ENGLISH BOOKS PRINTED ELSEWHERE THAN AT LONDON
[Illustration: XXVIII. COLOGNE, PRINTER UNCERTAIN, 1525
TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT, FIRST PAGE OF TEXT]
During the fifteenth century presses were set up in more than fifty
places in Germany, in more than seventy in Italy, in nearly forty in
France, in more than twenty in the Netherlands, in twenty-four in Spain,
in only three (counting London and Westminster as one) in England. In
London and Westminster over 330 books are known to have been printed; in
Oxford and St. Albans only twenty-five. The reason for this paucity of
provincial printing in England must be found by the social historian.
The beginning of the sixteenth century brought no change in the facts.
For thirty years from March, 1487, there was no printing-press at
Oxford. In December, 1517, a Latin commentary on the Posterior Analytics
of Aristotle appeared with the imprint "Academia Oxonie," and in four
subsequent books, printed in 1518, the printer of this gave his name as
Johannes Scolar. A fragment of a sixth book has lately been found at the
British Museum. In 1519 Scolar's place was taken by Carolus Kyrforth,
who printed a _Compotus_, or small arithmetic book. A prognostication by
Jaspar Laet may have been printed apparently either by Scolar or
Kyrforth. After the appearance of these eight books there was no more
printing at Oxford until a press was started there in 1585 by Joseph
Barnes, under the auspices of the University. The last book of the
Schoolmaster-printer appeared at St. Albans in 1486, and after this
there was no more printing there until 1534. In that year, at the
request of Abbot Catton, a printer named John Hertfort, or Herford,
printed there _The glorious lyfe and passion of seint Albon_. Robert
Catton was succeeded as abbot by Richard Stevenage, and in the years
1536-8 three religious books were printed for him by Hertfort, who also
printed an Arithmetic and two other books on his own account, making
seven books in all. Then, in October, 1539, John Hertfort fell under
suspicion of having printed a "little book of detestable heresies,"[55]
and the Abbot had to send him to London. The abbey itself was suppressed
by the King the same year, and Hertfort, deprived of his patron, had no
inducement to return. He is next heard of as printing in London in 1544.
At York a _Directorium_ was printed by Hugo Goes, and there is a
seventeenth century reference to a _Donatus minor_ and _Accidence_ from
his press. Three small books are also known to have been printed by
Ursyn Mylner in 1514 and 1516. Previous to this, in or about 1507, an
_Expositio hymnorum et sequentiarum_ for use at York had been printed at
Rouen by Pierre Violette for a stationer named Gerard Freez (also known
as Gerard Wandsforth), who died in 1510. This Gerard Freez had a brother
Frederick, who is described not only as a bookbinder and stationer, but
as a printer, and may therefore have printed books which have perished
without leaving any trace behind them. But the only extant York books of
the sixteenth century are the _Directorium_ of 1507, two small
service-books of 1513, and a little grammatical work in 1516. After this
there was no more printing in York until 1642.
At Cambridge a stationer named John Laer, of Siberch, i.e. Siegburg,
near Cologne, settled, in or about 1520, and acted as publisher to an
edition of Croke's _Introductiones in Rudimenta Graeca_, printed at
Cologne by Eucharius Cervicornus. After this, in 1521 and 1522, Siberch
himself printed nine small books at Cambridge, the first of them being a
Latin speech by Henry Bullock addressed to Cardinal Wolsey. Among the
other books was a Dialogue of Lucian's ([Greek: peri dipsadon]), for
which Siberch had to use some Greek type, and a work on letter-writing
(_De conscribendis epistolis_) by Erasmus, with whom he seems to have
been on friendly terms. After 1522 no more books were printed at
Cambridge until 1583.
At Tavistock in 1525 a monk named Thomas Richard printed a translation
of Boethius's _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ for "the ryght worschypful
esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon." Nine years later, in 1534, the same
press printed the _Statutes_ concerning the Devonshire Stannaries or Tin
Mines. These are the only two early books known to have been printed at
Tavistock.
At Abingdon in 1528, John Scolar, presumably the same man who had
previously worked a few miles off at Oxford, printed a Portiforium or
Breviary for the use of the monastery. No other early book is known to
have been printed there.
From 1539, when John Hertfort was summoned from St. Albans, to the end
of the reign of Henry VIII, we know of no provincial printing in
England. But on the accession of Edward VI the extreme Protestants who
had fled from England to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, came
flocking back, and some of them seem to have stopped at Ipswich. Two, or
perhaps three printers, all in the Protestant interest, worked there in
the first few months of the new reign. The first of these, Anthony
Scoloker, printed seven books at Ipswich in 1547 and 1548, and then went
on to London. The second, John Overton, brought over with him from Wesel
the text of Bishop Bale's Latin bibliography of the Illustrious Writers
of Britain, printed there by Theodoricus Plateanus, otherwise Dirick van
der Straten, and may or may not have printed at Ipswich two additional
sheets, which he dated there 31 July, 1548.[56] The third printer, John
Oswen, printed at Ipswich eleven tracts, mostly controversial, in or
about 1548, and then removed to Worcester.
On his arrival at Worcester late in 1548, or early in 1549, John Oswen
obtained a special privilege from Edward VI for printing service-books
for use in the Principality of Wales, and produced there three editions
of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI and a New Testament. Besides
these, from 1549 to 1553 he printed eighteen other books, mostly of
controversial theology, calling himself in his imprints "Printer
appoynted by the Kinges Maiestie for the Principalitie of Wales and the
Marches of the same." On the accession of Mary, it being no longer safe
to print Protestant theology, Oswen's press ceased working.
