a transcript by Francis Junius among

the MSS. at Oxford. Opposite the title is a head of Junius by Burghers,

from a sketch by Van Dyck, in the Picture Gallery.

[272] A. J. Butler, _Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt._ Oxford, 1884. 2

vols., 8vo, ii, 257.

[273] These additions duly appeared in the second Oxford specimen of

1695, from which the inventory at p. 148 is quoted.

[274] There is an amusing account of a visit to the University Press in

1682 in Mrs. D’Anvers’ _Academia: or the Humours of the University of

Oxford, in Burlesque verse_ (1691), pp. 25–27.

[275] _Harl. MS. 5901_, fo. 4. The _Specimen_ is given in 5929.

[276] _Oratio Dominica_, πολύγλωττος πολύμορφος, _nimirum, plus

centum Linguis, Versionibus, aut Characteribus reddita et expressa_.

_Londini_, 1700, 4to. 76 pp. The editor was B. M(otte). Typogr. Lond.

[277] This circumstance is thus frankly noted in the preface: “Porrò,

ne Characterum alienorum copiâ me jactitare videar, scias velim,

schedas duas, Linguas Hebraicam, et cæteras usque ad Slavonicam

complexas, in Typographéo instructissimo inclytæ Academiæ Oxoniensis

excusas esse, cui faustissima quæque comprecator quisquis est qui

patriam amat, et bonam mentem colit.”

[278] These include the Malabaric, Brahman, Chinese, Georgian,

Sclavonic (Hieronymian), Syriac (Estrangelo), and Armenian. The

Anglo-Saxon versions are from type, as is also the Irish, which is

Moxon’s fount cut for Boyle.

[279] A second edition appeared in 1713. In 1715 a similar work was

published by Chamberlayne in Amsterdam, entitled _Oratio Dominica in

diversas omnium fere gentium linguas versa et propriis cujusque linguæ

characteribus expressa_. _Amstelodami_ 1715. 4to, with dissertations

by Dr. Wilkins and others. This production is superior in general

appearance to the English book, but the Oriental and other foreign

characters being almost entirely copperplate, its typographical value

is decidedly inferior.

[280] The Bible-side height is slightly above the ordinary English

height. The Learned-side height is about the same as the French height.

Ancient jealousies between the two rival “Sides” have much to answer

for in the growth of this anomaly. Happily, the difference of “height”

is now the only difference between the Bible and the Learned Presses.

[281] Writing in 1714, Bagford boasted that the Sheldonian Theatre,

Plantin’s Office at Antwerp, the King’s Office in Paris, the King of

Spain’s Printing House, (Plantin’s Office at Leyden—since Elzevir’s—is

a sorry shed), Janson’s in Amsterdam, and that of the Jews in the same

city, were not to compare with the Oxford House (_Harl. MS. 5901_). The

imprint, _E Theatro Sheldoniano_, was continued on Oxford books till

1743.

[282] _Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus

et Archæologicus._ _Oxon._ 1703–5. Fol., 3 vols.

[283] This learned lady, mistress of eight languages besides her own,

was the daughter of Ralph Elstob, a Newcastle merchant, and was born

in 1683. Besides making the English translation which accompanies her

brother’s Latin version of the _Homily on St. Gregory’s Day_, she

transcribed and translated many Saxon works at an early age. “Miss

Elstob,” says Rowe Mores, “was a northern lady of ancient family and

a genteel fortune. But she pursued too much the drug called learning,

and in that pursuit failed of being careful of an one thing necessary.

In her latter years she was tutoress in the family of the Duke of

Portland, where we have visited her in her sleeping-room at Bulstrode,

surrounded with books and dirtiness, the usual appendages of folk

of learning. But if any one desires to see her as she was when she

was the favourite of Dr. Hudson and the Oxonians, they may view her

pourtraiture in the initial G of the _English-Saxon Homily on the

Birthday of St. Gregory_” (_Dissertation_, p. 29). Miss Elstob died in

1756, and was buried at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.

[284] It is interesting to note that among the money contributors on

this occasion (a list of whom is preserved in Nichols’ _Anecdotes

of Bowyer_, pp. 496–7), Robert Andrews and Thomas James, the

letter-founders, appear as donors of five guineas each, and Thomas

Grover of two guineas.

