I
JOHN HENRY NASH LIBRARY
^> SAN FRANCISCO <$>
PRESENTED TO THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ROBERT GORDON SPRQUL, PRESIDENT.
> BY" ^
MR.ANDMRS.MILTON S.RAY
CECILY, VIRGINIA AND ROSALYN RAY
AND THE
RAY OIL BURNER COMPANY
SAM FRANCISCO
NEW YORK.
-
6e OEngUsi) TBooftman's
EDITED BY ALFRED POLLARD
VOLUME I
ENGLISH EMBROIDERED BOOKBINDINGS
BY CYRIL DAVENPORT, F.S.A.
VOLUME II
A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH PRINTING
BY H. R. PLOMER
VOLUME III
(In Preparation. )
ENGLISH BOOK COLLECTORS
BY W. Y. FLETCHER
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LIMITED
A SHORT HISTORY
OF ENGLISH PRINTING
EDITED BY
ALFRED POLLARD
A SHOR' [STOR\
ENGLISH PRINTING
1476-1898
BY HENRY R. PLOMER
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER
AND COMPANY, LIMITED
IQOO
'Bookman's
iUbrarp
viii ENGLISH PRINTING
his monumental work nine-tenths, and the zeal
of Henry Bradshaw, of Mr. Gordon Duff, and
of Mr. E. J. L. Scott, has added nearly all that
was lacking in this storehouse. Mr. Duff has ex-
tended his labours to the other English printers
of the 1 5th century, giving in his Early English
Printing (Kegan Paul, 1896) a conspectus, with
facsimiles of their types, and in his privately
printed Sandars Lectures presenting a detailed
account of their work, based on the personal
examination of every book or fragment from
their presses which his unwearied diligence
has been able to discover. Originality for this
period being out of the question, Mr. Plomer's
task was to select, under a constant sense of
obligation, from the mass of details which have
been brought together for this short period, and
to preserve due proportion in their treatment.
Of the work of the printers of the next half-
century our knowledge is much less detailed, and
Mr. Plomer might fairly claim that he himself,
by the numerous documents which he has un-
earthed at the Record Office and at Somerset
House, has made some contributions to it of
considerable value and interest. It is to his
credit, if I may say so, that so little is written
here of these discoveries. In a larger book the
EDITOR'S PREFACE ix
story of the brawl in which Pynson's head came
so nigh to being broken, or of John Rastell's suit
against the theatrical costumier who impounded
the dresses used in his private theatre, would
form pleasant digressions, but in a sketch of a
large subject there is no room for digressions,
and these personal incidents have been sternly
ignored by their discoverer. Even his first love,
Robert Wyer, has been allotted not more than
six lines above the space which is due to him,
and generally Mr. Plomer has compressed the
story told in the Typographical Antiquities of
Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin with much im-
partiality. . ; .
When we pass beyond the year 1556, which
witnessed the incorporation of the Stationers'
Company, Mr. Arber's Transcripts from the
Company's Registers become the chief source of
information, and Mr. Plomer's pages bear ample
record of the use he has made of them, and of
the numerous documents printed by Mr. Arber in
his prefaces. After 1603, the date at which Mr.
Arber discontinues, to the sorrow of all biblio-
graphers, his epitome of the annual output of the
press, information is far less abundant. After
1640 it becomes a matter of shreds and patches,
with no other continuous aid than Mr. Talbot
b
x ENGLISH PRINTING
Reed's admirable work, A History of the Old
English Letter Foundries, written from a differ-
ent standpoint, to serve as a guide. His own
researches at the Record Office have enabled
Mr. Plomer to enlarge considerably our know-
ledge of the printers at work during the second
half of the seventeenth century, but when the
State made up its mind to leave the printers
alone, even this source of information lapses, and
the pioneer has to gather what he may from the
imprints in books which come under his hand,
from notices of a few individual printers, and
stray anecdotes and memoranda. Through this
almost pathless forest Mr. Plomer has threaded
his way, and though the road he has made may
be broken and imperfect, the fact that a road
exists, which they can widen and mend, will
be of incalculable advantage to all students of
printing.
Besides the indebtedness already stated to the
works of Blades, Mr. Gordon Duff, Mr. Arber,
and Mr. Reed, acknowledgments are also due
for the help derived from Mr. Allnutt's papers
on English Provincial Printing (Bibliographica,
vol. ii.) and Mr. Warren's history of the Chiswick
Press (The Charles Whittinghams, Printers ;
Grolier Club, 1896). Lest Mr. Plomer should
EDITOR'S PREFACE xi
be made responsible for borrowed faults, it must
also be stated that the account of the Kelmscott
Press is mainly taken from an article contributed
to The Guardian by the present writer. The
hearty thanks of both author and editor are due
to Messrs. Macmillan and Bowes for the use of
two devices ; to the Clarendon Press for the three
pages of specimens of the types given to the
University of Oxford by Fell and Junius ; to
the Chiswick Press for the examples of the
devices and ornamental initials which the second
Whittingham reintroduced, and for the type-
facsimiles of the title-page of the book with
which he revived the use of old-faced letters ;
to Messrs. Macmillan for the specimen of the
Macmillan Greek type, and to the Trustees of
Mr. William Morris for their grant of the very
exceptional privilege of reproducing, with the
skilful aid of Mr. Emery Walker, two pages of
books printed at the Kelmscott Press.
That the illustrations are profuse at the
beginning and end of the book and scanty in
the middle must be laid to the charge of the
printers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies, in whose work good ornament finds no
place. It was due to Caslon and Baskerville
to insert their portraits, though they can hardly
Xll
ENGLISH PRINTING
be called works of art. That of Roger L'Estrange,
which is also given, may suggest, by its more
prosperous look, that in the evil days of the
English press its Censor was the person who
most throve by it.
ALFRED W. POLLARD.
CONTENTS AND LIST OF PLATES
PAGE
EDITOR'S PREFACE, . . . . . v ii
CHAPTER I
Caxton and his Contemporaries, . . . . i
CHAPTER II
From 1500 to the Death of Wynkyn de Worde, . -31
CHAPTER III
Thomas Berthelet to John Day, . . . .61
CHAPTER IV
John Day, ....... 79
CHAPTER V
John Day's Contemporaries, .... 103
xiv ENGLISH PRINTING
CHAPTER VI
PAGE
Provincial Presses of the Sixteenth Century, . .122
CHAPTER VII
The Stuart Period (1603-1640), . . . .154
CHAPTER VIII
From 1640 to 1700, ..... 187
CHAPTER IX
From 1700 to 1750, ..... 228
CHAPTER X
From 1750 to 1800, ..... 261
CHAPTER XI
The Present Century, . . . . . 282
INDEX, ....... 323
CONTENTS AND LIST OF PLATES xv
LIST OF PLATES
Portrait of William Morris, . . . Frontispiece
Portrait of Roger L'Estrange, at p. 203
Portrait of Caslon, . 2 39
Portrait of Baskerville, . . . ' ,,265
FIG. i. Device of William Caxton.
CHAPTER I
CAXTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
art of printing had been known
on the Continent for something
over twenty years, when William
Caxton, a citizen and mercer of
London, introduced it into Eng-
land.
Such facts as are known of the life of
England's first printer are few and simple. He
tells us himself that he was born in the Weald of
Kent, and he was probably educated in his native
village. When old enough, he was apprenticed
to a well-to-do London mercer, Robert Large,
who carried on business in the Old Jewry. This
was in 1438, and in 1441 his master died, leaving,
among other legacies, a sum of twenty marks to
William Caxton.
In all probability Caxton, whose term of ap-
prenticeship had not expired, was transferred to
some other master to serve the remainder of his
term ; but all we know is that he shortly after-
wards left England for the Low Countries. In
the prologue to the Recuyell of the Historyes of
2 ENGLISH PRINTING
Troye he tells us that, at the time he began the
translation, he had been living on the Continent
for thirty years, in various places, Brabant,
Flanders, Holland, and Zealand, but the city of
Bruges, one of the largest centres of trade in
Europe at that time, was his headquarters.
Caxton prospered in his business, and rose to be
' Governor to the English Nation at Bruges/ a
position of importance, and one that brought him
into contact with men of high rank.
In the year 1468 Caxton appears to have had
some leisure for literary work, and began to
translate a French book he had lately been read-
ing, Raoul Le Fevre's Recueil des Histoires de
Troyes ; but after writing a few quires he threw
down his pen in disgust at the feebleness of his
version.
Very shortly after this he entered the service
of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of
Edward iv. of England, either as secretary or
steward. The Duchess used to talk with him on
literary matters, and he told her of his attempt
to translate the Recueil. She asked him to show
her what he had written, pointed out how he
might amend his 'rude English,' and encouraged
him to continue his work. Caxton took up the
task again, and in spite of many interruptions,
including journeys to both Ghent and Cologne,
he completed it, in the latter city, on the iQth
September 1471. All this he tells us in the
CAXTON 3
prologue, and at the end of the second book he
says :
' And for as moche as I suppose the said two
bokes ben not had to fore this tyme in oure
English langage | therefore I had the better will
to accomplisshe this said werke | whiche werke
was begonne in Brugis | and contynued in Gaunt,
and fmyshed in Coleyn, . . . the yere of our lord
a thousand four honderd Ixxi.' He then goes on
to speak of John Lydgate's translation of the third
book, as making it needless to translate it into
English, but continues :
' But yet for as moche as I am bounde to con-
template my fayd ladyes good grace and also that
his werke is in ryme | and as ferre as I knowe
hit is not had in prose in our tonge . . . and
also because that I have now god leyzer beying in
Coleyn, and have none other thing to doo at this
tyme, I have,' etc.
Then at the end of the third book he says that,
having become weary of writing and yet having
promised copies to divers gentlemen and friends,
'Therfor I have practysed and lerned at my
grete charge and dispense to ordeyne this said
book in prynte after the maner and forme as ye
may here see,' etc.
The book when printed bore neither place of
imprint, date of printing, or name of printer.
The late William Blades, in his Life of Caxton
(vol. i. chap. v. pp. 45-61), maintained that this
4 ENGLISH PRINTING
book, and all the others printed with the same
type, were printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion,
and that it was at Bruges, and in conjunction with
Mansion, that Caxton learned the art of printing.
His principal reasons for coming to this conclu-
sion were : (i) That Caxton's stay in Cologne was
only for six months, long enough for him to have
finished the translation of the book, but too short
a time in which to have printed it. (2) That the
type in which it was printed was Colard Mansion's.
(3) That the typographical features of the books
printed in this type (No. i) point to their having
all of them come from the same printing office.
Caxton's own statement in the epilogue to the
third book certainly appears to mean that during
the course of the translation, in order to fulfil his
promise of multiplying copies, he had learned to
print. He might easily have done so in the six
months during which he remained in Cologne, or
during his stay in Ghent. That it was in Cologne
rather than elsewhere, is confirmed by the oft-
quoted stanza added by Wynkyn de Worde as a
colophon to the English edition of Bartholomceus
de proprietatibus rerum.
' And also of your charyte call to remembraunce
The soule of William Caxton, the first prynter of this
boke,
In laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce
That every well-disposed man may thereon loke.'
If any one should have known the true facts of
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6 ENGLISH PRINTING
the case it was surely Caxton's own foreman, who
almost certainly came over to England with him.
On the other hand, it cannot be denied that type
No. i is totally unlike any type that we know of as
used by a Cologne printer, and, moreover, Caxton's
methods of working, and his late adoption of spac-
ing and signatures, point to his having learnt his
art in a school of printing less advanced than that
of Cologne. In the face of the statements of
Caxton himself and Wynkyn de Worde, we seem
bound to believe that Caxton did study printing
at Cologne, but the inexpertness betrayed in his
early books proves conclusively that his studies
there did not extend very far. In any case it
must have been with the help of Colard Mansion
that he set up and printed the Recuyell, probably
in 1472 or 1473. In addition to this book several
others, printed in the same type, and having other
typographical features in common with it, were
printed in the next few years. These were :
The Game and Playe of the Chess Moralised,
translated by Caxton, a small folio of 74 leaves.
Le Recueil des Histoires de Troye, a folio of
1 20 leaves.
Les Fais et Prouesses du noble et vaillant
chevalier Jason, a folio of 134 leaves, printed, it
is believed, by Mansion, after Caxton's removal
to England. And,
Meditacions sur le sept Psaulmes Peniten-
CAXTON 7
ciaulx, a folio of 34 leaves, also ascribed to Man-
sion's press, about the year 1478.
About the latter half of 1476 Caxton must
have left Bruges and come to England, leaving
type No. i in the hands of Mansion, and bringing
with him that picturesque secretary type, known
as type 2. This, as Mr. Blades has undoubtedly
proved, had already been used by Caxton and
Mansion in printing at least two books : Les
quatre derrenieres chases, notable from the me-
thod of working the red ink, a method found in
no other book of Colard Mansion ; and Propositio
Johannis Russell, a tract of four leaves, containing
Russell's speech at the investiture of the Duke of
Burgundy with the order of the Garter in 1470.
On his arrival in England, Caxton settled in
Westminster, within the precincts of the Abbey,
at the sign of the Red Pale, and from thence, on
November i8th 1477, he issued The Dictes and
Sayinges of the Philosophers, the first book
printed in England. It was a folio of 76 leaves,
without title-page, foliation, catchwords or signa-
tures, in this respect being identical with the
books printed in conjunction with Mansion.
Type 2, in which it was printed, was a very
different fount to that which is seen in the Re-
cuyell and its companion books. It was un-
doubtedly modelled on the large Gros Batarde
type of Colard Mansion, and was in all pro-
bability cut by Mansion himself. The letters are
w 3f ; T^
S .2 g'^^
f^^g.i,.! 1
CAXTON 9
bold, and angular, with a close resemblance to
the manuscripts of the time, the most notable
being the lowercase 'w,' which is brought into
prominence by large loops over the top. The
' h's ' and ' 1's ' are also looped letters, the final
' m's ' and ' n's ' are finished with an angular
stroke, and the only letter at all akin to those in
type No. i is the final ' d,' which has the peculiar
pump-handle finial seen in that fount. The Dictes
and Sayinges is printed throughout in black
ink, in long lines, twenty-nine to a page, with
space left at the beginning of the chapters for the
insertion of initial letters. It has no colophon,
but at the end of the work is an Epilogue,
which begins thus :
' Here endeth the book named the dictes or
sayengis | of the philosophers, enprynted, by me
william | Caxton at Westmestre the yere of our
lord -M- | cccc-Lxxvij.'
Caxton followed The Dictes and Sayinges
with an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,
a folio of 372 leaves. The size of the book makes
it probable that it was put in hand simultaneously
with its predecessor, and that the chief work of
the poet, to whom Caxton paid more than one
eloquent tribute, engaged his attention as soon as
he set up his press in England. He also printed
in the same type a Sarum Ordinale, known only
by a fragment in the Bodleian, and a number of
small quarto tracts, such as The Moral Proverbs
B
io ENGLISH PRINTING
of Christy ne, which bears date the 2Oth of Feb-
ruary ; a Latin school-book called Stans Puer ad
Mensam ; two translations from the Distichs of
Dionysius Cato, entitled respectively Parvus
Catho and Magnus Catho, of which a second
edition was speedily called for; Lydgate's fable
of the Chorl and the Bird, a quarto of io leaves,
which also soon went to a second edition ;
Chaucer's Anelida and A r cite, and two editions
of Lydgate's The Horse, the Sheep, and the
Goose.
During the first three years of Caxton's resi-
dence at Westminster he printed at least thirty
books. In 1479 he recast type 2 (cited in its new
form by Blades as type 2*), and this he continued
to use until 1481. But about the same time he
cast two other founts, Nos. 3 and 4. The first of
these was a large black letter of Missal character,
used chiefly for printing service books, but ap-
pearing in the books printed with type 2* for
headlines. With it he printed Cordyale, or
the Four Last Things, a folio of 78 leaves, the
work being a translation by Earl Rivers of Les
Quatre Derrenieres Choses Advenir, first printed
in type 2 in the office of Colard Mansion. A
second edition of The Dictes and Sayinges was
also printed in this type, while to the year 1478
or 1479 must be ascribed the Rhetorica Nova of
Friar Laurence of Savona, a folio of 124 leaves,
long attributed to the press of Cambridge.
CAXTON 1 1
After 1479 Caxton began to space out his lines
and to use signatures, customs that had been in
vogue on the Continent for some years before
he left. In 1480 he brought the new type 4 into
use. This was modelled on type 2, but was much
smaller, the body being most akin to modern
English. Although its appearance was not so
striking as that of the earlier fount, it was a much
neater letter and more adapted to the printing of
Indulgences, and it has been suggested that it
was the arrival of John Lettou in London, and
the neat look of his work, that induced Caxton to
cut the fount in question. The most noticeable
feature about it is the absence of the loop to the
lowercase ' d,' so conspicuous a feature of the
No. 2 type. With this type No. 4 he printed
Kendale's indulgence and the first edition of The
Chronicles of England, dated the loth June 1480,
a folio of 152 leaves. In the same year he
printed with type 3 three service-books. Of one
of these, the Horcz, William Blades found a few
leaves, all that are known to exist, in the covers
of a copy of Boethius, printed also by Caxton,
which he discovered in a deplorable state from
damp, in a cupboard of the St. Albans Grammar
School. This was an uncut copy, in the original
binding, and the covers yielded as many as fifty-
six half sheets of printed matter, fragments of
other books printed by Caxton. These proved the
existence of three hitherto unknown examples of
12
ENGLISH PRINTING
his press, the Horcz above noted, the Ordinale,
and the Indulgence of Pope Sixtus IV., the re-
maining fragments yielding leaves from the
History of Jason, printed in type 2, the first
edition of the Chronicles, the Description of
FIG. 4. Caxton's earliest Woodcut. Headline in Type 3.
Britain ; the second edition of the Dictes and
Sayinges, the De Curia Sapientice, Cicero's De
Senectute, and the Nativity of Our Lady, printed
in the recast of type 4, known as type 4*.
The first book printed by Caxton with illus-
CAXTON 13
trations was the third edition of Parvus and
Magnus Chato, printed without date, but probably
in 1481. It contained two woodcuts, one show-
ing five pupils kneeling before their tutor. These
illustrations were very poor specimens of the
wood-cutter's art.
To this period also belongs The History of
Reynard the Fox and the second edition of The
Game and Play of Chess, printed with type 2*,
and distinguished from the earlier edition by the
eight woodcuts, some of which, according to the
economical fashion of the day, were used more
than once.
In type 4, Caxton printed (finishing it on the
2Oth November 1481) The History of Godfrey of
Bologne ; or, the Conquest of Jerusalem, a folio of
144 leaves. In the following year (1482) appeared
the second edition of the Chronicles, and another
work of the same kind, the compilation of Roger
of Chester and Ralph Higden, called Poly-
chronicon. This work John of Trevisa had
translated into English prose, bringing it down
to the year 1387. Caxton now added a further
continuation to the year 1460, the only original
work ever undertaken by him. Another English
author whom Caxton printed at this time was
John Gower, an edition in small folio (222 leaves
in double columns) of whose Confessio Amantis
was finished on the 2nd September 1483. In
this we see the first use of type 4*, the two founts
ENGLISH PRINTING
being found in one instance on the same page.
The first edition of the Golden Legend also be-
longs to 1483, being finished at Westminster on
the 2Oth November. This was the largest book
that Caxton printed, there being no less than 449
leaves in double columns, illustrated with as
many as eighteen large and fifty-two small wood-
cuts. The text was in type 4*, the headlines, etc.,
in type 3. For the performance of this work
Caxton received from the Earl of Arundel, to
whom the book was dedicated, the gift of a buck
in summer and a doe in winter, gifts probably
exchanged for an annuity in money. Several
copies of this book are still in existence, its large
size serving as a safeguard against complete
destruction, but none are perfect, most of them
being made up from copies of the second edition.
The insertions may be recognised by the type of
the headlines, those in the second edition being
in type 5. Other books printed in type 4* were
Chaucer's Book of Fame, Chaucer's Troylus, the
Lyf of Our Ladye, the Life of Saint Winifred,
and the History of King Arthur, this last,
finished on July 31, 1485, being almost as large
a book as the Golden Legend.
No work dated 1486 has been traced to Caxton's
press, but in 1487 he brought into use type 5, a
smaller form of the black letter fount known as
No. 3, with which he sometimes used a set of
Lombardic capitals. With this he printed, between
of
gf $ name
J5ecommc te
tat i&
or
<
of ncmuo
/
te to
(oo
FIG. 5. From Caxton's ' Golden Legend.' (Types 4* and 5.)
16 ENGLISH PRINTING
1487 and 1489, several important books, among
them the Royal Book, a folio of 162 leaves, illus-
trated with six small illustrations, the Book of
Good Manners, the first edition of the Direct-
orium Sacerdotum, and the Speculum Vitce
Chris ti. During 1487 also he had printed for
him at Paris an edition of the Sarum Missal,
from the press of George Maynyal, the first book
in which he used his well-known device. The
second edition of the Golden Legend is believed
to have been published in 1488, and to about
the same time belongs the Indulgence which
Henry Bradshaw discovered in the University
Library, Cambridge, and which seems to have
been struck off in a hurry on the nearest piece
of blank paper, which happened to be the last
page of a copy of the Colloquium peccatoris et
Crucifixi J. C., printed at Antwerp. This was
not the only remarkable find which that master
of the art of bibliography made in connection
with Caxton. On a waste sheet of a copy of the
Fifteen Oes, he noticed what appeared to be a set
off of another book, and on closer inspection this
turned out to be a page of a Book of Hours, of
which no copy has ever been found. It appeared
to have been printed in type 5, was surrounded
by borders, and was no doubt the edition which
Wynkyn de Worde reprinted in 1494.
In 1489 Caxton began to use another type
known as No. 6, cast from the matrices of No. 2
CAXTON 17
and 2*, but a shade smaller, and easily dis-
tinguishable by the lowercase 'w,' which is en-
tirely different in character from that used in the
earlier fount. With this he printed on the I4th
July 1489, the Fay its of Armes and Chivalry,
and between that date and the day of his death
three romances, the Foure Sons of Aymon,
Blanchardin, and Eneydos ; the second editions
of Reynard the Fox, the Book of Courtesy,
the Mirror of the World, and the Directorium
Sacerdotum, and the third edition of the Dictes
and Sayinges. To the same period belong
the editions of the Art and Craft to Know
Well to Die, the Ars Moriendi, and the Vitas
Pat rum.
But in addition to type 6, which Blades be-
lieved to be the last used by Caxton, there is
evidence of his having possessed two other founts
during the latter part of his life. With one of
them, type No. 7 (see E. G. Duff, Early Eng-
lish Printing), somewhat resembling types Nos.
3 and 5, he printed two editions of the Indulg-
ence of Johannes de Gigliis in 1489, and it was
also used for the sidenotes to the Speculum Vitcz
Christi, printed in 1494 by Wynkyn de Worde.
Type No. 8 was also a black letter of the same
character, smaller than No. 3, and distinguished
from any other of Caxton's founts by the short,
rounded, and tailless letter 'y' and the set of
capitals with dots. He used it in the Liber
i8 ENGLISH PRINTING
Festvualis, the Ars Moriendi, and the Fifteen
Oes, his only extant book printed with borders,
and it was afterwards used by Wynkyn de Worde.
Caxton died in the year 1491, after a long,
busy, and useful life. His record is indeed a
noble one. After spending the greater part of
his life in following the trade to which he was
apprenticed, with all its active and onerous
duties, he, at the time of life when most men
begin to think of rest and quiet, set to work to
learn the art of printing books. Nor was he con-
tent with this, but he devoted all the time that
he could spare to editing and translating for his
press, and according to Wynkyn de Worde it
was 'at the laste daye of his lyff' that he finished
the version of the Lives of the Fathers, which
De Worde issued in 1495. His work as an
editor and translator shows him to have been a
man of extensive reading, fairly acquainted with
the French and Dutch languages, and to have
possessed not only an earnest purpose, but with
it a quiet sense of humour, that crops up like ore
in a vein of rock in many of his prologues.
Of his private life we know nothing, but the
' Mawde Caxston ' who figures in the church-
warden's accounts of St. Margaret's is generally
believed to have been his wife. His will has not
yet been discovered, though it very likely exists
among the uncalendared documents at West-
minster Abbey, from which Mr. Scott has already
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FIG. 6. From Caxton's ' Fifteen Oes. ' (Type 6. )
20 ENGLISH PRINTING
gleaned a few records relating to him, though
none of biographical interest. We know, how-
ever, from the parish accounts of St. Margaret's,
Westminster, that he left to that church fifteen
copies of the Golden Legend, twelve of which were
sold at prices varying between 6s. 8d. and 55. 4d.
Caxton used only one device, a simple square
block with his initials W. C. cut upon it, and
certain hieroglyphics said to stand for the figures
74, with a border at the top and bottom. It
was probably of English workmanship, as those
found in the books of foreign printers were much
more finely cut. This block, which Caxton did
not begin to use until 1487, afterwards passed to
his successor, who made it the basis of several
elaborate variations.
Upon the death of Caxton in 1491, his business
came into the hands of his chief workman, Wynkyn
de Worde. From the letters- of naturalisation
which this printer took out in 1496, we learn that
he was a native of Lorraine. It was suggested
by Herbert that he was one of Caxton's original
workmen, and came with him to England, and
this has recently been confirmed by the discovery
of a document among the records at Westminster,
proving that his wife rented a house from the
Abbey as early as 1480. In any case there is
little doubt that Wynkyn de Worde had been in
intimate association with Caxton during the
greater part of his career as a printer, and when
WYNKYN DE WORDE 21
Caxton died he seems to have taken over the
whole business just as it stood, continuing to
live at the Red Pale until 1500, and to use the
types which Caxton had been using in his latest
books. This fact led Blades to ascribe several
books to Caxton which were probably not printed
until after his death. These are The Chastis-
ing of Gods Children, The Book of Courtesye,
and the Treatise of Love, printed with type
No. 6 ; but, in addition to these, two other books,
probably in the press at the time of Caxton's
death, were issued from the Westminster office
without a printer's name, but printed in a type
resembling type 4*. These are an edition of
the Golden Legend and the Life of St. Catherine
of Sienna. Wynkyn de Worde's name is found
for the first time in the Liber Festivalis, printed
in 1493. In the following year was issued Walter
Hylton's Scala Perfectionis, and a reprint of
Bonaventura's Speculum Vite Christi, the side-
notes to which were printed in Caxton's type
No. 7, which de Worde does not seem to have
used in any other book. Besides this, there was
the Sarum Horcz, no doubt a reprint of Caxton's
edition now lost. He used for these books
Caxton's type No. 8, with the tailless ' y ' and the
dotted capitals. Speaking of this type in his
Early Printed Books, Mr. E. G. Duff points out
its close resemblance to that used by the Paris
printers P. Levet and Jean Higman in 1490, and
22 ENGLISH PRINTING
argues that it was either obtained from them or
from the type-cutter who cut their founts. 1
To the year 1495 belongs the Vitas Patrum,
the book of which Caxton had finished the trans-
lation on the day of his death, and beside this,
there were reprints of the Polychronicon and the
Directorium Sacerdotum. The reprint of the
Boke of St. Albans, which was issued in 1496, is
noticeable as being printed in the type which De
Worde obtained from Godfried van Os, the
Gouda printer. This broad square set letter is
not found in any other book of De Worde's,
though he continued to use a set of initial letters
which he obtained from the same printer for
many years.
Among other books printed in 1496, were
Dives and Pauper, a folio, and several quartos
such as the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, the Medita-
tions of St. Bernard, and the Liber Festialis.
In 1497 we find the Chronicles of England, and
in 1498 an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,
a second edition of the Morte a" Arthur, and
another of the Golden Legend, in fact nearly all
De Worde's dated books up to 1500 were reprints
of works issued by Caxton. But amongst the
undated books we notice many new works, such
as Lidgate's Assembly of Gods, and Sege of
Thebes, Skelton's Bowghe of Court, The Three
Kings of Cologne, and several school books.
1 E. G. Duff, Early Printed Books, pp. 84 and 139.
WYNKYN DE WORDE 23
In 1499 De Worde printed the Liber Equivo-
corum of Joannes de Garlandia, using for it a
very small Black Letter making nine and a half
lines to the inch, probably obtained from Paris.
This type was generally kept for scholastic books,
and in addition to the book above noted, Wynkyn
de Worde printed with it, in the same year or the
year following, an Ortus Vocabulorum. From
the time when he succeeded to Caxton's business
down to the year 1500, in which he left West-
minster and settled in Fleet Street, De Worde
printed at least a hundred books, the bulk of
them undated.
As will be seen, several printers from the Low
Countries seem to have come to England soon
after Caxton. The year after he settled at West-
minster, a book was printed at Oxford without
printer's name, and with a misprint of the date,
that has set bibliographers by the ears ever since.
This book was the Exposicio sancti Jeromini MS
simbolum apostolorum, and the colophon ran,
' Impressa Oxonie et Anita anno domini M.cccc.
Ixviij., xvij. die decembris.' The facts that two
other books that are dated 1479 (the Aegidius de
originali peccato and Sextus ethicorum Aristo-
telis) have many points in common with the Ex-
posicio, that the Exposicio has been found bound
with other books of 1478, and that the dropping
of an x from the date in a colophon is not an
uncommon misprint, have led to the conclusion
24 ENGLISH PRINTING
that the Exposicio was printed in 1478 and not
1468. The printer of these first Oxford books is
believed to have been Theodoric Rood of Cologne,
whose name appeared in the colophon to the De
Anima of Aristotle, printed at Oxford in 1481.
This was followed in 1482 by a Commentary on
the Lamentation of Jeremiah, by John Lattebury,
and later editions of these two books are dis-
tinguished by a handsome woodcut border printed
round the first page of the text.
About 1483 Rood took as a partner Thomas
Hunt, a stationer of Oxford, and together they
issued John Anwykyll's Latin Grammar, together
with the Bulgaria Terencii, Richard Rolle of
Hampole's Explanationes super lectiones beati
Job, a sermon of Augustine's, of which the only
known copy is in the British Museum, a collection
of treatises upon logic, one of which is by Roger
Swyneshede, the first edition of Lyndewodes Pro-
vincial Constitutions (a large folio of 366 leaves
with a woodcut, the earliest example found in any
Oxford book), and the Epistles ofPhalaris, with a
lengthy colophon in Latin verse. The last book to
appear from the press was the Liber Festivalis by
John Mirk, a folio of 174 leaves, containing eleven
large woodcuts and five smaller ones, apparently
meant for an edition of the Golden Legend, as
they were cut down to fit the Festial. After the
appearance of this book, printing at Oxford
suddenly ceased, and it has been surmised that
THEODORIC ROOD 25
Theodoric Rood returned to Cologne. Altogether
the Oxford press lasted for eight years, and fifteen
books remain to testify to its activity. In these,
three founts of type were used, the first two
having all the characteristics of the Cologne
printers, while the third shows the influence of
Rood's residence in England. A full account of
these will be found in Mr. Falconer Madan's
admirable work The Early Oxford Press.
The St. Albans Press started in 1479. Only
eight books are known with this imprint, not
all of them perfect, none give the name of the
printer, and only one has a device. Most of them
are scholastic books, printed for the use of the
Grammar School. These included the Augus-
tini Dati elegancie, a quarto, dated 1480, the
Rhetorica Nova, which Caxton was printing at
Westminster at the same time, and Antonius
Andreae super Logica Aristotelis. But in addi-
tion to these, two other notable works came from
this press, the Chronicles of England and the
Book of St. Albans.
Out of the four types which are found in these
books, two at least were Caxton's type No. 2 and
type No. 3. There was plainly some connection
between the two offices, and as it was a frequent
custom for monasteries to subsidize printers to
print their service books, it seems possible that
Caxton may have had some hand in establishing
this press, and that it was for St. Albans Abbey
D
26 ENGLISH PRINTING
that he cast type No. 3, which (putting aside its
subordinate employment for headlines) we find
used exclusively for service books.
Three years after Caxton had settled at West-
minster, viz. in 1480, an Indulgence was issued
by John Kendale, asking for aid against the
Turks. Caxton printed some copies of this, and
others are found in a small neat type, and are
ascribed to the press of John Lettou. Lettou is
an old form of Lithuania, but whether John Lettou
came from Lithuania is not known.
In this same year 1480, Lettou published
the Quczstiones Antonii Andrece siiper duodecim
libros metaphysicce Aristotelis, a small folio of
1 06 leaves, printed in double columns, of which
only one perfect copy is known, that in the
Library of Sion College. The type is small,
and remarkable from its numerous abbrevia-
tions. Mr. E. G. Duff in his Early Printed
Books, p. 161, speaks of its great resemblance to
those of Matthias Moravus, a Naples printer, and
suggests a common origin for their types. In
his Early English Printing, on the other hand,
he writes : ' There are very strong reasons for
believing that he [Lettou] is the same person
as the Johannes Bremer, alias Bulle, who is
mentioned by Hain as having printed two
books at Rome in 1478 and 1479. The type
which this printer used is identical (with the
exception of one of the capital letters) with
WILLIAM DE MACHLINIA 27
that used in the books printed by John Lettou
in London.'
A few years later Lettou was joined by
William de Machlinia. They were chiefly associ-
ated in printing law-books, but whether they had
any patent from the king cannot be discovered.
Only one of the five books they are known to
have printed, the Tenor es Novelli, has any colo-
phon, and none of them has any date. The
address they gave was 'juxta ecclesiam omnium
sanctorum,' but as there were several churches so
dedicated, the locality cannot be fixed.
We next find Machlinia working alone, but
out of the twenty-two books or editions that have
been traced to his press, only four contain his
name, and none have a date. All we can say is
that he printed from two addresses, ' in Holborn,'
and ' By Flete-brigge.' Mr. Duff inclines to the
opinion that the ' Flete-brigge ' is the earlier, but
it seems almost hopeless to attempt to place these
books in any chronological order from their typo-
graphical peculiarities.
In the Fleet-Bridge type are two books by
Albertus Magnus, the Liber aggregationis and the
De Secretis Mulierum. The type is of a black
letter character, not unlike that in which the
Nova Statuta were printed, and is distinguish-
able by the peculiar shape of the capital M. In
the same type we find the Revelation of St.
Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham, a reprint of the
28 ENGLISH PRINTING
Tenores Novelli, and some fragments of a Sarum
Horce found in old bindings ; a woodcut border
was used in some parts of it. Besides these Mach-
linia printed an edition of the Bulgaria Terentii.
A larger number of books is found in the
Holborn types, the most important being the
Chronicles of England, of which only one perfect
copy is known.
The Speculum Christiani is interesting as
containing specimens of early poetry, and The
Treatise on the Pestilence, of Kamitus or Canutus,
bishop of Aarhus, ran to three editions, one of
which contains a title-page, and was therefore
presumably printed late in Machlinia's career,
i.e. about 1490.
In addition to these, there were three law-
books, the Statutes of Richard III., and several
theological and scholastic works. One of the
founts of type used by Machlinia is of peculiar
interest, by reason of its close resemblance to
Caxton's type No. 2*, and its still greater simi-
larity to the type used by Jean Brito of Bruges.
Machlinia's business seems to have been
taken over by Richard Pynson. There is no
direct evidence of this, but like Machlinia he
took up the business of printing law-books (being
the first printer in this country to receive a royal
patent) ; he is found using a woodcut border
used in Machlinia's Horce ; and, in addition to
this, waste from Machlinia books has been found
in Pynson bindings.
RICHARD PYNSON
29
Richard Pynson was a native of Normandy.
He had business relations with Le Talleur, a
printer of Rouen. His methods also were those
of Rouen, rather than of any English master.
Wherever he came from, Richard Pynson was
the finest printer this country had yet seen,
and no one, until the ap-
pearance of John Day, ap-
proached him in excellence
of work.
The earliest examples of
his press appear to be a
fragment of a Donatus in
the Bodleian and the Can-
terbury Tales of Chaucer.
The type he used for these
was a bold, unevenly cast
fount of black letter, some-
what resembling that used
by Machlinia at Fleet
Bridge. The Chaucer, however, contained a
second fount of small sloping Gothic.
The first book of Pynson found with a date
is a Doctrinale, printed in November 1492,
now in the John Rylands Library. This was
followed by the Dialogue of Dives and Pauper,
printed in 1493 with a new type, distinguishable
by the sharp angular finish to the letter ' h.'
Several quartos without date were printed in the
same type.
From this time till 1500, the majority of his
FIG. 7. Pynson's Mark.
ENGLISH PRINTING
books were printed in the small type of the
Chaucer.
Another printer who worked at this time was
Julian Notary. He was associated in the pro-
duction of books with Jean
Barbier, and another whose
initials, J. H., are believed
to be those of J. Huvin,
a printer of Paris. They
established themselves in
London at the sign of St.