At Canterbury in 1549 John Mychell, or Mitchell, who had moved there
after producing a few books in London, printed an English psalter,
"poynted as it shall be songe in churches." During Edward's reign
Mychell printed at Canterbury altogether some twenty books and tracts,
mostly more or less controversial treatises on the Protestant side. On
the accession of Mary he ceased publishing till 1556, when his press was
employed by Cardinal Pole to print his Articles of Visitation.
The next year, by the charter granted to the Stationers' Company,
printing outside London was forbidden, the prohibition being
subsequently relaxed in favour of the two Universities, although it was
nearly thirty years before they availed themselves of their right. In
the previous eighty years only about a hundred books[57] had been
produced at the provincial presses, and in the year in which the charter
was granted it can hardly be said that any press outside London was in
existence. The new regulation stood in the way of development, but it
was a development for which there seems to have been little demand. We
may see some slight confirmation of this view in the fact that during
Elizabeth's reign there was very little secret printing, though there
had probably been a good deal under Mary. The three Elizabethan secret
presses which have been chronicled were:
(1) A Puritan press which printed various tracts on Church government,
written by Thomas Cartwright. These were printed secretly in 1572 and
1573, first at Wandsworth, afterwards at Hempstead, near Saffron Walden,
in Essex. The press was seized in August, 1573, and the type handed to
Henry Bynneman, who, the next year, used it to reprint Cartwright's
attack, interpolating Whitgift's replies in larger type.
(2) A Jesuit press which printed for Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons
in 1580 and 1581, first at Greenstreet House in East Ham, afterwards at
Stonor Park, near Henley. The press was managed by Stephen Brinckley,
who was ultimately captured and imprisoned for nearly two years.
(3) The Puritan travelling press, from which issued the famous Martin
Marprelate tracts in 1588 and 1589. Some of these were printed in East
Molesey, in Surrey; others in the house of Sir Richard Knightley at
Fawsley, near Daventry, others in that of Roger Wigston of Wolston
Priory, between Coventry and Rugby. The chief printer of them was Robert
Waldegrave, who eventually fled first to La Rochelle, where he may have
printed one of the tracts, and then to Edinburgh, where he became a
printer of some importance.
While there was thus very little secret printing in England, exiled
Protestants, Catholics, and Nonconformists all in turn made frequent
recourse to foreign presses, and apparently succeeded in circulating
their books in England. Religious repression, however, though the chief,
was not the only cause of English books being printed abroad. From a
very early time the superior skill of foreign printers had procured them
many commissions to print service-books for the English market, alike on
account of their greater accuracy, their experience in printing in red
and black, and the more attractive illustrations which they had at their
disposal. Not long after 1470 a Sarum Breviary was printed abroad,
possibly at Cologne. Caxton employed George Maynyal, of Paris, to print
a Missal (and probably a _Legenda_) for him in 1487, and Johann Hamman
or Herzog printed a Sarum Missal in 1494 as far away as Venice. When the
Paris printers and publishers had won the admiration of all Europe by
their pretty editions of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, they competed
with each other for the English market. Early in the sixteenth century
Wolfgang Hopyl printed some magnificent Sarum Missals and also an
Antiphoner and _Legenda_, besides some very fine editions of Lyndewood's
Constitutions. Breviaries, Missals, and Primers were also poured out for
English use by Francois Regnault, and in lesser numbers by nearly a
dozen other Paris firms, and Martin Morin and other printers plied the
same trade at Rouen, while Christoffel van Remunde, of Endhoven, was
busy at Antwerp. The predominance of the foreign editions of these books
over those printed in England may be estimated from the fact that of 105
Sarum service-books printed before 1540 in the possession of the British
Museum, one was printed at Basel, one at Venice, eleven at Rouen, twelve
at Antwerp, as many as fifty-six at Paris, and only twenty-four in
England.[58]
In addition to service-books, a good many of the smaller Latin
grammatical works were printed for the English market in France and the
Low Countries, their destination being occasionally stated, but more
often inferred from the appearance in them of English explanations of
Latin words or phrases. A few attempts were also made to issue popular
English works in competition with those produced at home. The most
formidable of these rivalries was that of Gerard Leeu at Antwerp, who,
after printing three entertaining books (_The History of Jason_,
_Knight Paris and the Fair Vienne_, and the _Dialogue of Salomon and
Marcolphus_), embarked on a more important work, _The Chronicles of
England_, and might have seriously injured the home trade had he not met
his death in a quarrel with a workman while the _Chronicles_ were still
on the press.[59]
Soon after 1500 another Antwerp printer, Adriaen von Berghen, in
addition to Holt's _Lac Puerorum_, published the commonplace book of a
London merchant which passes under the name of _Arnold's Chronicle_, and
is famous as containing the earliest text of the _Nutbrown Maid_. A
little later still, Jan van Doesborch was at work at the same place, and
between 1505 and 1530 produced at least eighteen popular English books,
including _Tyll Howleglas_, _Virgilius the Magician_, _Robin Hood_, and
an account of recent discoveries entitled, "Of the new landes and of the
people found by the messengers of the kynge of portyngale named
Emanuel."
Doesborch's books are poorly printed and illustrated, but his texts are
not noticeably worse than those in contemporary editions published in
England. The reverse is the case with two English books produced (1503)
by the famous Paris publisher, Antoine Verard, _The traitte of god
lyuyng and good deying_ and _The Kalendayr of Shyppars_. These have the
illustrations which book-lovers prize so highly in the _Kalendrier des
Bergers_ and _Art de bien viure et de bien mourir_, but the translations
seem to have been made by a Scot, only less ill equipped in Scottish
than in French. In a third translation, from Pierre Gringore's _Chasteau
de Labeur_, Verard was more fortunate, for the _Castell of Labour_ was
rendered into (for that unpoetical period) very passable verse by
Alexander Barclay. Verard, however, had no cause to congratulate
himself, for both Pynson and De Worde reprinted Barclay's translation
with copies of the woodcuts, and the other two books in new
translations, so that in future he left the secular English market
alone.