[285] Humphrey Wanley, son of Nathaniel Wanley, was secretary to the

Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and afterwards librarian

to the Earl of Oxford. He was an adept in the Saxon antiquities and

calligraphy, and was an important contributor to Hickes’ _Thesaurus_,

for which work he compiled the historical and critical catalogue of

Saxon and other MSS. He died in 1726, aged fifty-four. Much of his

correspondence is preserved among the Harleian MSS.

[286] Nichols’ _Anecdotes of William Bowyer_. London, 1782, 4to., p.

498.

[287] _The Rudiments of Grammar for the English Saxon Tongue._ London,

1715. 4to. A specimen of the letter is given in chapter ix, post.

[288] “This type Miss Elstob used in her _Grammar_, and in her

_Grammar_ only. In her capital undertaking, the publication of the

_Saxon Homilies_, begun and left unfinished, whether because the

type was thought unsightly to politer eyes, or whether because the

University of Oxford had cast a new letter that she might print the

work with them, or whether (as she expresses herself in a letter to

her uncle, Dr. Elstob), because ‘women are allowed the privilege of

appearing in a richer garb and finer ornaments than men,’ she used a

Saxon of the modern garb. But not one of these reasons is of any weight

with an antiquary, who will always prefer the natural face to ‘richer

garb and finer ornaments.’ And on his side is reason uncontrovertible.”

(Rowe Mores, _Dissert._, p. 29.)

[289] _i.e._, William Caslon.

[290] Nichols’ _Anecdotes of Bowyer_, p. 319. _Literary Anecdotes_, ii,

361, etc.

[291] _Dissertation_, p. 28.

[292] A few of the punches and matrices were shown in the Caxton

Exhibition of 1877.

[293] _The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest._ Oxford, at the

Clarendon Press, 1759, 4to. This fine work is printed in Caslon’s Great

Primer Roman. The copperplate initials and vignettes are very fine, the

former containing views of several of the different colleges and public

buildings at Oxford.

[294] _Novum Testamentum, juxta exemplar Millianum. Typis Joannis

Baskerville. Oxonii e Typographeo Clarendoniano 1763. Sumptibus

Academiæ_, 4to & 8vo. (See also _post_, chap. xiii). The Baskerville

Greek punches, matrices and types still preserved at Oxford, are

supposed to be the only relics in this country of the famous Birmingham

foundry.

[295] Though dated 1768 on the title, this specimen appears not to have

been completed for two years, as it bears the date Sept. 29, 1770, on

the last page, and includes specimens of purchases made in that year.

[296] _Dissertation_, p. 45. These strictures we cannot but regard

as somewhat hypercritical. It was no uncommon thing to cast a small

face of letter on a body larger than its own; and in the case of

Hebrew and other Orientals, where detached points were cast to work

over the letter, it was by no means unusual at that time, and till a

later period, to designate the latter by the name of the body which

it and the point in combination collectively formed. With regard

to the gradual lapse of obsolete and superannuated founts from the

specimen, Mr. Mores’ antiquarian zeal appears to have blinded him to

the fact that the Oxford press may have issued their specimens as an

advertisement of their present resources, rather than as an historical

collection of their typographical curiosities.

[297] _Harl. Miscell._, Lond., 1745, 4to, iii, 277. The full title and

description of this curious tract is as follows:—“_The London Printer,

his Lamentation; or the Press oppressed, or over-pressed. September

1660. Quarto, containing 8 pages. In this sheet of Paper is contained,

first, a short account of Printing in general, as its Usefulness,

where and by whom invented; and then a Declaration of its Esteem and

Promotion in England by the several Kings and Queens since its first

Arrival in this Nation; together with the Methods taken by the Crown

for its better Regulation and Government till the year 1640; when, says

the Author, this Trade, Art and Mystery was prostituted to every vile

Purpose both in Church and State; where he bitterly inveighs against

Christopher Barker, John Bill, Thomas Newcomb, John Field and Henry

Hills as Interlopers, and, under the King’s Patent, were the only

instruments of inflaming the People against the King and his Friends,

etc._”

[298] Mores makes a serious mistake in calling this founder Arthur

Nicholas.

[299] In the British Museum _Catalogue of Early English Books to 1640_,

the name of John Grismand appears as publisher of twenty-four books

between 1597 and 1636. It is probable that the earlier of these, at any

rate, were issued by the father of our founder. The name of one Thomas

Wright also occurs as a publisher in 1610.