Thomas the Apostle, and
their most important book
was the Questiones Alberti
de modis significandi, which
they followed up in 1497
with an octavo edition of
the Horce ad usum Sarum.
In 1 498 Barbier and Notary
removed to King Street,
Westminster, where they printed in folio a Missale
ad usum Sarum. Soon afterwards Notary was
printing by himself, his partner, Barbier, having
returned to France. Two quartos, the Liber
Festivalis and Quattuor Sermones, are all that
can be traced to his press in 1499, and a small
edition of the Horce ad usum Sarum is the sole
record of this work in 1500.
Notary was also a bookbinder, and some of
his stamped bindings are still met with.
FIG. 8. Notary's Mark.
CHAPTER II
FROM I5OO TO THE DEATH OF WYNKYN DE WORDE
>N the year 1500 Wynkyn de Worde
moved from Westminster to the
' Sunne ' in Fleet Street. His
business had probably outgrown
the limited accommodation of
the ' Red Pale,' and the change
brought him nearer the heart of the bookselling
trade then, and for many years after, seated in
St. Paul's Churchyard and Fleet Street. He
carried with him the black letter type with which
he had printed the Liber Festivalis in 1496, and
continued to use it until 1508 or 1509, when he
seems to have sold it to a printer in York, Hugo
Goes. He brought with him also the scholastic
type in use in 1499.
Besides these, we find, e.g. in the 1512 reprint
of the Golden Legend, two other founts of black
letter. The larger of the two seems to have been
introduced about 1503, to print a Sarum Horcz.
The smaller fount came into use a few years later.
It was somewhat larger, less angular, and much
more English in character, than that which the
32 ENGLISH PRINTING
printer had brought with him from Westminster.
The bulk of Wynkyn de Worde's books to the
day of his death were printed with these types.
They were, doubtless, recast from time to time,
but a close examination fails to detect any differ-
ence in size or form during the whole period.
De Worde first began to use Roman type in
1520 for his scholastic books, but he does not
seem ever to have made any general use of it,
remaining faithful to English black letter to the
end of his days. The only exceptions are the
educational books, which he invariably printed, as
in fact did all the other printers of the period,
in a miniature fount of gothic of a kind very
popular on the Continent in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, being used by the French
and Italian printers as well as those of the Low
Countries. De Worde's, however, was an excep-
tionally small fount. Those most generally in
use averaged eight full lines of a quarto page, set
close, to the inch, whereas De Worde's averaged
nine lines to the inch. But in 1513 he procured
another fount of this type, in which he printed
the Flowers of Ovid, quarto, and in this the letters
are of English character, as may be seen particu-
larly in the lowercase ' h.' This fount, which was
slightly larger, averaging only eight lines to the
inch, he does not seem to have used very fre-
quently. As Julian Notary printed the Sermones
Discipuli in 1510, in the same type, it may have
WYNKYN DE WORDE 33
been lent by one printer to the other. In or about
1533 De Worde introduced the italic letter into
some of his scholastic books, and in Colet's
Grammar, which was amongst the last books he
printed, we find it in combination with English
black letter, the small ' grammar type/ and
Roman.
In these various types, between the beginning
of the century and his death in 1534, Wynkyn
de Worde printed upwards of five hundred books
which have come down to us, complete or in
fragments. Thanks to the indefatigable energy
of Mr. Gordon Duff, we possess now a very full
record of his books, enabling us not only to esti-
mate his merit as a printer, but to see at a glance
how consistently as a publisher he maintained
the entirely popular character which Caxton had
given to his press.
As regards books which required a consider-
able outlay, he was far less adventurous than
Caxton, his large folios being confined almost
entirely to those in which his master had led
the way, such as the Golden Legend, of which
he issued several editions, the Speculum Vitce
Christi, the Morte dArthiir, Canterbury Tales,
Polychronicon, and Chronicles of England. The
Vitas Patrum of 1495 he could hardly help
printing, as Caxton had laboured on its trans-
lation in the last year of his life, and it may have
been respect for Caxton also which led to the
E
34 ENGLISH PRINTING
publication of his finest book, the really splendid
edition of Bartholomaeus' De Proprietatibus
Rerum, issued towards the close of the fifteenth
century, from the colophon of which I have already
quoted the lines referring to Caxton's having
worked at a Latin edition of it at Cologne. The
Book of St. Albans was another reprint to which
the probable connection of the Westminster and
St. Albaris presses gave a Caxton flavour; and
when we have enumerated these and the Dives
and Pauper, produced apparently out of rivalry
with Pynson in 1496, and a few devotional books
such as the Orcharde of Syon and the Flour of
the Commandments of God, to which this form
was given, very few Wynkyn de Worde folios
remain unmentioned.
But to one book in folio, Wynkyn de Worde
printed some five-and-twenty in quarto, eschewing
as a rule smaller forms, though now and again we
find a Horce, or a Manipulus Curatorum, or a
Book of Good Manners for Children in eights or
twelves. 1
He was in fact a popular printer who issued
small works in a cheap form, and without, it must
be added, greatly concerning himself as to their
appearance. Popular books of devotion or of
a moral character figure most largely among the
1 It is rather remarkable that of the eight books dated 1534 six are in
octavo. Readers of the works of Erasmus, Colet, and Lily seem to have
shown a preference for this form, which is used most frequently for the
works of these friendly authors.
WYNKYN DE WORDE 35
books he printed ; but students of our older litera-
ture owe him gratitude for having preserved in
their later forms many old romances, and also a
few plays, and he published every class of book,
including many educational works, for which a
ready sale was assured. The majority of these
books were illustrated, if only with a cut on the
title-page of a schoolmaster with a birch-rod, or a
knight on horseback who did duty for many
heroes in succession. When the illustrations
were more profuse, they were too often produced
from worn blocks, purchased from French pub-
lishers, or rudely copied from French originals,
and used again and again without a thought as
to their relevance to the text. It must also be
owned that many of Wynkyn de Worde's cheap
books are badly set up and badly printed, and
that altogether his reputation stands rather higher
than his work as a printer really deserves.
But he printed some fine books, and rescued
many popular works from destruction, and we
need not grudge him the honour he has received
an honour amply witnessed by the high prices
fetched by books from his press whenever they
come into the market.
There was no originality about Wynkyn de
Worde's devices, of which he used no fewer than
sixteen different varieties. The most familiar,
as it was the earliest of these, was Caxton's,
and next to this must be placed what is
ENGLISH PRINTING
usually described as the Sagittarius device.
There were two forms of this, a square and an
oblong. It consisted of three divisions, the
FIG. 9. De Worde's ' Sagittarius ' Device.
upper part containing the sun and stars, the
centre, the Caxton device, and the lower part, a
ribbon with his name, with a dog on one side and
WYNKYN DE WORDE 37
an archer on the other. There are three distinct
stages of this device, that used between 1506-1518
being replaced in 1519, and again in 1528. This
last is distinguished by having only ten small
stars to the left of the sun and ten to the right,
whereas the two preceding had eleven stars to
the left of the sun and nine to the right. The
oblong block had the moon added in the top
compartment, and in the bottom division the
Sagittarius and dog are reversed. This block
continued in use from 1507 to 1529, and the
stages in its dilapidation are useful in dating the
books in which it occurs. Besides these, and
some smaller forms, Wynkyn de Worde used
a large architectural device, sometimes enclosed
with a border of four pieces, the upper and lower
of which seem to have afterwards come into the
possession of John Skot.
Wynkyn de Worde died in 1534, his will
being proved on the I9th January 1535. His
executors were John Byddell, who succeeded to
his business, and James Gaver, while three other
London stationers, Henry Pepwell, John Gough,
and Robert Copland were made overseers of it,
and received legacies.
Julian Notary remained at Westminster two
years after the departure of Wynkyn de Worde,
when he too flitted eastwards, settling at the sign
of the Three Kings without Temple Bar, probably
to be nearer De Worde. He combined with his
38 ENGLISH PRINTING
trade of printer that of bookbinder, and probably
bound as well as printed many books for Wynkyn
de Worde. His printing lay principally in the
direction of service books for the church, but he
printed both the Golden Legend and the Chronicle
of England in folio, one or two lives of saints,
and a few small tracts of lighter vein, such as
1 How John Splynter made his testament/ and
' How a serjeaunt wolde lerne to be a frere,' both
in quarto without date.
In the Golden Legend of 1503 and the
Chronicles of England of 1515, the black letter
type used was identical in character with that of
Wynkyn de Worde.
No book is found printed by Notary between
the years 1510 and 1515. In the former year he
appears to have had a house in St. Paul's Church-
yard, as well as the Three Kings without Temple
Bar. In 1515 he speaks only of the sign of
St. Mark in St. Paul's Churchyard, and three
years later this is altered to the sign of the Three
Kings. It is just conceivable that this last was a
misprint, or that the St. Mark was a temporary
office used only while the Three Kings was under
repair.
In 1507 Notary exchanged the simple mer-
chant's mark that had hitherto served him as
a device for one of a more elaborate character.
This took the form of a helmet over a shield with
his mark upon it, with decorative border, and
RICHARD PYNSON 39
below all his name. From this a still larger
block was made in the same year, and this was
strongly French in character. It showed the
smaller block affixed to a tree with bird and
flowers all round it, and two fabulous creatures
on either side of the base. The initials ' J. N.'
are seen at the top. This he sometimes used as
a frontispiece, substituting for the centre piece a
block of a different character.
Richard Pynson also changed his address
shortly after Wynkyn de Worde, moving from
outside Temple Bar to the George in Fleet Street,
next to St. Dunstan's Church. He also appears
to have entirely given up the use of Gothic type in
favour of English black letter about this time. It
is not easy to form a conjecture as to the motive
which led to the abandonment of this type, and it
is impossible to regard the step without regret.
Even in its rudest forms it was a striking type ;
in the hands of a man like Pynson it was far
more effective than the black letter which took its
place. With regard to this latter, there seems
reason to believe, from the great similarity both
in size and form of the fount in use by De Worde,
Notary, and Pynson at this time, that it was
obtained by all the printers from one common
foundry. Nor is it only the letters which lead to
this conclusion, but the common use of the same
ornaments points in the same direction. The
only difference between the black letter in use by
40 ENGLISH PRINTING
Pynson in the first years of the sixteenth century
and that of his contemporaries, is the occurrence
of a lower case ' w ' of a different fount.
In 1509 Pynson is believed to have intro-
duced Roman type into England, using it with
his scholastic type to print the Sernio Fratris
Hieronymi de Ferraria. In the same year he
also issued a very fine edition of Alexander Bar-
clay's translation of Brandt's Shyp of Folys of
the Worlde. In this, the Latin original and the
English translation are set side by side. The
book was printed in folio in two founts, one of
Roman and one of black letter. It was profusely
illustrated with woodcuts copied from those in
the German edition.
About 1510 Pynson became the royal printer
in the place of W. Faques, and continued to hold
the post until his death. At first he received a
salary of 405. per annum (see L. and P. H. 8,
vol. i, p. 364), but this was afterwards increased
to ^4 per annum (L. and P. H. 8, vol. 2, p. 875).
In this capacity he printed numbers of Proclama-
tions, numerous Year-books, and all the Statutes,
and received large sums of money. In 1513 he
printed The Sege and Dystrucyon of Troye, of
which several copies (some of them on vellum)
are still in existence. Other books of which he
printed copies on vellum are the Sarum Missal
of 1520, and Assertio Septem Sacramentorum
of 1521.
RICHARD PYNSON 41
Besides these and his official work, Pynson
printed numbers of useful books in all classes of
literature. The works of Chaucer and Skelton
and Lydgate, the history of Froissart and the
Chronicle of St. Albans ; books such as sEsofis
Fables and Reynard the Fox, romances such as
Sir Bevis of Hampton are scattered freely amongst
works of a more learned character. On the whole
he deserves a much higher place than De Worde.
It is rare, indeed, to find a carelessly printed
book of Pynson's, whilst such books as the Boc-
caccio of 1494, the Missal printed in 1500 at the
expense of Cardinal Morton, and known as the
Morton Missal, and the Intrationum excellen-
tissimus liber of 1510 are certainly the finest
specimens of typographical art which had been
produced in this country.
Pynson's earliest device, as Mr. Duff has
noted, resembled in many ways that of Le Tal-
leur, and consisted of his initials cut on wood.
In 1496 he used two new forms. One shows his
mark upon a shield surmounted by a helmet with
a bird above it. Beneath is his name upon a
ribbon, and the whole is enclosed in a border of
animals, birds, and flowers. The other was a
metal block of much the same character, having
the shield with his mark, and as supporters two
naked figures. The border, which was separate
and in one piece, had crowned figures in it and a
ribbon. The bottom portion of this border began
ENGLISH PRINTING
to give way about 1500, was very much out of
shape in 1503, and finally broke entirely in 1513.
FIG. 10. Richard Pynson's Device.
This border was sometimes placed the wrong way
up, as in the British Museum copy of Mandevilles
HENRY PEPWELL 43
Ways to Jerusalem (G. 6713). It was succeeded
by a woodcut block of a much larger form, which
may be seen in the Mir r our e of Good Manners
(s.a., fol). The block itself measures 5f " x 3f"
and has no border. The initials print black on
a white ground. The figures supporting the
shield have a much better pose, and those of the
king and queen differ materially. The bird on
the shield is much larger, and is more like a stork
or heron.
Pynson died in the year 1529, while passing
through the press L Esclarcissement de la Lan-
gue Francoyse, which was finished by his exe-
cutor John Hawkins, of whom nothing else is
definitely known.
Whilst these three printers had been at work,
many other stationers, booksellers, and printers
had settled in London. They seem to have
favoured St. Paul's Churchyard and Fleet Street ;
but they were also scattered over various parts of
the city and outlying districts, even as far west
as the suburb of Charing.
In 1518, Henry Pepwell settled at the sign of
the Trinity in St. Paul's Churchyard, and used
the device previously belonging to Jacobi and
Pelgrim, two stationers who imported books
printed by Wolfgang and Hopyl. His books
fall into two classes those printed between
1518-1523, and those between 1531-1539. The
first were printed entirely in a black-letter fount
44 ENGLISH PRINTING
that appears to have belonged to Pynson. The
second series were printed entirely in Roman
letter. A copy of his earliest book, the Castle of
Pleasure, 4to, 1518, is in the British Museum,
as well as the Dietary of Ghostly Helthe, 4to,
1521 ; Exornatorium Curatorum, 4to, n.d. ; Du
Castel's City e of Lady es y 4to, 1521. His edition
of Christiani hominis Institutum, 4to, 1520,
is only known from a fragment in the Bodleian.
Several books have been ascribed wrongly to this
printer (Duff, Bibliographica, vol. i. pp. 93, 175,
499)-
In the year 1504, a printer named William
Faques had settled in Abchurch Lane. He was
a Norman by birth, and Ames suggested that he
learnt his art with John Le Bourgeois at Rouen,
but this is unconfirmed. He styled himself the
king's printer. Of his books only some eight are
in existence, three with the date 1504, and the
remainder undated. His workmanship was ex-
cellent. The Psalteriwn which he printed in
octavo was in a large well cut English black
letter, and each page was surrounded by a chain
border. The Statutes of Henry vu. are also in
the same type with the same ornament, but the
Omelia Origenis, one of the undated books, is in
the small foreign letter so much in vogue with
the printers of this time. His device has the
double merit of beauty and originality. It con-
sisted of two triangles intersected with his initials
WILLIAM FAQUES
45
in the centre and the word ' Guillam ' beneath.
His subsequent career is totally unknown, but his
type, ornaments, etc.,
passed into the hands
of Richard Fawkes or
Faques, who printed
at the sign of the
Maiden's Head, in St.
Paul's Churchyard, in
the year 1509, Guil-
lame de Saliceto's
Salus corporis Salus
anime, in folio. Not
only is the type used
in this identical with
that in the Psal-
teriutn of William
Faques, but the chain
ornament is also found
in it. After this we
find no other dated
book by Richard
Faques until 1523,
when he printed Skel-
ton's Goodly Garland <ttiltet||
in quarto, in three
founts of black letter, T *
, r / -r-k F IG - " William Faques Device.
and a fount of Roman,
and a great primer for titles. Amongst his undated
works is a copy of the Liber Festivalis, believed
4 6
ENGLISH PRINTING
to have been printed in 1510, and an Horce
ad usum Sarum printed for him in Paris by
J. Bignon. During the interval he had moved
from the Maiden's Head in St. Paul's Church-
FIG. 12. Richard Faques' Device.
yard to another house in the same locality, with
the sign of the A. B. C., and he also had a
second printing office in Durham Rents, without
ROBERT COPLAND 47
Temple Bar, that is in some house adjacent to
Durham House in the Strand. The earliest
extant printed ballad was issued by Richard
Faques, the Ballad of the Scottish King, of which
the only known copy is in the British Museum,
and amongst his undated books is one which
he printed for Robert Wyer, the Charing Cross
printer, under the title of De Cnrsione Luna. It
was printed with the Gothic type, and the blocks
were supplied by Wyer. Richard Faques' device
was a copy of that of the Paris bookseller Thiel-
mann Kerver, with an arrow substituted for the
tree, and the design on the shield altered. The
custom of adapting other men's devices was very
common, and is one of the many evidences of
dearth of originality on the part of the early
English printers.
The latest date found in the books of this
printer is 1530.
Another prominent figure in the early years
of the sixteenth century was that of Robert Cop-
land. He was a man of considerable ability, a
good French scholar, and a writer of mediocre
verse. Apart from this, he was also, in the truest
sense of the word, a book lover, and used his in-
fluence to produce books that were likely to be
useful, or such as were worth reading. In the
prologue to the Kalendar of Shepherdes, which
Wynkyn de Worde printed in 1508, he described
himself as servant to that printer. This has been
4 8
ENGLISH PRINTING
taken to mean that he was one of De Worde's
apprentices. But in 1514, if not earlier, he had
started in business for himself as a stationer and
printer, at the sign of the Rose Garland in Fleet
Street. Very few of the books that he printed
now exist, and this, taken in conjunction with the
FIG. 13. Robert Copland's Device.
fact that he translated and wrote prologues for
so many books printed by De Worde, has led all
writers upon early English printing to conclude
that he was an odd man about De Worde's office,
and that he was in fact subsidised by that printer.
ROBERT COPLAND 49
There is evidence, however, that many of the
books printed by De Worde, that have prologues
by Robert Copland, were first printed by him, and
that in others he had a share in the copies.
In the British Museum copy of the Dyeynge
Creature, printed by De Worde in 1514, it
is noticeable that on the last leaf is the mark
or device of Robert Copland, not that of the
printer, while in the copy now in the University
Library, Cambridge, De Worde's device is on the
last leaf.
This would appear to indicate that both
printers were associated in the venture, though
the work actually passed through De Worde's
press, and that those copies which Copland took
and paid for were distinguished by his device.
Again, in several of these books, found with
De Worde's colophons, Copland speaks of him-
self as the ' printer,' or ' the buke printer,' and
the inference is that they were reprints of books
which Copland had previously printed. Indeed
in one instance the evidence is still stronger. In
1518, Henry Pepwell printed at the sign of the
Trinity the Castell of Pleasure. The prologue
to this takes the form of a dialogue in verse
between Copland and the author, of which the
following lines are the most important :
' Emprynt this boke, Copland, at my request
And put it forth to every maner state.'
50 ENGLISH PRINTING
To which Copland replies :
' At your instaunce I shall it gladly impresse
But the utterance, I thynke, will be but small
Bokes be not set by : there tymes is past, I gesse ;
The dyse and cardes, in drynkynge wyne and ale,
Tables, cayles, and balles, they be now sette a sale
Men lete theyr chyldren use all such harlotry
That byenge of bokes they utterly deny.'
If this means anything, it is impossible to
avoid the inference that Robert Copland printed
the first edition of this book. Amongst others
that he was in some way interested in may be
noticed a curious book by Alexander Barclay, Of
the Introductory to write French, fol., 1521, of
which there is a copy in the Bodleian ; The
Mirrour of the Church, 4to, 1521, a devotional
work, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, with a
variety of curious woodcuts ; the Rutter of the
Sea, the first English book on navigation, trans-
lated from Le Grande Routier of Pierre Garcie;
Chaucer's Assemble of Foules and the Ques-
tionary of Cyrurgyens, printed by Robert Wyer
in 1541*
Copland was also the author, and without
doubt the printer, of two humorous poems that
are amongst the earliest known specimens of this
kind of writing. The one called The Hye Way
to the Spy t tell hous took the form of a dialogue
between Copland and the porter of St. Bartho-
lomew's, and turns upon the various kinds of
beggars and impostors, with a running com-
JOHN RASTELL 51
mentary upon the vices and follies that bring
men to poverty. lyll of Brentford, the second
of these compositions, is a somewhat different
production. It recounts the legacies left by a
certain lady, but the humour, though to the taste
of the times, was excessively broad.
In 1542 Dr. Andrew Borde spoke of his
Introduction of Knowledge as printing at ' old
Robert Copland's, the eldest printer in England.'
Whether he meant the oldest in point of age
or in his craft is not clear; but it may well be
that, seeing that De Worde, Pynson, and the
two Faques were dead, this printing house was
the oldest then in London.
John Rastell also began to print about the
year 1514. He is believed to have been educated
at Oxford, and was trained for the law. In addi-
tion to his legal business, he translated and com-
piled many law-books, the most notable being the
Great Abridgement of the Statutes. This book
he printed himself, and it is certainly one of the
finest examples of sixteenth century printing to
be found. The work was divided into three
parts, each of which consisted of more than two
hundred large folio pages. When it is re-
membered that the method of printing books at
this period was slow, at the most only two folio
pages being printed at a pull, the time and
capital employed upon the production of this
book must have been very great. The type was
52 ENGLISH PRINTING
the small secretary in use at Rouen, and it is
just possible the book was printed there and not
in England.
John Rastell's first printing office in London
was on the south side of St. Paul's Church-
yard. William Bonham, the stationer with
whom Rastell was afterwards associated, had
some premises there, and as late as the seven-
teenth century there was a house in Sermon
Lane, known as the Mermaid, and it may be that
in one or other of these Rastell printed the
undated edition of Linacre's Grammar, which
bears the address, ' ye sowth side of paulys.' But
in 1520 he moved to 'the Mermayd at Powlys
gate next to chepe syde/ There he printed
The Pastyme of People, and Sir Thomas More's
Supplicacyon of Souls, besides several interludes
and two remarkable jest-books, The Twelve mery
gestys of one called Edith and A Hundred Mery
Talys. The last named became one of the most
popular books of the time, but only one perfect
copy of it is now known, and that, alas ! is not in
this country. Rastell was brother-in-law of Sir
Thomas More, and up to the year 1530 a zealous
Roman Catholic. So strong were his religious
opinions that in that year he wrote and printed
a defence of the Roman Catholic doctrine of
Purgatory, under the title of the New Boke of
Purgatory. This was answered by John Frith,
the Reformer, who is credited with having achieved
JOHN RASTELL 53
John Rastell's conversion. By whatever means
the change was brought about, John Rastell did
soon afterwards become a Protestant ; but the
change in his belief made him many enemies.
He was arrested for his opinions, and if he did
not die in prison, he was in prison just before
his death, which took place in 1536. During
the last sixteen years of his life he does not
appear to have paid much attention to his busi-
ness. A document now in the Record Office
shows that he was in the habit of locking up
his printing office in Cheapside, and going down
into the country for months at a time. But a
part of the premises he sublet, and this was
occupied for various periods by several stationers
William Bonham, Thomas Kele, John Heron,
and John Gough, being particularly named. Like
all his predecessors, he dropped the use of the
secretary type in favour of black letter, and his
books, as specimens of printing, greatly deterio-
rated. Dibdin, in his reprint of The Pastyme
of the People, was very severe upon the careless
printing of the original, but it is more than
likely that it was the work of one of Rastell's
apprentices, rather than his own. Amongst
those whom he employed we find the names of
William Mayhewes, of whom nothing is known ;
Leonard Andrewe, who may have been a relative
of Laurence Andrewe, another English printer;
and one Guerin, a Norman.
54 ENGLISH PRINTING
John Rastell left two sons, William and John,
The former became a printer during his father's
lifetime and succeeded him in business, but his
work lies outside the scope of the present chapter.
The same remark applies to William Bonham.
John Gough began his career as a bookseller
in Fleet Street in 1526. In 1528 he was sus-
pected of dealing in prohibited books (see Letters
and Papers of Henry VIII. y vol. iv. pt. ii. art.
4004), but managed to clear himself. In 1532 he
moved to the ' Mermaid ' in Cheapside, and in
the same year Wynkyn de Worde printed two
books for him concerning the coronation of Anne
Boleyn. In 1536, whilst still living there, he
issued a very creditable Salisbury Primer. He
calls himself the printer of this, but it is ex-
tremely doubtful if this can be taken to mean
anything more than that he found the capital,
and, perhaps, the material with which it was
printed. Wynkyn de Worde appointed John
Gough one of the overseers of his will. Of his
subsequent career more will be said at a later
period.
Another of the printers who worked for
Wynkyn de Worde during the latter part of his
life was John Skot. In 1521, when we first meet
with him, he was living in St. Sepulchre's parish,
without Newgate. In that year he printed the
Body of Policie and the Justyces of Peas, and
in 1522 The Myrrour of Gold] amongst his
RICHARD BANKES 55
undated books are, Jacob and his xii sons, Carta
Feodi simplicis, and the Book of Maid Emlyn,
all these being in quarto. His next dated book
appeared in 1528, with the colophon ' in Paule's
Churchyard,' and here he appears to have re-
mained for some years. He is next found in
Fauster Lane, St. Leonard's parish, where he
printed, amongst other books, the ballad of The
Nut Browne Maid. He also appears to have
been at George Alley Gate, St. Botolph's parish,
where he printed, but without date, Stanbridge's
Accidence. His devices were three in number,
and several of his border pieces were obtained
from Wynkyn de Worde.
Richard Bankes began business at the long
shop in the Poultry, next to St. Mildred's
church, and six doors from the Stockes or
Stocks Market, which at that time stood on the
present site of the Mansion House. In 1523 he
printed a very curious tract with the following
title: r ' :.-.'.;'.'-. O
' Here begynneth a lytell newe treatyse or
mater intytuled and called The ix. Drunkardes,
which tratythe of dyuerse and goodly storyes
ryght plesaunte and frutefull for all parsones to
pastyme with.'
It was printed in octavo, black letter, and
the only known copy is in the Douce collection
at the Bodleian. Another equally rare piece of
Bankes' printing was the old English romance
56 ENGLISH PRINTING
of Sir Eglamour, known only by a fragment of
four leaves in the possession of Mr. Jenkinson of
the University Library, Cambridge. This was
also somewhat roughly printed in black letter.
In 1525 he printed a medical tract called the
Seynge of Uryns, in quarto, and three years later
was associated with Robert Copland in the pro-
duction of the Rutter of the Sea, He also issued
from this address A Herball, and another popu-
lar medical work called the Treasure of Pore
Men. Bankes is, however, best known as the
printer of the works of Richard Taverner, the
Reformer, but this was later, and will be noticed
when we come to them.
Peter Treveris, or Peter of Treves, was working
at the sign of the Wodows, in Southwark, be-
tween the years 1521 and 1533. He used as his
device the ' wild men/ first seen in the device of
the Paris printer, P. Pigouchet. The fact of his
printing the Opusculum Insolubilium, to be sold
at Oxford ' apud J. T.', that is probably for John
Thorne the bookseller, points to his being at
work about the year 1520. In 1521 he is be-
lieved to have issued an edition of Arnold's
Chronicles, translated by Laurence Andrewe.
Two other books of his printing were the Handy
IVorke of Surgery, in folio, 1525, a book notable
for the many anatomical diagrams with which it
was illustrated, and as a companion to that work,
The Great Her ball. Treveris also shared with
ROBERT WYER 57
Wynkyn de Worde most of the printing of
Richard Whittington's scholastic works, all in
quarto, and mostly without date.
Laurence Andrewe, who lived for some years
at Calais, translated one or more books for John
van Doesborch, the Antwerp printer, set up a
press in London about 1527, and printed a second
edition of the Handy Worke of Surgery, above
noticed, a tract called The Debate and Strife
betwene Somer and Winter, to be sold by Robert
Wyer at Charing Cross ; The destillacyon of
Waters, in 1527; and a reprint of Caxton's
edition of the Mirroure of the Worlde, in folios,
1527. His printing calls for no special notice,
but Mr. Proctor, in his monograph on Doesborgh,
surmises that he learnt his art in an English
printing house rather than abroad, and the pre-
sence of a Leonarde Andrewe in the service of
John Rastell may mean that the two men were
related and were both pupils of the same master.
Turning now westwards, we find 'in the
Bishop of Norwiche's Rentes in the felde besyde
Charynge Cross,' that is near the present Villier
Street, a printer named Robert Wyer, the sign
of whose house was that of St. John the Evan-
gelist. There are several early references to the
house as that of a bookseller's, but without any
name mentioned. For instance, Richard Pynson
printed, without date, an edition of the curious
tract of Solomon and Marcolphus, to be sold at
H
58 ENGLISH PRINTING
the sign of St. John the Evangelist beside
Charing Cross ; the Debate between Somer and
Winter, printed by Laurence Andrewe, has the
same colophon, and the De Cursione Lune> from
the press of Richard Faques, has the same words,
but not Wyer's name. His first dated book was
the Golden Pystle, printed in 1531. It was
printed in a small secretary of Parisian character.
His great primer, for which he has been espe-
cially noted by some bibliographers, was very
probably that used by Richard Faques. He had
also a number of woodcut face initials similar
to those used by Wynkyn de Worde, and many
of the small blocks found in his books were
copies of those belonging to Antoine Verard,
the famous Paris publisher.
Robert Wyer was essentially a popular printer.
Many of his publications were mere tracts of a
few leaves, abridgments of larger works, and
the subjects which they chiefly treated were
theology and medicine. Unfortunately, the great
bulk of his work bears no date, but several
circumstances in his career, coupled with in-
ternal evidence gathered from the books them-
selves, enable us to get very near their date of
issue. Like his contemporaries he abandoned
the secretary type in favour of black letter, but
neither so readily nor so entirely as they did.
His first black letter, in use before 1536, was also
very well cut and beautiful letter; with it he
ROBERT WYER
59
printed the Epistle of Erasmus, in octavo, and
the Book of Good Works, of which the only copy
known is in the library of St. John's College,
Oxford. But unquestionably the two most im-
portant books known of this printer are William
FlG. 14. Robert Wyer's Device.
Marshall's Defence of Peace, folio, 1535, printed
in secretary, and the Questionary of Cyrurgyens,
which he printed for Henry Dabbe and R.
Bankes. In 1536 the house in which he was
working changed hands, passing into the pos-
60 ENGLISH PRINTING
session of the Duke of Suffolk, consequently
all books which have in the colophon ' in the
Duke of Suffolkes Rentes/ or ' Beside the Duke
of Suffolkes Place,' were printed after that year.
As Wyer continued to print until 1555, this
circumstance does not help us much ; it may,
however, be taken as some further guide that all
his later work was done in black letter.
Robert Wyer appears to have done a great
deal of work for his contemporaries, notably
Richard Bankes, Richard Kele, and John Gough.
Most of his books have woodcuts, the
most profusely illustrated was his translation of
Christine de Pisan's Hundred Histories of
Troy. This book had been printed in Paris by
Pigouchet, and the illustrations in Wyer's edition
are rude copies of those in the French edition.
They are, without doubt, wretched specimens of
the woodcutter's art ; but in this respect they
are no worse than the woodcuts found in other
English books at this date, and the number and
variety of them speak well for the printer's patience.
Robert Wyer's device represented the Evangelist
on the Island of Patmos, with an eagle on his
right hand holding an inkhorn. With this he
used a separate block with his name and mark.
He had also a smaller block of the Evangelist
from which the eagle was omitted. This is gene-
rally found on the title-page or in the front part
of his books.
CHAPTER III
THOMAS BERTHELET TO JOHN DAY
)N the death of Pynson, in 1529,
the office of royal printer was con-
ferred upon Thomas Berthelet, who
was in business at the sign of the
Lucretia Romana in Fleet Street.
Herbert gives the first book from
his press as an edition of the Statutes, printed
in 1529; but there is some evidence that he was
at work two or three years, and perhaps more,
before this. Among the writings of Robert
Copland, the printer-author, was a humorous
tract entitled The Seuen sorowes that women have
when theyr husbandes be dead (British Museum,
C. 20, c. 42 (5)), which has at the end this curious
passage :
' Go lytle quayr, god gyve the wel to sayle
To that good sheppe, ycleped Bertelet
**#**#
And from all nacyons, if that it be thy lot
Lest thou be hurt, medle not with a Scot.'
This is, without doubt, an allusion to the two
London printers, Thomas Berthelet and John
62
ENGLISH PRINTING
Skot ; and certain references in the prologue seem
to point to the printing of the first edition of the
FIG. 15. Thomas Berthelet's Device.
Sewn Sorowes, as a year or two earlier than the
date given by Herbert.
THOMAS BERTHELET 63
There also seems to be conclusive evidence that
Berthelet, or, as he was sometimes called, Bartlett,
was a native of Wales. He certainly held land
in the county of Hereford, and he was succeeded
in business by a nephew, Thomas Powell, a
Welshman. Berthelet was one of the few Eng-
lish printers of that period whose work is worth
looking at. He had a varied assortment of types,
all of them good, and his workmanship was as
a rule excellent ; and as very few of his books
are illustrated, we may infer that he was loth to
spoil a good book with the rough and often
unsightly woodcuts of that time.
Berthelet was also a bookbinder and bookseller,
and some of his fine bindings for Henry vm.
and his successors are still to be seen. He was
apparently the first English binder to use gold
tooling.
Of his official work very little need be said.
It consisted in printing all Acts of Parliament,
proclamations, injunctions, and other official
documents. In the second volume of the Tran-
script (pp. 50-60), Professor Arber has printed
three of Berthelet's yearly accounts, in which the
titles of the various documents are given, with
the number of copies of each that were struck off,
and the nature and cost of their bindings.
In the year 1530 the divorce of Queen
Katherine and the King's marriage to Anne
Boleyn filled the public mind, and in connection
64 ENGLISH PRINTING
with this event he printed, both in Latin and
English, a small octavo, with the title :
The determinations of the moste famous and
moofte excellent Universities of Italy and France
that it is so unlefull for a man to marie his
brother's wyfe that the Pope hath no power to
despense therewith.
Berthelet, in 1531, printed Sir Thomas Elyot's
Boke named the Governour, an octavo, in a large
Gothic type, very bold and clear. This type,
however, is seen to much better advantage in the
folio edition of Gower's Confessio Amantis,
which came from this press in 1532. In this
instance the title-page is striking, the title being
enclosed within a panel which gives it the appear-
ance of a book cover. The text of the work was
printed in double columns of forty-eight lines
each.
In J 533 Berthelet appears to have purchased
a new fount of this type, with which he printed
Erasmus's De Immensa Dei Misericordia. If
possible this new letter was more beautiful than
the other, the lowercase ' h ' finishing in a bold
outward curve, which was absent in the earlier
fount. These founts of Gothic closely resemble
some in use in Italy at this time.
To the year 1534 belongs St. Cyprian's Ser-
mon on the mortality of man, translated by Sir
Thomas Elyot, as well as a second edition of
The Boke named the Governour.
THOMAS BERTHELET 65
Berthelet also brought into use during this
year a woodcut border of an architectural char-
acter, with the date 1534 cut upon it. It was
used only in octavo books, and he continued to
use it for some years without erasing the date,
a fact that has led to much confusion in the
classification of his books.
We meet with the large Gothic type again in
1535, in an edition of the De Proprietatibus
Rerum of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, which Ber-
thelet printed in that year. But his most notable
undertaking during the next few years was the
book for regulating and settling nice points of
religious belief, which had been compiled by the
bishops, and was issued under the King's autho-
rity, with the title :
The Institution of a Christian Man conteyn-
inge the Exposition or Interpretation of the
commune Creek \ of the Seven sacraments, of the
X commandments, and of the Pater Noster, and
the Ave Maria, Justyfication & Purgatory.
When the book was finished, Latimer, then
Bishop of Worcester, suggested to Cromwell that
the printing should be given to Thomas Gibson.
But Latimer's recommendation was overlooked,
and the work was given to Berthelet. It would
be interesting to know how many copies of the
first edition of this book he printed. It was
issued both in quarto and octavo form, the quarto
printed in a very beautiful fount of English black
66 ENGLISH PRINTING
letter, modelled on the lines of De Worde's founts.