It may be supposed that the Act of 1534, restricting the importation of
foreign books into England, finally put an end to competition of the
kind which Leeu, Verard, and Doesborch had attempted. But isolated
English books have continued to appear abroad down to our own day, and
form a miscellaneous, but curious and interesting appendix in the great
volume of the English book trade. From 1525 onwards, however, until
nearly the end of the seventeenth century, compared with the masses of
theological books alternately by Protestant and Roman Catholic English
exiles, printed in the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, and France,
the output of secular work sinks into insignificance. The stream begins
with Tyndale's New Testament, of which a few sheets were printed at
Cologne (see Plate XXVIII), two editions at Worms, and half a dozen or
more at Antwerp before it was suffered to appear in England.
The first English Bible is believed to have been printed (1535) by
Christopher Froschauer at Zurich, the second (1537) at Antwerp, the
third (1539) was begun at Paris and completed in England. Besides their
New Testaments, Tyndale and George Joy published a good many
controversial works at Antwerp. In the next generation the city became
one of the strongholds of the Romanist exiles after the accession of
Elizabeth, and Hans de Laet, John Fouler, Willem Sylvius, and Gillis van
Diest the younger were frequently called on in 1564-6 to provide paper
and print for Stapleton, Harding, William Rastell, and the other
antagonists of Bishop Jewel.
In 1528 and the following year books by Tyndale, Roy, and Frith appeared
purporting to be printed by "Hans Luft at Malborowe in the land of
Hesse." A later book with this imprint has been shown by Mr. Sayle to
have been printed at Antwerp; whether these earlier works were really
produced at Marburg, or, as has been conjectured, at Cologne, or again
at Hamburg, is still uncertain. In the 'forties and 'fifties
Christopher Froschauer printed several English Protestant books at
Zurich, including _A faythfull admonycion of a certen trewe pastor and
prophete sent unto the germanes_, translated from Luther's _Warnunge_,
with the pleasing imprint "at Grenewych by Conrade Freeman in the month
of may 1554." In the 'fifties, again, Jean Crespin and other Geneva
printers worked for John Knox, and the Geneva New Testament was produced
there in 1558 and the Bible in 1560. In the 'sixties, as we have seen,
many treatises attacking Bishop Jewel were issued at Antwerp, others
appeared at Louvain, and about the same time (1566), at Emden, G. van
der Erven was printing for exiled Puritans some of their diatribes
against the "Popish aparrell" (i.e. the surplice) which Elizabeth
prescribed for the English Church.
In 1574 we encounter at Amsterdam a curious group of nine little books
"translated out of Base-Almayne into English," in which Hendrik Niclas
preached the doctrines of the "Family of Love." From that time onwards a
good deal of theological literature on the Protestant side was published
by Amsterdam presses. Richard Schilders at Middelburg was also an
extensive publisher of this class of book. Presses at Leyden and Dort
made similar contributions, but on a smaller scale. On the Roman
Catholic side the head-quarters of propagandist literature, as we have
seen, were at first at Antwerp and Louvain, at both of which places John
Fouler had presses. In the 'eighties the existence of the English
college at Rheims caused several Catholic books to be printed there,
notably the translation of the New Testament which was made in the
college itself. For like reasons much Catholic literature was published
from 1602 onwards at St. Omer, and from 1604 onwards at Douai. Books of
the same class, though in smaller numbers, appeared also at Paris and
Rouen.
Individually the books from the presses we have been naming, both on the
Romanist and the Puritan side, are unattractive to look at and dull to
read. Collectively they form a very curious and interesting episode in
English bibliography, which deserves more study than it has yet
received, though Mr. Sayle has made an excellent beginning in his lists
of English books printed on the Continent in the third volume of his
_Early English Printed Books in the University Library, Cambridge_.
Since then Mr. Steele and Mr. Dover Wilson have made important
contributions to the subject, but much still remains to be done.
It was doubtless the existence of these foreign safety-valves which
rendered the course of English printing after the grant of a charter to
the Stationers' Company so smooth and uneventful.[60] Two violations of
the terms of the charter were winked at or authorized, in some way not
known to us, by the Crown. The first of these was the printing of a few
books for the use of foreign refugees by Antony de Solempne at Norwich.
Most of these books were in Dutch, but in 1569 Antony Corranus,
previously pastor of the Spanish Protestant congregation at Antwerp,
published through de Solempne certain broadside tables _De Operibus Dei_
in Latin, French, Dutch, and English, of which copies only of the first
and second have been traced. In 1570 another English broadside
commemorated the execution at Norwich of Thomas Brooke. Archbishop
Parker seems to have resented the publication, unexamined, of the _De
Operibus Dei_, but de Solempne placed the royal arms and a loyal motto
(Godt bewaer de Coninginne Elizabeth) on some of his books, and seems in
some way or another to have secured the Queen's protection.
Mr. Allnutt, to whose exhaustive articles on "English Provincial
Printing" in the second volume of _Bibliographica_ all subsequent
writers on the subject must needs be indebted, conscientiously includes
among his notes one on the edition of Archbishop Parker's _De
Antiquitate Ecclesiae Britannicae_ printed for him by John Day, in all
probability at Lambeth Palace, where a small staff of book-fashioners
worked under the archiepiscopal eye. Eton is a good deal farther "out of
bounds" than Lambeth, but the employment of the King's Printer, John
Norton, and a dedication to the King saved Sir Henry Savile from any
interference when he started printing his fine edition of the works of
S. John Chrysostom in the original Greek. The eight folio volumes of
which this consists are dated from 1610 to 1613, and in these and the
two following years five other Greek books were printed under Savile's
supervision. After this his type was presented to the University of
Oxford, where a fairly flourishing press had been at work since 1585.