[300] _Harl. MS. 5910_, pt. i, p. 148.

[301] Moxon, in his account of the Customs of the Chapel (_Mechanick

Exercises_, ii, 363), gives a full description of this yearly Feast,

which, he says, “is made by Four Stewards, _viz._, two Masters and

two Journey-men; which Stewards, with the Collection of half a Crown

apiece of every Guest, defray the Charges of the whole Feast.” The

List of Stewards, above referred to, contains, among others, the

names of nearly all the seventeenth century letter-founders. Seventy

feasts were held between 1621 and 1681, the first few probably being

half-yearly. Three or four Stewards officiated at each. The names of

the founders occurring in the list are as follows, the figures appended

to each indicating the number of the feast at which each served his

stewardship, with the approximate date:

(24) Thomas Wright (1635).

(26) Arthur Nichols (1637).

(31) Alexander Fifield (1642).

(42) Nicholas Nichols (1653).

(61) James Grover (1672).

(63) Thomas Grover (1674).

(64) Joseph Leigh (Lee?) (1675).

(66) Godfrey Head (1677).

(67) Thos. Goring (1678).

(69) Robert Andrews (1680).

[302] Arber’s _Transcripts_, iii, 363–8.

[303] _Calendar of State Papers, Domestic_, 1649, pp. 362, 523. Among

the entries of admission to Merchant Taylors’ School occurs: “Johannes

Grismond, filius unicus Johannes Grismond, Typographi, natus Londini,

in parœciâ de Giles, Cripplegate, Aprilis 1, 1647: an. agens 8.

Admissus est Aprilis 3, 1654.”

[304] _Domestic_, 1637–8. Vol. 376, Nos. 13 and 14.

[305] The list of matrices is given on p. 173, _post_.

[306] _Dissertation_, p. 40.

[307] The first project of a Polyglot Bible is due to Aldus Manutius,

who, probably between 1498 and 1501, issued a specimen-page containing

the first fifteen verses of Genesis, in collateral columns of Hebrew,

Greek and Latin. The typographical execution is admirable. A facsimile

is shown in Renouard’s _Annales de l’Imprimerie des Aldes_, 2nd and 3rd

editions.

[308] It was begun in 1502; completed in 1517, but not published till

1522.

[309] In addition to the four great _Bibles_, the following polyglot

versions had also appeared before 1657:―

1516. _Psalter_ in Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldee, Greek and Latin, published

by Porrus at Genoa.

1518. _Psalter_ in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Ethiopic, published by

Potken at Cologne.

1546. _Pentateuch_ in Hebrew, Chaldee, Persian and Arabic, published

at Constantinople (but all in Hebrew type).

1547. _Pentateuch_ in Hebrew, Spanish and modern Greek, published at

Constantinople.

1586. _Bible_ in Hebrew, Greek and Latin (two versions), published at

Heidelberg.

1596. _Bible_ in Greek, Latin and German, published by Wolder at

Hamburg.

1599. _Bible_ (portions) in Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, Latin, German,

Sclavonic, etc., published by Hutterus at Nuremberg.

[310] These _Proposals_ were printed by R. Norton for Timothy

Garthwaite at the lesser North Gate of St. Paul’s Church, London, 1652.

[311] It is described by the Rev. H. J. Todd in his _Memoirs of the

Life and Writings of the Right Rev. Brian Walton, D.D._ London, 2

vols., 8vo, 1821. Mr. Todd’s work contains much valuable information

respecting the _Polyglot_.

[312] Among the MSS. in Sydney College is a letter written by Abraham

Wheelock to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, dated Jan. 5, 1652, in

which, referring to the specimen, he says: “When the sheete, here sent,

was printed off, I corrected at least 80 errata in it. It as yet serves

to show what letters Mr. Flesher, an eminent printer, my friend and

printer of my booke, hath” (Todd’s _Memoirs_, i, 56). James Flesher,

son (?) of Miles Flesher (one of the twelve Star Chamber printers named

in the Act of 1637), entered into a bond of £300 to the Stationers’

Company in 1649, and held the office of City printer in 1657. His name

occurs in the list of the _Brotherly Meeting of Printers_ as Steward at

the 42nd Feast. In 1664 he served, together with Roycroft, on the jury

at the trial of John Twyn; see _ante_, p. 132.