The opening lines of the title were, however,
printed in Roman of four founts, and the whole
page was enclosed within a woodcut border of
children.
The octavo editions of this notable book were
printed in a smaller fount of black letter, and the
title-page was enclosed within the 1534 border.
Several editions were issued in 1537, and the
book was afterwards revised and reprinted under
a new title.
At the same time Berthelet was passing
through the press Sir Thomas Elyot's Dictionary,
a work of no small labour, if one may judge from
the number of founts used in printing it. It was
finished and issued in 1538.
Berthelet, who, as befitted a royal printer,
plainly took some pains to keep himself clear of
all controversies, did not stir in the matter of
Bible translation until the 1538 edition by Grafton
and Whitchurch was already in the market.
In 1539, however, he published, but did not
print, Taverner's edition of the Bible, and in the
following year an edition of Cranmer's Bible.
That of 1539 came from the press of John Byd-
dell, and that of 1540 was printed for him by
Robert Redman and Thomas Petit.
Among the Patent Rolls for the year 1543
(P. R. 36 Hen. 8. m. 12) is a grant to Berthelet of
certain crown lands in London and other parts of
ROBERT REDMAN 67
the country, in payment of a debt of 220. His
office as royal printer ceased upon the accession
of Edward vi., and though many books are found
with the imprint, ' in aedibus Thomas Berthelet,'
down to the time of his death in 1556, he
probably took very little active part in business
affairs after that time.
Meanwhile Pynson's premises were taken by
Robert Redman, who, from about the year 1523,
had been living just outside Temple Bar. No
new facts have come to light about Redman,
and the reasons why he moved into Pynson's
house and continued to use his devices are as
puzzling as ever. He began as a printer of law
books, and printed little else. In conjunction
with Petit he printed an edition of the Bible for
Berthelet, and among his other theological books
was A treatise concernynge the division betwene
the Spirytualtie and Temporaltie, the date of
which is fixed by a note in the Letters and
Papers of Henry vm. (vol. vi., p. 215), from
which it appears that, in 1553, Redman entered
into a bond of 500 marks not to sell this book or
any other licensed by the King. Redman was
also the printer of Leonard Coxe's Arte and
Crafte of Rhethoryke, one of the earliest treatises
on this subject published in English. It has
recently been republished by Professor Carpenter
of Chicago, with copious notes.
Redman's work fell very much below that of
68 ENGLISH PRINTING
his predecessor. Much of his type had been in
use in Pynson's office for some years, and was
badly worn. He had, however, a good fount of
Roman, seen in the De Judiciis et Praecog-
nitionibus of Edward Edguardus. The title of
this book is enclosed in a border, having at the
top a dove, and at the bottom the initials J. N.
Redman's will was proved on the 4th Novem-
ber 1540. His widow, Elizabeth, married again,
but several books were printed with her name in
the interval. His son-in-law, Henry Smith,
lived in St. Clement's parish without Temple
Bar, and printed law books in the years 1545
and 1546.
Redman's successor at the George was Wil-
liam Middleton, who continued the printing of
law books, and brought out a folio edition of
Froissart's Chronicles, with Pynson's colophon
and the date 1525, which has led some to assume
that this edition was printed by Pynson.
Upon Middleton's death in 1547, his widow
married William Powell, who thereupon suc-
ceeded to the business.
Among those for whom Wynkyn de Worde
worked shortly before his death was John Byd-
dell, a stationer living at the sign of ' Our Lady
of Pity,' next Fleet Bridge, who for some reason
spoke of himself under the name of Salisbury.
He used as his device a figure of Virtue, copied
from one of those in use by Jacques Sacon,
JOHN BYDELL 69
printer at Lyons between 1498 and 1522 (see
Silvestre, Nos. 548 and 912). The same design,
only in a larger form, was also in use in Italy at
this time. In the collection of title-pages in the
British Museum (618, 11. 18, 19) is one enclosed
within a border found in books printed at Venice,
on which the figure of Virtue occurs. The only
difference between it and the mark of Byddell
being that the two shields show the lion of St.
Mark, and the whole thing is much larger.
Byddell had probably been established as a
stationer some years before the appearance of
Erasmus's Enchiridion Militis Christiani from
the press of De Worde in 1533, with his name in
the colophon. Another book printed for him by
De Worde, in the same year, was a quarto edition
of the Life of Hyldebrand. Both these works
De Worde reprinted in 1534, in addition to
printing for him John Roberts' A Mustre of
scismatyke Bysshoppes. Byddell was appointed
one of the executors to De Worde's will, and very
shortly after his death, i.e. in 1535, moved to De
Worde's premises, the ' Sun,' in Fleet Street.
Most of Byddell's books were of a theological
character. He printed a quarto Horae ad usum
Sarum in 1535, a small Primer in English in
1536, and a folio edition of Taverner's Bible in
1539 for Thomas Berthelet.
Among the miscellaneous books that came
through his press, one or two are especially
70 ENGLISH PRINTING
interesting. In 1538 we find him printing in
quarto Lindsay's Complaynte and Testament
of a Popinjay, a work that had first appeared in
Scotland eight years before, and created consider-
able stir. A quarto edition of William Turner's
Libellus de Re Herbaria bears the same date;
while among the books of the year 1540 are
editions, in octavo, of Tully's Offices and De
Senectute.
The latest date found in any book of Byddell's
printing is 1544, after which Edward Whitchurch
is found at the ' Sun,' in Fleet Street, whither he
moved after dissolving partnership with Richard
Graf ton.
The early history of these two men has a
powerful interest, not only for students of early
English printing, but for all English-speaking
people. To their enterprise and perseverance the
nation was indebted for the second English Bible.
Some very interesting and highly valuable
evidence respecting the history of these men has
been brought to light of recent years, perhaps
the most valuable being Mr. J. A. Kingdon's
Incidents in the Lives of Thomas Poyntz and
Richard Graf ton, privately printed in 1895.
From the affidavit of Emmanuel Demetrius
[i.e. Van Meteren], discovered in 1884 at the
Dutch Church in Austin Friars, 1 it seems clear
1 The Registers of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars, edited by W. J. C.
Moens (Introduction, pp. xiii.-xiv.).
FIG. 16. Richard Grafton's Device.
72 ENGLISH PRINTING
that in 1535 Edward Whitchurch was working
with Jacob van Metern at Antwerp in printing
Coverdale's translation of the Bible.
Richard Grafton was the son of Nicholas
Grafton of Shrewsbury. The first record we
have of him is his apprenticeship to John Blage,
a grocer of London, in 1526. He was admitted
a freeman of the Company in 1534, and at that
time seems to have employed himself chiefly in
furthering the project of an English translation
of the whole Bible. On the i3th August 1537,
Grafton sent to Archbishop Cranmer a copy of
the Bible printed abroad. The text was a modi-
fication of Coverdale's translation ostensibly by
Thomas Mathew, but in reality by John Rogers
the editor. In 1538, Coverdale, Grafton, and
Whitchurch were together in Paris, busy upon
a third edition of the Bible. In June of that
year they sent two specimens of the text to
Cromwell, with a letter stating that they fol-
lowed the Hebrew text with Chaldee or Greek
interpretations. The printing was done at the
press of Francis Regnault, but before many
sheets had been struck off, the University of Paris
seized the press and 2000 copies of the printed
sheets, while the promoters had to make a hasty
escape to this country. The presses and types
were afterwards bought by Cromwell, and the
work was subsequently finished and published in
1539. The work had an engraved title-page,
GRAFTON AND WHITCHURCH 73
ascribed to Holbein, and the price was fixed at ten
shillings per copy unbound, and twelve shillings
bound.
Before leaving Paris, Grafton and Whit-
church had issued an edition of Coverdale's
translation of the New Testament, giving as
their reason that James Nicholson of Southwark
had printed a very imperfect version of it.
In 1540 Grafton and Whitchurch printed
in ' the house late the graye freers,' The Prymer
both in Englysshe and Latin, to be sold at the
sign of the Bible in St. Paul's Churchyard. In
the same year they printed with a prologue by
Cranmer, a second edition of the Great Bible,
half of which bore the name of Grafton and half
of Whitchurch, and in all probability the sub-
sequent editions were published in the same way.
Two very good initial letters were used in the
New Testament, and seem to have been cut
especially for Whitchurch. On the 28th January
1543-44 Grafton and Whitchurch received an ex-
clusive patent for printing church service books
(Rymer, Feeder a } xiv. 766), and a few years later
they are found with an exclusive right for printing
primers in Latin and English. Upon the acces-
sion of Edward vi. Grafton became the royal
printer, but upon the king's death he printed the
proclamation of Lady Jane Grey, and was for that
reason deprived of his office by Queen Mary.
The remainder of his life he spent in the com-
ic
74 ENGLISH PRINTING
pilation of English Chronicles in keen rivalry
with John Stow.
Richard Grafton died in 1573. He was twice
married. By his first wife, Anne, daughter of
Crome of Salisbury, he had four sons and
one daughter, Joan, who married Richard Tottell,
the law printer. By his second wife, Alice, he
left one son, Nicholas.
Grafton used as his device a tun with a
grafted fruit-tree growing through it.
Among the noted booksellers and printers in
St. Paul's Churchyard at this time must be men-
tioned William Bonham. As yet it is not clear
whether he belonged to the Essex family of that
name, or to another branch that is found in Kent.
From a series of documents discovered at the
Record Office relating to John Rastell and his
house called the Mermaid in Cheapside, it appears
that in the year 1520 William Bonham was
working in London as a bookseller, and on two
different occasions was a sub-tenant of Rastell's
at the Mermaid. Yet not a single dated book
with his name is found before 1542, at which
time he was living at the sign of the Red Lion
in St. Paul's Churchyard, and issued a folio
edition of Fabyan's Chronicles, besides having a
share with his neighbour, Robert Toye, in a folio
edition of Chaucer. Even at this time William
Bonham held some sort of office in the Guild
or Society of Stationers, for from a curious letter
JOHN MYCHELL 75
written by Abbot Stevenage to Cromwell in 1539,
about a certain book printed in St. Albans Abbey,
he says he has sent the printer to London with
Harry Pepwell, Toy, and ' Bonere ' (Letters and
Papers, H. 8, vol. xiv. p. 2, No. 315), so that it
would look as if they were commissioned to hunt
down popish heretical and seditious books. By
the marriage of his daughter, Joan, to William
Norton, the bookseller, who in turn named his
son Bonham Norton, the history of the descend-
ants of William Bonham can be followed up for
quite a century later.
At the Long Shop in the Poultry we can
see the press at work almost without a break
from the early years of the sixteenth century till
the close of the first quarter of the seventeenth.
Upon the removal of Richard Bankes into Fleet
Street its next occupant seems to have been one
John Mychell, of whose work a solitary frag-
ment, fortunately that bearing the colophon, of
an undated quarto edition of the Life of St. Mar-
garet, is now in the hands of Mr. F. Jenkinson
of the University Library, Cambridge. Whether
this John Mychell is the same person as the John
Mychell found a few years later printing at
Canterbury there is no evidence to show. Nor
do we know how long he occupied the Long
Shop. In 1542 Richard Kele's name is found
in a Primer in Englysk, which was issued from
this house. He may have been some relation
76 ENGLISH PRINTING
to the Thomas Kele who, in 1526, had occupied
John Rastell's house, the Mermaid, as stated by
Bonham in his evidence. During 1543, in com-
pany with Byddell, Grafton, Middleton, Mayler,
Petit, and Lant, Richard Kele was imprisoned
in the Poultry Compter for printing unlawful
books (Acts of Privy Council, New Series, vol. i.
pp. 107, 117, 125). Most of the books that bear
his name came from the presses of William Seres,
Robert Wyer, and William Copland. Perhaps
the most interesting of his publications next to
the edition of Chaucer, which he shared with
Toye and Bonham, are the series of poems by
John Skelton, called Why Come ye not to Courte ?
Colin Clout, and The Boke of Phyllip Sparowe.
They were issued in octavo form, and were
evidently very hastily turned out from the press,
type, woodcuts, and workmanship being of the
worst description. At the end of Colin Clout
is a woodcut of a figure at a desk, supposed to
represent the author, but it is doubtful whether
it is anything more than an old block with his
name cut upon it.
Looking back over the work done at this time,
it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the
art of printing in England had much deteriorated
since the days of Pynson, while the best of it,
even that of Berthelet, could not be compared
with that of the continental presses of the same
period. There was an entire absence of origin-
RICHARD KELE 77
ality among the English printers. Types, wood-
cuts, initial letters, ornaments, and devices, were
obtained by the printers from abroad, and had
seen some service before their arrival in this
country. But just at this time a printer came
to the front in this country, who for a few years
placed the art on a higher footing than any of his
predecessors.
FIG. 17. John Day.
CHAPTER IV
JOHN DAY
OHN DAY, one of the best and
most enterprising of printers, was
born in the year 1522 at Dunwich,
in Suffolk, a once flourishing town,
now buried beneath the sea.
From the fact that Day was in
possession of a device found in the books of
Thomas Gibson, the printer whom Latimer un-
successfully recommended to Cromwell, it has
been supposed that it was from Gibson he learnt
the art. He may have done so ; but whatever
he learnt there or elsewhere, in his 'prentice days,
he later on threw aside, and by his own enter-
prise and the excellence of his workmanship
raised himself to the proud position of the finest
printer England had ever seen.
In John Day's first books there was no sign
of the skill he afterwards manifested. These
were published in conjunction with William
Seres, of whom we know little or nothing, out-
side his connection with Day. These partners
began work in the year 1546 at the sign of the
8o ENGLISH PRINTING
Resurrection on Snow Hill, a little above Hoi-
born Conduit, that is somewhere in the neigh-
bourhood of the present viaduct. They had also
another shop in Cheapside. Their first book, so
far as we know, was Sir David Lindsay's poem,
' The Tragical death of David Beaton, Bishop
of St. Andrews in Scotland ; Wherunto is
joyned the martyrdom of maister G. Wyseharte
. . . for whose sake the aforesayd bishoppe was
not long after slayne ' (1546, 8vo).
In the following year (1547) Day and Seres
printed several other books of a religious char-
acter, nearly all of them in octavo, including
Cope's Godly Meditacion upon the psalms, and
Tyndale's Parable of the IVicked Mammon.
Their work in 1548 included a second edition
of the Consultation of Hermann, the bishop of
Cologne, Robert Crowley's Confutation of Myles
Hoggarde, a sermon of Latimer's, a metrical
dialogue aimed at the priesthood and entitled
John Bon and Mast Person, and, as a relief to
so much theological literature, the Herbal of
William Turner.
The types used in printing these books were
not a whit better than anybody else's, in fact if
anything they were a shade worse. There was
the usual fount of large black letter, not by any
means new, another much smaller letter of the
same character, and a fount of Roman capitals,
very bad indeed. Whether these types belonged
JOHN DAY
81
to Day or to Seres it is impossible to say, but
I think the smaller of the two belonged to Day,
as it is sometimes found in his later books.
The workmanship was no better than the
types. There was no pagination in these books,
and no devices, and the setting of the letterpress
was very uneven.
In 1548 Seres seems to have joined partner-
ship with another London printer, Anthony
Scoloker, and to have moved to a house in
St. Paul's Churchyard, called Peter College ; but
his name still continued to appear with Day's
down to the year
1551, when the
partnership was
dissolved, Day
moving to Al-
dersgate, but re-
taining his shop
in Cheapside.
The most im-
portant under-
taking of the
partnership was
a folio edition
of the Bible in
1549. This was
printed in the
smaller of the two founts of black letter in double
columns, with some good initials and a great
FlG. 18. From a Bible printed by John Day.
London, 1551. 410.
82 ENGLISH PRINTING
many woodcuts that had evidently been used
before, as they extend beyond the letterpress.
Another edition printed by Day alone appeared
in 1551, in which a good initial E, showing
Edward vi. on his throne, is found.
On the accession of Queen Mary, Day went
abroad and his press was silent for several years ;
meanwhile the ancient brotherhood of Stationers
was incorporated by Royal Charter as the ' Wor-
shipful Company of Stationers.' The existence
of the brotherhood has been traced to very early
times, and it is frequently mentioned in the wills
of printers and booksellers in the first half of the
sixteenth century. By the Charter of 1556 it
now received the Royal authority to make its own
laws for the regulation of the trade, although, as
Mr. Arber has pointed out, the charter ' rather
confirmed existing customs than erected fresh
powers.' There is abundant evidence that the
Queen's main reason for granting the charter was
the wish to keep the printing trade under closer
control.
The newly incorporated company included
nearly all the men connected with the book trade,
not only printers, but booksellers, bookbinders,
and typefounders. There were some who, for
some unexplained reason, were not enrolled. On
the other hand, two of those whose names appeared
in the charter died the year of its incorporation.
These were Thomas Berthelet, who was dead
JOHN DAY 83
before the 26th January 1556, and Robert Toy,
who died in February.
In the registers of the Company were recorded
the names of the wardens and masters, the names
of all apprentices, with the masters to whom they
were bound, and the names of those who took
up their freedom. The titles of all books were
supposed to be entered by the printer or publisher,
a small fee being paid in each case. As a matter
of fact many books were not so entered. Entries
of gifts to the Corporation, and of fines levied
on the members, also form part of the annual
statements.
Literary men of the eighteenth century were
the first to discover and make use of the wealth
of information contained in the Registers of the
Stationers' Company ; but it fell to the lot of
Mr. Arber to give English scholars a full tran-
script of the earlier registers. In order to make
it complete, he has supplemented the work with
numerous valuable papers in the Record Office
and other archives, and a bibliographical list down
to the year 1603, which is of such immense value
that it is impossible to be content until it has
been continued to the year 1640.
The first master of the Company was Thomas
Dockwray, Proctor of the Court of Arches ; and
the wardens were John Cawood, the Queen's
Printer, and Henry Cooke.
It does not follow that because Day's name
8 4
ENGLISH PRINTING
occurs in the charter that he was in England in
1556, but he certainly was so in the following
year, for there is a Sarum Missal of that date
with his imprint, besides several other books,
including Thomas Tusser's Hundred Points of
Good Husserye (i.e. Housewifery) ; William Bul-
lein's Government of Health, and sundry pro-
clamations. But it was not until 1559 that his
books began to show that excellence of work-
manship that laid the foundation of his fame.
In that year he issued in folio The Cosmographi-
call Glasse of William Cunningham, a physician
of Norwich. As a specimen of the printer's art
this was far in
advance of any
of Day's previous
work, and, more-
over, was in ad-
vance of anything
seen in England
before that time.
The text was
printed in a large,
flowing italic letter
of great beauty,
further enhanced
by several well-
executed woodcut
initials. Amongst these was a letter 'D,' con-
taining the arms of the Earl of Leicester, to
FIG. 19. Heraldic Initial containing the Arms of
Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
JOHN DAY 85
whom the work was dedicated. There were also
scattered through the book several diagrams and
maps, a fine portrait of the author, and a plan
of the city of Norwich. Some of these illustra-
tions and initials were signed J. B., others J. D.
The title-page was also engraved with allegorical
figures of the arts and sciences. There can be
very little doubt that Day had spent his time
abroad in studying the best models in the typo-
graphical art.
Students and lovers of good books may well
pay a tribute to the memory of that scholarly
churchman, who rescued so many of the books
that were scattered at the dissolution of the
monasteries, and enriched Cambridge University
and some of its colleges by his gifts of books
and manuscripts. But Matthew Parker did not
stop short at book-collecting. He believed that
good books should be well printed, and on his
accession to power under Elizabeth, he encouraged
John Day and others, both with his authority
and his purse, to cut new founts of type and to
print books in a worthy form.
In 1560 Day began to print the collected
works of Thomas Becon, the reformer. The
whole impression occupied three large folio
volumes, and was not completed until 1564. The
founts chiefly used in this were black letter of
two sizes, supplemented with italic and Roman.
The initials used in the Cosmographicall Glasse
86 ENGLISH PRINTING
appeared again in this, and the title-page to each
part was enclosed in an elaborate architectural
border, having in the bottom panel Day's small
device, a block showing a sleeper awakened, and
the words, 'Arise, for it is Day.' At the end
was a fine portrait of the printer.
Another important undertaking of the year
1560 was a folio edition of the Commentaries of
Joannes Philippson, otherwise Sleidanus. This
Day printed for Nicholas England, the fount of
large italic being used in conjunction with black
letter.
Sermons of Calvin, Bullinger, and Latimer
are all that we have to illustrate his work during
the next two years. But in 1563 appeared a
handsome folio, the editio princeps of Acts and
Monumentes of these latter and perillous Dayes,
touching matters of the Church, better known as
Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
During Mary's reign Foxe had found a home
on the Continent, and may there have met with
Day. In 1554, while at Strasburg, he had
published, through the press of Wendelin Richel,
a Latin treatise on the persecutions of the re-
formers, under the title of Commentarii rerum
in Ecclesia gestarum maxirnarumqiie persecu-
tionem a Vuiclevi temporibus descriptio. From
Strasburg he removed to Basle, and from the
press of Oporinus, in 1559, appeared the Latin
edition of the Book of Martyrs. He did not
JOHN DAY
return to England until October of that year, when
he settled in Aldgate, and made weekly visits to
the printing-house of John Day, who was then
busy on the English edition.
FIG. 20. From Foxe's ' Actes and Monumentes,' printed by John Day, 1576.
Foxe's Actes and Monumentes is a work of
2008 folio pages, printed in double columns, the
88 ENGLISH PRINTING
type used being a small English black letter, the
same which had been used in Becon's Works,
supplemented with various sizes of italic and
Roman. It was illustrated throughout with
woodcuts, representing the tortures and deaths of
the martyrs. A very handsome initial letter E,
showing Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers, is
also found in it. A Royal proclamation ordered
that a copy of it should be set up in every parish
church. From this time Foxe appears to have
worked as translator and editor for John Day,
and was for a while living in the printer's house.
Archbishop Parker meanwhile had induced Day
to cast a fount of Saxon types in metal. The
first book in which these were used was Aelfric's
' Saxon Homily,' i.e. the Sermon of the Paschal
Lamb, appointed by the Saxon bishop to be read
at Easter before the Sacrament, an Epistle of
Aelfric to Wulfsine, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed,
and the Ten Commandments, all of which were
included in the general title of A Testimonye of
Antiquity, ' shewing the auncient fayth in the
Church of England touching the Sacrament of
the body and bloude of the Lord here publykely
preached and also receaved in the Saxons tyme,
above 600 yeares agoe.'
Speaking of Day's Saxon fount, the late Mr.
Talbot Reed, in his Old English Letter Foundries
(p. 96), says :
JOHN DAY 89
'The Saxon fount ... is an English in body, very clear
and bold. Of the capitals eight only, including two diphthongs
are distinctively Saxon, the remaining eighteen letters being
ordinary Roman ; while in the lowercase there are twelve
Saxon letters, as against fifteen of the Roman. The accuracy
and regularity with which this fount was cut and cast is highly
creditable to Day's excellence as a founder.'
Although this book (an octavo) bore no date,
the names of the subscribing bishops fix it as
1566 or 1567. In the latter year appeared the
Archbishop's metrical version of the Psalter,
which he had compiled during his enforced exile
under Mary. In connection with this it may be
well to point out that Day printed many editions
of the Psalter with musical notes. In 1568 he
used the Saxon types again to print William
Lambard's Archaionomia, a book of Saxon laws.
Amongst his other productions of that year must
be mentioned the folio edition of Peter Martyr's
Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans;
Gildas the historian's De excidio et conquestu
Britannia, 1568, 8vo ; and a French version
of Vandernoot's Theatre for Worldlings, ' Le
Theatre auquel sont exposds et monstre's les in-
conveniens et misres qui suivent les mondains
et vicieux, ensemble les plaisirs et contentements
dont les fideles jouissent.' There is a copy of
this very rare book in the Grenville collection.
The Theatre for Worldlings was translated
into English the following year, and contained
verses from the pen of Edmund Spenser, then a
M
90 ENGLISH PRINTING
boy of sixteen. But Day's press played little
part in the spread of the romantic literature with
which the name of Spenser is so closely linked.
Day's work was with the Reformation and the
religious questions of the time. Nevertheless,
that he felt the influence of the coming change is
shown from a publication that issued from his
press in 1570. This was the authorised version
of a play which had been acted nine years before
by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple before Her
Majesty. It had shortly afterwards been pub-
lished by William Griffith of Fleet Street as :
'The Tragedy of Gorboduc, whereof Three
Actes were wrytten by Thomas Norton and the
two last by Thomas Sackvyle. Set forth as the
same was shewed before the Queenes most ex-
cellent Maiestie in her highnes Court of White-
hall, the xviii day of January Anno Domini 1561,
By the gentlemen of Thynner Temple in London.'
Day's edition was entitled :
' The Tragidie of Ferrex and Porrex, set
forth without addition or alteration, but altogether
as the same was showed on stage before the
Queens Maiestie about nine yeares past, viz. the
xviii day of Januarie 1561, by the gentlemen of
the Inner Temple.'
Another important work of this year (1570)
was Roger Ascham's Scholemaster , in quarto.
In 1571 Day was busy with Church matters.
There was just then much talk of Church disci-
JOHN DAY 91
pline, and it shows itself in the Reformatio
Legum Ecclesiasticarum, a quarto of some 300
pages, published by him this year. In this book
we find a new device used by Day. It repre-
sents two hands holding a slab upon which is a
crucible with a heart in it, surrounded by flames,
the word ' Christus ' being on the slab. From
the wrists hangs a chain, and in the centre of
this is suspended a globe, and beneath that again
is a representation of the sun. Round the chain
is a ribbon with the words ' Horum Charitas?
This device was placed on the title-page, which
was surrounded by a neat border of printers'
ornaments.
The Booke of certaine Canons, 4to, was an-
other publication of this year for the due ordering
of the Church. This, like most public documents,
was in a large black letter. There were also
'Articles of the London Synod of 1562.' As a
specimen of the religious sermons or discourses
of the time, we have a very good example in
another of Day's publications in 1571, a reprint
of The Poore Mans Librarie, a discourse by
George Alley, Bishop of Exeter, upon the First
Epistle of St. Peter, which made up a very
respectable folio, printed in Day's best manner,
and with a great number of founts.
But Day's prosperity roused the envy of his
fellow-stationers, and they tried their best to
hinder the sale of his books and cause him
92 ENGLISH PRINTING
annoyance. This opposition took a violent form
in 1572, when Day, whose premises at Aldersgate
had become too small to carry on his growing
business, his stock being valued at that time
between ^2000 and ^3000, obtained the leave
of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's to set up
a little shop in St. Paul's Churchyard for the sale
of his books. The booksellers appealed to the
Lord Mayor, who was prevailed upon to stop
Day's proceedings, and it required all the power
and influence of Archbishop Parker, backed by
an order of the Privy Council, to enable the
printer to carry out his project. 1
The Archbishop meanwhile had been busy
furnishing replies to Nicholas Sanders' book De
Visibili Monarchia, and amongst those whom he
selected for the work was Dr. Clerke of Cam-
bridge, who accordingly wrote a Latin treatise
entitled Fidelis Serm subdito infideli Responsio.
From a letter written by the Archbishop to Lord
Burleigh at this time, we learn that John Day
had cast a special fount of Italian letter for this
book at a cost of forty marks. 2
By Italian letter is here meant Roman, and
not Italic, as Mr. Reed supposes, for fazResponsio
was printed in a new fount of that type, clear,
even, and free from abbreviations.
In the same year (1572) Day printed at the
1 See Strype's Life of Parker, p. 541. Arber's Transcript, vol. ii.
2 Strype's Life of Parker, pp. 382, 541.
JOHN DAY 93
Archbishop's private press at Lambeth his great
work De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae in
folio, in a new fount of Italic, with preface in
Roman, and the titles and sub-titles in the larger
Italic of the Cosmographicall Glasse. It was a
special feature of Day's letter-founding that he
cut the Roman and Italic letters to the same size.
Before his time there was no uniformity ; the
separate founts mixed badly, and spoilt the ap-
pearance of many books that would otherwise
have been well printed.
The De Antiquitate is believed to have been
the first book printed at a private press in Eng-
land. The issue was limited to fifty copies, and
the majority of them were in the Archbishop's
possession at the time of his death.
But while he encouraged printing in one
direction, Matthew Parker rigorously persecuted
it in another. Just at this time there was much
division among Protestants on matters of doc-
trine and ceremonial, and one Thomas Cartwright
published, in 1572, a book entitled A Second
Admonition to the Parliament, in which he
defended those who had been imprisoned for
airing their opinions in the first Admonition.
This book, like many others of the time, was
printed secretly, and strenuous search was made
by the Wardens of the Stationers' Company, Day
being one, to discover the hidden press. The
search was successful, but unpleasant conse-
94 ENGLISH PRINTING
quences followed for John Day. One of the
printers of the prohibited book turned out to
be an apprentice of his own, named Asplyn.
He was released after examination, and again
taken into service by his late master. But the
following year the Archbishop reported to the
Council that this man Asplyn had tried to kill
both Day and his wife.
Day's work in 1573 included a folio edition of
the whole works of William Tyndale, John Frith,
and Doctor Barnes, in two volumes. This was
printed in two columns, with type of the same
size and character as that used in the ' Works ' of
Becon, some of the initial letters closely resem-
bling those found in books printed by Reginald
Wolfe. In the same year Day issued a life of
Bishop Jewel, for which he cut in wood a number
of Hebrew words.
In 1574 we reach the summit of excellence in
Day's work. It was in that year that he printed
for Archbishop Parker Asser's Life of Alfred the
Great (Aelfredi Regis Res Gestce) in folio. In
this the Saxon type cast for the Saxon Homily
in 1567 was again used in conjunction with the
magnificent founts of double pica Roman and
Italic. With it is usually bound Walsingham's
Ypodigme Neustria and Historia Brews, the first
printed by Day, and the second by Bynneman,
who unquestionably used the same types, so that
it may be inferred that the fount was at the
JOHN DAY 95
disposal of the Archbishop, at whose expense all
three books were issued.
Another series of publications that came from
the press of John Day, in 1574, were the writings
of John Caius on the history and antiquities of
the two Universities. They are generally found
bound together in the following order :
1 . De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae.
2. Assertio Antiquitatis Oxoniensis Aca-
demiae.
3. Historia Cantabrigiensis Academiae.
4. Johannis Caii Angli De Pronunciatione
Graecae et Latinae linguae cum scriptione
noua libellus.
The ' Antiquities ' and ' History ' of Cambridge
were both books of considerable size, the first
having 268 pages, without counting prefatory
matter and indexes. The other two were little
better than tracts, the one having only 27 and
the other 23 pages. Some editions of the De
Antiquitate are found with a map of Cambridge,
while the ' History ' contained plates showing
the arms of the various colleges. All four were
printed in quarto. The type used for the text
was in each case an Italic of English size, with a
small Roman for indexes. The title-page was
enclosed in a border of printers' ornaments, and
the printer's device of the Heart was on the last
leaf of two out of the four.
96 ENGLISH PRINTING
Matthew Parker died in 1575, and the art of
printing, as well as every other art and science,
lost a generous patron. But Day's work was not
yet done, though he printed few large books after
this date. A very curious folio, written by John
Dee, the famous astronomer, entitled General
and Rare Memorials concerning Navigation,
came from his press in 1577. This work had
an elaborate allegorical title-page, by no means a
bad specimen of wood-engraving. It was a his-
tory in itself, the central object being a ship with
the Queen seated in the after part.
In 1578 Day printed a book in Greek and
Latin for the use of scholars, Christiana pietatis
prima institutio, the Greek type being a great
improvement on any that had previously appeared.
Indeed, it has been considered equal to those in
use by the Estiennes of Paris.
The year 1580 saw Day Master of the
Stationers' Company. Two years later he was
engaged in a series of law-suits about his ABC
and litell Catechism, a book for which he had
obtained a patent in the days of Edward vi.
As we have already noted, the aim of the
Corporation of the Stationers' Company was not
primarily the promotion of good printing or
literature. Printers were looked upon by the
authorities as dangerous persons whom it was
necessary to watch closely. Only six years after
coming to the throne, Elizabeth signed a decree
JOHN DAY 97
passed by the Star Chamber, requiring every
printer to enter into substantial recognisances
for his good behaviour. No books were to be
printed or imported without the sanction of a
Special Commission of Ecclesiastical Authorities,
under a penalty of three months' imprisonment
and the forfeiture of all right to carry on business
as a master printer or bookseller in future, while
the officers of the Company were instructed to
carry out strict search for all prohibited books.
On the other hand, while thus retaining a
tight rein on the printing trade, the Queen, no
doubt for monetary considerations, granted spe-
cial patents for the sole printing of certain classes
of books to individual master printers, and
threatened pains and penalties upon any other
member of the craft who should print any such
books. In this way all the best-paying work in
the trade became the property of some dozen or
so of printers. Master Tottell was allowed the
sole printing of Law Books, Master Jugge the
sole printing of Bibles, James Roberts and
Richard Watkins the sole printing of Almanacs ;
Thomas Vautrollier, a stranger, was allowed to
print all Latin books except the Grammars, which
were given to Thomas Marsh, and John Day had
received the right of printing and selling the
ABC and Litell Catechism, a book largely
bought for schools, and which Christopher
Barker, in his Complaint, declared was once
N
98 ENGLISH PRINTING
'the onelye reliefe of the porest sort of that
Company.' On every side the best work was
seized and monopolised. Nor did the evil cease
there. These patents were invariably granted for
life with reversion to a successor, and they
were bought and sold freely. Hence the poorer
members of the Company daily found it harder
to live. There was very little light literature,
and what there was had few readers. Their ap-
peals for redress of grievances, whether addressed
to the State or to the Company, which pretended to
look after their welfare, were alike in vain, and at
length they rose in open revolt. Half a dozen of
them, headed by Roger Ward and John Wolf,
boldly printed the books owned by the patentees.
Roger Ward seized upon this A B C of Day's,
and at a secret press, with type supplied to him
by a workman of Thomas Purfoot, printed many
thousand copies of the work with Day's mark.
Hence the proceedings in the Star Chamber.
They did very little good. Ward defied im-
prisonment; and the agitators would undoubtedly
have gained more than they did, and might even
have saved the art of printing from falling into
the hopeless state it afterwards reached, had it
not been for the desertion of John Wolf, who,
after declaring that he would work a reformation
in the printing trade similar to that which Luther
had worked in religion, quietly allowed himself
to be bought over, and died in eminent respec-
JOHN DAY
99
tability as Printer to the City of London, leaving
Ward and others to carry on the war. This they
did with such effect, that, forced to find a remedy,
FIG. 21. Day's large Device.
the patentees of the Company at length agreed to
relax their grasp of some of the books that they
ioo ENGLISH PRINTING
had laid their hands upon. Day is said to have
been most generous, relinquishing no less than
fifty-three, and this number is in itself a com-
mentary on the magnitude of the monopolies.
John Day died at Walden, in Essex, on the
23rd July 1584, at the age of sixty-two, and was
buried at Bradley Parva, where there is a fair
tomb and a lengthy poetical epitaph on his virtues
and abilities. He was twice married, and is said
to have had twenty-six children, of whom one
son, Richard, was for a short time a printer, and
another, John, took Orders, and became rector
of Little Thurlow, in Suffolk.
John Day had three devices. His earliest,
and perhaps his best, was a large block of a
skeleton lying on an elaborately chased bier, with
a tree at the back, and two figures, an old man
and a young, standing beside it. This may have
been typical of the Resurrection, the sign of the
house in which he began business. Then we find
the device of the Heart in his later books, and
finally there is the block of the Sleeper Awakened,
but this almost always formed part of the title-
page.
JOHN DAY
101
APPENDIX
LIST OF PRINTERS AND STATIONERS ENROLLED
IN THE CHARTER
Alday, John.
Baldwyn, Richard.
Baldwyn, William.
Blythe, Robert.
Bonham, John.
Bonham, William.
Bourman, Nicholas.
Boyden, Thomas.
Brodehead, Gregory.
Broke, Robert.
Browne, Edward.
Burtoft, John.
Bylton, Thomas.
Case, John.
Cater, Edward.
Cawood, John.
Clarke, John.
Cleston, Nicholas.
Cooke, Henry.
Cooke, William.
Copland, William.
Cottesford, Hugh.
Coston, Simon.
Croke, Adam.
Crosse, Richard.
Crost, Anthony.
Day, John.
Devell, Thomas.
Dockwray, Thomas.
Duxwell, Thos.
Fayreberne, John.
Fox, John.
Frenche, Peter.
Gamlyn or Gammon,
Allen.
Gee, Thomas.
Gonneld, James.
Gough, John.
Greffen or Griffith,
William.
Grene, Richard.
Harryson, Richard.
Harvey, Richard.
Hester, Andrew.
Hyll, John.
Hyll, Richard.