That printing at Oxford made a new start in 1585 was due no doubt to the
example of Cambridge, which two years earlier had at last acted on a
patent for printing granted by Henry VIII in 1534, the year, it will be
remembered, in which restrictions were placed on the importation of
foreign books on account of the proficiency in the art to which
Englishmen were supposed to have attained. In the interim Printers to
the University seem to have been appointed, but it was not till 1583
that a press was set up, whereupon, as soon as a single book had been
printed, it was promptly seized by the Stationers' Company of London as
an infringement of the monopoly granted by their charter. Although the
Bishop of London seems to have backed up the Stationers, Lord Burghley
(the Chancellor of the University) and the Master of the Rolls secured
the recognition of the rights of the University. Forty years later they
were again attacked by the Stationers, and the Privy Council forbade the
Cambridge printer to print Bibles, Prayer Books, Psalters, Grammars, or
Books of Common Law, but in 1628 the judges pronounced strongly in
favour of the full rights of the University, and the next year these
were recognized with some modifications by the Privy Council. Up to
this time there had been three printers, Thomas Thomas (1583-8), John
Legate (1588-1610), and Cantrell Legge (1606-29), the University Library
possessing (in 1902) 34 books and documents printed by the first, 108 by
the second, and 55 by the third, or a total of 197 for a period of
forty-six years. From 1628 to 1639 the majority of Cambridge books bear
no individual names on them, but have usually the imprint "Cantabrigiae,
ex Academiae celeberrimae typographeo." But Thomas and John Buck and Roger
Daniel, in various combinations, were responsible for a good many
publications.
While Burghley was Chancellor of Cambridge, Dudley, Earl of Leicester,
held the Oxford Chancellorship, and doubtless felt that, charter or no
charter, it concerned his honour to see that his University should be
allowed all the privileges possessed by the other. Under his auspices a
press was started late in 1584 or early in 1585 by Joseph Barnes, an
Oxford bookseller, to whom the University lent L100 to enable him to
procure the necessary equipment, and on Leicester's visiting the
University on 11 January, 1585, a _Carmen gratulatorium_ in four elegiac
couplets was presented to him, printed on an octavo leaf at the new
press. The first book to appear was a _Speculum Moralium Quaestionum in
uniuersam Ethicen Aristotelis_, by John Case, a former fellow of S.
John's, with a dedication to Leicester by the author and another by the
printer. In the latter the promise was made "ea solum ex his praelis in
lucem venient que sapientum calculis approbentur & Sybille foliis sint
veriora," but the remaining publications of the year were a polemical
treatise by Thomas Billson, two issues of a Protestant adaptation of the
_Booke of Christian exercise appertaining to Resolution_, by Robert
Persons, the Jesuit, and two sermons. In 1586 no fewer than seventeen
books were printed (a number not again attained for several years), and
among them was an edition of six homilies of S. Chrysostom, "primitiae
typographi nostri in graecis literis preli." After this the press
settled down to an average production of from eight to a dozen books a
year, including a fair number of classical texts and translations, with
now and then a volume of verse which brings it into connection with the
stream of Elizabethan literature. Among the more interesting books which
it produced, mention may be made of the _Sixe Idillia_ of Theocritus
(1588), poems by Nicholas Breton and Thomas Churchyard (1592), Richard
de Bury's _Philobiblon_ (1599), the _Microcosmus_ of John Davies of
Hereford (1603), Captain John Smith's _Map of Virginia, with a
description of the Countrey_ (1612), and Burton's _Anatomy of
Melancholy_ (1621). In the 'twenties of the seventeenth century the
average annual output was still only 14; in the 'thirties, under the
fostering care of Laud, it had risen as high as 25. In 1641 it was but
19. Then, on the outbreak of the Civil War, the King came to Oxford, and
under the stress of official publications and royalist controversy the
numbers shot up to about 147 in 1642, followed by 119 in 1643, about 100
in 1644, and 60 in 1645. Then they become normal again, and in 1649
under the Parliamentary _regime_ sink as low as seven. These statistics
are taken from the various works of Mr. Falconer Madan, mentioned in our
bibliography, and from the same source we learn that until the
nineteenth century the annual average of production, calculated by
periods of ten years, never exceeded thirty-two.
Similar causes to those which brought about the sudden increase in the
Oxford output in 1642 led to the establishment of presses at Newcastle
and York. In 1639, when Charles I marched against the Scots, his
head-quarters were at Newcastle, and the Royal Printer, Robert
Barker,[61] printed there a sermon by the Bishop of Durham, the _Lawes
and Ordinances of Warre_, and some proclamations. In March, 1642, again
Barker was in attendance on the King at York, and printed there _His
Majesties Declaration to both Houses of Parliament_, in answer to that
presented to him at Newmarket, and some thirty-eight other pieces.
Another London printer, Stephen Bulkley, was also given employment, and
in the years 1642-4 printed at York some twenty-eight different pieces.
Bulkley also attended the King at Newcastle in 1646, when he was in the
hands of the Scots, and remained printing there and at Gateshead until
the Restoration, when he returned to York, where a Puritan press had in
the meantime been set up by Thomas Broad.
Charles I left York on 16 August, 1642, and six days later the Royal
Standard was raised at Nottingham. _His Majesties Instructions to his
Commissioners of Array_, dated "at our Court at Nottingham, 29th August,
1642," were printed by Barker at York. Two days later the King ordered
that the press should be brought to Nottingham, but we next hear of
Barker at Shrewsbury, where he served the King's immediate needs, and
then remained at work for the rest of the year and the greater part of
1643 reprinting Oxford editions and publishing other royalist
literature. After the capture of Bristol for the King on 2 August he
removed once more and printed there during 1644 and 1645.