[313] Walton’s _Polyglot_ is supposed to be the second book printed

by subscription in England. In 1617, Minsheu’s _Dictionary in Eleven

Languages_ was published by subscription, the names of those who took a

copy of the work being printed. Minsheu’s venture, however, turned out

a failure. In Dr. Walton’s case this mode of publication was, owing to

the energy of the promoter and the number of his friends, successful.

The subscription was £10 per copy, or £50 for six copies. The estimated

cost of the first volume was £1,500, and of succeeding volumes £1,200

each. Towards this, £9,000 was subscribed four months before the first

volume was put to press.

[314] Parr’s _Life and Letters of Usher_. Lond., 1686, fol., p. 590.

Dr. Walton received the Protector’s permission to import the paper for

his work, duty free.

[315] _Origine de l’Imprimerie de Paris._ Paris, 1694, 4to, p. 59.

[316] _Discours Historique sur les principales editions des Bibles

Polyglottes._ Paris, 1713, 12mo, p. 209.

[317] This useful little tract was reprinted with improvements in

the following year, entitled: “_Introductio ad lectionem linguarum

Orientalium, Hebraicæ, Chaldaicæ, Samaritanæ, Syriacæ, Arabicæ,

Persicæ, Æthiopicæ, Armenæ, Coptæ . . . in usum tyronum . . . præcipuè

eorum qui sumptus ad Biblia Polyglotta (jam sub prelo) imprimenda

contulerunt. Londini. Imprimebat Tho. Roycroft_, 1655. 18mo.”

Republished at Deventer in 1658. The Armenian and Coptic alphabets were

cut in wood, and reappeared in the Prolegomena of the _Polyglot_.

[318] “The latter part,” says Bowyer, “is much more incorrectly printed

than the former, probably owing to the editor’s absence from the press,

or to his being over-fatigued by the work. The Hebrew text suffered

much in several places by the rapidity of the publication.”

[319] Rev. Mr. Twells, author of _Life of Dr. Pocock_.

[320] _Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, complectentia Textus Originales,

Hebraicum cum Pentateucho Samaritano, Chaldaicum, Græcum; Versionumque

antiquarum, Samaritanæ Græcæ LXX Interpr. Chaldaicæ, Syriacæ, Arabicæ,

Æthiopicæ, Persicæ, Vulg. Lat. Quicquid comparari poterat. Cum Textuum

et Versionum Orientalium Translationibus Latinis . . . Omnia eo ordine

disposita, ut Textus cum Versionibus uno intuitu conferri possint. Cum

Apparatu, etc. etc. . . . Edidit Brianus Waltonus, S.T.D. Londini.

Imprimebat Thomas Roycroft_, 1657. 6 vols., fol.

[321] One of the compositors employed on the work was Ichabod Dawks

(grandfather to Wm. Bowyer), of whose son and his curious script type,

see _The Tatler_, No. 178, etc.

[322] See _ante_, p. 98.

[323] In some cases a few of the matrices have undergone renovation in

the hands of their successive owners.

[324] “The Æthiopic of the Congregation,” _i.e._, of the Propaganda

at Rome, “is not to be compared with ours. And Ludolphus, whose abode

was at Gotha, sent his Lexicon to be published at London, where it

was printed by Mr. Roycroft upon the type of the English _Polyglot_”

(Mores, p. 12).

[325] “The elegant face of the Samaritan is justly attributed by

Cellarius to the English, for it was first used in our _Polyglot_. It

differs widely from the type used by Scaliger in his _Emend. Temp._,

and by Leusden at the end of his _Scholæ Syriacæ_, and from another

used in an encomiastic of Abr. Ecchelensis upon F. Kircher, which type

belonged to the Congregation at Rome; and which was afterwards more

neatly cut by Voskens” (_ibid._, p. 13).

[326] In his “loyal” dedication, Walton asserts that from the outset he

had intended to dedicate the work to Charles II, and that Cromwell’s

patronage of the work had been offered only as the price of a public

compliment for himself (Todd, i, 82 _et seq._).

[327] “The first view of this dedication,” he says, “will prove it to

have been printed with different and inferior types, the hasty produce

of a courteous after thought” (_Introd. Classics_, i, 27).

A History of the Old English Letter Foundries with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. · 第 22 / 23 章

Norton (J.) printer of the Eton _Chrysostom_, 60, 140; distinctions