Hyll, William.
Holder, Robert.
Holyland, James.
Huke, Gyles.
Ireland, Roger.
IO2
ENGLISH PRINTING
Jaques, John.
Judson, John.
Jugge, Richard.
Kele, John.
Keball, John.
Kevall, junior, Richard.
Kevall, Stephen.
Kyng, John.
Lant, Richard.
Lobel, Michael.
Marten, Will.
Marsh, Thos.
Markall, Thomas.
Norton, Henry.
Norton, William.
Paget, Richard.
Parker, Thomas.
Pattinson, Thomas.
Pickering, William.
Powell, Humphrey.
Powell, Thomas.
Powell, William.
Purfoot, Thomas.
Radborne, Robert.
Richardson, Richard.
Rogers, John.
Rogers, Owen.
Ryddall, Will.
Sawyer, Thomas.
Seres, William.
Shereman, John.
Sherewe, Thomas.
Smyth, Anthony.
Spylman, Simon.
Steward, William.
Sutton, Edward.
Sutton, Henry.
Taverner, Nicholas.
Tottle, Richard.
Turke, John.
Tyer, Randolph.
Tysdale, John.
Walley, Charles.
Walley, John.
Wallys, Richard.
Way, Richard.
Whitney, John.
Wolfe, Reginald.
Amongst the men whose names were not
included in the charter were :
Baker, John, made free
24th Oct. 1555.
Caley, Robert.
Chandeler, Giles, made
free 24 Oct. 1555.
Charlewood, John.
Hacket, Thomas.
Singleton, Hugh.
Wayland, John
Wyer, Robert.
CHAPTER V
JOHN DAY'S CONTEMPORARIES
OST notable of all the men who
lived and worked with Day, was
Reginald or Reyner Wolfe, of the
Brazen Serpent in St. Paul's Church-
yard. Much as we have to regret
the scantiness of all material for a
study of the lives of the early English printers,
it is doubly felt in the case of Reginald Wolfe.
The little that is made known to us is just
sufficient to whet the appetite and kindle the
curiosity. It reveals to us an active business
man, evidently with large capital behind him,
setting up as a bookseller, under the shadow of
the great Cathedral, and rapidly becoming known
to the learned and the rich. We see him passing
backwards and forwards between this country
and the book-fair at Frankfort, executing com-
missions for great nobles, and at the same time
acting as the King's courier. Later on we find
him adding the trade of printer to that of book-
seller, and I have very little doubt that it was
partly to the advice and influence of Reginald
io 4 ENGLISH PRINTING
Wolfe that we owe the improvement that took
place in John Day's printing after his return
from abroad. As a printer he stands beside Day
in the excellence of his workmanship, and he was
the first in England who possessed any large
stock of Greek type.
Reyner Wolfe was a native of Dretunhe(P),
in Gelderland, as shown by the letters of deniza-
tion which he took out on the 2nd January
1533-4. (State Papers, Hen. 8. vol. 6. No. 105.)
He had been established in Saint Paul's Church-
yard some years before this, however, as in a
letter from Thomas Tebold to the Earl of Wilt-
shire, dated the 4th April 1530, he says he has
arrived at Frankfort, and hopes to hear from his
lordship through ' Reygnard Wolf, bookseller, of
St. Pauls Churchyard, London, who will be here
in two days.'
Again, in 1539, in the same series of Letters
and Papers (vol. xiv. pt. 2. No. 781), is an entry
of the payment of iocs, to ' Rayner Wolf for con-
veying the King's letters to Christopher Mounte,
his Grace's agent in ' High Almayne '. But it was
not until 1542 that he began to print. The
British Museum fortunately possesses copies of
all his early works as a printer, which began with
several of the writings of John Leland the anti-
quary. The first was Naeniae in mortem T.
Viati, Equitis incomparabilis, Joanne Lelando,
antiquario, authore, a quarto, printed in a well-
REGINALD WOLFE
105
cut fount of Roman. This was followed in the
same year by Genethliacon, a work specially
written by Leland for Prince Edward, with a
dedication to Prince Henry, the first part being
printed in Italic and the second in Roman type.
On the verso of the last leaf is the printer's very
CHAR!
FIG. 22. Wolfe's Device.
beautiful device of children throwing at an apple-
tree, certainly one of the most artistic devices in
use amongst the printers of that time.
To this work succeeded, in 1543, the Homilies
of Saint Chrysostom, of which John Cheke, Pro-
o
io6 ENGLISH PRINTING
fessor in Greek at Cambridge University, was
editor. The whole of the first part of the work,
with the exception of the dedication, was in Greek
letter, making thirty lines to the quarto page. The
second part, which had a separate title-page, was
printed with the Italic, and the supplementary
parts with the Roman types. Some very fine
pictorial initial letters were used throughout the
work, and the larger form of the apple-tree de-
vice occurs on the last leaf, with a Greek and
Latin motto.
A very rare specimen of Wolfe's work in 1543
is Robert Recorde's The groud of artes teachyng
the worke and practise of Arithmetike moch
necessary for all states of men, a small octavo
printed in black letter, but of no particular merit.
In the same type and form he issued in the
following year a tract entitled The late expedition
in Scotlande, etc. Chrysostom's De Providentia
Dei and Laudatio Pads were printed in the Ro-
man and Italic founts during 1545 and 1546, and
are the only record we have left of Wolfe's work
as a printer during those years. In 1547 he was
appointed the king's printer in Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew, and was granted an annuity of twenty-
six shillings and eightpence during his life (Pat.
Rol. 19 April 1547).
In 1553 trouble arose between Wolfe and
Day as to their respective rights of printing
Edward the Sixth's catechism, The matter was
REGINALD WOLFE 107
settled by Wolfe having the privilege for printing
the Latin version, and Day that in English, but
neither party reaped much benefit, as upon the
king's death the book was called in, having only
been in circulation a few months. During Mary's
reign the only important work that seems to have
come from Wolfe's press was Recorde's Castle of
Knowledge, a folio, with an elaborately designed
title-page, and a dedication to Cardinal Pole. In
1560 Wolfe became Master of the Company of
Stationers, a position to which he was elected on
three subsequent occasions, in 1564, 1567, and
1572. His patents were renewed to him under
Elizabeth, and he came in for his share of the
patronage of Matthew Parker, whose edition of
Jewel's Apologia he printed in quarto form in
1562. In 1563 appeared from his press the
Commonplaces of Scripture, by Wolfgang Mus-
culus, a folio, chiefly notable for a very fine
pictorial initial ' I,' measuring nearly 3^ inches
square, and representing the Creation, which had
obviously formed part of the opening chapter of
Genesis in some early edition of the Bible. It
was certainly used again in the 1577 edition of
Holinshed's Chronicle.
Almost his last work was Matthew Paris's
Historia Major, edited by Matthew Parker, a
handsome folio with an engraved title-page,
several good pictorial initials, and his large device
of the apple-tree, printed in 1571. Without doubt
io8 ENGLISH PRINTING
the printer was greatly interested in this work.
He had himself collected materials for a chronicle
of his adopted country, which he amused himself
with in his spare time. But he did not live to
print it, his death taking place late in the year
1573. His will was short, and mentioned none
of his children by name. His property in St.
Paul's Churchyard, which included the Chapel or
Charnel House on the north side, which he had
purchased of King Henry vui., he left to his wife,
and the witnesses to his will were George Bishop,
Raphael Holinshed, John Hunn, and John Shep-
parde. 1 His wife, Joan Wolfe, only survived
him a few months, her will, which is also pre-
served in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 2
being proved on the 2oth July 1574. In it occurs
the following passage :
' I will that Raphell Hollingshed shall have and enjoye all
such benefit, proffit, and commoditie as was promised unto him
by my said late husbande Reginald Wolfe, for or concerning
the translating and prynting of a certain crownacle which my
said husband before his decease did prepare and intende to
have prynted.'
She further mentioned in her will a son
Robert, a son Henry, and a daughter Mary, the
wife of John Harrison, citizen and stationer, as
well as Luke Harrison, a citizen and stationer,
while among the witnesses to it was Gabriel
1 P. C. C M i Martyn.
2 P. C. C., 32 Martyn.
JOHN CAWOOD 109
Cawood, the son of John Cawood, who lived
hard by at the sign of the Holy Ghost, next to
' Powles Gate;
From a document in the Heralds' College
(W. Grafton, vi., A. B. C., Lond.), it appears that
John Cawood, who began to print about the
same time as Day, came from a Yorkshire family
of good standing. He was apprenticed to John
Reynes, a bookseller and bookbinder, who at that
time, about 1542, worked at the George Inn in
this locality. Cawood greatly respected his
master, and in aftertimes, when he had become a
prosperous man, placed a window in Stationers'
Hall to the memory of John Reynes. Reynes
died in 1543, but there is no mention of Cawood
in his will, perhaps because Cawood was no
longer in his service ; but in that of his widow,
Lucy Reynes, there was a legacy to John Cawood's
daughter.
Cawood began to print in the year 1546, the
first specimen of his press work being a little
octavo, entitled The Decree for Tythes to be payed
in the Citye of London.
With few exceptions the printers of this
period easily enough conformed to the religious
factions of the day. Thus Cawood prints Pro-
testant books under Edward vi., Catholic books
under Mary, and again Protestant books under
Elizabeth. Upon the accession of Mary he was
appointed royal printer in the place of Grafton,
no ENGLISH PRINTING
who had dared to print the proclamation of
Lady Jane Grey (Rymer's Fcedera, vol. xv.,
p. 125). He also received the reversion of
Wolfe's patent for printing Latin, Greek, and
Hebrew books, as well as all statute books,
acts, proclamations, and other official docu-
ments, with a salary of 6, 135. 4d. The
British Museum possesses a volume (505. g. 14)
containing the statutes of the reign of Queen
Mary, printed in small folio by Cawood. From
these it will be seen that he used some very
artistic woodcut borders for his title-pages, not-
ably one with bacchanalian figures in the lower
panel signed 'A. S.' in monogram, evidently the
same artist that cut the woodcut initials seen in
these and other books printed by this printer, and
who is believed to have been Anton Sylvius, an
Antwerp engraver. Cawood was one of the first
wardens of the Stationers' Company in 1554, and
again served from 1555-7, an d continued to take
great interest in its welfare throughout his life.
In 1557, Cawood, in company with John Waley
and Richard Tottell, published the Works of
Sir Thomas More in a large and handsome folio.
The editor was William Rastell, Chief Justice of
the Queen's Bench, son of John Rastell the printer,
and nephew of the great chancellor.
The book was printed at the Hand and Star
in Fleet Street by Tottell, but the woodcut initials
were certainly supplied by Cawood, and perhaps
JOHN CAWOOD in
some of the type. On the accession of Elizabeth,
he again received a patent as royal printer, but
jointly with Richard Jugge, whose name is always
found first. Nevertheless, Cawood printed at
least two editions of the Bible in quarto, with his
name alone on the title-page. They were very
poor productions, the text being printed in the
diminutive semi-gothic type that had done duty
since the days of Caxton, and the woodcut borders
being made up of odds and ends that happened
to be handy. His rapidly increasing business
had already compelled him to lease from the
Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's a vault under the
churchyard, and two sheds adjoining the church,
and in addition to this he now took a room at
Stationers' Hall at a rental of 2os. per year.
In conjunction with Jugge he printed many
editions of the Book of Common Prayer in all
sizes. He also reprinted in 1570 Barclay's Ship
of Fools with the original illustrations. Cawood
was three times Master of the Company of
Stationers, in 1561, 1562, and 1566. In 1564 he
was appointed by Elizabeth Toye, the widow of
Robert Toye, one of the overseers to her will, and
his partner Jugge was one of the witnesses to
the document (P. C. C., 25 Morrison). His
death took place in 1572, and from his epitaph it
appeared that he was three times married, and by
his first wife, Joan, had three sons and four
daughters. His eldest son, John, was bachelor of
ii2 ENGLISH PRINTING
laws and fellow of New College, Oxford, and
died in 1570; Gabriel, the second son, succeeded
to his father's business, and the third son died
young. His eldest daughter, Mary, married
George Bishop, one of the deputies to Christopher
Barker; a second, Isabel, married Thomas Wood-
cock, a stationer; Susannah was the wife of Robert
Bullock, and Barbara married Mark Norton.
Richard Jugge was another of those who
owed much to the patronage and encouragement
of Archbishop Parker. He is believed to have
been born at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, and
was educated, first at Eton, and afterwards at
Cambridge. He set up at the sign of The Bible
in 1548, and used as his device a pelican plucking
at her breast to feed her young who are clamour-
ing around her. In 1550 he obtained a licence
to print the New Testament, and in 1556 books
of Common Law. Under Elizabeth in 1560
he was made senior Queen's Printer. When
the new edition of the Bible was about to be
issued in 1569, Archbishop Parker wrote to
Cecil, asking that Jugge might be entrusted with
the printing, as there were few men who could do
it better. In this way he became the printer of
the first edition of the ' Bishops' Bible,' a second
edition coming from his press the year following.
In this work he used several large decorative
initial letters, with the arms of the several patrons
of the work, as well as a finely designed
RICHARD TOTTELL 113
engraved title-page, with a portrait of the Queen,
and other portraits of Burleigh and Leicester.
In his edition of the New Testament were numer-
ous large cuts, evidently of foreign workmanship,
some of them signed with the initials ' E. B.'
Richard Jugge died in 1577.
Another of Day's contemporaries, whose name
is remembered by all students of English litera-
ture, was Richard Tottell, who lived at the Hand
and Star in Fleet Street, and printed there the
collection of poetry known as Tottell's Mis-
cellany.
There is reason to believe that Richard Tottell
was the third son of Henry Tottell, a famous
citizen of Exeter. The name was spelt in a great
variety of ways, such as Tothill, Tuthill, Tottle,
Tathyll, and Tottell. Richard Tottell at the time
of his death held lands in Devon, and some of
the same lands that belonged to the Tothill family
of Exeter. Moreover, his coat of arms was the
same as theirs. But before 1552 he was in
London, for in that year he received a patent for
the printing of law books, and was generally
known as Richard Tottell of London, gentleman.
He appears to have married Joan, a sister of
Richard Grafton, and in this way became pos-
sessed of considerable land in the county of
Bucks. From this we may assume that he had
business relations with Richard Grafton, and it
becomes only natural that he should have printed
ENGLISH PRINTING
various editions of Grafton's Chronicle, and come
into possession of some of his finest woodcut
borders.
MCH/IRD^TOTTEL
FIG. 23. Richard Tottell's Device.
It was in June 1557 that he printed his ' Mis-
cellany,' an unpretentious quarto, with the title :
Songes and Sonnettes, written by the Ryght
Honorable Lorde Henry Hawarde, late Earl of
RICHARD TOTTELL 115
Surrey and other. Before the 3ist July a second
edition became necessary, and several new poems
were added. The third edition appeared in 1559,
the fourth in 1565, and before the end of the
sixteenth century, four more editions were called
for. Another of Tottell's works was Gerard
Legh's Accedens of Armory, an octavo, printed
throughout in italic type, with a curiously en-
graved title-page, besides numerous illustrations
of coats of arms, and several full-page illustra-
tions. It was printed in 1562, and again in
1576 and 1591.
The best of Tottell's work as a printer is to
be found in the law-books, for which he was a
patentee. In these he used several handsome
borders to title-pages, one of an architectural
character with his initials R. T. at the two
lower corners, another, evidently Grafton's, with
a view of the King and Parliament in the top
panel, and Grafton's punning device in the centre
of the bottom panel.
In 1573 Richard Tottell tried to establish a
paper mill in England. He wrote to Cecil,
pointing out that nearly all paper came from
France, and undertaking to establish a mill in
England if the Government would give him the
necessary land and the sole privilege of making
paper for thirty years (Arber, i. 242). But as
nothing was ever done in the matter, the Govern-
ment evidently did not entertain the proposal.
n6 ENGLISH PRINTING
Tottell was Master of the Company of Stationers
in 1579 and 1584. During the latter part of his
life he withdrew from business, and lived at
Wiston, in Pembrokeshire, where he died in 1593.
He left several children, of whom the eldest,
William Tottell, succeeded to his estates.
In the precincts of the Blackfriars, Thomas
Vautrollier, a foreigner, was at work as a printer
in 1566, having been admitted a 'brother' of the
Company of Stationers on the 2nd October 1564.
He soon afterwards received a patent for the
printing of certain Latin books, and Christopher
Barker, in a report to Lord Burghley in 1582,
says :
' He has the printing of Tullie, Ovid, and diverse other great
workes in Latin. He doth yet, neither great good nor great
harme withall. . . . He hath other small thinges wherewith he
keepeth his presses on work, and also worketh for bookesellers
of the Companye, who kepe no presses.'
In 1580, on the invitation of the General
Assembly, Vautrollier visited Scotland, taking
with him a stock of books, but no press, and in
1584 he again went north, and set up a press
at Edinburgh, still keeping on his business in
London. The venture does not seem to have
turned out a success, for Vautrollier returned to
London in 1586, taking with him a MS. of John
Knox's History of the Reformation, but the work
was seized while it was in the press (Works of
John Knox, vol. i. p. 32).
THOMAS VAUTROLLIER 117
As a printer Vautrollier ranks far above most
of the men around him, both for the beauty of
his types and the excellence of his presswork.
The bulk of his books were printed in Roman
and Italic, of which he had several well-cut
founts. He had also some good initials, orna-
ments, and borders. In the folio edition of
Plutarch's Lives, which he printed in 1579, each
life is preceded by a medallion portrait, enclosed
in a frame of geometrical pattern ; some of these,
notably the first, and also those shown on a white
background, are very effective. His device was
an anchor held by a hand issuing from clouds,
with two sprigs of laurel, and the motto ' Anchora
Spei,' the whole enclosed in an oval frame.
Vautrollier was succeeded in business by his
son-in-law, Richard Field, another case of the
apprentice marrying his master's daughter. Field
was a native of Stratford-on-Avon, and therefore
a fellow-townsman of Shakespeare's, whose first
poem, Venus and Adonis, he printed for Harrison
in 1593. But we have no knowledge of any inter-
course between them.
Field succeeded to the stock of his predecessor,
and his work is free from the haste and slovenly
appearance so general at that time. Another work
from his press was Puttenham's Arte of English
Poesy, 1589, 4to. The first edition, of which
there is a copy in the British Museum, had no
author's name, but was dedicated by the printer
n8 ENGLISH PRINTING
to Lord Burghley. In the second book, four
pages were suppressed. They are inserted in
the copy under notice, but are not paged. This
edition also contained as a frontispiece a portrait
of the Queen. Another notable work of Field's
was Sir John Harington's translation of Orlando
Furioso (1591, fol.). This book had an elaborate
frontispiece, with a portrait of the translator, and
thirty-six engraved illustrations, that make up in
vigour of treatment, and breadth of imagination,
for shortcomings in the matter of draughtsman-
ship. The text was printed in double columns,
and each verse of the Argument was enclosed in
a border of printers' ornaments. A second edition,
alike in. almost every respect, passed through the
same press in 1607. In 1594 Field printed a
second edition of Venus and Adonis, and the
first edition of Lucrece. His later work included
David Hume's Daphne- Amaryllis, 1605, 4to ;
Chapman's translation of the Odyssey (1614,
folio); and an edition of Virgil in quarto in
1620.
Foremost among the later men of this cen-
tury stands Christopher Barker, the Queen's
printer, who was born about 1529, and is said
to have been grand-nephew to Sir Christopher
Barker, Garter King-at-Arms. Originally a
member of the Drapers' Company, he began to
publish books in 1569 (Arber, i. p. 398), and to
print in 1576, and purchased from Sir Thomas
CHRISTOPHER BARKER
119
Wilkes his patent to print the Old and New
Testament in English. Barker issued in 1578
a circular offering his large Bible to the London
Companies at the rate of 245. each bound, and
2os. unbound, the clerks of the various Com-
FIG. 24. Christopher Barker's Device.
panics to receive 4d. apiece for every Bible sold,
and the hall of each Company that took ^40
worth to receive a presentation copy (Lemon's
Catal. of Broadsides).
120 ENGLISH PRINTING
In 1582 Barker sent to Lord Burghley an
account of the various printing monopolies granted
since the beginning of the reign, and expresses
himself freely on them. He also attempted to
suppress the printers in Cambridge University.
In and after 1588 he carried on his business by
deputies, George Bishop and Ralph Newbery, and
in the following year, on the disgrace of Sir
Thomas Wilkes, he obtained an exclusive patent
for himself and his son to print all official docu-
ments, as well as Bibles and Testaments. At one
time Barker had no fewer than five presses, and
between 1575 and 1585 he printed as many as
thirty-eight editions of the Scriptures, an almost
equal number being printed by his deputies before
1600. Christopher Barker died in 1599, an d was
succeeded in his post of royal printer by Robert
Barker, his eldest son.
On the 23rd June 1586 was issued The Newe
Decrees of the Starre Chamber for orders in
Printing, which is reprinted in full in the second
volume of Arber's Transcripts, pp. 807-812. It
was the most important enactment concerning
printing of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and formed
the model upon which all subsequent ' whips and
scorpions' for the printers were manufactured.
Its chief clauses were these : It restricted all
printing to London and the two Universities.
The number of presses then in London was to be
reduced to such proportions as the Archbishop of
CHRISTOPHER BARKER 121
Canterbury and the Bishop of London should
think sufficient. No books were to be printed
without being licensed, and the wardens were
given the right to search all premises on suspicion.
The penalties were imprisonment and defacement
of stock.
CHAPTER VI
PROVINCIAL PRESSES OF THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY 1
N the first half of the sixteenth
century, before the incorporation
of the Stationers' Company and
the subsequent restriction of print-
ing to London and the Univer-
sities, there were ten places in
England where the art was carried on. Taking
them chronologically, the earliest was the city of
York. Mr. Davies, in his Memoirs of the York
Press, claims that Frederick Freez, a book-printer,
was at work there in 1497 ; but Mr. Allnutt has
clearly shown that there is no evidence in support
of this, no specimen of his printing being in exist-
ence. The first printer in the city of York who
can be traced with certainty was Hugo Goez,
said to have been the son of Matthias van der
Goez, an Antwerp printer. Two school-books, a
Donatus Minor and an Accidence, as well as
1 For the materials of this chapter free use has been made of Mr. Allnutt's
series of papers contributed to the second volume of Bibliographica, to whom
my thanks are due.
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 123
the Directorium Sacerdotum, dated in the colo-
phon February i8th, 1509, were printed by him,
and it is believed that he was for a time in
partnership in London with a bookseller named
Henry Watson (E. G. Duff, Early Printed
Books). Ames, in his Typographical Antiquities,
mentions a broadside ' containing a wooden cut
of a man on horseback with a spear in his right
hand, and a shield of the arms of France in his
left. " Emprynted at Beverley in the Hyegate
by me Hewe Goes," with his mark, or rebus, of
a great H and a goose.' But this cannot now
be traced.
Another printer in York, of whom it is pos-
sible to speak with certainty, was Ursyn Milner,
who printed a Festum msitationis Beate Marie
Virginis, without date, and a Latin syntax by
Robert Whitinton, entitled Editio de concinnitate
grammatices et construction nomter impressa,
with the date December 2oth, 1516, and a wood-
cut that had belonged to Wynkyn de Worde.
The second Oxford press began about 1517.
In that year there appeared, Tractatus exposi-
torius super libros posteriorum Aristotelis, by
Walter Burley, bearing the date December 4th,
1517, without printer's name, but ascribed from
the appearance of the types to the press of John
Scolar, whose name is found in some of the
similar tracts that appeared the following year.
These included Questiones moralissime super
i2 4 ENGLISH PRINTING
libros ethicorum, by John Dedicus, dated May
15, 1518. On June 5th was issued Compendium
questionum de luce et lumine, on June yth
Walter Burley's Tractatus perbrevis de materia
et forma, on June 2yth Whitinton's De Hetero-
clitis nominibus. The latest book, dated 5th
February 1519, Compotus manualis ad usum
Oxoniensium, bore the name of Charles Kyrfoth,
but nothing further is known of any such printer.
No more is heard of a press at Oxford until
nearly the close of the sixteenth century, a gap
of nearly seventy years, and a strange and unac-
countable interval. At any rate, the next Oxford
printed book, so far as is at present known, was
John Case's Speculum Moralium quaestionum
in universam ethicen Aristotelis, with the colo-
phon, 'Oxoniae ex officina typographica Josephi
Barnesii Celeberrimae Academiae Oxoniensis
Typographi. Anno 1585.'
Joseph Barnes, the printer, had been admitted
a bookseller in 1573, and on August i5th, 1584,
the University lent him ^100 with which to
start a press. During the time that he remained
printer to the University, his press was actively
employed, no less than three hundred books, many
of them in Greek and Latin, being traced to it.
In 1595 appeared the first Welsh book printed
at the University, a translation into Welsh by
Hugh Lewis of O. Wermueller's Spiritual and
Most Precious Pearl } and in 1596 two founts of
PROVINCIAL PRESSES
125
Hebrew letter were used by Barnes, but the stock
of this letter was small.
In 1528, John Scolar, no doubt the same with
the Oxford printer, is found at Abingdon, where
FIG. 25. Device of Joseph Barnes.
he printed a Breviary for the use of the abbey
there ; only one copy has survived, and is now at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
The first Cambridge printer was John Siberch,
whose history, like that of so many other early
126 ENGLISH PRINTING
printers, is totally unknown. Nine specimens
of his printing during the years 1521-22 are
extant. The first is the Oratio of Henry
Bullock, a tract of eight quarto leaves, with a
dedication dated February 13, 1521, and the
date of the imprint February 1521, so that it
probably appeared between the I3th and 28th
of that month. The type used was a new fount
of Roman. The book had no ornamentation of
any kind, neither device nor initial letters. A
facsimile of this book, with an introduction and
bibliographical study of Siberch's productions,
was issued by the late Henry Bradshaw in 1886.
The title-page of the second book, Cuinsdam
fidelis Christiani epistola ad Christianas omnes,
by Augustine, shows the title between two up-
right woodcuts, each containing scenes from the
Last Judgment. The third book, an edition of
Lucian, has a very ugly architectural border.
The fifth book from Siberch's press, the Libel-
IMS de Conscribendis epistolis, autore D. Erasmo,
printed between the 22nd and 3ist of October
1521, contains the privilege which, it is believed,
he obtained from Bishop Fisher.
In the far west of England a press was estab-
lished in the monastery of Tavistock, in Devon,
of which two curious examples are preserved.
The first is The Boke of Comfort, called in laten
Boetius de Consolatione philosophie. Translated
into English tonge . . . Enprented in the exempt
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 127
monastery of Tauestock in Denshyre, By me
Dan Thomas Rycharde, monke of the sayde
monastery, To the instant desyre of the ryght
ivorshypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon.
Anno d! M.Dxxv., 4 to. The Bodleian Library
at Oxford has two imperfect copies of this book,
and a third, also imperfect, is in the library of
Exeter College, Oxford. The latter college is also
fortunate in possessing the only known copy of
the second book, which has this title :
Herefoloweth the confirmation of the Charter
perteynynge to all the tynners wythyn the Couty
of devonshyre, with there Statutes also made at
Crockery ntorre.
Imprented at Tavy stoke ye xx day of August
the yere of the reygne off our souerayne Lord
Kyng Henry ye mil the xxm yere, i.e. 1534.
To this same year, 1534, belongs the first dated
book of John Herford, the St. Albans printer.
It seems probable that he was established there
some years earlier, but this is the first certain
date we have. In that year appeared a small
quarto, with the title, Here begynnethe ye glorious
lyfe and passion of Seint Albon prothomartyr of
Englande, and also the lyfe and passion of Saint
Amphabel, whiche conuerted saint Albon to the
fayth of Christ e, of which John Lydgate was the
author. It was printed at the request of Robert
Catton, abbot of the monastery, and it would
seem as if Herford's press was situated within
128 ENGLISH PRINTING
the abbey precincts. The next book, The con-
futacyon of the first parte of Frythes boke
. . . put forth by John Guoynneth clerk, 1536,
8vo, was the work of one of the monks of the
abbey, who in the previous year had signed a
petition to Sir Francis Brian on the state of the
monastery (Letters and Papers, Henry VIII.,
vol. ix. p. 394). Another of the signatories to
that petition was Richard Stevenage, who was
at that time chamberer of the abbey, and was
created abbot on the deprivation of Robert
Catton in 1538. Of the three books which
Herford printed in that year, two were expressly
printed for Richard Stevenage. These were
A Godly disputation betweene Justus and Pec-
cat or and Senex and Juvenis, and An Epistle
agaynste the enemies of poore people, both octavos,
of which no copies are now known. In some
of Herford's books is a curious device with the
letters R.S. intertwined on it, which undoubtedly
stand for Richard Stevenage. His reign as abbot
was a short one, for on 5th December 1539 he
delivered the abbey over to Henry vm.'s com-
missioners. Just before that event, on the i2th
October, he wrote a letter to Cromwell in which
the following passage occurs :
' Sent John Pryntare to London with Harry Pepwell, Bonere
and Tabbe, of Powlles churchyard stationers, to order him at
your pleasure. Never heard of the little book of detestable
heresies till the stationers showed it me.' (Letters and Papers,
Hen. VIIL, Vol. xiv., Ft. 2, No. 315.)
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 129
The ' John Pryntare ' can be none other than
John Herford. ' Bonere ' was a misreading for
Bonham, and these three, Pepwell, Tab, and
Bonham, all of them printers or booksellers in
St. Paul's Churchyard, were evidently sent down
especially to inquire into the matter.
We next hear of John Herford as in London
in 1542, but meanwhile a modification of Steven-
age's device was used by a London printer named
Bourman. From the Letters and Papers of
Henry VI I L, vol. xv. pp. 115, etc., it appears
that after his retirement from the abbey, Richard
Stevenage went by the name of Boreman. He
is invariably spoken of as ' Stevenage alias Bore-
man,' so that the Nicholas Bourman, the London
printer, was perhaps a relative.
The Rev. S. Sayers in his Memoirs of Bristol,
1823, vol. ii. p. 228, states, on the authority of
documents in the city archives, that a press was
at work in the castle in the year 1546. Of this
press, if it ever existed, not so much as a leaf
remains.
In 1547 Anthony Scoloker was established as
a printer at Ipswich. In that year he printed
The just reckenyng or accompt of the whole nomber
of yeares, from the beginnynge of the world, vnto
this present yeare of 1547. Translated out of
Germaine tonge by Anthony Scoloker the 6 daye of
July 1547. He was chiefly concerned with the
movements of the Reformation, and his publica-
R
130
ENGLISH PRINTING
tions were mostly small octavos, the writings of
Luther, Zwingli, and Ochino, printed in type of
a German character and of no great merit. In
1548 he moved to London, where for a time he
was in partnership with William Seres. The
adjoining cut, the earliest English representation
of a printing press, is taken from the Ordinarye
FIG. 26. From the Ordinarye of 'Christians, c. 1550.
of Christians, printed by Scoloker after he had
settled in London.
A second printer in Ipswich is believed to
have been John Overton, who in 1548 printed
there two sheets of Bale's Illustrium maioris
Britannia script orum summariwn, the remainder
of which was printed at Wesel. Nothing else of
his appears to be known.
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 131
The third printer at Ipswich was John Oswen,
who was also established there in 1548. Nine
books can be traced to his press there. The first
was The Mynde of the Godly and excellent lerned
man M. Jhon Caluyne what a Faithful man,
whiche is instructe in the Worde of God ought to
do, dwellinge amongest the Papistes. Imprinted
at Ippyswiche by me John Oswen. 8vo. This
was followed by Calvin's Brief declaration of the
fained sacrament commonly called the extreame
unction. The remainder of his books were of a
theological character. He left Ipswich about
Christmas 1548, and is next found at Worcester,
where, on the 3Oth January 1549, he printed A
Consultarie for all Christians most godly and
ernestly warnying al people to beware least they
beare the name of Christians in vayne. Now
first imprinted the xxx day of Januarie Anno
M.D. xlix. At Worceter by John Oswen. Cum
priuilegio Regali ad imprimendum solum . Per sep-
tennium. The privilege, which was dated January
6th, 1548-9, authorised Oswen to print all sorts
of service or prayer-books and other works re-
lating to the scriptures 'within our Principalitie
of Wales and Marches of the same.' *
Oswen followed this by another edition of the
Domestycal or Household Sermons of Christopher
1 Forty-second Report of the Worcester Diocesan Arch, and Archaeo-
logical Society. Paper by Rev. J. R. Burton on 'Early Worcestershire
Printers and Books.'
132 ENGLISH PRINTING
Hegendorff, which was printed on the last day
of February 1549.
Then came his first important undertaking,
a quarto edition of The boke of common praier.
Imprinted the xxiv day of May Anno MDXLIX.
The folio edition appeared in July of the same
year. Two months later he printed an edition of
the Psalter or Psalmes of David, 4to. On
January 12, 1550, appeared a quarto edition of
the New Testament, of which there is a copy
in Balliol College Library, and this was fol-
lowed in the same year by Zwingli's Short
Pathwaye, translated by John Veron ; by a
translation by Edward Aglionby of Mathew
Gribalde's Notable and marvellous epistle, and
the Godly sayings of the old auncient fathers,
compiled by John Veron. Two or three books
of the same kind were issued in 1551, and in
1552 he issued another edition of the Book of
Common Prayer. The last we hear of him is in
1553, when he printed an edition of the Statutes
of 6th Edward vi., and An Homely e to read in the
tyme of pestylence. What became of Oswen is
not known. He very likely went abroad on the
accession of Queen Mary.
In Kent there was a press at Canterbury, from
which eleven books are known to have been
printed between 1549 and 1556.
John Mychell, the printer of these, began work
in London at the Long Shop in the Poultry,
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 133
some time between the departure of Richard
Banckes in 1539 and the tenancy of Richard Kele
in 1542. In 1549 he appears to have moved to
Canterbury, where he printed a quarto edition
of the Psalms, with the colophon, ' Printed
at Canterbury in Saynt Paules paryshe by John
Mychell.' In 1552 he issued A Breuiat Cronicle
contayninge all the Kynges from Brute to this
daye, and in 1556, the Articles of Cardinal Poles
Visitation. He also issued several minor theo-
logical tracts without dates.
The Norwich press began about 1566, when
Anthony de Solemne, or Solempne, set up a press
among the refugees who had fled from the Nether-
lands and taken refuge in that city. Most of
his books were printed in Dutch, and all of them
are excessively rare. The earliest was :
Der Siecken Troost, Onderwijsinghe om
gewillichlick te steruen. Troostinghe \ om den
siecken totte rechten gheloue ende betrouiven in
Christo te onderwijsen. Ghemeyn bekenisse der
sonden \ met / scoon gebeden. Ghedruct in Jaer ons
Heeren. Anno 1566. The only known copy of
the book is in Trinity College Library, Dublin.
The Psalms of David in Dutch appeared in
1568, and the New Testament in the same
year.
He was also the printer of certain Tables
concerning God's word, by Antonius Corranus,
pastor of the Spanish Protestant congregation at
134 ENGLISH PRINTING
Antwerp. It was printed in four languages, Latin,
French, Dutch, and English.
The only known specimen of Solempne's
printing in the English language is a broadside
now in the Bodleian :
Cert ay ne versis \ written by Thomas Brooke
Getleman \ in the tyme of his imprysoment / the
daye before his deathe j who sufferyd at Norwich
the 30 of August 1570. Imprynted at Norwiche
in the Par y she of Say net Andrewe j by Anthony
de Solempne 1570.
In this year Solempne also printed Eenen
Calendier Historiael \ eewelick gheduerende, 8vo,
a tract of eight leaves printed in black and red,
of which there are copies in the library of Trinity
College, Dublin, and the Bodleian.
There is then a gap of eight years in his work,
the next book found being a sermon, printed in
1578, Het tweede boeck vande sermoenen des wel
vermaerden Predicant B. Cornells Adriaensen
'van Dordrecht minrebroeder tot Brugges. Of this
there are two copies known, one in the library
of Trinity College, Dublin.
The last book traced to Solempne's press is
Chronyc. Historie der Nederlandtscher Oorlogen.
Gedruct tot Norrtwitz na de copie van Basel,
Anno 1579, 8vo, of which there remain copies
in the Bodleian, University Library, Cam-
bridge, and in the private collection of Lord
Arnherst.