During the confusion of the Civil War an Exeter stationer, Thomas Hunt
(the local publisher of Herrick's _Hesperides_), had a book printed for
him--Thomas Fuller's _Good Thoughts in Bad Times_--which is described in
the dedication as the "First Fruits of the Exeter Presse," and another
is said to have been printed there in 1648. But we hear of no other
presses being set up. After the Restoration printing was allowed to
continue at York. Otherwise provincial printing outside the Universities
was once more non-existent. The arrival of William of Orange caused some
broadsides to be printed at Exeter in 1688, and in the same year Thomas
Tillier printed at Chester, not only _An account of a late Horrid and
Bloody Massacre in Ireland_ on a single leaf, but also a handsome folio,
_The Academy of Armory_, for Randall Holme, who rewarded him for any
risk he may have run by devising for him a fancy coat. Nevertheless,
despite the change of Government, the Act of Parliament restricting
printing to London, Oxford, Cambridge, and York was not allowed to
expire till 1695. A press was set up at Bristol the same year. Plymouth
and Shrewsbury followed in 1696, Exeter in 1698, and Norwich in 1701,
the first provincial newspaper, _The Norwich Post_, dating from
September in that year. By 1750 about seventy-five provincial towns
possessed presses, cities and small country places starting them at
haphazard, not at all in the order of their importance. The dates for
some of the chief are as follows (all on the authority of Mr. Allnutt):
1708, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; 1709, Worcester; 1710, Nottingham; 1711,
Chester; 1712, Liverpool; 1715, Salisbury; 1716, Birmingham; 1717,
Canterbury; 1718, Ipswich, Leeds, and Taunton; 1719, Manchester and
Derby; 1720, Northampton; 1721, Coventry and Hereford; 1723, Reading;
1731, Bath; 1737, Sheffield; 1745, Stratford-on-Avon; 1748, Portsmouth.
As a side-consequence of the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695, it
became possible for any private person to buy a printing press, hire a
journeyman printer, and start printing any books he pleased. Several
private presses were thus set up during the second half of the
eighteenth century, the most famous of them being that of Horace Walpole
at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham. Walpole started in 1757 by printing
two of the Odes of his friend Gray, and at intervals during the next
twenty-seven years printed several of his own works, and a few other
books, of which an edition of Grammont's _Memoires_ was the most
important. Walpole's example was followed by George Allan, M.P. for
Durham, and Francis Blomefield, the historian of Norfolk; also in the
nineteenth century by Thomas Johnes, who printed his translation of
Froissart in four large quarto volumes at his own house at Hafod in
Cardiganshire in 1803-5, and followed them up with a Joinville in 1807
and a Monstrelet in 1810. Between 1813 and 1823 Sir Egerton Brydges
caused a number of interesting literary reprints to be issued for him in
limited editions from a press in or near his house at Lee Priory in
Kent. The work of both these presses, like that of Walpole's, was
perhaps equal to the best commercial printing of its day, but was not
superior to it, and perhaps the same may be said of the few reprints
manufactured, in still more jealously limited editions, by E. V.
Utterson between 1840 and 1843 at Beldornie House, Ryde. Sir Thomas
Phillipps, who printed numerous antiquarian documents between 1822 and
1862 at Middle Hill in Worcestershire, and between 1862 and 1872 at
Cheltenham, set even less store by typographical beauty and accuracy.
The other private presses of the first half of the nineteenth century
are not more interesting, though that of Gaetano Polidori at Park
Village East, near Regent's Park, 1840-50, has become famous as having
printed Gabriel Rossetti's _Sir Hugh the Heron_ in 1843, and Christina
Rossetti's first volume of verse four years later, Polidori being the
grandfather of the young authors on their mother's side.
Passing north of the Tweed, where the most formidable competitors of the
London printers now abide, we find the first Scottish press at work at
Edinburgh in 1508. In September of the previous year Andrew Myllar, a
bookseller who had gained some experience of printing at Rouen, and
Walter Chapman, a merchant, had been granted leave to import a press,
chiefly that they might print an Aberdeen Breviary, which duly appeared
in 1509-10. The books which anticipated it in 1508 were a number of thin
quartos, _The Maying or Disport of Chaucer_, dated 4 April, the
_Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane_, dated 8 April, the _Porteous of
Noblenes_, "translated out of franche in scottis be Maistir Andrew
Cadiou," dated 20 April, and eight undated pieces, three of them by
Dunbar (_The Goldyn Targe_, _The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy_, and
the _Twa Marrit Wemen and the Wedo_, with other poems), the others being
the _Ballad of Lord Barnard Stewart_, _Orpheus and Eurydice_, the _Buke
of Gude Counsale_, _Sir Eglamoure of Artoys_, and _A Gest of Robyn
Hode_. All these have survived (some of them much mutilated) in a single
volume, and it is at the reader's pleasure to decide whether they
represent the harvest of some careful person who bought up all Chapman
and Myllar's fugitive pieces, or are merely the remnants of a much
larger output. The Aberdeen Breviary, which the printers were encouraged
to produce by protection against the importation of Sarum books from
England or abroad, is really handsomely printed in black and red. At the
end of one of the four or five copies of it now known is an addendum,
the _Officium Compassionis Beatae Virginis_ (commemorated on the
Wednesday in Holy Week), which bears the colophon "Impressum Edinburgi
per Johannem Story nomine & mandato Karoli Stule," which Scottish
bibliographers assign to about 1520. A fragment of a _Book of the
Howlat_ may belong to the same period. Thus although Scottish writers,
such as John Vaus and Hector Boece of Aberdeen, had to send their books
to France to be printed, it is possible that presses were at work in
Edinburgh or elsewhere in Scotland, of which nothing is now known.