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 135
In 1583, after an interval similar to that
at Oxford, another press was started at Cam-
bridge, when, on May 3rd of that year, Thomas
Thomas was appointed University printer. His
career was marked by many difficulties. The
Company of Stationers at once seized his press
as an infringement of their privileges, and this in
the face of the fact that for many years the Uni-
versity had possessed the royal licence, though
hitherto it had not been used. The Bishop of
London, writing to Burghley, declared on hearsay
evidence that Thomas was a man ' vtterlie ignor-
aunte in printinge.' The University protested,
and as it was clearly shown that they held the
royal privilege, the Company were obliged to
submit, but they did the Cambridge printer all
the injury they could by freely printing books
that were his sole copyright (Arber's Transcripts,
vol. ii. pp. 782, 813, 819-20). He printed for the
use of scholars small editions of classical works.
In 1585 he issued in octavo the Latin Grammar
of Peter Ramus, and in 1587 the Latin Grammar
of James Carmichael in quarto (Hazlitt, Collections
and Notes, 3rd series, p. 17). He was also the
compiler of a Dictionary, first printed about 1588,
of which five editions were called for before the
end of the century.
Thomas died in August 1588, and the Uni-
versity, on the 2nd November, appointed John
Legate his successor, as ' he is reported to be
136
ENGLISH PRINTING
skilful in the art of printing books/ On the
26th April 1589 he received as an apprentice
Cantrell Legge, who afterwards succeeded him.
From 1590 to 1609 he appears in the parish books
of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, as paying
55. a year for the rent of a shop. He had the
exclusive right of printing Thomas's Dictionary,
CAN1A
BRIGIA
FIG. 27. Device used by John Legate.
and he printed most of the books of William
Perkins. He subsequently left Cambridge and
settled in London.
The books printed by these two Cambridge
printers show that they had a good variety of
Roman and Italic, very regularly cast, besides
some neat ornaments and initials. Whether
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 137
these founts belonged to the University, or to
Thomas in the first place, is not clear. Nor
do these books bear out the Bishop of London's
statement as to Thomas being ignorant of print-
ing; on the contrary, the presswork was such
as could only have been done by a skilled work-
man.
In addition to the foregoing, there were
several secret presses at work in various parts of
the country during the second half of the century.
The Cartwright controversy, which began in
1572 with the publication of a tract entitled An
Admonition to the Parliament, was carried out
by means of a secret press at which John Stroud
is believed to have worked, and had as assistants
two men named Lacy and Asplyn. The Stationers'
Company employed Toy and Day to hunt it out,
with the result that it was seized at Hempstead,
probably Hemel Hempstead, Herts, or Hemp-
stead near Saffron Walden, Essex. The type
was handed over to Bynneman, who used it in
printing an answer to Cartwright's book. It was
in consequence of his action in this matter that
John Day was in danger of being killed by
Asplyn.
A few years later books by Jesuit authors were
printed from a secret press which, from some notes
written by F. Parsons in 1598, and now preserved
in the library of Stonyhurst College, we know
began work at Greenstreet House, East Ham, but
138 ENGLISH PRINTING
was afterwards removed to Stonor Park. The
overseer of this press was Stephen Brinckley, who
had several men under him, and the most noted
book issued from it was Campion's Rationes
Decem, with the colophon, ' Cosmopoli 1581.'
Finally, there was the Marprelate press, of
which Robert Waldegrave was the chief printer.
He was the son of a Worcestershire yeoman, and
put himself apprentice to William Griffith, from
the 24th June 1568, for eight years. He was
therefore out of his time in 1576, and in 1578
there is entered to him a book entitled A Cast ell
for the Soul. His subsequent publications were
of the same character, including, in 1581, The
Confession and Declaration of John Knox, The
Confession of the Protestants of Scotland, and a
sermon of Luther's. It was not, however, until
the 7th April 1588 that he got into trouble. In
that year he printed a tract of John Udall's, en-
titled The State of the Church of England. His
press was seized and his type defaced, but he
succeeded in carrying off some of it to the house
of a Mrs. Crane at East Molesey, where he printed
another of Udall's tracts, and the first of the
Marprelate series : O read over D. John Bridges
for it is a worthye work. Printed oversea in
Europe within two furlongs of a Bounsing Priest,
at the cost and charges of M. Marprelate, gentle-
man.
From East Molesey the press was afterwards
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 139
removed to Fawsley, near Daventry, and from
thence to Coventry. But the hue and cry after
the hidden press was so keen that another shift
was made to Wolston Priory, the seat of Sir R.
Knightley, and finally Waldegrave fled over sea,
taking with him his black-letter type. He went
first to Rochelle, and thence to Edinburgh, where
in 1590 he was appointed King's printer.
The Marprelate press was afterwards carried
on by Samuel Hoskins or Hodgkys, who had
as his workmen Valentine Symmes and Arthur
Thomlyn. The last of the Marprelate tracts,
The Protestacyon of Martin Marprelate, was
printed at Haseley, near Warwick, about Sep-
tember 1589.
PRINTING IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND DURING
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 1
On the 1 5th September 1507, King James iv.
of Scotland granted to his faithful subjects, Walter
Chepman and Andrew Myllar, burgesses of Edin-
burgh, leave to import a printing-press and letter,
and gave them licence to print law books, brevi-
aries, and so forth, more particularly the Breviary
of William, Bishop of Aberdeen. Walter Chep-
man was a general merchant, and probably his
1 For the material of this chapter I am chiefly indebted to the valuable
work of Messrs. Dickson and Edmond, Annals of Scottish Printing.
ENGLISH PRINTING
chief part in the undertaking at the outset was
of a financial character. Androw Myllar had for
some years carried on the business of a bookseller
in Edinburgh, and books were printed for him
in Rouen by Pierre Violette. There is, more-
over, evidence that Myllar himself learnt the art
of printing in that city.
The printing-house of the firm in Edinburgh
was in the Southgait (now the Cowgate), and
they lost no time in setting to work, devoting
themselves chiefly to printing some of the popular
metrical tales of England and Scotland. A
volume containing eleven such pieces, most of
them printed in 1508, is preserved in the Advo-
cates' Library, Edinburgh.
Among the pieces found in it are Sir Egla-
moure ofArtoys, Maying or desport of Chaucer,
Buke of Gude Counsale to the Kyng, Flytting of
Dunbar & Kennedy, and Twa Marrit Wemen
and the wedo.
Three founts of black letter, somewhat resem-
bling in size and shape those of Wynkyn de
Worde, were used in printing these books, and
the devices of both men are found in them.
That of Chepman was a copy of the device of the
Paris printer, Pigouchet, while Myllar adopted
the punning device of a windmill with a miller
bearing sacks into the mill, with a small shield
charged with three fleur-de-lys in each of the
upper corners.
PROVINCIAL PRESSES
141
After printing the above-mentioned works,
Myllar disappears, and the famous Breviarium
Aberdonense, the work for which the King
JtflROi)
FIG. 28. Device of Andrew Miller.
had mainly granted the license, was finished
in 1509-10 by Chepman alone. It is an unpre-
142 ENGLISH PRINTING
tentious little octavo, printed in double columns,
in red and black, as became a breviary, but with
no special marks of typographical beauty. Four
copies of it are known to exist, but none of these
are perfect. Chepman then disappears as mys-
teriously as his partner. In the Glamis copy of
the Bremarium, Dr. David Laing discovered a
single sheet of eight leaves of a book with the
imprint : Impressu Edinburgi per Johane Story
nomine & mandato Karoli Stule. Nothing more,
however, is known of this John Story.
In 1541-2 another printer, Thomas Davidson,
is found printing The New Actis and Constitu-
tionis of Parliament maid Be the Rycht Excellent
Prince James the Fift King of Scottis, 1540.
Davidson's press, which was situated ' above the
nether bow, on the north syde of the gait/ was
also very short-lived, and very few examples of
it are now in existence ; one of these, a quarto
of four leaves, with the title Ad Serenissimum
Scotorum Regem Jacobum Quintum de suscepto
Regni Regimine a diis feliciter ominato Strena,
is the earliest instance of the use of Roman type
in Scotland. His most important undertaking,
besides the Acts of Parliament, was a Scottish
history, printed about 1542.
The next printer we hear of is John Scot or
Skot. There was a printer of this name in Lon-
don between 1521 and 1537, but whether he is
to be identified with this slightly later Scottish
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 143
printer is not known. Between 1552 and 1571
Scot printed a great many books, most of them
of a theological character. Among them was
Ninian Winziet's Certane tractatis for Reforma-
tioune of Doctryne and Maneris, a quarto, printed
on the 2ist May 1562, and the same author's
Last Blast of the Trumpet. For these he was
arrested and thrown into prison, and his printing
materials were handed over to Thomas Bassan-
dyne. In 1568 he was at liberty again and printed
for Henry Charteris, The Warkes of the famous
& vorthie Knicht Schir David Lyndesay ; while
among his numerous undated books is found
Lyndsay's Ane Dialog betwix Experience and
Ane Courtier, of which he printed two editions,
the second containing several other poems by the
same author.
Scot was succeeded by Robert Lekpreuik,
who began to print, in 1561, his first dated
book, a small black-letter octavo of twenty-four
pages, called The Confessione of the fayght and
doctrin beleued and professed by the Protestantes
of the Realme of Scotland. Imprinted at Edin-
burgh be Robert Lekpreuik, Cum privilegio, 1561.
In the following year the Kirk lent him 200
with which to print the Psalms. The copy now in
the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, bound with
the Book of Common Order printed by Lekpreuik
in the same year, probably belongs to this
edition.
i 4 4 ENGLISH PRINTING
Two years later, in 1564-5, he obtained a
license under the Privy Seal to print the Acts of
Parliament of Queen Mary and the Psalms of
David in Scottish metre. Of this edition of the
Psalms there is a perfect copy in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Again, in 1567,
Lekpreuik obtained the royal license as king's
printer for twenty years, during which time he
was to have the monopoly of printing Donatus
pro pueris, Rudimentis of Pelisso, Acts of
Parliament, Chronicles of the Realm, the book
called Regia Majestas, the Psalms, the Homelies,
and Rudiment a Artis Grammaticae.
Among his other work of that year may be
noticed a ballad entitled The testament and
tragedie of vmquhile King Henry Stewart of
glide memory, a broadside of sixteen twelve-line
stanzas, from the pen of Robert Sempil. A copy
of this is in the British Museum (Cott. Caligula,
C. i. fol. 17). In 1568 there was danger of plague
in Edinburgh, and Lekpreuik printed a small
octavo of twenty-four leaves, in Roman type, with
the title, Ane breve description of the Pest,
Quhair in the Cavsis signes and sum speciall
preservatiovn and eyre thairof ar contenit. Set
furth be Maister Gilbert Skeyne, Doctoure in
Medicine.
In 1570 he printed for Henry Charteris a quarto
edition of the Actis and Deides of Sir William
Wallace, and in 1571 The A ctis and Lyfe of Robert
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 145
Bruce. This was printed early in the year, as on
the 1 4th April Secretary Maitland made a raid
upon Lekpreuik's premises, under the belief that
he was the printer of Buchanan's Chameleon.
The printer, however, had received timely warn-
ing and retired to Stirling, where, before the 6th
of August, he printed Buchanan's Admonition,
and also a letter from John Knox ' To his loving
Brethren.' His sojourn there was very short, as
on the 4th September Stirling was attacked and
Lekpreuik thereupon withdrew to St. Andrews,
where his press was active throughout the year
1572 and part of 1573. In the month of April
1573 Lekpreuik returned to Edinburgh and
printed Sir William Drury's Regulations for the
army under his command. But in January 1573-
74 he was thrown into prison and his press and
property confiscated. How long he remained a
prisoner is not clear, but in all probability until
after the execution of the Regent Morton in 1581.
In that year he printed the following books
Patrick Adamson's Cateckismus Latino Carmine
Redditus et in libros qnatuor digestus, a small
octavo of forty leaves, printed in Roman type ;
Fowler's Answer to John Hamilton, a quarto of
twenty-eight leaves ; and a Declaration with-
out place or printer's name, but attributed to
his press : after this nothing more is heard of
him.
Contemporary with Lekpreuik was Thomas
T
146 ENGLISH PRINTING
Bassandyne, who is believed to have worked
both in Paris and Leyden before setting up as a
printer in Edinburgh.
His first appearance, in 1568, was not a
very creditable one. An order of the General
Assembly, on the ist July of that year, directs
Bassandyne to call in a book entitled The Fall
of the Roman Kirk, in which the king was called
' supreme head of the Primitive Church,' and also
orders him to delete an obscene song called Wel-
come Fortune which he had printed at the end
of a psalm-book. The Assembly appointed Mr.
Alexander Arbuthnot to revise these things.
In 1574 Bassandyne printed a quarto edition
of Sir David Lindsay's Works, of which he had
510 copies in stock at the time of his death.
On the 7th March 1574-75, in partnership with
Alexander Arbuthnot (who was not the same as
the Alexander Arbuthnot who had been appointed
to exercise a supervision of Bassandyne's books
in 1568), Bassandyne laid proposals before the
General Assembly for printing an edition of the
Bible, the first ever printed in Scotland. The
General Assembly gave him hearty support, and
required every parish to provide itself with one
of the new Bibles as soon as they were printed.
On the other hand, the printers were to deliver a
certain number of copies before the last of March
1576, and the cost of it was to be ^5. The terms
of this agreement were not carried out by the
PROVINCIAL PRESSES
printers. The New Testament only was com-
pleted and issued in 1576, with the name of
FIG. 29. Device of Alexander Arbuthnot.
Thomas Bassandyne as the printer. The whole
Bible was not finished until the close of the
i 4 8 ENGLISH PRINTING
year 1579, and Bassandyne did not live to see its
completion, his death taking place on the i8th
October 1577.
Like most of his predecessors, Bassandyne was
a bookseller; and on pp. 292-304 of their work
Annals of Scottish Printing, Messrs. Dickson
and Edmond have printed the Inventory of the
goods he possessed, including the whole of his
stock of books, which is of the greatest interest
and value. Unfortunately such inventories are
not to be met with in the case of English
printers.
Bassandyne used as his device a modification
of the serpent and anchor mark of John Crespin
of Geneva.
Arbuthnot was now left to carry on the busi-
ness alone, and was made King's printer in 1579.
But he was a slow, slovenly, and ignorant work-
man, and the General Assembly were so disgusted
with the delivery of the Bible and the wretched
appearance of his work, that, on the I3th February
1579-80, they decided to accept the offer of Thomas
Vautrollier, a London printer, to establish a press
in Edinburgh.
Arbuthnot died on September ist, 1585. His
device was a copy of that of Richard Jugge of
London, and is believed to have been the work
of a Flemish artist, Assuerus vol Londersel.
Another printer in Edinburgh between 1574-
80 was John Ross. He worked chiefly for Henry
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 149
Charteris, for whom he printed the Catechisme in
1574, and a metrical version of the Psalms in
1578. For the same bookseller he also printed
a poem, The seuin Seages, Translatit out of prois
in Scottis meter be Johne Rolland in Dalkeith, a
quarto, now so rare that only one copy is now
known, that in the Britwell Library.
In 1579 Ross printed Ad mrulentum Archi-
baldi Hamiltonii Apostatce dialogum, de con-
fusione Calviniance Sectce apud Scotos, impie
conscription, orthodoxa responsio, Thoma Smet-
onio Scoto auctore, a quarto, printed in Roman
letter, and followed it up with two editions of
Buchanan's Dejure Regni apud Scotos dialogus.
Ross used a device showing Truth with an
open book in her right hand, a lighted candle in
her left, surrounded with the motto ' Vincet tan-
dem veritas.' This device was afterwards used
by both Charteris and Waldegrave. Ross died
in 1580, when his stock passed into the hands
of Henry Charteris, who began printing in the
following year. As we have seen, he employed
Scot, Lekpreuik, and Ross to print for him. Up
to 1581 he confined himself to bookselling. His
printing was confined to various editions of
Sir David Lindsay's Works and theological
tracts. He used two devices, that of Ross, and
another emblematical of Justice and Religion,
with his initials. He died on the Qth August
1599-
150 ENGLISH PRINTING
In 1580, at the express invitation of the
General Assembly, Thomas Vautrollier visited
Edinburgh, and set up as a bookseller, no doubt
with the view of seeing what scope there was
likely to be for a printer with a good stock of
type. The Treasurer's accounts for this period
show that he received royal patronage.
On his second visit, a year or two later, he
went armed with a letter to George Buchanan
from Daniel Rodgers, and set up a press in
Edinburgh. But in spite of the support of the
Assembly and the patronage that an introduc-
tion to Buchanan must have brought him, he
evidently soon found there was not enough busi-
ness in Edinburgh to support a printer, for he
remained there little more than a year, when he
again returned to London. During his short
career as a printer in Edinburgh he printed at
least eight books, of which the most important
were Henry Balnave's Confession of Faith, 1584,
8vo, and King James's Essayes of a Prentice in
the Divine Art of Poesie, 4to.
Scotland's next important printer was Robert
Waldegrave, who, after his adventures as a secret
printer in England, set up a press in Edinburgh
in 1590, and continued printing there till the
close of the century.
One of his first works was a quarto in Roman
type entitled The Confession of Faith, Subscribed by
the Kingis Maiestie and his householde : Togither
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 151
with the Copie of the Bande, maid touching the
maintenaunce of the true Religion. Among his
other work, which was chiefly theological, may
be mentioned King James's Demonologie, 1597,
4to, and the first edition of the Basilikon Doron,
in quarto, of which it is said only seven copies
were printed.
Contemporary with him was a Robert Smyth,
who married the widow of Thomas Bassandyne,
and who in 1599 received license to print the
following books : ' The double and single cate-
chism, the plane Donet, the haill four pairtes of
grammar according to Sebastian, the Dialauges
of Corderius, the celect and familiar Epistles of
Cicero, the buik callit Sevin Seages, the Ballat
buik, the Secund rudimentis of Dunbar, the
Psalmes of Buchanan and Psalme buik.'
The only known copy of Smyth's edition of
Rolland's Seven Sages is that in the British
Museum.
The last of the Scottish printers of the six-
teenth century was Robert Charteris, the son
and successor of Henry Charteris, but he did
not succeed to the business until 1599, and his
work lies chiefly in the succeeding century.
It may safely be said that the earliest press
in Ireland of which there is any authentic notice
was that of Humphrey Powell, of which there is
the following note in the Act Books of the Privy
152 ENGLISH PRINTING
Council (New Series, vol. iii. p. 84), under date
i8th July 1550:
' A warrant to , to deliver xx n unto Powell the printer,
given him by the Kinges Majestic towarde his setting up in
Ireland. 1
Nothing is known of Humphrey Powell's work
in England beyond several small theological
works issued between 1548 and 1549 from a
shop in Holborn above the Conduit.
On his arrival in Ireland he set up his press
in Dublin, and printed there the Prayer Book of
Edward vi. with the colophon :
' Imprinted by Humphrey Powell, printer to the Kynges
Maieste, in his Highnesse realme of Ireland dwellynge in the
citie of Dublin in the great toure by the Crane Cum Privelegio
ad imprimendum solum. Anno Domini, M.D.L.I.
Timperley, in his Encyclopaedia (p. 314), says
that Powell continued printing in Dublin for
fifteen years, and removed to the southern side
of the river to St. Nicholas Street.
In 1571 the first fount of Irish type was pre-
sented by Queen Elizabeth to John O' Kearney,
treasurer of St. Patrick's, to print the Catechism
which appeared in that year from the press of
John Franckton. (Reed, Old English Letter
Foundries, pp. 75, 186-7.) It was n t a pure
Irish character, but a hybrid fount consisting
for the most part of Roman and Italic letters,
with the seven distinctly Irish sorts added. A
PROVINCIAL PRESSES 153
copy of the Catechism is exhibited in the King's
Library, British Museum, and in the Library of
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is a copy of
a broadside Poem on the last Judgement, sent
over to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a speci-
men.
This type was afterwards used to print William
O'Donnell's, or Daniel's, Irish Testament in 1602.
u
CHAPTER VII
THE STUART PERIOD
1603-1640
NE of the first acts of King James
on his accession to the English
throne was to strengthen the hands
of the already powerful Company of
Stationers. Hitherto all Primers
and Psalters had been the exclusive
privilege of the successors of Day and Seres,
while Almanacs and Prognostications, another
large and profitable source of revenue, had been
the property of James Roberts and Richard
Watkins. But now, by the royal authority, these
two valuable patents were turned over to the
Stationers to form part of their English stock.
At the same time, the privileges of Robert Barker,
son and successor to Christopher Barker, and
king's printer by reversion, were increased by
grants for printing all statutes, hitherto the
monopoly of other printers. On the other hand,
Robert Barker did not retain the sole possession
of the royal business as men like Berthelet and
THE STUART PERIOD 155
Pynson had been wont to do, but had joined
with him in the patent John Norton, who had
a special grant for printing all books in Latin,
Greek, and Hebrew, and John Bill, who pro-
bably obtained his share by purchase. These
three men were thus the chief printers during
the early part of this reign.
Robert Barker had been made free of the
Stationers' Company in 1589, when he joined
his father's assigns, George Bishop and Ralph
Newbery, in the management of the business.
He was admitted to the livery of the Company
in 1592, and upon his father's death succeeded
to the office of King's printer by reversion. In
1 60 1 -2 he was warden of the Company, and filled
the office of Master in 1605. Some time before
1618 he sold his moiety of the business to Bon-
ham Norton and John Bill, and this arrangement
was confirmed by Royal Charter in 1627.
Upon the death of Bonham Norton, Barker's
name again appears in the imprint of the firm,
and he continued printing until about 1645. It
is said by Ames (vol. ii. p. 1091), and has been
repeated by all writers since his day, that Robert
Barker was committed to the King's Bench Prison
in 1635, an d that he remained a prisoner there
until his death in 1645. No confirmation of
this can be found in the State Papers ; indeed
the fact that he accompanied Charles i. to New-
castle in 1636, and was printing in other parts of
156 ENGLISH PRINTING
England until 1640, proves that he could not
have been in prison the whole of the time from
1635 to 1645.
Robert Barker's work was almost entirely of
an official character, the printing of the Scriptures,
Book of Common Prayer, Statutes and Proclama-
tions.
His work was very unequal, and his type,
mostly of black letter, was not of the best.
His most important undertaking was the so-
called 'authorised version' of the Bible in 1611.
As a matter of fact it never was authorised in
any official sense. The undertaking was pro-
posed at a conference of divines, held at Hamp-
ton Court in 1604. The King manifested great
interest in the scheme, but did not put his hand
in his pocket towards the expenses, and the
divines who undertook the translation obtained
little except fame for their labours, while the
whole cost of printing was borne by Robert
Barker. Like all previous editions of the Scrip-
tures in folio, this Bible of 1611 was printed in
great primer black letter. It was preceded by
an elaborately engraved title-page, the work of
C. Boel of Richmond, and had also an engraved
map of Canaan, partly the work of John Speed.
The type and ornaments were the same as had
been used to print the first edition of the ' Bishops'
Bible,' the initial letter to the Psalms containing
the arms of Whittingham and Cecil,
CHAP. I.
i The creation of Heauen and Earth, 5 of the
light, 6 of the firmament, j> of die earth fe-
parated from the waters, n and made fruit-
lull, 14 oftheSunne,M6one,andStarres,
to offifliandfowle, *4 of beafts and cat-
tell, 1.6 of Man in die Image of God. *.<) Al-
fo the appointment of food.
crcate&'tDc
, anD ttjc
cart!) tt>as ttitl>
out fo?me , ant)
neob was
tije fate of ttje fceepe : ant) tl)t
of <0oD mooneo ipon ttjc face of tijc
3
4*
good:
ttjemrfcendfe.
FIG. 30. From the Bible of 1611,
158 ENGLISH PRINTING
Barker also possessed the handsome pictorial
initial letters which had been used by John Day,
and many of the ornaments and initials previously
in the office of Henry Bynneman.
John Norton was the son of Richard Norton,
a yeoman of Billingsley, county Shropshire ; he
was nephew of William Norton, and cousin of
Bonham Norton, and was thus connected by
marriage with the sixteenth century bookseller,
William Bonham. He was three times Master
of the Stationers' Company, in 1607, 1610, and
1612. On his death, in 1612, he left ^1000 to
the Company of Stationers, not as is generally
stated as a legacy of his own, but rather as trustee
of the bequest of his uncle, William Norton.
The bulk of his property he left to his cousin,
Bonham Norton (P. C. C. 5 Capell).
His press will always be remembered for the
magnificent edition of the Works of St. Chryso-
stom, in eight folio volumes, printed at Eton in
1610, at the charge of Sir Henry Savile, the
editor. The late T. B. Reed, in his History of
the Old English Letter Foundries (p. 140), speaks
of this edition as 'one of the most splendid
examples of Greek printing in this country,' and
further describes the types with which it was
printed as 'a great primer body, very elegantly
and regularly cast, with the usual numerous liga-
tures and abbreviations which characterised the
Greek"typography of that period ' (p. 141).
i A K y B y
NAOHOTATQ
MEJ 2 S
MEFA.AHZ BPET
P A F K I A
1OYEPNIA 5
P O N.
FIG. 31. Dedication of Savile's St. Ckrysostom. Eton, 1610.
160 ENGLISH PRINTING
The work is said to have cost its promoter
;8ooo.
The title-page to the first volume was hand-
somely engraved, and a highly ornamental series
of initial letters were used in it.
Another Greek work that Norton completed
at Eton in the same year was the Sancti Gregorii
Nazianzeni in Julianum Invectivae duae, in
quarto.
In addition to his patent for printing Greek
and Latin books, Norton also acquired from
Francis Rea his patent for printing grammars,
and by his will he directed a sum of money to
be paid out of the profits of this patent to his
wife Joyce.
John Bill was the son of Walter Bill, husband-
man, of Wenlock, county Salop, and on the 25th
July 1592 he apprenticed himself to John Norton.
In 1 60 1 he was admitted a freeman of the Com-
pany.
He appears to have been a man of shrewd
business ability and some scholarship, as we find
him writing in Latin to Dr. Wideman of Augs-
burg on the subject of books. He was also looked
upon by the Government as an authority on
matters concerning his business. Under his
partnership with Bonham Norton, he secured a
large share in the Royal business. John Norton
bequeathed him a legacy of ;io, and a similar
sum to his wife.
THE STUART PERIOD 161
John Bill died in 1632, and on the 26th
August of that year the whole of his stock was
assigned to Mistress Joyce Norton, the widow
of John Norton, and Master Whittaker. The
list fills upwards of two pages of Arber's Tran-
scripts (vol. iv. pp. 283-285), and includes the
following notable works :
Beza's Testament in Latin, Camden's Brit-
annia, Comines' History, Cornelius Tacitus, Du
Moulin's Defence of the Catholique Faith, Gerard's
Her ball, Goodwin's History of Henry VIII^
Plutarch's Works, Rider's Dictionary, Spalato's
Sermons, Usher's Gravissimce questiones, Ver-
stegan's Restitution of Decayed Intelligence.
The reversion of John Norton's patent for
Greek and Latin books had been granted in 1604
to Robert Barker (Dom. S. P. 1604), but the
year following Norton's death it was granted to
Bonham Norton for thirty years (Dom. S. P. i.,
vol. 72, No. 5), and he also seems to have acquired
the patent for printing grammars.
Bonham Norton was the only son of William
Norton, stationer of London, who died in 1593,
by his wife Joan, the daughter of William Bon-
ham. He took up his freedom on the 4th Feb-
ruary 1594, and was Master of the Stationers'
Company in the years 1613, 1626, and 1629, and
must have been one of the richest men in the
trade. He was joined with Thomas Wight in
a patent for printing Abridgements of the Statutes
x
i62 ENGLISH PRINTING
in 1599, and later with John Bill in a share of
the Royal printing-house. He is frequently men-
tioned in wills and other documents of this period.
At the time of John Norton's death Bonham had a
family of five sons and four daughters. He died
intestate on the 5th April 1635, and administra-
tion of his estate was granted to his son John on
the 28th May 1636 (Admon, Act Book 1636).
On the 9th May 1615 an order was made by
the Court of the Stationers' Company, upon com-
plaint made by the master printers of the number
of presses then at work, that only nineteen
printers, exclusive of the patentees, i.e. Robert
Barker, John Bill, and Bonham Norton, should
exercise the craft of printing in the city of Lon-
don. There is nothing in the work of these men,
judged as specimens of the printer's art, to interest
us, but there were some whose work was of very
much better character than others.
Richard Field, the successor of Thomas Vau-
trollier, and a fellow-townsman of Shakespeare,
has already been spoken of in an earlier chapter.
He printed many important books between 1601-
1624, had two presses at work in 1615, and was
Master of the Company in 1620. He maintained
the high character that Vautrollier had given to
the productions of his press.
Felix Kingston was the son of John King-
ston of Paternoster Row, and was admitted a
freeman of the Stationers' Company on the
THE STUART PERIOD 163
25th of June 1597, being translated from the Com-
pany of Grocers. Throughout the first half of
the seventeenth century his press was never idle.
He was Master of the Company in 1637.
Edward Aide was the son of John Aide of
the Long Shop in the Poultry. He had two
presses, and printed very largely for other men,
but his type and workmanship were poor.
William and Isaac Jaggard are best known
as the printers of the works of Shakespeare.
They were associated in the production of the
first folio in 1623, which came from the press
of Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount, at the
charges of William Jaggard, Edward Blount,
J. Smethwicke, and William Aspley ; the editors
being the poet's friends, J. Heminge and H.
Condell.
In addition to being the first collected edition
of Shakespeare's works, this was in many respects
a remarkable volume. The best copies measure
13^x8^". The title-page bears the portrait of
the poet by Droeshout. The dedicatory epistle
is in large italic type, and is followed by a second
epistle, ' To the Readers,' in Roman. The verses
in praise of the author, by Ben Jonson and others,
are printed in a second fount of italic, and the
Contents in a still smaller fount of the same
letter. The text, printed in double columns, is
in Roman and Italic, each page being enclosed
within printer's rules. Of these various types,
1 64 ENGLISH PRINTING
the best is the large italic, which somewhat
resembles Day's fount of the same letter. That
of the text is exceedingly poor, while the setting
of the type and rules leaves much to be desired.
The arrangement and pagination are erratic. The
book, like many other folios, was made up in
sixes, and the first alphabet of signatures is
correct and complete, while the second runs on
regularly to the completion of the Comedies on
cc.2. The Histories follow with a fresh alphabet,
which the printer began as *aa,' and continued
as ' a' until he got to ' g,' when he inserted a ' gg'
of eight leaves, and then continued from ' i ' to ' x'
in sixes to the end of the Histories. The Tragedies
begin with Troilus and Cresside, the insertion
of which was evidently an afterthought, as there
is no mention of it in the ' Contents ' of the
volume, and the signatures of the sheets are ^f
followed by ^[^[ six leaves each. Then they start
afresh with ' aa ' and proceed regularly to ' hh,'
the end of the Macbeth, the following signature
being ' kk/ thus omitting the remainder of signa-
ture ' hh ' and the whole of ' ii/ In a series of
interesting letters communicated to Notes and
Queries (8 S. vol. viii. pp. 306, 353, 429), the make
up of this volume is explained very plausibly.
The copyright of Troilus and Cresside belonged
to R. Bonian and H. Walley, who apparently
refused at first to give their sanction to its pub-
lication. But by that time it had been printed,
THE STUART PERIOD 165
and the sheets signed for it to follow Macbeth,
so that it had to be taken out. Arrangements
having at last been made for its insertion in the
work, it was reprinted and inserted where it is
now found. It is also surmised that the original
intention was to publish the work in three parts,
and to this theory the repetition of the signatures
lends colour.
One of the most interesting presses of the
early Stuart period, both for the excellence of its
work and the nature of the books that came from
it, was that of William Stansby. This printer
took up his freedom on the yth January 1597,
after serving a seven years' apprenticeship with
John Windet. The following April he registered
a book entitled The Polycie of the Turkishe Em-
pire. This little quarto was, however, printed
for him by his old master, John Windet, and
there is no further entry in the registers until
1611, or fourteen years after the date at which
he took up his freedom.
It would appear that Stansby began to print
in 1609 with an edition of Greene's Pandosto,
which was not registered. In 1611 he purchased
the copyright in the books of John Windet for
135. 4d., but three of them the Company added
to its stock, with the undertaking that Stansby
should always have the printing of them. One
of these books was The Assize of Bread. On
the 23rd February 1625 the whole of William
166 ENGLISH PRINTING
East's copies, including music, was assigned over
to him. This list of books is the longest to be
found in the registers, and covers every branch
of literature.
About this time Stansby got into trouble with
the Company for printing a seditious book, and
his premises were nailed up, but eventually they
were restored to him, and he continued in busi-
ness until 1639, when his stock was transferred to
Richard Bishop, and eventually came into the
hands of John Haviland and partners.
Among his more important works may be
mentioned the second and subsequent editions
of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Politic, in folio ; the
Works of Ben Jonson, 1616, folio; Eadmer's
Historia Novorum, 1623, folio ; Selden's Mare
Clausum, 1635, folio ; Blundeville's Exercises,
1622, quarto; Coryate's Crudities, 1611, quarto.
He possessed a considerable stock of type,
most of it good. Some of the ornamental head-
bands and initial letters that he used were of an
artistic character, and were used with good effect.
An instance of this may be seen in his edition of
Hooker, 1611, which has an engraved title-page
by William Hole, showing a view of St. Paul's.
The page of Contents is surrounded on three
sides by a border made up of odds and ends of
printers' ornaments, yet, in spite of its miscel-
laneous character, the effect is by no means bad.
The border to the title-page of the fifth book
THE STUART PERIOD 167
was one of a series that formed part of the stock
of the Company, and were lent out to any who
required them. Stansby's presswork was uni-
formly good, and in this respect alone he may be
ranked among the best printers of his time.
Another of the printers referred to in the list
was somewhat of a refractory character, a printer
of popular books at the risk of imprisonment, a
class of men who were to figure largely in the
events of the next few years. Nicholas Okes is
known best, perhaps, as the printer of some of
the writings of Dekker, Greene, and Heywood ;
but in 1621 he printed, without license, Withers
Motto, a tract from the pen of George Wither,
which had been published by John Marriot a
short time before. This satire aroused the ire
of the Government, and all connected with it
at once made the acquaintance of the nearest
jail. In the State Papers for that year are pre-
served the examination of the author, the book-
sellers, and the printer, Nicholas Okes. One
of the witnesses declared that Okes told him
that he had printed the book with the consent
of the Company, and that the Master (Humphrey
Lownes) had declared that if he was committed
they would get him discharged. Another de-
clared that Okes had printed two impressions
of 3000 each, using the same title-page as that
to the first edition, and that one of the wardens
of the Company (Matthew Lownes) continued to
1 68 ENGLISH PRINTING
sell the book, and called for more copies. The
only defence Okes made was that he believed
the book to be duly licensed, and when challenged
as to why he printed Marriot's name on the title-
page, declared he simply printed the book as he
found it. (S. P. Dom. James i., vol. cxxii. Nos.
1 2 et seq)
On the loth December 1623 an end was put
for the time to the disputes that had for so long
a period been raised by the Stationers' Company
to the rights of the printers of the University of
Cambridge.
The Company's last attempt to suppress
Cantrell Legg, and prevent him from printing
grammars and prayer-books, led to an appeal to
the King, who made short work of the matter by
ordering the two parties to come to an agreement.
The terms of the settlement were :
1. That all books should be sold at reasonable
prices.
2. That the University should be allowed to
print, conjointly with the London stationers, all
books except the Bible, Book of Common Prayer,
grammar, psalms, psalters, primers, etc., but they
were only to employ one press upon privileged
books.
3. That the University should print no al-
manacs then belonging to the Stationers, but
they might print prognostications brought to
them first.
THE STUART PERIOD 169
4. That the Stationers should not hinder the
sale of University books.
5. That the University printer should be at
liberty to sell all grammars and psalms that he
had already printed, and such as had been seized
by the Company were to be restored.
To the last clause a note was added to the
effect that Bonham Norton was prepared to buy
them at reasonable prices.
On the accession of Charles i. plague para-
lysed trade and made gaps in the ranks of the
Stationers' Company. During the autumn of
1624 and the following year several noted printers
died, probably from this cause. Chief among
these were George Eld, Edward Aide, and
Thomas Snodham. Eld was succeeded by his
partner, Miles Flessher or Fletcher, and Aide
by his widow, Elizabeth. Thomas Snodham
had inherited the business of Thomas East. The
copyright in these passed to William Stansby,
one of his executors ; but the materials of the
office, that is the types, woodcut letters, and
ornaments, and the presses, were sold to William
Lee for 16$, and shortly afterwards passed into
the possession of Thomas Harper. They in-
cluded a fount of black letter, and several founts
of Roman and Italic of all sizes, and one of Greek
letter, all of which had belonged to Thomas East,
and were by this time the worse for wear.
But the plague was at the worst only a tem-
Y
i;o ENGLISH PRINTING
porary hindrance ; the censorship of the press the
printers had always with them, and this, which had
been comparatively mildly used during the late
reign, was now in the hands of men who wielded it
with severity. During the next fifteen years the
printers, publishers, and booksellers of London
were subjected to a persecution hitherto unknown.
During that time there were few printers who did
not know the inside of the Gatehouse or the
Compter, or who were not subjected to heavy
fines. For the literature of that age was chiefly
of a religious character, and its tone mainly
antagonistic to Laud and his party. All other
subjects, whether philosophical, scientific, or
dramatic, were sorely neglected. The later works
of Bacon, the plays of Shirley and Shakerley
Marmion, and a few classics, most of which came
from the University presses, are sparsely scattered
amongst the flood of theological discussion. The
history of the best work in the trade in London
is practically the history of three men John
Haviland, Miles Fletcher, and Robert Young,
who joined partnership and, in addition to a share
in the Royal printing-house, obtained by purchase
the right of printing the Abridgements to the
Statutes, and bought up several large and old-
established printing-houses, such as those of
George Purslowe, Edward Griffin, and William
Stansby. Bernard Alsop and Thomas Fawcett
were also among the large capitalists of this time,
THE STUART PERIOD 171
while Nathaniel Butter, Nicholas Bourne, and
Thomas Archer were also interested in several
businesses beside their own. From the press of
Haviland came editions of Bacon's Essays, in
quarto, in 1625, 1629, 1632 ; of his Apophthegmes,
in octavo, in 1625 ; of his Miscellanies, an edition
in quarto, in 1629, and his Opera Moralia in
1638. From the press of Fletcher came the
Divine Poems of Francis Quarles, in 1633, J ^34>
and 1638, and the Hieroglyphikes of the life of
Man, by the same author, in 1638 ; while amongst
Young's publications, editions of Hamlet and
Romeo and Juliet appeared in 1637. Bernard
Alsop and his partner printed the plays of
Beaumont and Fletcher, Decker, Greene,
Lodge, and Shirley, the poems of Brathwait,
Breton, and Crashaw, and the writings of Fuller
and More.
But the most notable books of this period
were not those enumerated above, but rather
those which brought their authors, printers, and
publishers within the clutches of the law, and
the story of the struggle for freedom of speech
is one of the most interesting in the history of
English printing. Three men Henry Burton,
rector of St. Matthews, Friday Street ; William
Prynne, barrister of Lincoln's Inn ; and John
Bastwick, surgeon, are generally looked upon as
the chief of the opposition to Laud and his party ;
but there were a number of other writers on the
ENGLISH PRINTING
same subject, whose works brought them into
the Court of High Commission. Thus, on the
1 5th February 1626, Benjamin Fisher, bookseller,
John Okes, Bernard Alsop, and Thomas Fawcett,
printers, were examined concerning a book which
they had caused to be printed and sold, called
A Short View of the Long Life and reign of
Henry the Third, of which Sir Robert Cotton
was the author. Fisher stated in his evidence
that five sheets of this book were printed by John
Okes, and one other by Alsop and Fawcett, which
in itself is an indication of the immense difficulty
that must have attended the discovery of the
printers of forbidden books. The manuscript
Fisher declared he had bought from Alsop, who,
in his turn, said that he bought it of one Ferdi-
nando Ely, ' a broker in books,' for the sum of
twelvepence, and printed what was equivalent to
a thousand copies of the one sheet delivered to
him, 'besides waste.' Nicholas Okes declared
that his son John had printed the book without
his knowledge and while he (Nicholas) was a
prisoner in the Compter. Ferdinando Ely was
a second-hand bookseller in Little Britain.
No very serious consequences seem to have
followed in this instance ; but in the following
year (1628), Henry Burton was charged by the
same authorities with being the author of certain
unlicensed books, The Baiting of the Pope's Bull,
Israel's Fast, Trial of Private Devotions, Con-
THE STUART PERIOD 173
flicts and Comforts of Conscience, A Plea to an
Appeal, and Seven JSials. The first of these was
licensed, but the remainder were not. They were
said to have been printed by Michael Sparke
and William Jones ; Sparke was a bookseller,
carrying on business at the sign of the Blue Bible,
in Green Arbour, in little Old Bayley, and he
employed William Jones to print for him. The
parties were then warned to be careful, but on
2nd April 1629 Sparke was arrested and thrown
into the Fleet, and with him, at the same time, were
charged William Jones, Augustine Mathewes,
printers, and Nathaniel Butter, printer and pub-
lisher. Butter's offence was the issuing of a
newspaper or pamphlet called The Reconciler',
Sparke was charged with causing to be printed
another of Burton's works, entitled Babel no
Bethel, and Spencer's Musquil Unmasked-, while
Augustine Mathewes was accused of printing, for
Sparke, William Prynne's Antithesis of the
Church of England. Each party put in an
answer, and of these, Michael Sparke's is the
most interesting. He declared that the decree
of 1586 was contrary to Magna Charta, and an
infringement of the liberties of the subject, and
he refused to say who, beside Mathewes, had
printed Prynne's book ; it afterwards turned
out to be William Turner of Oxford, who con-
fessed to printing several other unlicensed books.
A short term of imprisonment appears to have
174 ENGLISH PRINTING
been the punishment inflicted on the parties in
this instance.
Both in 1630 and 1631 several other printers
suffered imprisonment from the same cause, and
Michael Sparke, who appears to have given out
the work in most cases, was declared to be more
refractory and offensive than ever.
In 1632 appeared William Prynne's noted
book, The Histrio-Mastix, The Player's Scourge
or Actors Tragedie, a thick quarto of over one
thousand closely printed pages, which bore on
the title-page the imprint, ' printed by E. A. and
W. J. for Michael Sparke' This book, as its
title implies, was an attack on stage-plays and
acting. There was nothing in it to alarm the
most sensitive Government, and even the licenser,
though he afterwards declared that the book was
altered after it left his hands, could find nothing
in it to condemn. But, as it happened, there was
a passage concerning the presence of ladies at
stage-plays, and as the Queen had shortly before
attended a masque, the passage in question was
held to allude to her, and accordingly Prynne,
Sparke, and the printers one of whom was
William Jones were thrown into prison, and
in 1633 were brought to trial before the Star
Chamber. The printers appear to have escaped
punishment ; but Prynne was condemned to pay
a fine of ^1000, to be degraded from his degree,
to have both his ears cropped in the pillory, and
THE STUART PERIOD 175
to spend the rest of his days in prison ; while
Sparke was fined ^500, and condemned to stand
in the pillory, but without other degradation.
During this year John Bastwick also issued
two books directed against Episcopacy, both of
which are now scarce. One was entitled Elenchus
Religionis Papisticce, and the other Flagellum
Pontificis. They were printed abroad, and as
a punishment their author was condemned to
undergo a sentence little less severe than that
passed upon Prynne, who, in spite of his captivity,
continued to write and publish a great number
of pamphlets. Amongst these was one entitled
Instructions to Church Wardens, printed in 1635.
In the course of the evidence concerning this
book, mention was made of a special initial letter
C, which was said to represent a pope's head
when turned one way, and an army of soldiers
when turned the other, and to be unlike any other
letter in use by London printers at that time.
For printing this and other books, Thomas
Purslowe, Gregory Dexter, and William Taylor
of Christchurch were struck from the list of master
printers. 1
In 1637 appeared Prynne's other notorious
tract, Newesfrom Ipswich, a quarto of six leaves,
for which he was fined by the Star Chamber a fur-
ther sum of ^5000, and condemned to lose the rest
of his ears, and to be branded on the cheek with
1 Domestic State Papers, vol. 357, No. 172, 173 ; vol. 371, No. 102.
i-;6 ENGLISH PRINTING
the letters S. L. (i.e. scurrilous libeller), a sentence
that was carried out on the 3Oth June of this
year with great barbarity. The imprint to this
tract ran ' Printed at Ipswich/ but its real place
of printing was London, and perhaps the name
of Robert Raworth, which occurs in the indict-
ment, may stand for Richard Raworth, the printer
whom Sir John Lambe declared to be ' an arrant
knave.' Or the printer may have been William
Jones, 1 who about this time was fined ^1000 for
printing seditious books.
In 1634 the King wrote to Archbishop Laud
to the effect that Doctor Patrick Young, keeper of
the King's library, who had lately published the
dementis ad Corinthios Epistola prior in Greek
and Latin, and in conjunction with Bishop Lind-
sell of Peterborough, now proposed to make ready
for the press one or more Greek copies every year,
if Greek types, matrices, and money were forth-
coming. The King expressed his desire to en-
courage the work, and therefore commanded the
Archbishop that the fine of ^"300, which had been
inflicted upon Robert Barker and Martin Lucas
in the preceding year, for what was described as a
base and corrupt printing of the Bible in 1631
(the omission of the word ' not ' from the seventh
commandment, which has earned for the edition
the name of the Wicked Bible), should be con-
verted to the buying of Greek letters. The King
1 Domestic State Papers, vol. 354, No. 180,
THE STUART PERIOD 177
further ordered that Barker and Lucas should
print one work every year at their own cost of
ink, paper, and workmanship, and as many copies
as the Archbishop should think fit to authorise.
The Archbishop thereupon wrote to the printers,
who expressed their willingness to fall in with the
scheme, and a press, furnished with a very good
fount of Greek letter, was established at Black-
friars. But the result was not what might have
been expected. Partly owing to the political
troubles that followed its foundation, and partly
perhaps to delay on the part of the printers, the
only important works that came from this press
were Dr. Patrick Young's translation of the book
of Job, from the Codex Alexandrinus, a folio
printed in 1637, and an edition in Greek of the
Epistles of St. Paul, with a commentary by the
Bishop of Peterborough, also a folio, which came
from the same press in 1636. The Greek letter
used in this office cannot be compared for beauty
or delicacy of outline with that which Norton had
used in the Chrysostom of 1610.
On the nth July 1637 was published another
Star Chamber Decree concerning printers. Pro-
fessor Arber, in his fourth volume (p. 528), states
that the appearance of a tract entitled The Holy
Table, Name and Thing must ever be associated
with this decree ; but it may be doubted whether it
was not rather to general causes, such as the grow-
ing power of the press, the long-continued attack
1 78 ENGLISH PRINTING
upon the Prelacy by pamphleteers, which no fear
of mutilation or imprisonment could stop, than
any one particular tract, which led to that severe
and crushing edict.
This act, which was published on the nth July
1637, consisted of thirty-three clauses, and after
reciting former ordinances, and the number of
' libellous, seditious, and mutinous ' books that
were then daily published, decreed that all books
were to be licensed : law books by the Lord Chief
Justices and the Lord Chief Baron; books dealing
with history, by the principal Secretaries of State ;
books on heraldry, by the Earl Marshal ; and on all
other subjects, by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
the Bishop of London, or the Chancellors or Vice-
Chancellors of the two Universities. Two copies
of every book submitted for publication were to
be handed to the licensee, one of which he was to
keep for future reference. Catalogues of books
imported into the country were to be sent to the
Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London,
and no consignments were to be opened until the
representatives of one of these dignitaries and of
the Stationers' Company were present. The name
of the printer, the author, and the publisher was
to be placed in every book, and, with a view to
encouraging English printing, it was decreed
further that no merchant or bookseller should
import any English book printed abroad. No
person was to erect a printing-press, or to let any
THE STUART PERIOD 179
premises for the purpose of carrying on printing,
without first giving notice to the Company, and
no joiner or carpenter was to make a press without
similar notice.
The number of master printers was limited by
this decree to twenty, and those chosen were :
Felix Kingston. George Miller.
Adam I slip. Richard Badger.
Thomas Purfoote. Thomas Cotes.
Miles Fletcher. Marmaduke Parsons.
Thomas Harper. Bernard Alsop.
John Beale. Richard Bishop.
John Raworth. Edward Griffin.
John Legate. Thomas Purslowe.
Robert Young. Rich. Hodgkinsonne.
John Haviland. John Dawson.
Each of these was to be bound in sureties of
^300 to good behaviour. No printer was allowed
to have more than two presses unless he were a
Master or Warden of the Company, when he
might have three. A Master or Warden might
keep three apprentices but no more, a master
printer on the livery might have two, and the rest
one only ; but every printer was expected to give
work to journeyman printers when required to do
so, because it was stated that it was they who
were mainly responsible for the publication of the
libellous, seditious, and mutinous books referred
to. All reprints of books were to be licensed in
i8o ENGLISH PRINTING
the same way as first editions. The Company
were to have the right of search, and four type-
founders, John Grismand, Thomas Wright, Arthur
Nichols, and Alexander Fifield were considered
sufficient for the whole trade. Finally, a copy of
every book printed was to be sent to the Bodleian
Library at Oxford. The penalties for breaking
this decree included imprisonment, destruction of
stock, and a whipping at the cart's tail.
The twenty printers appointed by this decree
were the subject of much investigation by Sir John
Lamb, whose numerous notes and lists concerning
them, as reprinted in the third volume of Professor
Arber's transcripts from documents at the Record
Office, are an invaluable acquisition to the history
of the English press. It will be seen that four of
the chief offenders of the previous ten or eleven
years, namely William Jones, Nicholas Okes,
Augustine Mathewes, and Robert or Richard
Raworth, were absolutely excluded, their places
being taken by Marmaduke Parsons, Thomas
Paine, and a new man, Thomas Purslowe, probably
the son of Widow Purslowe. Conscious perhaps
that their positions were in jeopardy, all four
petitioned the Archbishop to be placed among the
number, but in vain, and another man who was
excluded at the same time was John Norton, a
descendant of a long family of printers of that
name, and who had served his apprenticeship in
the King's printing-house. Only one of those
THE STUART PERIOD 181
who had at times come before the High Commis-
sion Court was pardoned, and allowed to retain
his place. This was Bernard Alsop.
The clause requiring all reprints to be licensed
caused a good deal of murmuring, as did also that
which forbade haberdashers, and others who were
not legitimate booksellers, to sell books.
The small number of type-founders allowed to
the trade has also been a subject of much com-
ment by writers on this subject ; but judging
from the evidence of Arthur Nicholls, one of
the four appointed, the number was quite suffi-
cient. Nicholls was the founder of the Greek
type used in the new office of Blackfriars, and his
experience was certainly not likely to encourage
other men to set up in the same trade. At the
time when he was appointed one of the four
founders under the decree, he could not make a
living by his trade, and though he does not
expressly state the fact, his evidence seems to
imply that English printers at that time obtained
most of their type from abroad, and it is beyond
question that they had long since ceased to cast
their own letter.
Drastic as this decree was, it practically re-
mained a dead letter, for the reason that in the
troublous times that followed within the next five
years, the Government had their hands full in
other directions, and were obliged to let the
printers alone.
i8 2 ENGLISH PRINTING
Between this date and the year 1640, there was
very little either of interest or value that came
from the English press. The memory of rare
Ben Jonson induced Henry Seile, of the Tiger's
Head in Fleet Street, to publish in 1638 a quarto
with the title otjonsonus l^irbius : or the Memory
of Ben Jonson. Revived by the friends of the
Muses, and among the contributors were Lord
Falkland, Sir John Beaumont the younger, Sir
Thomas Hawkins, Henry King, Edmund Waller,
Shackerley Marmion, and several others. The
printer's initials are given as E. P., but these do
not suit any of those who were authorised under
the decree of the year before, and they may refer
to Elizabeth Purslowe. That there was a con-
siderable number of persons who, in spite of the
Puritan tendencies of the age, loved a good play,
is clearly seen from the number turned out during
the years 1638, 1639, an< ^ 1640 by Thomas Nabbes,
Henry Glapthorne, James Shirley, and Richard
Brome. These of course were mostly quartos,
very poorly printed, and chiefly from the presses
of Richard Oulton, John Okes, and Thomas Cotes.
Of collected works, there came out in small octavo
form the Poems of Thomas Carew from the press
of John Dawson in 1640, and a collection of
Shakespeare's Poems from the press of Thomas
Cotes in the same year. There were also pub-
lished in 1640 from the press of Richard Bishop,
who had succeeded to the business of William
THE STUART PERIOD 183
Stansby, S el den's De Jure Naturali et Gentium
juxta disciplinam Ebrceorum, in folio, and
William Somner's Antiquities of Canterbury, one
of the earliest and best of the contributions to
county bibliography.
Having now brought the record of the
London press down to the time when it became
engulphed in the chaos of civil war, it is time to
turn to the University presses of Oxford and
Cambridge.
Since the year 1585, these were the only
provincial presses allowed by law, and removed
as they were from the turmoil of conflicting
parties, and the severity of trade competition, in
which the London printers lived, their work
showed more uniformity of excellence, and on
the whole surpassed that of the London
printers.
Down to the year 1617 Oxford appears to
have had but one printer, John Barnes ; but in
that year we find two at work, John Lichfield
and William Wrench, the latter giving place
the following year to James Short. In 1624
the two Oxford printers were John Lichfield and
William Turner the second, as we have seen,
being notorious as the printer of unlicensed pam-
phlets for' Michael Sparke the London publisher;
but in spite of this we find him holding his
position until 1640, though in the pieantime
John Lichfield had been succeeded in business
1 84 ENGLISH PRINTING
by his son, Leonard. In the introduction
to his bibliography of the Oxford Press, Mr.
Falconer Madan has given a list of the most
important books printed at Oxford between 1585
and 1640, which we venture to reprint here with
a few additions :
1599. Richard de Bury's Philobiblon.
1608. WyclifFs Treatises.
1612. Captain John Smith's Map of Virginia.
1621. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
1628. Field On the Church.
1633. Sandys' Ovid.
1634. The University Statutes.
1635. Chaucer's Troilus and Cressida in
English and Latin.
1638. Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants.
1640. Bacon's Advancement and Proficience
of Learning.
As we have noted, the University of Cam-
bridge had after a long struggle established its
claim to print editions of the Scriptures and
other works, and like its sister University turned
out some of the best work of that period.
A notable book from this press was Phineas
Fletcher's Purple Island, a quarto published in
1633. The title-page was printed in red and
black, in well-cut Roman of four founts, with the
lozenge-shaped device of the University in the
THE STUART PERIOD 185
centre, the whole being surrounded by a neat
border of printers' ornaments. Each page of the
book was enclosed within rules, which seems to
have been the universal fashion of the trade at
this period, and at the end of each canto the
device seen on the title-page was repeated. The
Eclogues and Poems had each a separate title-
page, and two well-executed copper-plate engrav-
ings occur in the volumes.
We must not close this chapter without noting
that in 1639 printing began in the New England
across the sea. The records of Harvard College
tell us that the Rev. Joseph Glover ' gave to the
College a font of printing letters, and some gentle-
men of Amsterdam gave towards furnishing of a
printing-press with letters forty-nine pounds, and
something more.' Glover himself died on the
voyage out from England, but Stephen Day, the
printer whom he was bringing with him, arrived
in safety and was installed at Harvard College.
The first production of his press was the Free-
man s Oath, the second an Almanac, the third,
published in 1640, The Psalms in Metre, Faith-
fully translated for the Use, Edification, and
Comfort of the Saints in Publick and Private,
especially in New England, This, the first book
printed in North America, was an octavo of three
hundred pages, of passably good workmanship,
and is commonly known as the Bay Psalter
Cambridge, the home of Harvard College, lying
2A
186 ENGLISH PRINTING
near Massachusetts Bay. Stephen Day continued
to print at Cambridge till 1648 or 1649, when he
was succeeded in the charge of the press by
Samuel Green, whose work will be mentioned at
the end of our next chapter.
CHAPTER VIII
FROM 1640 TO 1700
AVING at length reached what is
without doubt the darkest and the
most wretched period in the history
of English printing, it may be well
before passing a severe condemna-
tion on those who represented the
trade at that time, to remind ourselves of the
difficulties against which they had to contend.
The art of printing in England had never
at any time reached such a point of excellence
as in Paris under the Estiennes, in Antwerp
under Plantin, or in Venice under the Aldi. So
great was the competition between the printers,
and so heavy the restrictions placed upon them,
that profit rather than beauty or workmanship
was their first consideration ; and when to these
drawbacks was added the general disorganisation
of trade consequent upon the outbreak of civil
war, it is not surprising that English work failed
to maintain its already low standard of excellence.
Literature, other than that which chronicled
ENGLISH PRINTING
the fortunes of the opposing factions, was al-
most totally neglected. Writers, even had they
found printers willing to support them, would
have found no readers. On the other, hand,
such was the feverish anxiety manifested in the
struggle, that it was scarcely possible to publish
the Diurnals and Mercuries which contained the
latest news fast enough, arid the press was un-
equal to the strain, although the number of
printers in London during this period was three
times larger than that allowed by the decree of
1637. Professor Arber, in his Transcript, says
that this increase in the number of printers was
due to the removal of the gag by the Long
Parliament. There is no proof that the Long
Parliament ever intended to remove the gag ;
but having its hands full with other and weightier
matters it could find no time to deal with the
printers, and doubtless, in the heat of the fight,
it was only too thankful to avail itself of the pens
of those who replied to the attacks of the Royalist
press. The best evidence of this is, that as soon
as opportunity offered, and in spite of the warn-
ing of the greatest literary man of that day, who
was on their own side, the Long Parliament
reimposed the gag with as much severity as the
hierarchy which it had deposed.
For the publication of the news of the day,
each party had its own organs. On the side
of the Parliament the principal journals were
FROM 1640 TO 1700 189
The Kingdoms Weekly Intelligencer, printed and
published by Nathaniel Butter, and Mercurius
Britannicus, edited by Marchmont Nedham ;
while Mercurius Aulicus, edited by clever John
Birkenhead, represented the Royalists, and was
ably seconded by the Perfect Occurrences, printed
by John Clowes and Robert Ibbitson.
These sheets, which usually consisted of from
four to eight quarto pages, contained news of the
movements and actions of the opposing armies,
and the proceedings of the Parliament at West-
minster, or of the King's Council at Oxford or
wherever he happened to be. They were published
sometimes twice and even three times a week.
The political pamphlets were bitter and scurrilous
attacks by each party against the other, or the
hare-brained prophecies of so-called astrologers,
such as William Lilly, George Wharton, and
John Gadbury. These two classes formed more
than half the printed literature of those unhappy
times, and the remainder of the output of the
press was pretty well filled up with sermons,
exhortations, and other religious writings. The
rapidity with which the literature was turned out
accounts for the wretched and slipshod appearance
it presents. Any old types or blocks were brought
into use, and there is evidence of blocks and
initial letters which had formed part of the stock
of the printers of a century earlier being brought
to light again at this time. Unfortunately the
190 ENGLISH PRINTING
evil did not stop here, for careless workmanship,
indifference, and want of enterprise, are the lead-
ing characteristics of the printing trade during
the latter half of the seventeenth century. But
as, even in this darkest hour of the nation's for-
tunes, the soul of literature was not crushed, and
the voice of the poet could still make itself heard,
so it is a great mistake to suppose that there
were no good printers during the period covered
by the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth.
Take as an example the little duodecimo
entitled Instructions for Forreine Travell, which
came from the pen of James Howell, and was
printed by T. B., no doubt Thomas Brudnell, for
Humphrey Moseley. Some of the founts, especi-
ally the larger Roman, are very unevenly and
badly cast, but on the whole the presswork was
carefully done. The same may also be said of
the folio edition of Sir R. Baker's Chronicle, pub-
lished in 1643. I n this case we do not know
who was the printer; but the ornaments and
initials lead us to suppose that it was the work
of William Stansby's successor. The prose tracts
again that Milton wrote between 1641-45 are
certainly far better printed than many of their
contemporaries, and prove that Matthew Sim-
mons, who printed most of them, and who was
one of the Commonwealth men, deserved the
position he afterwards obtained. The first col-
lected edition of Milton's poems was published
FROM 1640 TO 1700 191
by Humphrey Moseley in 1645. This was a
small octavo, in two parts, with separate title-
pages, and a portrait of the author by William
Marshall, and came from the press of Ruth
Raworth. In 1646 there appeared A Collection
of all the Incomparable Peeces written by Sir
John Suckling and published by a freend to per-
petuate his memory. This came from the press
of Thomas Walkley, who had issued the first
edition of Aglaura and the later plays of the
same writer. Walkley also printed in small
octavo, for Moseley, the Poems of Edmond
Waller, but his work was none of the best.
A printer of considerable note at this time
was William Dugard, who in 1644 was chosen
headmaster of Merchant Taylors' School, and set
up a printing-press there. In January 1649 ne
printed the first edition of the famous book
Eikon Basilike, and followed it up by a
translation of Salmasius' Defensio Regia, for
which the Council of State immediately ordered
his arrest, seized his presses, and wrote to the
Governors of the school, ordering them to elect
a new schoolmaster, ' Mr. Dugard having shewn
himself an enemy to the state by printing seditious
and scandalous pamphlets, and therefore unfit to
have charge of the education of youths' (Dom.
S. P. Interregnum, pp. 578-583). Sir James
Harrington, member of the Council of State, and
author of Oceana, who seems to have known some-
192 ENGLISH PRINTING
thing about Dugard, interceded with the Council
on his behalf, and at the same time persuaded
him to give up the Royalist cause. So his
presses were restored to him, and henceforward
he appears to have devoted himself with equal
zeal to his new masters.
He was the printer of Milton's answer to Sal-
masius, published by the Council's command, of
a book entitled Mare Clausum, also published by
authority, of the Catechesis Ecclesiarum, a book
which the Council found to contain dangerous
opinions and ordered to be burnt, and of a
tract written by Milton's nephew, John Phillips,
entitled Responsio ad apologiam. His initials
are also met with in many other books of that
time.
His press was furnished with a good assort-
ment of type, and his press-work was much
above the average of that period.
Among other books that came from the Lon-
don press during this troubled time, we may
single out three which have found a lasting
place in English literature. The first is Robert
Herrick's Hesperides, printed in the years 1647-
48 ; the second a volume of verse, by Richard
Lovelace, entitled Lucasta, Epodes, Odes, Sonnets,
Songs, etc., printed in 1649 by Thomas Harper;
the last Izaak Walton's Complete Angler, which
came from the press of John Maxey in 1653.
All were small octavos, indifferently printed with
FROM 1640 TO 1700 193
poor type, and no pretensions to artistic work-
manship.
In 1649, the year of Charles i.'s execution,
the Council of State, in consequence of the
number of ' scandalous and seditious pamphlets '
which were constantly appearing, in spite of all
decrees and acts to the contrary, ordered certain
printers to enter into recognizances in two sureties
of ^300, and their own bond for a similar amount,
not to print any such books, or allow their presses
to be used for that purpose. Accordingly, in the
Calendar of State Papers for the year 1649-50
(pp. 522, 523), we find a list of no less than sixty
printers in London and the two Universities who
entered into such sureties. In almost every case
the address is given in full, in itself a gain, at
a time when the printer's name rarely appeared
in the imprint of a book. This list has already
been printed in Bibliographic a (vol. ii. pp. 225-
26), but as it is of the greatest interest for the
history of printing during the remainder of the
century, it is inserted here (see Appendix No. I.).
While it does not include all the printers
having presses at that time, yet, if we remember
that under the Star Chamber decree of 1637
the number in London was strictly limited to
twenty, it shows how rapid the growth of the
trade was in those twelve years. Of the original
twenty, only three seem to have survived the
troubles and dangers of the Civil Wars Bernard
2B
194 ENGLISH PRINTING
Alsop, Richard Bishop, and Thomas Harper,
though the places of three more were filled by
their survivors Elizabeth Purslowe standing in
the place of her husband, Thomas Purslowe ;
Gertrude Dawson succeeding her husband, John
Dawson ; and James Flesher or Fletcher in the
room of his father, Miles Flesher. John Gres-
mond and James Moxon were type-founders,
Henry Hills and John Field were appointed
printers to the State under Cromwell, and
Thomas Newcomb was also largely employed,
and shared with the other two the privilege of
Bible printing. Roger Norton was the direct
descendant of old John Norton, who died in
1590. Of Roycroft and Simmons we shall hear
a good deal later on, as indeed we shall of many
others in this list. The only names that hardly
seem to warrant insertion in the list as printers
are those of John and Richard Royston. Al-
though they were for many years stationers to
King Charles n., we cannot hear of any printing-
presses in their possession.
With the quieter time of the Commonwealth,
several notable works were produced, though the
annual output of books was much below the
average of the seven years preceding. Foremost
among the publications of that time must be
placed Sir William Dugdale's Monasticon Angli-
canum, the first volume of which appeared in 1655.
As a monument of study and research this
FROM 1640 TO 1700 195
book will always remain a standard work of
English topography ; and it was not unworthily
printed. The preparation of the numerous plates
for the illustrations, and the setting up of so
much intricate letterpress, must have been a very
onerous work. This first volume, a large and
handsome folio, came from the press of Richard
Hodgkinson, and was printed in pica Roman in
double columns, with a great deal of italic and
black letter intermixed. The types were as good
as any to be found in England at that time, and
the press-workwas carefully done. The engravings
were chiefly the work of Hollar, aided by Edward
Mascall and Daniel King, and are excellently
reproduced. The whole work occupied eighteen
years in publication, the second volume being
printed by Alice Warren, the widow of Thomas
Warren, in 1661, and the third and last by
Thomas Newcomb in 1673 ; but these later
volumes differed very little in appearance from
the first, the same method of setting and the
same mixture of founts being adhered to.
Sir William Dugdale followed this up in
1656 by publishing, through the press of Thomas
Warren, his Antiquities of Warwickshire, a folio
of 826 pages. On the title-page is seen the
device of old John Wolfe, the City printer. The
dedication of this book was printed in great
primer ; but the look of the text was marred by
a bad fount of black letter which did not print
196 ENGLISH PRINTING
well. Like the Monasticon, this work was illus-
trated with maps and portraits by Hollar and
Vaughan.
Another considerable undertaking was the
Historical Collections of John Rushworth, in
eight folio volumes, of which the first was printed
by Newcomb in 1659, the others between 1680
and 1701.
But the great typographical achievement of
the century was the Polyglott Bible, edited by
Brian Walton. It was the fourth great Bible
of the kind which had been published. The
earliest was the Complutensian, printed at Alcala
in 1517, with Hebrew, Latin, Greek, and Chal-
dean texts. Next came the Antwerp Polyglott,
printed at the Plantin Press in 1572, which, in
addition to the texts above mentioned, gave the
Syriac version. This was followed in 1645 by
the Paris Polyglott, which added Arabic and
Samaritan, was in ten folio volumes, and took
seventeen years to complete.
The London Polyglott of 1657, which exceeded
all these in the number of texts, was mainly due
to the enterprise and industry of Brian Walton,
Bishop of Chester. This famous scholar and
divine was born at Cleveland, in Yorkshire, in
1600. He was educated at Cambridge, and after
serving as curate in All Hallows, in Bread Street,
became rector of St. Martin's Orgar and of St.
Giles in the Fields. He was sequestered from
FROM 1640 TO 1700 197
his living at St. Martin's during the troubles of
the Revolution, and fled to Oxford, and it was
while there that he is said to have formed the
idea of the Polyglott Bible.
The first announcement of the great under-
taking was made in 1652, when a type specimen
sheet, believed to be still in existence, was printed
by James Flesher or Fletcher of Little Britain,
and issued with the prospectus, which was printed
by Roger Norton of Blackfriars for Timothy
Garthwaite. Walton's Polyglott was the second
book printed by subscription in England, Min-
sheu's Dictionary in Eleven Languages having
been published in this manner in 1617. The terms
were 10 per copy, or ^50 for six copies. The
estimated cost of the first volume was ^1500,
and of succeeding volumes ^1200, and such was
the spirit with which the work was taken up that
^"9000 was subscribed before the first volume
was put to press.
To the texts which had appeared in previous
Polyglotts, Persian and Ethiopic were added, so
that in all nine languages were included in the
work that is, Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Chaldean,
Syriac, Arabic, Samaritan, Persian, and Ethiopic
besides much additional matter in the form of
tables, lexicons, and grammars. No single book
was printed in all of these, only the Greek, Latin,
Syriac, and Arabic running throughout the work,
while the Hebrew appears in the Old Testament,
198 ENGLISH PRINTING
the Psalms in Ethiopia, and the New Testament
has, in addition to the four principal texts, the
Ethiopia and Persian.
The whole work occupied six folio volumes,
measuring 16 x icf, and was printed by Thomas
Roycroft from types supplied by the four recog-
nised typefounders. At the commencement of
the first volume is a portrait of Walton by
Bombert, followed by an elaborately engraved
title-page, the work of Wenceslaus Hollar, an
architectural design adorned with scenes from
Scripture history. The second title-page was
printed in red ink, and the text was so arranged
that each double page, when open, showed all
the versions of the same passage. The types
used in this work have been described in detail
by Rowe Mores in his Dissertations upon English
Founders, and by Talbot Baines Reed in his work
upon the Old English Letter Foundries (Chap. vii.
pp. 164, et seqq^). Speaking of the English founts,
the last-named writer points out that the double
pica, Roman and italic, seen in the Dedication,
is the same fount that was cut by the sixteenth-
century printer, John Day, and used by him to
print the Z,z/ of Alfred the Great. Mr. Reed
adds that, in spite of a certain want of uniformity
in the bodies, the Ethiopia and Samaritan were
especially good, and the Syriac and Arabic boldly
cut*
'-, But it was not only for its typographic ex-
FROM 1640 TO 1700 199
cellence that the book was remarkable. The
rapidity with which this great undertaking passed
through the press is no less astonishing. All six
volumes were printed within four years, the first
appearing in September 1654, the second in 1655,
the third in 1656, and the last three in 1657.
Looking at the labour involved by such an un-
dertaking, it has been rightly described by Mr.
T. B. Reed as a lasting glory to the typography
of the seventeenth century.
Oliver Cromwell, under whose government
this noble work was accomplished, had assisted,
as far as lay in his power, by permitting the
importation of the paper free of duty ; and in the
first editions this assistance was gracefully ac-
knowledged by the editor, but on the Restoration
those passages were altered or omitted to make
room for compliments to Charles n.
Amongst those who ably assisted Walton in
his labours was Dr. Edmund Castell, who pre-
pared a Heptaglott Lexicon for the better study
of the various languages used in the Polyglott.
This work received the support of all the learned
men of the time, but the undertaking was the
ruin of its author, and a great part of the impres-
sion perished in the destruction of Roycroft's
premises in the Great Fire of 1666.
The Restoration brought with it little change
in the conditions under which printing was carried
on in England, or in the lot of the printers them-
200 ENGLISH PRINTING
selves. There is still preserved in the Public
Record Office a document which throws consider-
able light on this matter, and is believed to have
been drawn up either in 1660 or in 1661. This
is a petition signed by eleven of the leading
London printers, for the incorporation of the
printers into a body distinct from the Company
of Stationers, and appended to it are the 'reasons'
for the proposed change, which occupy four or
five closely written folio sheets. The men who
put forward this petition were :
RICHARD HODGKINSON,
JOHN GRISMOND,
ROBERT IBBOTSON,
THOMAS MABB,
DA[NIEL?] MAXWELL,
THOMAS ROYCROFT,
WILLIAM GODBID,
JO[HN] STREATOR,
JAMES COTTREL,
JOHN HAYES, and
JOHN BRUDENELL ;
and it was undoubtedly this band of men, some
of them the biggest men in the trade, who formed
the ' Companie of Printers,' for whom in 1663 a
pamphlet was issued, entitled A Brief Discourse
concerning Printers and Printing. For the
printed pamphlet embodies the same views put
forward in the petition, only backed up with
fresh evidence and terse arguments. The claim
FROM 1640 TO 1700 201
of the printers amounted to this, that the Company
of Stationers had become mainly a Company of
Booksellers, that in order to cheapen printing they
had admitted a great many more printers than were
necessary, and from this cause arose the great
quantity of ' scandalous and seditious ' books that
were constantly being published. They go on
to say that the condition of the great body of
printers was deplorable, ' they can hardly subsist
in credit to maintain their families . . . When
an ancient printer died, and his copies were ex-
posed to sale, few or none of the young ones were
of ability to deal for them, nor indeed for any
other, so that the Booksellers have engross'd
almost all.' The petitioners show also that the
Company of Stationers was grown so large that
none could be Master or Warden until he was
well advanced in life, and therefore unable to
keep a vigilant eye on the trade, while a printer
did not become Master once in ten or twenty
years. They argue that the best expedient for
checking these disorders and ensuring lawful
printing, would be to incorporate the printers
into a distinct body, and they advocate the re-
gistration of presses, the right of search, and the
enforcement of sureties. Finally, they claim that
this plan would also do much to improve printing
as an art, as under the existing conditions there
was no encouragement to the printers to produce
good work.
2C
202 ENGLISH PRINTING
This petition, though it does not seem to
have received any official reply, was noticed by
Sir Roger L' Estrange in the Proposals which he
laid before the House of Parliament, and which
undoubtedly formed the basis of the Act of 1662.