The next printer of whom we have certain information is Thomas Davidson,
who in February, 1541 (1542), produced a handsome edition of _The New
Actis and Constitutionis of Parliament maid be the Rycht Excellent
Prince Iames the Fift_. This was his only dated book, but he issued also
a fine edition of _The hystory and croniklis of Scotland_, translated by
"Johne Bellenden, Archdene of Murray, chanon of Ros," from the Latin of
Hector Boece, and some smaller works.
The next Scottish printer is John Scot, whom the best authorities,
despite the fact that he is first heard of in Edinburgh in 1539, refuse
to identify with the John Skot who printed in London from 1521 to 1537.
Whoever he was, he had no very happy existence, as notwithstanding some
efforts to please the Protestant party, the work he did for the
Catholics twice brought him into serious trouble. His first dated book,
Archbishop Hamilton's _Catechism_, did not appear till 29 August, 1552,
and was printed not at Edinburgh, but at St. Andrews. How he had been
employed between 1539 and this date we have no means of knowing. At St.
Andrews Scot printed Patrick Cockburn's _Pia Meditatio in Dominicam
Orationem_ (1555), and probably also Lauder's _Dewtis of Kingis_ (1556).
Scot also printed controversial works on the Catholic side by the Abbot
of Crosraguell (Quentin Kennedy) and Ninian Winzet, and for the opposite
party _The Confessione of faith Professit and Belevit be the
Protestantes within the Realme of Scotland_ (1561). He issued also two
editions (1568 and 1571) of the works of Sir David Lindesay, while his
undated books include some of Lindesay's single poems.
Since John Scot printed mainly on the Catholic side, the Protestant
General Assembly in December, 1562, started a printer in opposition to
him, Robert Lekpreuik, lending him "twa hundreth pounds to help to buy
irons, ink and papper and to fie craftesmen for printing." He had
previously, in 1561, like Scot, printed the _Confession of the Faith_,
also Robert Noruell's _Meroure of an Chr[i]stiane_ and an _Oration_ by
Beza. The grant allowed him was in connection with an edition of the
Psalms, which eventually appeared in 1565, together with the _Form of
Prayer and Ministration of the Sacraments used in the English Church at
Geneva_ and the Catechism (dated 1564). Lekpreuik continued active till
1574, and after an interval issued three books in 1581 and perhaps one
in 1582. In Mr. Aldis's List he is credited with ninety-one publications
(mostly controversial) as against four assigned to Davidson and fifteen
to Scot. During 1571 he printed at Stirling, and the next two years at
St. Andrews. Like Scot, he found printing perilous work, his
intermission after the beginning of 1574 being due to imprisonment.
Thomas Bassandyne, who had previously published books at Edinburgh,
began printing there in 1572. He produced but ten (extant) books and
documents in all, but his name is famous from its connection with the
first Scottish Bible, of which he produced the New Testament in 1576,
the Old Testament being added, and the whole issued by his successor,
Alexander Arbuthnot, in 1579. Besides the Bible, only five books were
printed by Arbuthnot. Between 1574 and 1580 twenty-six were produced by
John Ross, and on his death Henry Charteris, a bookseller, took over his
material, and by the time of his death in 1599 had printed forty more.
But the best Edinburgh work towards the end of the century was produced
by two craftsmen from England, Thomas Vautrollier, who produced ten
books in 1584-6, and Robert Waldegrave (1590-1603), who had to flee from
England for his share in the Marprelate tracts, and during his thirteen
years in Edinburgh issued 119 books.
When Joseph Ames was desirous of obtaining information about early
printing in Ireland he applied to a Dr. Rutty, of Dublin (apparently a
Quaker), who could only furnish the name of a single book printed there
before 1600, this being an edition of the Book of Common Prayer, which
states that it is "Imprinted by Humphrey Powell, printer to the Kynges
Maiesti, in his Highnesse realme of Ireland dwellyng in the citie of
Dublin in the greate toure by the Crane. Cum Privilegio ad imprimendum
solum. Anno Domini MDLI." We know from the records of the English Privy
Council that Humphrey Powell, an inconspicuous English printer, was
granted L20 in July, 1550, "towards his setting up in Ireland," and this
Prayer Book was doubtless the first fruits of his press. Powell remained
in Dublin for fifteen years, but the only other products of his press
still in existence are two proclamations, one issued in 1561 against
Shane O'Neill, the other in 1564 against the O'Connors, and _A Brefe
Declaration of certein Principall Articles of Religion_, a quarto of
eight leaves set out by order of Sir Henry Sidney in 1566.
In 1571 John O'Kearney, Treasurer of St. Patrick's, was presented with a
fount of Irish type by Queen Elizabeth, and a Catechism by him and a
broadside poem on the Last Judgment, by Philip, son of Conn Crosach,
both in Irish type, are still extant. But there seems to be no
trustworthy information as to where they were printed, though it was
probably at Dublin.
An Almanac, giving the longitude and latitude for Dublin, for the year
1587, appears to have been printed at London. But in 1595 William
Kearney printed a Proclamation against the Earl of Tyrone and his
adherents in Ireland "in the Cathedrall Church of the Blessed Trinitie,
Dublin."