Sir Roger L' Estrange had been an active ad-
herent of the Royal cause, and soon after the
Restoration, on the 22nd February 1661-2, he
was granted a warrant to search for and seize
unlicensed presses and seditious books (State
Papers, Charles n. Vol. li. No. 6). A list is still
extant of books which he had seized at the office
of John Hayes, one of the signatories of the above
petition. So that although the office of Surveyor
of the Press was not officially created until 1663,
it is clear from the issue of the warrant, and also
from the fact of L'Estrange having been directed
to draw up proposals for the regulation of the
Press, that he was acting in that capacity more
than a twelvemonth earlier. His proposals were,
in 1663, printed in pamphlet form with the title,
Considerations and Proposals in order to the
Regulation of the Press, and were dedicated to
the King, and also to the House of Lords ; and
they contain much that is interesting. He states
that hundreds of thousands of seditious papers
had been allowed to go abroad since the King's
return, and that there had been printed ten or
twelve impressions of Farewell Sermons, to the
number of thirty thousand, since the Act of
SIR ROGER L'ESTRANGE.
FROM 1640 TO 1700 203
Uniformity, adding that the very persons who
had the care of the Press (i.e. the Company of
Stationers) had connived at its abuse. In
support of this statement he pointed out that
Presbyterian pamphlets were rarely suppressed,
that rich offenders were passed over, and scarcely
any of those who were caught were ever brought
to justice. He gives the number of printers
then at work in London as sixty, the number
of apprentices about a hundred and sixty, besides
a large number of journeymen ; and he pro-
posed at once to reduce the number of printers
to twenty, with a corresponding reduction of
apprentices and journeymen. As this would
throw a large number of men out of work, he
further proposed a scheme for the relief of
necessitous and supernumerary printers. He
calculated that the twelve impressions of the
Farewell Sermons, allowing a thousand copies to
each impression, had yielded a profit, ' beside the
charge of paper and printing,' of ^3300, and he
advised that this sum should be levied as a fine
upon those booksellers who had sold the book,
and be placed to a fund for the benefit of the
suppressed printers, the balance of the sum
required to be levied on other seditious pub-
lications !
In this pamphlet L' Estrange gave the titles
of most of the pamphlets to which he objected,
with brief extracts from them, and the names of
204 ENGLISH PRINTING
the printers and publishers, amongst whom were
Thomas Brewster, Giles Calvert, Simon Dover,
and one other, whose name is not mentioned, but
who is referred to as holding a highly profitable
office. The reference may be to Thomas New-
comb.
At pages 26 and 27 L'Estrange notices the
petition of certain of the printers to be incor-
porated as a separate body. He says 'that it
were a hard matter to pick out twenty master
printers, who are both free of the trade, of ability
to manage it, and of integrity to be entrusted
with it, most of the honester sort being im-
poverished by the late times, and the great
business of the press being engross'd by Oliver's
creatures/ He admits that the Company of
Stationers and Booksellers are largely responsible
for the great increase of presses, being anxious to
have their books printed as cheaply as possible,
but thinks that there would be as much abuse of
power among incorporated printers as among the
Company of Stationers.
The Act of 1662, which was mainly based on
L'Estrange's report, was in a large measure a
re-enactment of the Star Chamber decree of 1637.
The number of printers in London was limited
to twenty, the type-founders to four, and the
other clauses of the earlier decree were reinforced,
but with one notable concession. Hitherto
printing outside London had been restricted to
FROM 1640 TO 1700 205
the two Universities, but in the new Act the city
of York was expressly mentioned as a place where
printing might be carried on.
This new Act was enforced for a time with
greater severity than the old one, and under it,
for the first time in English history, a printer
suffered the penalty of death for the liberty of the
press.
The story of the trial and condemnation of
John Twyn is told in vol. 6 of Cobbett's State
Trials, and was also published in pamphlet form
with the title, An exact narrative of the Tryal
and condemnation of John Twyn, for Printing
and Dispersing of a Treasonable Book, With the
Tryals of Thomas Brewster, bookseller, Simon
Dover, printer, Nathan Brooks, bookseller . . .
in the Old Bayly, London, the zotk and and
February i66f.
John Twyn was a small printer in Cloth Fair,
and his crime was that of printing a pamphlet
entitled A Treatise of the Execution of Justice,
in which, as it was alleged, there were several
passages aimed at the King's life and the over-
throw of the Government. It was further stated
by the prosecution that the pamphlet was part
of a plot for a general rebellion that was to
have taken effect on the i2th October 1662.
The chief witnesses against Twyn were Joseph
Walker, his apprentice, Sir Roger L' Estrange,
and Thomas Mabb, a printer. Their evidence
206 ENGLISH PRINTING
went to show that Twyn had two presses ; that
he composed part of the book, printed some
of the sheets, and corrected the proofs, the work
being done secretly at night-time. On entering
the premises it was found that the forme of
type had been broken up, only one corner of it
remaining standing, and that the printed sheets
had been hurriedly thrown down some stairs.
In defence Twyn declared that he had received
the copy from Widow Calvert's maid, and had
received 405. on account, with more to follow on
completion, and he stoutly asserted that he did
not know the nature of the work. The jury,
amongst whom were Richard Royston and Simon
Waterson, booksellers, and James Fletcher and
Thomas Roycroft, printers, returned a verdict of
Guilty, and Twyn was condemned to death and
executed at Tyburn.
The charge against Simon Dover was of print-
ing the pamphlet entitled The Speeches of some of
the late King's Justices, which we have already
seen that Roger L' Estrange had seized in John
Hayes' premises, while Thomas Brewster was
accused of causing this and another pamphlet,
entitled The Phoenix of the Solemn League and
Covenant, to be printed. In defence, Thomas
Brewster declared that booksellers did not read
the books they sold ; so long as they could earn
a penny they were satisfied an argument that
had been used more than a century before by old
FROM 1640 TO 1700 207
Robert Copland as an excuse for indifferent print-
ing. Both Dover and Brewster were condemned
to pay a fine of 100 marks, to stand in the pillory,
and to remain prisoners during the King's
pleasure. Sir Roger L' Estrange, as a reward for
his services, was appointed Surveyor of the Press,
with permission to publish a news-sheet of his
own, and liberty to harass the printers as much
as possible.
But far greater calamities than the malice of
Sir Roger L' Estrange could devise fell upon the
printing trade by the outbreak of the Plague in
1665, and the subsequent Fire of London. In
a letter written by L' Estrange to Lord Arlington,
and dated i6th October 1665, he stated that
eighty of the printers had died of the Plague (Cat.
of S. P. 1665-6, p. 20), in which total he evidently
included workmen as well as masters. The loss
occasioned by the stoppage of trade and flight of
the citizens must have been enormous, and yet
it may have been slight in comparison to that
occasioned by the Great Fire. Curiously enough,
however, there are very few records showing the
effect of this second disaster upon the printing
trade. We find a petition by Christopher Barker,
the King's printer, to be allowed to import paper
free of charge in consequence of his loss by the
Fire, and the same indulgence is granted to the
Stationers' Company as a body and the Uni-
versities ; but there are no notes of individual
208 ENGLISH PRINTING
x
losses, and only one or two references to MSS.
that were destroyed in it. There is, however,
one very eloquent testimony to the ruin it caused
in this, as in other trades. The coercive Act of
1662, which had been renewed with unfailing
regularity from session to session down to the
year 1665, was not renewed during the remainder
of the reign of Charles u. On the 24th of July
1668 a return was made of all the printing-houses
in London, which shows at a glance who had
survived and who had suffered by that terrible
calamity (see Appendix II.).
Comparing this list with that of 1649, we & n &
that no inconsiderable number of the printers
there mentioned had survived the thinning-out
process, as well as imprisonment, death, and fire.
In fact, only eight London printers were actually
ruined by the Fire, and among them we find both
John Hayes and John Brudenell, and also Alice
Warren.
But another paper, written in the same year,
and preserved in the same volume of State
Papers, 1 is even more interesting, for it shows
the position of every man in the trade. This is
headed
A Survey of the Printing Presses with the
names and numbers of Apprentices, Officers, and
Workemen belonging to every particular press.
Taken 29 July 1668. (See Appendix III.).
1 Dom. S. P., Chas. If., vol. 243, p. 181.
FROM 1640 TO 1700 209
From this we learn that the largest employer
in the trade at that time was James Fletcher, who
kept five presses, and employed thirteen work-
men and two apprentices. Next to him came
Thomas Newcomb, with three presses and a
proof press, twelve workmen and one apprentice ;
John Maycocke, with three presses, ten workmen
and three apprentices ; and then Roycroft, with
four presses, ten workmen and two apprentices ;
while at the other end of the scale was Thomas
Leach, with one press, not his own, and one
workman.
Whether L' Estrange carried out his threat
of prosecuting the three men who had set up
since the Act, we do not know, but this is certain,
that one of their number, John Darby, continued
to work for many years after this, and was the
printer of Andrew Marvell's Rehearsal Trans-
posed, and a good deal else that galled the Govern-
ment very much. In fact, the Act of 1662 was
openly ignored, and new men set up presses every
year.
But of all this work it is almost impossible
to trace what was done by individual printers.
The bulk of the publications of the time bore the
bookseller's name only, and it is very rarely indeed
that the printer is revealed. Newcomb had the
printing of the Gazette, and also printed most of
Dryden's works that were published by Herring-
man ; while Roycroft, we know, was employed
2 D
210 ENGLISH PRINTING
by all those who wanted the best possible work,
such men as John Ogilby, for instance, for whom
he printed several works. Milton's Paradise
Lost came from the press of Peter Parker; but
the printer of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is
unknown to us.
As it happens, there is not much lost by
remaining in ignorance on this point. For no
change whatever took place in the character of
printing as a trade during the second half of the
seventeenth century. There were only three
foundries of note in London during that time,
and none of them is considered to have produced
anything particularly good. Indeed, one has only
to glance at even the best work of that time to
see how wretchedly the majority of the type was
cast. The first of the three was the celebrated
Joseph Moxon, who, in 1659, added type-founding
to his other callings of mathematician and hydro-
grapher. Having spent some years in Holland,
he was very much enamoured of the Dutch types,
and in 1676 he wrote a book entitled Regulce
Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum,
in which he endeavoured to prove that each letter
should be cast in exact mathematical proportion,
and illustrated his theory by several letters cast
in that manner. Similar theories had been pro-
pounded in earlier days by Albert Durer and the
French printer, Geoffrey Tory, but no improve-
ment in printing ever resulted from them.
FROM 1640 TO 1700 211
Moxon's foundry was fitted with a large as-
sortment of letter, but his work, judging from
the examples left to us, was certainly not up
to the theory which he put forward, and he is
best remembered for his useful work on printing,
which formed the second part of his Mechanick
Exercises, and was published in 1683. In this
he showed an intimate knowledge of every
branch of printing and type-founding, and his
book is still a standard work on both these sub-
jects. Moxon retired from business some years
before his death, and was succeeded in 1683 by
Joseph and Robert Andrews, who, in addition to
Moxon's founts, had a large assortment of others.
Their foundry was particularly rich in Roman
and Italic, and the learned founts, and they also
had matrices of Anglo-Saxon and Irish. But
their work was not by any means good.
The third of these letter foundries was that
of James and Thomas Grover in Angel Alley,
Aldersgate Street, who after Moxon's retirement
shared with Andrews the whole of the English
trade. The most notable founts in their posses-
sion were, a pica and longprimer Roman, from
the Royal Press at Blackfriars, Day's double pica
Roman and Italic, and two good founts of black
letter, reputed to have formed part of the stock
of Wynkyn de Worde. They also had the Eng-
lish Samaritan matrices from which the type for
Walton's Polyglott in 1657 had been cast.
212 ENGLISH PRINTING
Among the types belonging to this foundry
was one which, in the inventory, was returned
as New Coptic, but which was in reality a
Greek uncial fount, cut for the specimen of the
Codex Alexandrinus which Patrick Young pro-
posed to print, but did not live to accomplish.
The specimen was printed in 1643 and consisted
of the first chapter of Genesis. It is supposed
that this fount remained unknown, under the
title of New Coptic, until 1 758, when the Grover
foundry passed into the hands of John James.
On the death of Thomas Grover, the foundry
remained in possession of his daughters, who
endeavoured to sell it, but without success, and
it remained locked up for many years in the pre-
mises of Richard Nutt, a printer, .until 1758
(Reed, Old English Letter Foundries, p. 205).
After a lapse of twenty years, the Act of 1662
was renewed by the first parliament of James n.
(1685) f r a period of seven years, and at the
expiration of that time, i.e. in 1692, it was
renewed for another twelvemonth, after which
we hear no more of it. There is no evidence that
it had been very strictly enforced during its short
revival ; in fact it is clear, from the number of
presses found in various parts of the country
during the last five and twenty years of the cen-
tury, that it had remained practically a dead letter
from the time of the Great Fire.
The troubles of the Civil War had suspended
ABCDEFGHIJK
abcdefghijklmn
abcdefgjbijklmno
Englifh Englifh.
Ovflit father, toftidj art in ^eaben ;
eD be tljy $ame, Cftv kingdom come.
toill be none in cartb, a0 it 10 in tjeatfen.
Mufick, Two-line Double Pica.
?
FIG. 32.' Fell ' Types.
214 ENGLISH PRINTING
. . i
for a time all progress in printing at Oxford. But
on the Restoration it made even greater advances
than it had done at an earlier period of its history.
Archbishop Laud had a worthy successor in
Dr. John Fell, who in 1667 enriched the Univer-
sity by a gift of a complete type-foundry, con-
sisting of punches, matrices, and founts of Roman,
Italic, Orientals, ' Saxons,' and black letter, be-
sides moulds and other necessary appliances for
the production of type. Dr. Fell also introduced a
skilled letter-founder from Holland. For a couple
of years the foundry and printing office were carried
on in private premises hired by Fell, but upon the
completion of the Sheldonian Theatre the print-
ing office was removed to the basement of that
building, the first book bearing the Theatre im-
print being An Ode in praise of the Theatre and
its Founder, printed in 1669.
Another scholarly benefactor, Francis Junius,
presented the University in 1677 with a splen-
did collection of type, consisting of Runic, Gothic,
' Saxon,' ' Islandic/ Danish, and ' Swedish,' as
well as founts of Roman, Italic, and other sorts.
By the kindness of Mr. Horace Hart, the Con-
troller of the Clarendon Press, we are able to
give here examples of several of the founts, both
of Fell and Junius, in most cases from surviving
specimens of the types themselves.
Very little use seems to have been made
of these gifts before the commencement of the
Double Pica Hebrew.
HTTP CDKJ 6 tan
*****
| n |
*****
Great Primer JEthiopick.
Englifh Syriack.
Double Pica Greek.
nArsg ^ju^T 6 c0 To7; oygjoiol
OVO^JLOI oov. EA^T&) o aoiAa o-ow
SWT&) r ^sAwnxa crov, i; cv
Toy agTOV Wju^tT r 5-^aaiov
FiG. 33.' Fell ' Types.
216 ENGLISH PRINTING
succeeding century. The first Bible printed at
Oxford was that of 1674, and no important editions
of the classics issued from the University press
of this period.
It was left to Cambridge to issue the best
works of this class, for which that University
borrowed the Oxford types, having no type-
foundry of its own. These editions, chiefly in
quarto, came from the press of Thomas Buck,
who had succeeded Roger Daniel as printer to
the University. Buck was in turn succeeded by
John Field, who turned out some very creditable
work, notably the folio Bible of 1660. John
Hayes, the next of the Cambridge printers,
issued some notable books, such as Robertson's
Thesaurus, 1676, 4to, and Barnes's History of
Edward III., 1688, 4to, but the bulk of the
work that came from the Cambridge press at this
date was of a theological character, and was none
too well printed.
The history of other provincial presses of this
period is very meagre. Mr. Allnutt, to whose
valuable papers in the second volume of Biblio-
graphica I am indebted for the following notes,
expresses the belief that in several cases local
knowledge would show that presses were at
work some years earlier than the dates he has
given.
At the time of the Civil War, Robert Barker,
the King's printer, had in 1639 been commanded
Pica Englifh.
jfatjer, fojicjj art in ijeaben; !aUotoe& fce
;!# fcing&om come. Clip Ml be bone in eartj,
Pica Gothic.
Pica Saxon.
Fxt>ep upe )u |?e eapt on heqj:entim. 81 Jm nama
To-becume j>in pice : Depup^e J^m pilla on eop^San. f pa f pa on
heopenum:- Upne twsjhpamhcan hlaj: fyle uj- to Dsej:- Anb
Pica Iflandic.
Englifh Swedifh.
bm t)er
FIG. 34. ' Junius ' Types.
2E
218 ENGLISH PRINTING
to attend His Majesty in his march against the
Scots, and printed several proclamations, news-
sheets, etc., at Newcastle-on-Tyne in that year.
He is next found at York, where some thirty-
nine different sheets, etc., have been traced from
his press, and in 1642 a second press was at
work in the same city, that of Stephen Bulkeley.
When York fell into the hands of the Parliament,
Bulkeley's press was silent for a while, and his
place was taken by Thomas Broad, who printed
there from 1644 to 1660, and was succeeded by
his widow, Alice, who disappears in 1667. After
the Restoration, Bulkeley again set up his press
at York, where he continued down to 1680.
Barker in 1642 had been summoned to attend
the King at Nottingham, but no specimen of his
work bearing that imprint is known, and the next
heard of him is at Bristol, some time in 1643,
Mr. Allnutt mentioning ten pieces from his press
at this place.
In 1645 Thomas Fuller issued in small duo-
decimo, a collection of pious thoughts, which he
aptly termed Good Thoughts in Bad Times, and
in the Dedication to it expressly stated that
it was 'the first fruits of the Exeter presse.'
There was no printer's name in the volume, and
no other work printed in Exeter at that time is
known. In 1688, however, another press was
started there, and printed several political broad-
sides relative to the Prince of Orange. A new
FROM 1640 TO 1700 219
start was made in 1698, when a small pamphlet
was printed in this city.
Stephen Bulkeley, the York printer, appears
to have gone from that city to Newcastle in 1646,
and continued printing there until 1652. He
then removed to Gateshead, where he remained
until after the Restoration, subsequently returning
to Newcastle, and so back to York. No more is
heard of printing in Newcastle until the opening
of the eighteenth century.
A press was established in Bristol in the year
1695, and in Plymouth and Shrewsbury in the
year 1696.
In America the progress of printing was very
slow throughout the seventeenth century. Until
1660, Samuel Green, at Cambridge, Massachusetts,
remained the only printer in the colony. But in
that year the Corporation for the propagation of
the Gospel in New England among the Indians
sent over from London another press, a large
supply of good letter, and a printer named Mar-
maduke Johnson, for the purpose of printing an
edition of the Bible in the Indian tongue. This
press was set up in the same building as that in
which Green was already at work, and the two
printers seem to have worked together at the
production of the Bible, which appeared in quarto
form in 1663, the New Testament having been
published two years earlier. Johnson died in the
year 1675, but Samuel Green continued to print
220 ENGLISH PRINTING
until 1702. After his death the press at Cam-
bridge was silent for some years.
In 1675 a press was established at Boston by
John Foster, a graduate of Harvard College,
under a licence from the College. Besides the
official work of the colony and theological litera-
ture, he printed several pamphlets on the war
between the English and the Indians. He died
in 1 68 1, when he was succeeded by Samuel Green,
junior, who continued printing there until 1690.
In the following year three printers' names are
found in the imprints of books : R. Pierce, Ben-
jamin Harris, and John Allen. Benjamin Harris
is afterwards called ' Printer to his Excellency,
the Governor and Council,' but in 1693 Harris
removed from ' over against the Old Meeting
House/ to 'the Bible over against the Blew
Anchor,' and another printer, Bartholomew Green,
seems to have shared with him the official work.
Pennsylvania was the next of the colonies
to establish a press ; its first printer, William
Bradford, setting up there in 1685, in which
year he printed Kalendarium Pennsilvaniense, or,
Americans Messinger, Being an Almanack for
the Year of Grace 1686.
In 1688 Bradford issued proposals for print-
ing a large Bible (Hildeburn, Issues of the Penn-
sylvania Press, vol. i. p. 9), but they came to
nothing. In 1692 he printed several pamphlets
for George Keith, the leader of the schism among
FROM 1640 TO 1700 221
the Quakers, and for this he was imprisoned.
On his release he removed to New York. A
press was also set up in Virginia in 1682, but
was suppressed, and no printing allowed there
until 1729. The name of the printer is not
known, but is believed to have been William
Nuthead, who set up a press in Maryland in
1689 with a similar result.
The first printer in New York was William
Bradford, who began work there on the loth
April 1693. Among his most famous publica-
tions before the close of the seventeenth century
was Keith's Truth Advanced, a quarto of 224
pages, printed on paper manufactured at his own
mill and issued in 1694; in the same year he
also printed The Laws and Acts of the General
Assembly.
APPENDIX No. I
LIST OF ENGLISH PRINTERS 1649-50
NAME OF PRINTER ADDRESS
Alsop, Bernard, . . . Grub Street.
Austin, Robert, . . . Addlehill.
Bell, Jane, . . . . Christchurch.
Bentley, William, . . Finsbury.
Bishop, Richard, . . St. Peter Paul's Wharf.
Broad, Thomas, . . City of York.
222
ENGLISH PRINTING
Brudenell, Thomas, .
Buck, John,
Buck, or Bucks, Thomas, .
Clowes, John, .
Coe, Andrew,
Cole, Peter,
Coles, Amos,
Constable, Richard, .
Cotes, or Coates, Richard, .
Cottrell, James, .
Crouch, Edward,
Crouch, John, .
Dawson, Gertrude,
Dugard, William,
Ellis, William, .
Field, John,
Fletcher, or Flesher, James,
Griffith, or Griffin, Edward,
Grismond, John,
Hall, Henry,
Hare, Adam,
Harper, Thomas,
Harrison, Martha,
Heldersham, Francis,
Hills, Henry,
Hunscott, Joseph,
Hunt, William, .
Husbands, Edward, .
Ibbitson, Robert,
Lee, William, .
Leyborne, Robert,
Newgate Market.
Cambridge.
Cambridge.
Grub Street.
Ivy Lane.
Smithfield.
Aldersgate Street.
Aldersgate Street.
Merchant Taylors'
School.
Thames Street.
Little Britain.
Old Bailey.
Ivy Lane.
Oxford.
Red Cross Street.
Little Britain.
South wark.
Stationers' Hall.
Pie Corner.
Golden Dragon, Fleet
Street.
Smithfield.
Fleet Street.
Mugwell Street.
FROM 1640 TO 1700
223
Litchfield, Leonard, .
Mabb, Thomas,
Maxey, Thomas,
Maycock, John, .
Meredith, Christopher,
Miller, Abraham,
Mottershead, Edward,
Moxon, James, .
Neale, Francis, .
Newcombe, Thomas, .
Norton, Roger, .
Partridge, John,
Payne, or Paine, Thomas,
Playford, John, .
Purslowe, Elizabeth, .
Ratcliffe, Thomas,
Ra worth, Ruth, .
Ross, Thomas, .
Roth well, John, .
Royston, John, )
Royston, Richard,)
Roycroft, Thomas,
Simmons, Matthew, .
Thompson, George, .
Tyton, Francis, .
Walkeley, Thomas .
Warren, Thomas,
Wilson, William,
Wright, John, .
Wright, William,
Oxford.
Ivy Lane.
Bennett Paul's Wharf.
Addlehill.
St. Paul's Churchyard.
Blackfriars.
Doctors' Commons.
Houndsditch.
Aldersgate Street.
Bennett Paul's Wharf,
near Baynards Castle.
Blackfriars.
Blackfriars.
Little Old Bailey.
Doctors' Commons.
224
ENGLISH PRINTING
APPENDIX No. II
List of severall printing houses taken y e 24th July
1668:-
The Kings printing office in English.
The Kings printing office in Hebrew, Greek, and
Latine. Roger Norton.
The Kings printer in y e Oriental tongues.
Thomas Roycroft.
Collonell John Streater by an especiall provisoe
in y e Act. [The same who in 1653 had
been committed to the Gatehouse for print-
ing seditious pamphlets.]
The other Masters are :
Mr. Evan Tyler.
Robert White.
,, James Flesher.
Richard Hodgkinson.
,, Thomas Ratliffe.
John Maycocke.
John Field.
,, Thomas Newcomb.
,, William Godbid.
,, John Redman.
Mr. Thomas Johnson.
,, Nath Crouch.
,, Thomas Purslowe.
,, Peter Lillicrapp.
,, Thomas Leach.
,, Henry Lloyd.
,, Thomas Milbourne.
James Cottrell.
Andrew Coe.
,, Henry Bridges.
Widdowes of printers :
Mrs. Sarah Gryffyth. Mrs. Anne Maxwell.
,, Cotes. ....
Simmons. Custome house printer.
FROM 1640 TO 1700 225
Printers y* were Masters at y e passeing of y e Act w ch
are disabled by y e fire :
Mr. John Brudenall. Mr. Leybourne.
Hayes. ,, Wood.
Child. ,, Vaughan.
,, Warren. ,, Ouseley.
Printers set up since y e Act and contrary to it :
Mr. William Rawlins. Mr. John Darby.
John Winter ,, Edward Oakes.
(Dom. S. P. Chas. //., vol. 243, No. 126.)
APPENDIX No. Ill
NUMBER OF PRESSES AND WORKMEN EMPLOYED
IN THE PRINTING-HOUSES OF LONDON IN 1 668
At the King's House, . 6 Presses.
8 Compositors.
10 Pressmen.
At Mr. Tyler's, '.. . 3 Presses and a Proofe
Press.
1 Apprentice.
6 Workmen.
At Mr. White's, . . 3 Presses.
3 Apprentices.
7 Workmen.
At Mr. Flesher's, . . 5 Presses.
2 Apprentices.
13 Workmen.
At Mr. Norton's, . '. 3 Presses.
i Apprentice.
7 Workmen.
2F
226
ENGLISH PRINTING
At Mr. Rycroft's [Roy-
croft's],
At Mr. Ratcliffe's,
At Mr. Maycock's, .
At Mr. Newcombe's,
At Mr. Godbidd's, .
At Mr. Streater's, .
At Mr. Milbourne's,
At Mr. Catterell's [Cot-
trell ?],
At Mrs. Symond's, .
At Mrs. Cotes,
4 Presses.
2 Apprentices.
10 Workmen [Three of
whom were not free of
the Company].
2 Presses.
2 Apprentices.
7 Workmen.
3 Presses.
3 Apprentices.
10 Workmen.
3 Presses and a Proof
Press.
1 Apprentice.
7 Compositors.
5 Pressmen.
3 Presses.
2 Apprentices.
5 Workmen.
5 Presses.
6 Compositors.
2 Pressmen.
2 Presses.
o Apprentices.
2 Workmen.
\ " " .
2 Presses.
Apprentices.
2 Compositors.
1 Pressman.
2 Presses.
1 Apprentice.
5 Workmen.
3 Presses.
2 Apprentices.
9 Pressmen.
FROM 1640 TO 1700
227
At Mrs. Griffin's, .
At Mr. Leach's,
At Mr. Maxwell's, .
At Mr. Lillicropp's, .
At Mr. Redman's, .
At Mr. Cowes [Coe's ?], .
At Mr. Lloyd's, ; ;:
At Mr. Oake's,
At Mr. Purslowe's, .
At Mr. Johnson's, .
Mr. Darby,
Mr. Winter, .
Mr. Rawly ns, .
At Mr. Crouch's,
2 Presses.
i Apprentice.
6 Workmen.
i Press and no more pro-
vided by Mr. Graydon.
1 Workman.
2 Presses.
Apprentices.
3 Compositors.
3 Pressmen.
1 Press.
i Apprentice,
i Compositor.
1 Pressman.
2 Presses.
1 Apprentice.
4 Compositors.
2 Pressmen.
i Press.
1 Press.
2 Presses.
Apprentices.
2 Workmen.
1 Press.
Apprentices.
1 Workman.
2 Presses.
Apprentices.
3 Workmen.
These three printers are
to be indicted at y e next
session.
1 Press.
Apprentices.
1 Workman.
CHAPTER IX
1700-1750
VI NG to some extent shaken
itself free from the cramping in-
fluences of monopolies and State
interference, the output of the Eng-
lish printing press at the commence-
ment of the eighteenth century had
almost doubled that of thirty or forty years
before, and presses were now at work in various
parts of the kingdom. But the long period of
thraldom had resulted in completely destroying
all originality amongst the printers, and almost
in the destruction of the art of letter-founding.
In fact, so far as printing with English types was
concerned, the first twenty years of the eighteenth
century was the worst period in the history of
printing in this country. With the exception of
the University of Oxford, which, owing to the
generous bequests of Bishop Fell and others, was
well supplied with good founts, the printers of
this country were compelled to obtain their type
FROM 1700 TO 1750 229
from Holland, and all the best and most import-
ant books published in Queen Anne's days were
printed with Dutch letter, as it was called. Jacob
Tonson is said to have spent some ^300 in
obtaining this foreign letter, and one important
English foundry, that of Thomas James, was
almost wholly stocked with these foreign founts.
Yet this Dutch letter was by no means easy to
get, and the experience of James, who in 1710
went to Holland for the purpose, bore out what
Moxon had said in his Mechanick Exercises, that
the art of letter-cutting was jealously guarded by
those who practised it. Some of the Dutch type-
founders refused to sell him types on any terms,
and it was only by getting hold of a man who
was more fond of his liquor than his trade, that
James was able to get matrices, for even this
individual refused to sell his punches. Nor was
the vendor in any hurry to part with the ma-
trices, and it cost James much money, time,
and patience before he was able to secure them.
Writing from Rotterdam on the 27th July in that
year, he says :
* The beauty of letters, like that of faces, is as people opine,
. . . All the Romans excel what we have in England, in my
opinion, and I hope, being well wrought, I mean cast, will gain
the approbation of very handsome letters. The Italic I do not
look upon to be unhandsome, though the Dutch are never very
extraordinary in them.'
James returned to England with 3500 matrices
2 3 o ENGLISH PRINTING
of various founts of Roman and Italics, as well
as sets of Greek and some black letter. He set
up his foundry in a part of the buildings belong-
ing to the Priory of St. Bartholomew, in Smith-
field, and it continued to be the most important
in London until the days of Caslon. The pro-
portion of Dutch to English types in the printing
offices at that time is well illustrated by the valu-
able list of the types possessed by John Baskett,
the Royal printer at Oxford, in the year 1718.
The Royal printing-house was perhaps the largest
and most lucrative office in the kingdom. For
upwards of a century it had been owned by the
descendants of Christopher Barker, the last of
whom, Robert Barker, had died in 1645, after
assigning his business to Messrs. Newcomb,
Hill, Mearne, and others. From these the patent
was bought in 1709 by John Baskett, of whose
antecedents nothing whatever is known. In
addition to the business at Blackfriars, Baskett,
in conjunction with John Williams and Samuel
Ashurst, obtained a lease from the Chancellor,
Masters, and Scholars of Oxford University of
their privilege of printing for twenty-one years.
From an indenture in the possession of Mr. J. H.
Round, the substance of which he communicated to
\hzAthenceum of September 5th, 1885, it appears
that on the 24th December 1718 Baskett gave
a bond to James Brooks, stationer of London,
for a loan of ^4000, and for security mortgaged
FROM 1700 TO 1750 231
his stock, which was set out in a schedule as
follows :
' An Account of the Letter, Presses, and other Stock and
Implements of and in the Printing house at Oxford,
belonging to John Baskett, citizen and stationer of
London.'
1. A large ffount of Perle letter cast by M r Andrews.
2. A large ffount of Nonp 1 Letter new cast by ditto.
3. Another ffount of Nonp 1 Letter, old, the which standing
and sett up in a Com'on prayer in 24 compleat.
4. A large ffount of Min n Letter new cast by M r Andrews.
5. Another large ffount of Min n Letter, new cast in Holland.
6. The whole Testament standing in Brev r and Min n Letter,
old.
7. A large ffount of Brev r Letter, new cast in Holland.
8. A very large ffount of Lo : Primer Letter, new cast by
M r Andrew.
9. A large ffount of pica Letter very good, cast by ditto.
10. Another large ffount of ditto, never used, cast in Holland.
1 1. A small quantity of English, new cast by M r Andrews.
12. A small quantity of Great Prim r new cast by ditto.
13. A very large ffount of Double Pica, new, the largest in
England.
14. A quantity of two-line English letters.
15. A quantity of French Cannon, two -line letters of all
sorts, and a set of silver initial letters. Cases, stands,
etc. Five printing presses very good.
John Baskett is chiefly remembered for the
magnificent edition of the Bible which he printed
in 1716-1717, in two volumes imperial folio, and
which from an error in the headline of the 2oth
chapter of St. Luke, where the parable of the
Vineyard was rendered as the ' parable of the
Vinegar/ has ever since been known as the
232 ENGLISH PRINTING
' Vinegar Bible/ This slip was only one of many
faults in the edition, which earned for it the. title
of ' A Baskett-full of printer's errors.' But apart
from these errors, the book was a very splendid
specimen of the printer's art, and has been de-
scribed as the most magnificent of the Oxford
Bibles. The type, double pica Roman and Italic,
was beautifully cut, and was that which is described
in the above list as the ' largest in England.' It
was clearly not one of the founts belonging to
the University, for, had it been, Baskett would
have had no power to mortgage it. It is also
noticeable that it was not described as 'cast in
Holland,' as many of the others were, so we may
infer that it was cast in England, and an interest-
ing question arises, by whom? Clearly it was
not cast by Mr. Andrews, or Baskett would have
said so.
During a great part of his life, Baskett was
engaged in litigation over his monopoly of Bible
printing, and in spite of the large profits attached
to it, he became bankrupt in 1732. Further
trouble fell upon him in 1738 by the destruction
of his office by fire. He died on June 22nd,
1742. At one period he had been in danger of
losing his patent altogether, for Queen Anne was
induced by Lord Bolingbroke and others to con-
stitute Benjamin Tooke and John Barber to be
Royal printers in reversion, in anticipation of the
ending of Baskett's lease in 1739; but Baskett
FROM 1700 TO 1750 233
purchased this reversion from Barber, and after-
wards obtained a renewal of his patent for sixty
years, the last thirty of which were subsequently
acquired by Charles Eyre for ; 10,000.
John Barber, who for a time held the reversion
of Baskett's patent, was the only printer who has
ever held the high office of Lord Mayor of
London, and for this reason among others he
deserves a brief notice. He was born of poor
parents in 1675, and according to one account
was greatly helped in early life by Nathaniel
Settle, the city poet.
He was apprenticed to Mrs. Clark, a printer
in Thames Street, and proving himself a steady
and good workman, was able to set up for him-
self in 1700. His first printing-house was in
Queen's Head Alley, whence he soon afterwards
moved to Lambeth Hill, near Old Fish Street.
Accounts differ as to his first work. Curll, in
his Impartial History of the Life, Character,
etc., of Mr. John Barber (London, 1741), says
that the alderman himself admitted that the first
fifty pounds he could call his own were earned by
printing a pamphlet written by Charles D'Ave-
nant ; while in the Life and Character, another
pamphlet printed in the same year for T. Cooper,
it is said that it was Defoe's Diet of Poland
which brought him the first money he laid up.
It is also said that he was greatly indebted to
Dean Swift for his rapid advancement.
2G
234 ENGLISH PRINTING
By whatever means it was accomplished,
Barber was introduced to Henry St. John, after-
wards Lord Bolingbroke, and was engaged as
printer to the Ministry, his printing-house be-
coming the meeting-place of the statesmen, poets,
and wits of the day. Barber was himself a genial
companion and hard drinker, who spent his
money freely, and in this way made many
friends. He printed for Dean Swift, for Pope,
Matthew Prior, and Dr. King, and was also the
printer of nearly all the writings of the versatile
and unhappy Mrs. Manley. The story of her
connection with Barber is sufficiently well known.
At the time of the South Sea scheme Barber
took large shares, and, it is said, amassed a con-
siderable fortune before the bubble burst. But
he was indebted mainly to the patronage of
Lord Bolingbroke for his success as a printer.
Through that statesman he obtained the contract
for printing the votes of the House of Commons,
and by the same influence he became printer of
the London Gazette, The Examiner, and Mer-
cator, printer to the City of London, and finally
received from the Queen the reversion of the
office of Royal Printer, which he soon after
relinquished to Baskett for ^"1500.
Elected as alderman of Baynard Castle ward,
Barber filled the office of Sheriff, and in 1733
became Lord Mayor of the City of London. As
Lord Mayor, he gained great popularity from his
FROM 1700 TO 1750 235
opposition to the Excise Bill, and by permitting
persons tried and acquitted at the Old Bailey to
be discharged without any fees. He died on the
22nd January 1740.