We reach continuous firm ground in 1600 when John Francke, or Franckton
(as he called himself in 1602 and thenceforward), printed one or more
proclamations at Dublin. In 1604 Franckton was appointed King's Printer
for Ireland, and he continued at work till 1618, when he assigned his
patent to Felix Kyngston, Matthew Lownes, and Thomas Downes. Some
four-and-twenty proclamations and upwards of a dozen books and pamphlets
from his press are extant, some of them in Irish type. In 1620 the
office of Printer-General for Ireland was granted for a period of
twenty-one years to Kingston, Lownes, and Downes, all of them members of
the London Stationers' Company, and the usual imprint on the books they
issued is that of the Company (1620-33) or Society (1633-42) of
Stationers. They seem to have appointed an agent or factor to look after
their interests, and the last of these factors, William Bladen, about
1642 took over the business.
The earliest allusion to books printed in what afterwards became the
United States of America occurs in the diary of John Winthrop, Governor
of Massachusetts Bay, for March, 1639: "A printing house was begun at
Cambridge by one Stephen Daye, at the charge of Mr. Glover, who died on
sea hitherward. The first thing which was printed was the freemen's
Oath; the next was an almanac made for New England by Mr. William
Pierce, mariner; the next was the Psalms newly turned into metre." The
Mr. Glover here mentioned was the Rev. Joseph Glover, rector of Sutton
in Surrey from 1628 to 1636, who, after collecting funds for the benefit
of Harvard College at Cambridge, Mass., sailed with his family from
England in the summer of 1638, but died on the way. His widow (Elizabeth
Glover), shortly after her arrival, married the Rev. Henry Dunster, the
first President of Harvard, and thus, as had happened in Paris, the
first press in America was set up in a college under clerical auspices.
Stephen Day, the printer whom Glover had brought from England, is
naturally supposed to have been a descendant of John Day, the great
Elizabethan printer, but of this there is no evidence. He obtained some
grants of land in consideration of his services to the colony, but did
not greatly thrive, and in 1648, or early in 1649, was superseded by
Samuel Green. Of the specimens of his press mentioned by Governor
Winthrop the _Oath of a Freeman_ and the _Almanac_ have perished
utterly. Of the "Bay Psalter," or the "New England Version of the
Psalms," as it was subsequently called, at least eleven copies are known
to be extant, of which five are stated to be perfect.[62] It is a small
octavo of 148 leaves, disfigured by numerous misprints, but with
passable presswork. The translation was made by the Massachusetts
clergy, who prefixed to it "A discourse declaring not only the
lawfullnes but also the necessity of the heavenly ordinance of singing
Scripture Psalmes in the Churches of God." Its titlepage bears the name
neither of printer nor of place, but merely "Imprinted 1640." There is
no doubt, however, that it was produced by Day at Cambridge, whereas the
edition of 1647 appears to have been printed in London.
The Massachusetts records make it probable that Day printed several
books and documents now lost. An imperfect copy of Harvard Theses with
the imprint "Cantabrigiae Nov. Ang., Mens. 8 1643" is the next production
of his press still extant. After this comes an historical document of
some interest: "_A Declaration of former passages and proceedings
betwixt the English and the Narrowgansets, with their confederates,
wherein the grounds and iustice of the ensuing warre are opened and
cleared_. Published by order of the Commissioners for the United
Colonies. At Boston the 11 of the sixth month 1645." Another broadside
of Harvard Theses (for 1647) and a couple of almanacs for 1647 and 1648,
the first of which has the imprint "Cambridge Printed by Matthew Daye
and to be solde by Hez. Usher at Boston. 1647", are the only other
remnants of this stage of the press. Of Matthew Day nothing more is
known.
Samuel Green appears to have taken over Day's business without any
previous technical training, so that it is thought that Day may have
helped him as a journeyman. The first book ascribed to Green is:
A Platform of Church Discipline gathered out of the word of God: and
agreed upon by the Elders: and Messengers of the Churches assembled in
the Synod at Cambridge in New-England. To be presented to the Churches
and Generals Court for their consideration and acceptance in the Lord.
The Eighth Moneth, Anno 1649. Printed by S.G. at Cambridge in
New-England and are to be sold at Cambridge and Boston Anno Dom. 1649.
His next extant piece of work is an almanac for 1650, his next the third
edition (the second, as noted above, had been printed at London in 1647)
of the Bay Psalter, "printed by Samuel Green at Cambridge in
New-England, 1651." This was followed in 1652 by Richard Mather's _The
Summe of Certain Sermons upon Genes_. 15. 6, a treatise on
Justification by Faith, and then Green seems to have begun to busy
himself with work for the Corporation in England for the Propagation of
the Gospel amongst the Indians in New England, or Corporation for the
Indians, as it is easier to call it. A second press was sent over to
enable this work to be undertaken, and a Primer by John Eliot ("the
Apostle to the Indians") was printed in 1654, and the Books of Genesis
and Matthew the next year, all three in the Indian language, all three
now known only from records. The same destruction has befallen an Indian
version of some of the Psalms mentioned as having been printed in 1658,
but of another Indian book of the same year, Abraham Peirson's _Some
helps for the Indians, shewing them how to improve their natural reason
to know the true God, and the true Christian Religion_, two issues have
been preserved, one in the New York Public Library, the other at the
British Museum. Another edition, dated the next year, is also at the
Museum, though it has escaped the notice of Mr. Evans, the author of the
latest "American Bibliography." By this time the Corporation for the
Indians had sent over a skilled printer, Marmaduke Johnson, to aid Green
in his work. Unfortunately, despite the fact that he had left a wife in
England, Johnson flirted with Green's daughter, and this conduct,
reprehensible anywhere, in New England brought down on him fines of L20
and a sentence of deportation, which, however, was not carried out.
Johnson's initials appears in conjunction with Green's in _A Brief
Catechism containing the doctrine of Godlines_, by John Norton, teacher
of the Church at Boston, published in 1660, and the two men's names in
full are in the Indian New Testament of 1661 and the complete Bible of
1663. Of the New Testament it is conjectured that a thousand, or perhaps
fifteen hundred copies, were printed, of which five hundred were bound
separately, and forty of these sent to England. How many copies were
printed of the Old Testament is not known, but of the complete Bible
some forty copies are still extant in no fewer than eight variant states
produced by the presence or absence of the Indian and English
titlepages, the dedication, etc., while of the New Testament about half
as many copies may be known.
During the progress of the Indian Bible Green had continued his English
printing on his other press, and had produced among other things
_Propositions concerning the subject of Baptism_ collected by the Boston
Synod, and bearing the imprint "Printed by S.G. for Hezekiah Vsher at
Boston in New England 1662." Printing at Boston itself does not appear
to have begun until 1675, when John Foster, a Harvard graduate, was
entrusted with the management of a press, and during that and the six
following years printed there a number of books by Increase Mather and
other ministers, as well as some almanacs. On his death in 1681 the
press was entrusted to Samuel Sewall, who, however, abandoned it in
1684. Meanwhile, Samuel Green had continued to print at Cambridge, and
his son, Samuel Green junior, is found working by assignment of Sewall
and for other Boston booksellers. In 1690 his brother Bartholomew Green
succeeded him, and remained the chief printer at Boston till his death
in 1732.
At Philadelphia, within three years of its foundation in 1683, a
_Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense, or America's Messinger: being and [sic]
almanack for the year of grace 1686_, by Samuel Atkins, was issued with
the imprint, "Printed and sold by William Bradford, sold also by the
Author and H. Murrey in Philadelphia and Philip Richards in New York,
1685," and in the same year there was published anonymously Thomas
Budd's _Good Order established in Pennsilvania & New Jersey in America,
being a true account of the country; with its produce and commodities
there made_. In 1686 Bradford printed _An Epistle from John Burnyeat to
Friends in Pensilvania_ and _A General Epistle given forth by the people
of the Lord called Quakers_; in 1687 William Penn's _The excellent
privilege of liberty and property being the birthright of the free-born
subjects of England_; in 1688 a collection including Bohme's _The Temple
of Wisdom_, Wither's _Abuses Stript and Whipt_, and Bacon's _Essays_,
edited by Daniel Leeds. In 1689 Bradford began working for George Keith,
and three years later he was imprisoned for printing Keith's _Appeal
from the Twenty Eight Judges to the Spirit of Truth and true Judgement
in all faithful Friends called Quakers_. In consequence of this
persecution Bradford left Philadelphia the next year and set up his
press at New York. Reinier Jansen and Jacob Taylor are subsequently
mentioned as printers at Philadelphia, and in 1712 Andrew Bradford, son
of William, came from New York and worked there until his death in 1742.
From 1723 he had as a competitor Samuel Keimer, and it was in Keimer's
office that Benjamin Franklin began printing in Philadelphia. His
edition of a translation of Cicero's _Cato Major on Old Age_, by J.
Logan of Philadelphia, is said to have been the first rendering of a
classic published in America.
Meanwhile, William Bradford had set up his press in New York in 1693,
and obtained the appointment of Government Printer. His earliest
productions there were a number of official Acts and Proclamations, on
which he placed the imprint, "Printed and Sold by William Bradford,
Printer to King William and Queen Mary, at the City of New York." In
1700 he was apparently employed to print an anonymous answer to Increase
Mather's _Order of the Gospel_, and a heated controversy arose as to
whether the refusal of Bartholomew Green to print it at Boston was due
to excessive "awe" of the President of Harvard or to a more praiseworthy
objection to anonymous attacks. Bradford remained New York's only
printer until 1726, when Johann Peter Zenger set up a press which became
notable for the boldness with which it attacked the provincial
government. Such attacks were not regarded with much toleration, nor
indeed was the press even under official regulation greatly beloved by
authority. In 1671 Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, in an
official document remarked: "I thank God we have not free schools nor
printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years. For learning
has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world; and
printing has divulged them and libels against the government. God keep
us from both." Eleven years later (21 February, 1682) there is an entry
in the Virginian records: "John Buckner called before the L^d Culpeper
and his council for printing the laws of 1680, without his excellency's
license, and he and the printer ordered to enter into bond in L100 not
to print anything hereafter, until his majesty's pleasure shall be
known." As a result there was no more printing in Virginia till about
1729, nor are any other towns than those here mentioned known to have
possessed presses during the seventeenth century, the period within
which American books may claim the dignity of incunabula.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] Mr. Duff is no doubt right in his suggestion that this is _A
very declaration of the bond and free wyll of man: the obedyence of
the gospell and what the gospell meaneth_, of which a copy, with
colophon, "Printed at Saint Albans," is in the Spencer Collection at
the John Rylands Library. This increases Hertfort's total to eight.
[56] Mr. Duff plausibly suggests that Overton's name in the colophon
was merely a device for surmounting the restrictions on the
circulation in England of books printed abroad.
[57] Those recorded by Mr. E. G. Duff in his Sandars Lectures on "The
English Provincial Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders to 1557," by
my reckoning number 114.
[58] This reckoning was made in 1896, but the proportion has not been
substantially altered.
[59] The colophon to the _Chronicles_ which commemorates Leeu has
already been quoted (p. 81).
[60] Before the incorporation of the Company brought English printing
more easily under supervision, at least a few books had been issued
by English printers with spurious foreign imprints, of which the most
impudent was "At Rome under the Castle of St. Angelo."
[61] Robert Barker himself was imprisoned for debt in the King's
Bench at London in 1635, and died there in 1646. What is here written
applies to his deputy, who may have been his son of the same name.
[62] The assertion by Mr. Charles Evans (_American Bibliography_, p.
3) that one of these, "the Crowninshield copy, was privately sold by
Henry Stevens to the British Museum for L157 10s.," despite its
apparent precision, is an exasperating error.