Much amusement, not altogether unmixed
with uneasiness, was caused in the printing trade
between 1727 and 1740 by a futile attempt to
introduce stereotyping. A Scotch printer having
complained to a goldsmith in Edinburgh of the
vexatious delays and inconvenience of having to
send to London or Holland for type, it occurred
to William Ged, the goldsmith in question, that,
to use the words of Timperley (p. 584), the
transition from founding single letters to found-
ing whole pages, ' should be no difficult matter.'
He made several experiments, and at length
satisfied himself that his scheme was practicable.
Accordingly, in 1727, he entered into a contract
with an Edinburgh printer to carry out the in-
vention, but after two years his partner withdrew,
being alarmed at the probable cost. Ged then
entered into partnership with William Fenner, a
stationer in London, by whom he was introduced
to Thomas James, the founder, and a company
was formed to work the scheme. But James,
perhaps influenced by the representations of his
'compositors,' whom the new invention threat-
ened with the loss of work, instead of helping,
did his utmost to ruin the undertaking and its
inventor. Instead of supplying the best and
236 ENGLISH PRINTING
newest type from which the matrices might be
made, he furnished the worst, whilst his work-
men damaged the formes. Much the same
happened at Cambridge, where Ged was for a
time installed as printer to the University. He
struggled against the opposition so far as to
produce two Prayer Books, but such was the
animosity shown to the new invention, that the
books were suppressed by authority, and the
plates broken up. To add further to his troubles,
dissension broke out between James and Fenner,
neither of whom had any cause to be proud of
their action towards Ged, who, disheartened and
ruined, returned to Edinburgh. There another
attempt was made by the friends of the inventor
to produce a book, but no compositor could be
found to set up the type, and it was only by
Ged's son working at night that the edition of
Sallust, and a few theological books, were finished
and printed at Newcastle. Ged died in 1749, and
his sons subsequently emigrated to the West
Indies.
Next to the King's printing-house, the press
of which we have the most accurate knowledge
at this time was that of William Bowyer, the
elder and the younger. The seven volumes of
Nichols's Literary Anecdotes give a complete
record of the work of this printing-house, and
from them the following brief account has been
taken. William Bowyer, the elder, had been
FROM 1700 TO 1750 237
apprentice to Miles Flesher, and was admitted
to the freedom of the Company of Stationers on
October 4th, 1686. He started business on his
own account in Little Britain in 1699, with a
pamphlet of ninety-six pages on the Eikon Basi-
like controversy. He afterwards moved into
White Friars, where, on the night of January
29th, 1712, his printing office was burnt to the
ground ; among the works that perished in the
flames being almost the whole impression of
Atkyn's History of Gloucestershire, Sir Roger
L'Estrange's Josephus, ' printed with a fine
Elzevir letter never used before ' ; the fifteenth
volume of Rymer's Fcedera ; Thoresby's Ducatus
Leodiensis, and an old book, of Monarchy, by Sir
John Fortescue, in ' Saxon,' with notes upon it,
printed on an 'extraordinary paper' (Nichols's
Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 56). This short
list of notable works proves that Bowyer had a
flourishing business at the time of the catastrophe.
A subscription was at once raised for his relief,
and ^1162 subscribed by the booksellers and
printers in a very short time. A royal brief was
also granted to him for the same purposes, and
by this he received ^1377, making a grand total
of ^2539, with which he began business anew.
In remembrance of his misfortune, Bowyer had
several tail-pieces and devices engraved, repre-
senting a phcenix rising from the flames.
In 1715 Bowyer the elder printed Miss
238 ENGLISH PRINTING
Elstob's Anglo-Saxon Grammar. The types for
this were cut by Robert Andrews from drawings
made by Humphrey Wanley, and were given to
the printer by Lord Chief-Justice Parker. But
these types were very indifferently cut. Wanley
himself said 'when the alphabet came into the
hands of the workman (who was but a blunderer)
he could not imitate the fine and regular stroke
of the pen ; so that the letters are not only
clumsy, but unlike those that I drew.'
In 1721 Bowyer printed an edition of Bishop
Bull's Latin works in folio, but lost ^200 by the
impression. The following year his son, William
Bowyer the younger, joined him in the business.
The younger Bowyer had received an Univer-
sity education, though he never succeeded in
taking a degree. He was, however, a highly
cultivated man, and employed his pen in many of
the controversies of the time, writing Remarks on
Mr. Bowman's Visitation Sermon in 1731, and
on Stephen's Thesaurus in 1733, and in 1744 a
pamphlet on the Present State of Europe. But
at the beginning of his connection with the
printing-house, he was mainly concerned in
reading the proofs of the learned works entrusted
to his father for printing, and though towards
the latter end of the elder Bowyer's days the son
may have taken a more active part in the practical
work, as we read of his appointment as printer of
the votes in the House of Commons in 1729, and
FROM 1700 TO 1750 239
as printer to the Society of Antiquaries in 1736,
it was not until his father's death, in 1737, that
the sole management of the business devolved
upon him.
One of the earliest works upon which the
younger Bowyer was employed as ' reader ' was
Dr. Wilkins's edition of Selden's Works, printed
by Bowyer the elder in six folio volumes in
1722. The publication of this book marks an era
in the history of English printing, for the types
with which it was printed were cut by William
Gaslon.
This famous type-founder, who by his skill
raised the art of printing to a higher level than
it had reached since the days of John Day, was
born at Cradley, near Hales Owen in Shropshire.
We are indebted for his biography partly to
Bowyer and partly to Nichols, but it must be
confessed that the earlier part of it is vague and
unconvincing. According to this oft-quoted story,
Caslon began life as an engraver of gun-locks, and
made blocking tools for binders. This was some-
where about 1716, in which year it is said John
Watts, the printer, became his patron, and em-
ployed him to cut type punches. Bowyer became
acquainted with him from seeing some specimen
of his lettering on a book, and took him to the
foundry of James, in Bartholomew Close. Bowyer
next advanced him some money, as also did Watts,
and with these loans he set up for himself, his
2 4 o ENGLISH PRINTING
first essay in type-founding being a fount of
Arabic for the Psalter published by the Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. When
he had finished the Arabic, i.e. somewhere about
1724 or 1725, he cut his own name in Roman
type and placed it at the foot of the specimen.
This attracted the notice of Samuel Palmer, the
author of a very unreliable History of Printing,
and with Palmer, Caslon worked for some time,
but at length transferred his services to William
Bowyer, for whom he cut the types of the
' Selden.'
It is almost impossible to place any reliance
upon so vague and inconclusive a biography as
this. There was a belief in the Caslon family
that he began letter-cutting before 1720, and the
equally vague traditions which point to a later
date need not make us treat this as impossible.
Was his the unknown hand that cut the
double pica type which Baskett used in printing
the 'Vinegar' Bible? A close examination of
the types used in that Bible, those used in print-
ing the folio edition of Pope's Iliad, and those
of the ' Selden,' reveals a striking resemblance,
especially in the form of the italic letter, and at
least makes it clear that if the two first-men-
tioned works were printed with Dutch letter,
then it was on the best form of that letter that
Caslon modelled his types.
The charm of Caslon's Roman letter lay in
FROM 1700 TO 1750 241
its wonderful regularity as well as in the shape
and proportion of the letters. In this respect it
was a worthy successor to the best Aldine founts
of the sixteenth century. The italic was also
noticeable for its beauty and regularity.
Caslon's superiority over all other letter-cutters,
English or Dutch, was quickly recognised, and
from this time forward until the close of the
century all the best and most important books
were printed with Caslon's letter ; the old letter-
founders, such as James and Grover, being
entirely neglected, and even such a powerful
rival as John Baskerville being unable to com-
pete with him.
In addition to the printers in London already
noticed, there were two others who must not be
forgotten. Samuel Richardson, author of Pamela,
Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison,
was by trade a printer. Born in Derbyshire, of
humble parents, in 1689, he was apprenticed to
Mr. John Wilde, a printer in London, whom he
served for seven years. He took up his freedom
in 1706, and started business for himself in Salis-
bury Court, Fleet Street. Among his earliest
patrons were the Duke of Wharton, for whom he
printed some six numbers of a paper called the
True Briton, and the Right Hon. Arthur Onslow,
by whose interest he obtained the printing of the
Journals of the House of Commons. But he did
some better work than this, as in 1732 he printed
2 H
242 ENGLISH PRINTING
for Andrew Millar a good edition in folio of
Churchill J s Voyages, and in 1733 the second
volume of De Thou's History, a work in seven
folio volumes, edited by Samuel Buckley, his
share in which reflects credit on Richardson as a
printer. Between 1736-37 he printed The Daily
Journal, and in 1738 the Daily Gazeteer, and in
1740 the newly-formed Society for the Encourage-
ment of Learning entrusted to him the printing
of the first volume of The Negotiations of Sir
Thomas Roe, in folio. In this the text was
printed in the same type as the De Thou, but
the dedication was in a fount of double pica
Roman. This work, which was intended to have
been in six volumes, was never completed.
Richardson's work as an author began in 1741
with the publication of Pamela, in four volumes,
duodecimo, printed at his own press. Clarissa
Harlowe appeared in 1747-48, and in 1753 his
final novel, Sir Charles Grandison. Through
the treachery of one of his workmen in the print-
ting office, the Dublin booksellers were enabled
to issue an edition of Sir Charles Grandison
before the work had left Richardson's press.
He vented his aggrieved feelings by printing
a pamphlet, The Case of Samuel Richardson of
London, Printer.
In 1755 Richardson rebuilt his premises, and
in 1760 he bought half the patent of law printing,
which he shared with Catherine Lintot. His
FROM 1700 TO 1750 243
death took place on the 4th July 1761, his busi-
ness being afterwards carried on by his nephew,
William Richardson.
The other press to which reference has been
made was that of Henry Woodfall. In the first
series of Notes and Queries (vol. xi. pp. 377, 418)
an anonymous contributor supplied some very
interesting and valuable notes drawn from the
ledgers of that printer between the years 1734
and 1747. Such a record is the most valuable
material for a history of printing, but unfor-
tunately this is the only known instance in which
it is available. It supplies us with the most
useful information, the numbers of copies that
went to make up an edition, the quality and cost
of the paper and the number of sheets contained
in each volume, with many other interesting
particulars, which it is impossible to get from
any other source. While recognising the value
of these extracts from Woodfall's ledger, the
writer hardly seems to have made the most of
his opportunity. In many instances he gives
only the title of the work and the number of
copies printed, omitting all particulars as regards
the cost of printing. But even as it stands this
series of papers throws much interesting light
upon the publication of some of the notable works
of that period.
Woodfall's printing was broadly divided into
two classes, ' gentlemen's work ' and ' booksellers'
244 ENGLISH PRINTING
work/ and the second is naturally the more
interesting.
Among those for whom he printed were
Bernard and Henry Lintot, Robert Dodsley,
Andrew Millar, and Lawton Gilliver. Against
Bernard Lintot is the following entry :
Deer. 1 5th, 1735
Printing the first volume of Mr. Pope's Works,
Cr., Long Primer, 8vo, 3000 (and 75 fine),
2, 2s. per sheet, 14 sheets and a half, . 30 . 09 . o
Title in red and black, . . . . . I . I
Paid for 2 reams and | of writing demy, . 2.16.3
On May 15, 1736, Woodfall enters to Henry
Lintot
The Iliad of Homer by Mr. Pope, demy,
Long Primer and Brevier. No. 2000 in
6 vols, 68 sheets and \ @ 2, 2s. per sheet, 143 17
Under Dodsley's account is entered on i2th
May 1737
Printing the first Epistle of the Second Book
of Horace Imitated, folio, double size, Poetry,
No. 2000, and 150 fine, [seven] shts., at
273. per sht, 9 . 09 . o
May 1 8, 1737. 150 fol. titles, Second Book of
Epistles, 4.0
A few weeks later Woodfall received an order
from Lawton Gilliver for 1500 crown octavo
copies of Epistles of Horace, and 100 fine or large
paper copies. The second edition of Pope's
Works was also printed by Woodfall for Henry
Lintot, the order being for 2000.
FROM 1700 TO 1750 245
For Andrew Millar Woodfall printed the
following works of Thomson the poet
Oct. I4th 1734. Spring, a poem, 8vo, 250
copies.
Jan. 8th 173^. Liberty, a poem, ist part
cr. 8vo, No. 3000, and 250 fine copies.
Of the 4th and 6th parts only 1250 copies were
printed.
June 6th, 1738, Mr. Thomson's Works. Vol. I.
No. 1000, 8vo.
With the issue of the second volume the number
was increased to 1500.
The Seasons were printed on June iQth, 1744,
in octavo. There were 1500 errata in the work,
and a special charge of 2, 45. was made for
' divers and repeated alterations/
Among the miscellaneous writers whose
works were passed through the elder Woodfall's
press was the Rev. John Peters, against whom
he entered an account, dated July lyth, 1735, for
printing Thoughts concerning Religion, 4to, 16
sheets. This gentleman was a literary shark,
ready to devour any unprotected morsel that
came in his way. The work above mentioned,
and another printed by Woodfall in 1732, called
A Letter to a Bishop, were afterwards discovered
to be from the pen of Duncan Forbes, and were
published in an edition of his works printed in
Edinburgh and London in 1751. A lawsuit was
246 ENGLISH PRINTING
at once commenced by George Woodfall and
John Peters against the publishers of Forbes*
works, the name of Messrs. Rivington being
prominently mentioned, and the defendants, in
their answer, stated that the two works in
question were well known to have been written
by Duncan Forbes, and that the MS. was in the
possession of his family. 1
This little incident, taken in conjunction with
Henry Woodfall's connection with E. Curll and
the letters of Pope, and the story told by Thomas
Gent of the printing of The Bishop of 'Rochester 's
Effigy, shows that he was a worthy disciple of
lago in the matter of money-getting.
Mention of Thomas Gent leads naturally to a
study of the provincial press of this period. This
is a much more difficult matter than it has been
hitherto, as presses were established not in three
or four places only, but in almost every town
of any size. The history of provincial printing
has never yet. been written, and the task of tracing
out the various printers and their work would be
long and arduous. All that is attempted here is
to give a sketch of the earlier and more important
presses, adding in an appendix a chronological
list of the places in which printing was carried on
before 1750.
In the previous chapter it has been shown
1 Chancery Proceedings, 1753 (Record Office).
2 Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. xii. p. 197.
FROM 1700 TO 1750 247
how the munificence of Bishop Fell and Francis
Junius furnished the University of Oxford with
an unusually large stock of excellent letter of all
descriptions, so that it was in a position to do
better work than any other house in the kingdom.
Its productions, during the first twenty years of the
eighteenth century, were in every way worthy of
its reputation, and some of them deserve special
mention.
In 1705 Hickes's Linguarum Vett. Sept en-
trionalium Thesaurus was issued in three large
folio volumes of great beauty. The work required
many unusual founts, and these were mainly fur-
nished from the bequest of Junius.
In 1 707 the University published Mill's Greek
Testament, which Wood in his Athence Oxoni-
enses (vol. ii. p. 604) says had been begun in 1681
at Bishop Fell's printing-house near the theatre.
The double pica italic used in this was a grand
letter. Both the foregoing works were ornamented
with handsome initial letters, and head and tail
pieces engraved by M. Burghers, probably the
first engraver of the day in this country. Many
classical works were also produced in the same
sumptuous manner, notably Hudson's edition of
the Works of Dionysius, 1704, which it is difficult
to praise too highly. The copies measured nearly
eighteen inches in height, the paper was thick
and good ; the Greek and Latin texts were printed
side by side, with notes at the foot, yet ample
248 ENGLISH PRINTING
margins were left. In fact it is one of the finest
examples of English printing of this period to be
met with.
Cambridge was sadly behind her sister Uni-
versity. Neither Reed in his Old English Letter
Foundries, nor Mr. Allnutt in his valuable articles
on Provincial Presses, has anything to say of it.
Cornelius Crowndale was the University printer
at this time, but beyond an edition of Eusebius
in three folio volumes, issued in 1720, no notable
book came from his press, little in fact beyond
reprints in octavo and duodecimo of classical
works for the use of the scholars, and repeated
editions of the Bible and Book of Common Prayer,
full of errors, and so badly printed that the less
said about them the better. We may notice,
however, an edition of Butler's Hudibras, edited
by Zachary Grey, in two octavo volumes, with
Hogarth's plates, and two books by Conyers
Middleton, Bibliothecce Cantabrigiensis ordi-
nandce methodus, 1723, and A Dissertation
concerning the Origin of Printing in England,
1735, both in quarto.
Among the earliest provincial presses at work
in the beginning of the eighteenth century was that
at Norwich, where Francis Burges was established
in the year 1701. Thomas Tanner, afterwards
Bishop of St. Asaph, sent John Bagford a broad-
side, printed by that printer, a list of the clergy
that were to preach in the cathedral at Norfolk
FROM 1700 TO 1750 249
from November ist, 1701, until Trinity Sunday
following. In a MS. note at the foot Tanner
says :
' DR. BAGFORD, When you were at Cambridge, I thought
you would have come to Norwich. I send this to put among
your other collections of printers. It is the first thing that was
ever printed here.' l
In this statement, however, Tanner was wrong,
unless we suppose this broadside to have been
printed nearly five weeks in advance, as there
had appeared, on September 27th, 1701, Some
Observations on the Use and Original of the
Noble Art and Mystery of Printing, by Francis
Burges, which is also claimed as the first book
printed at Norwich since the sixteenth century.
There is also evidence that Burges began to
issue a newspaper called The Norwich Post
early in September. Among his other work
of that year were sermons by John Jeffery and
John Graile, and Humphrey Prideaux's Directions
to Churchwardens for the Faithfull Discharge
of their Offices. For the Use of the- Archdeacon-
ry of Suffolk. (Norwich 1701, quarto.) Francis
Burges died in January 1706, leaving the business
to his widow, who in the following year printed
and published a little tract of eight quarto pages,
with the title, A true description of the City of
Norwich both in its ancient and modern state.
Meanwhile, in November of the preceding
1 Harl. MS. 5906.
250 ENGLISH PRINTING
year, a second press was started in the town by
Henry Crossgrove, who began to issue. a paper
called the Norwich Gazette.
Burges's business seems to have been taken
by Freeman Collins, who printed from the same
address, in 1713, Robert Pate's Complete Syntax.
He in his turn was succeeded by Benjamin Lyon,
who in 1718 reprinted the Trite Description, as
The History of the City of Norwich . . . To
which is added Norfolk's Furies: or a mew of
Ketfs Camp. (Norwich. Printed by Benj. Lyon
near the Red-well, for Robert Allen and Nich.
Lemon. 1718. 8vo. pp. 40.) He added to this
some useful lists of bishops, etc., and a ' Chrono-
logical Account of Remarkable Accidents and
Occurrences, to date,' in which the following
entries occur :
' 1701. The first printing office was set up in Norwich, near
the Red-well, by Francis Burges.
' 1706. Sam. Hashart a distiller, set up a Printing Office, in
Magdalen St., and sent for Henry Cross-grove from London to
be his journeyman.'
Crossgrove appears to have continued work
till 1739, being succeeded by William Chase, who
had been printing since 1711, and who established
the Norwich Mercury in 1727.
At Bristol the press that William Bonny had
established in 1695 continued to flourish until
1713. About November 1702 he began to issue
a weekly paper called the Bristol Post-Boy, which
FROM 1700 TO 1750 251
ran until 1712, when it was either replaced or sup-
planted by Samuel Farley's Bristol Postman}
The Parleys were noted printers in the West
of England at this time, and the above-named
Samuel must not be confounded with Samuel
Farley the Exeter printer.
In Cirencester printing began in 1718, in
which year Thomas Hinton brought out the first
number of the Cirencester Post, and the Gloucester
Journal was printed in that city by R. Raikes
and W. Dicey on April 9, 172^. Robert Raikes
continued printing there till 1750, and was suc-
ceeded by his son Robert, the founder of Sunday
Schools. 2
In the neighbouring county of Devon the
Exeter press, finally established after many vicis-
situdes in 1698 by Samuel Darker, is found busily
at work in 1701, Darker having been joined by
Samuel Farley, whose relation to the Samuel
Farley of Bristol offers an opportunity to some
cunning genealogist to reap distinction. In 1701
Farley issued by himself John Prince's Danmonii
Orient ales Illustres ; or The IVorthies of Devon,
a work of 600 folio pages, with coats of arms.
It was certainly one of the largest works printed
at that time by any provincial press outside the
Universities. In point of workmanship all that
can be said for it is that it was no worse than the
1 Hyett and Bazeley, Bibliog. Man. of Glouc. Literature, vol. iii. p. 339.
2 Allnutt, Bibliographica, vol. ii. p. 302.
252 ENGLISH PRINTING
bulk of the work turned out by provincial presses ;
and it furnishes its own criticism in a list of
errata on the last page, which closes with the
words, ' with many others too tedious to insert.'
Thomas Tanner, writing to Browne Willis in
1706, says that he has heard of a bi-weekly paper
printing at Exeter. No copy of an Exeter paper
of so early a date is known.
In 1705 Farley was joined by Joseph Bliss,
and jointly they issued several books ; but the
partnership lasted a very short time, as by 1708
Joseph Bliss had set up for himself in the
Exchange.
On September 24, 1714, Samuel Farley issued
the first number of The Exeter Mercury ; or
Weekly Intelligence of News, which in the next
year he transferred to Philip Bishop. In 1715
also Joseph Bliss started a rival sheet called the
Protestant Mercury, or The Exeter Post-Boy,
from his new printing-house near the London
Inn. Meanwhile Farley appears to have left
Exeter, for on September 27, 1715, he published
the first number of the Salisbury Post-Man. In
1717 Andrew Brice, the most important of Exeter
printers, began to print, his address then being
' At the Head of the Serge Market in Southgate
Street,' from which he issued, some time in 1718,
a paper called the Post-Master, or the Loyal
Mercury. The history of this printer is too
lengthy to be told here, and has already been
FROM 1700 TO 1750 253
ably written by Dr. T. N. Brushfield (The Life
and Bibliography of Andrew Brice). Farley's
name occurs again in 1723, when he returned to
Exeter and started Farley s Exeter Journal. In
November 1727 the burial of Samuel Farley is
recorded in the registers at St. Paul's, Exeter. He
was succeeded in business by an Edward Farley.
Another provincial press that revived very
early in the eighteenth century was that of
Worcester. It had been silent for upwards of a
century and a half; but in June 1709 a printer
from London, named Stephen Bryan, set up a
press, and started a newspaper called the
Worcester Postman. In 1722 the title was
altered to the Worcester Post, or Western Jour-
nal. Bryan died in 1748, but just previous to
his death he assigned his paper to Mr. H. Berrow,
who then gave it the name it has ever since borne,
that of Berrow s Worcester Journal.
Hazlitt, in his Collections and Notes (3rd
Series, p. 282), mentions a book entitled Tun-
bridgialia, or ye pleasures of Tunbridge, a poem,
as printed ' at Mount Sion at ye end of ye Upper
Walk at Tunbridge Wells,' 1705.
At Canterbury printing was revived in 1717,
and a very interesting record of it is in the
British Museum in the form of a broadside with
the following title :
' A List of the names of the Mayor, Recorder,
Aldermen & Common Council of the City of
254 ENGLISH PRINTING
Canterbury Who (In the year of our Lord 1717)
promoted and encouraged the noble Art and
Mystery of Printing in this City and County.'
Canterbury, Printed by J. Abree for T. James,
S. Palmer, and W. Hunter, 1718.' This John
Abree died in 1765 at the age of seventy-seven.
Turning northward, the most important presses
were those of York and Newcastle.
At York John White, who had settled in the
city in 1680, was actively engaged in business in
1701, and he remained the sole printer there until
his death in the year 1715. By his will, dated
3ist July 1714, he gave his wife Grace White the
use of one full half of his printing tools and
presses, etc., for her life ; and after her death he
gave the same to his grandson, Charles Bourne,
to whom he bequeathed the remaining half of his
printing implements immediately upon his death.
To John White, his son, he devised his real
estate.
On the 23rd February 1718-19 Grace White
issued the first York newspaper, The York Mer-
cury. Upon her death in 1721 the printing-house
was carried on by Charles Bourne until 1724, when
he was in turn succeeded by Thomas Gent, who
had served under John White in 1714-15, and
married the widow of Charles Bourne. Davies
in his Memoirs of the York Press (pp. 144 et seq.)
gives a detailed and interesting biography of this
printer, who, he says, has obtained a wider cele-
FROM 1700 TO 1750 255
brity than any other York typographer. Gent
was an engraver as well as printer, and was the
author of a History of York, and other works.
As a printer his work was wretched ; there
is little to be said for him as an engraver;
while as an author he was below medio-
crity. Nevertheless, he deserves credit for the
interest he took in the history of York. His
history of that city was published in small octavo
in 1730, and he followed it up in 1735 with
Annales Regioduni Hullini, or The History of
the Royal and Beautiful town of Kingston upon
Hull, also an octavo.
These works were quickly overshadowed by
Drake's History, and from this time forward
Gent's fortunes began to decline. He made an
enemy of John White, the son of his old em-
ployer, with the result that White set up a press
at York in 1725, and issued the first number of
The York Courant, a weekly paper, but sold it
and the business to Alexander Staples ten years
later. Staples in turn was succeeded by Caesar
Ward and Richard Chandler the first a book-
seller in York, the second in London ; but
Chandler committed suicide in 1744, and left
Ward to carry on the business alone. John
Gilfillan was another printer at work in the city
during this period. Thomas Gent lived to the
age of eighty-seven, his death taking place on
the 1 9th May 1778.
256 ENGLISH PRINTING
In Newcastle, John White, the son of the
York printer of that name, began printing in
1708. He started the Newcastle Courant, the
first number of which appeared in 1711. In 1761
the firm became John White and Co., and in 1763
John White and T. Saint. White died in 1769,
when he is said to have been the oldest printer
in the kingdom. As has been noted, from 1725
to 1735 he had carried on a press at York
in opposition to T. Gent. One or two other
printers are found here for short periods, but
little is known about them.
Among other towns possessing presses early
in this century were Nottingham, 1711 ; Chester,
1711; Liverpool, 1712; and Birmingham, 1716.
In America the number of printing presses
increased but slowly during the first half of the
eighteenth century. William Bradford in New
York continued the only printer in that province
for thirty years. He died on the 23rd May
1752, at the age of ninety-two. For fifty years
he had been printer to the Government, and
among the numerous books that came through
his press were the Book of Common Prayer in
quarto, in 1709, the only issue in America before
the Revolution, a venture by which he is said to
have lost heavily. He also printed a Mohawk
Prayer-book in quarto; this was issued in 1715.
On the i6th October 1725 he began to publish a
weekly paper called The New York Gazette,
FROM 1700 TO 1750 257
and continued it until his retirement from
business.
In 1726 a German named John Peter Zenger
set up as a printer in New York. He is chiefly
remembered as the printer of the second New
York newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal,
the first number of which was wrongly dated
October 5th, 1733, instead of November 5th.
The paper involved the printer in several actions
for libel, and led to some lively passages with
William Bradford. He is believed to have died
about 1746. Bradford was succeeded as printer
to the Government by James Parker, one of his
apprentices, who is described as a neat workman.
He continued the New York Gazette, with the
alternative title, or Weekly Post Boy. He also
issued in 1767 an edition of the Psalms in metre,
one of the earliest books printed from type cast
in America.
In 1753 Parker took into partnership William
Weyman, but the connection lasted but a short
time, Weyman setting up for himself in 1759.
Parker also established presses at New Haven
and Woodbridge in New Jersey. Among the
later printers in New York were Hugh Guine
(1750-1800); John Holt (1750-1784), printer to
the State during the war; Robert Hodge (1770-
1813) ; and Frederick Shober (1772-1806).
Philadelphia possessed only one printer until
1723 Andrew Bradford, son of William Bradford,
2 K
258 ENGLISH PRINTING
of New York. In 1723 Samuel Keimer set up
near the Market House. It was this printer
whom Benjamin Franklin worked for in his early
days. Bradford started the American Weekly
Mercury on Tuesday, November 22nd, 1719; and
the Pennsylvania Gazette, afterwards carried on
by Franklin and Meredith, was first printed by
Keimer. Andrew Bradford died in 1742. Per-
haps the most notable of Keimer's books was the
folio edition of Sewell's History of the Quakers,
which he began in 1725. It was a work of up-
wards of seven hundred pages and Keimer soon
found that he had taken the contract at a ruinous
rate. It was only by the help of Franklin and
Meredith that he was enabled to finish it in 1728.
Benjamin Franklin's history hardly needs re-
telling. His career as a printer began in the
shop of his brother James at Boston in 1717.
Differences arose between them which ended in
Franklin's setting out for New York. Work was
not to be had there, and by the advice of William
Bradford he moved on to Philadelphia. There
for some months he worked for Samuel Keimer
until, deluded by the promises of Governor Keith,
he took ship for England with a view of obtain-
ing materials for a printing office. While in
England he worked for James Watts in Bar-
tholomew Close, and James Palmer. On his
return to America he once more entered Keimer's
office as a journeyman. But after a short time,
FROM 1700 TO 1750 259
in company with Hugh Meredith, he set up in
business for himself. He was the proprietor and
printer of Poor Richard's Almanack, which be-
came celebrated, and also of the Pennsylvania
Gazette. After a long and prosperous career
Franklin died, on April i9th, 1790, at the age of
eighty-five.
Boston was the home of more printers than
any other place in America during the eighteenth
century. To give anything like a history of even
a few of them would be beyond the limits of this
work. Only one or two of the more important
can be even noticed.
Thomas Fleet arrived in Boston in 1712, set
up as a printer, and for nearly fifty years carried
on business there. His issues were principally
pamphlets for booksellers, small books for child-
ren, and ballads. He was also the proprietor of
a newspaper called the Weekly Rehearsal, first
begun in September 1731. At his death in July
1758, he left three sons, two of whom succeeded
him in business.
In 1718 Samuel Kneeland set up in Prison
Lane, and his printing house continued for
eighty years. He was one of the printers of the
Boston Gazette, and he started besides several
other journals. Thomas in his history (vol. i.
p. 207) says that Kneeland, in company with
Bartholomew Green, printed a small quarto edi-
tion of the English Bible with Mark Baskett's
260 ENGLISH PRINTING
imprint, but this is not confirmed. Kneeland
died on December i4th, 1769. Another celebrated
printer in the city of Boston was Gamaliel Rogers,
who began business about 1729. In 1742 he
entered into partnership with Daniel Fowle. In
the following year they issued the first numbers
of the American Magazine, and in 1748 started
the Independent Advertiser. The partnership
with Fowle was dissolved in 1750. Rogers sub-
sequently moved to the western part of the town,
but suffered from a fire, which destroyed his
plant. He died in 1775.
Daniel Fowle, on the dissolution of his
partnership with Rogers, set up for himself. He
was arrested in 1754 for printing a pamphlet
reflecting on some members of the House of
Representatives, and was thrown into prison for
several days. Upon his release, he at once left
the town and set up in Portsmouth, New Hamp-
shire, where he started the New Hampshire
Gazette. He was succeeded in his Boston busi-
ness by his brother Zachariah Fowle, who con-
tinued printing there until the Revolution, when
he also retired to New Hampshire, where he died
in 1776.
CHAPTER X
1750-1800
HE improvement in printing which
Caslon had begun quickly spread
to other parts of the kingdom, even
as far north as Scotland, where,
before the middle of the century,
there was established at Glasgow
a press that became notable for the beauty of its
productions.
Robert and Andrew Foulis, the founders of
this press, were the sons of Andrew Faulls and
Marion Paterson, Robert being born at Glasgow
on April 2Oth, 1707, and his brother on November
23rd, 1712.
Robert Foulis was apprenticed to a barber,
but his love for literature led him to study at the
University, where he attended the moral philo-
sophy lectures of Francis Hutcheson, who ad-
vised him to become a bookseller and printer.
His brother, Andrew, entered the University
at a later date, destined for the ministry, and
262 ENGLISH PRINTING
during their vacations they travelled throughout
England and on the Continent. In the course
of these travels they sought for and brought back
with them many rare and beautiful books, and
gained a wide knowledge of the book trade.
At length, in 1741, Robert Foulis set up as
a bookseller in Glasgow. In some of his earlier
publications will be found lists of books printed
and sold by him, which are very interesting. One
of these, which enumerates fifteen books, includes
a Greek Testament, Buchanan's edition of the
Psalms, Burnet's Life of the Earl of Rochester,
seven or eight classics, among which were a
Cicero, Juvenal, Cornelius Nepos, Phaedrus, and
Terence, and two of Tasso's works. The Terence
was printed for him by Robert Urie, and shows
some excellent founts of small italic and Roman.
Robert Foulis seems to have begun printing on
his own account in 1742, and among his earliest
patrons was Professor Hutcheson, for whom he
printed a treatise entitled Metaphysics Synopsis,
a duodecimo of ninety pages, and a work on
Moral Philosophy of three hundred and thirty
pages. He also printed in the same year the
second and third editions of a sermon preached
by William Leechman before the Synod of
Glasgow and Ayr, The Meditations of the Em-
peror Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and editions
of Cicero and Phaedrus. All these were in
duodecimo or small octavo, printed in a clear
FROM 1750 TO 1800 263
readable type, that probably came from Urie's
foundry. On the 3ist March 1743, Robert
Foulis was appointed printer to the University
of Glasgow, and published Demetrius Phalerus
de Elocutione in two sizes, quarto and octavo.
This was the first book printed at Glasgow in
Greek type, the Greek and Latin renderings being
printed on opposite pages the Latin in a fount
of English Roman that cannot be distinguished
from Caslon's letter, while the italic also has a
strong resemblance to that of the English founder.
Among other productions of the year 1743 was a
specimen of another Glasgow man's work, Bishop
Burnet's translation of Sir Thomas More's
Utopia, to which was prefixed Holbein's portrait
of the great Chancellor.
In 1744 Dr. Andrew Wilson, who for some
years had been furnishing Scotch and Irish
printers with types from his foundry, moved to
Camlachie, a spot within a mile of Glasgow, and
at once began to furnish letter for Robert Foulis.
In the same year Robert took his brother Andrew
into partnership, and the firm quickly became
famous for the beauty and correctness of their
classics, beginning with the edition of Horace,
which, from the fact of its having only six errors
in the text, was christened the immaculate. Other
attractive books were the Sophocles of 1745,
quarto ; Cicero in twenty volumes, small octavo ;
the small folio edition of Callimachus, which took
264 ENGLISH PRINTING
the silver medal offered in Edinburgh for the
finest book of not fewer than ten sheets ; the
magnificent Homer, which Reed in his Old Eng-
lish Letter Foundries describes as ' for accuracy
and splendour the finest monument of the Foulis
press.' But the Foulis press did not confine
itself to classics only. It published several fine
editions of English authors, among them a folio
edition of Milton's Paradise Lost, and editions
of the poems of Gray and Pope. In 1775
Andrew Foulis died suddenly. The blow was
very severely felt by his brother, and coming as
it did upon the failure of his Academy of Arts, com-
pletely crushed him. He removed his art collection
to London for sale ; but here another disappoint-
ment awaited him the sum realised after paying
expenses being fifteen shillings. He returned to
Edinburgh, and was on the point of starting for
Glasgow when he died on the 2nd June 1776.
The Foulis press was carried on by the younger
Andrew Foulis until the end of the century.
In England, the chief event of this period
was the appearance of John Baskerville at
Birmingham.
No satisfactory biography of Baskerville has
yet been written, but the best sketches of his life
are those by the late T. B. Reed in his History
of the Old English Letter Foundries (chap, xiii.),
which contains some highly interesting and valu-
able correspondence between Baskerville and his
JOHN THOMAS BASKERVILLE,
FROM 1750 TO 1800 265
publisher, R. Dodsley, and the more recent article
in the Dictionary of National Biography, from
the pen of Mr. Tedder.
John Baskerville was born in 1706 at Wol-
verley, a village in Worcestershire. No one has
discovered where he was educated : yet this is one
of the points upon which we should like to know
something, because it is generally admitted that
he was a very beautiful writer ; indeed, it was to
his love of calligraphy that we owe the regular
and well-proportioned letters associated with his
name. For some time he earned his living as
a writing-master ; after which he appears to have
gone into the japanning trade, and in 1750 em-
barked some capital in a letter foundry. Another
point upon which his biographers are silent is
the place where he learnt the art of printing. For
we know that the punches of his foundry were not
cut by himself, and that he was not in any sense
a practical printer; yet he must have obtained
some knowledge of the rudiments of the art
before taking over the responsibilities of a
foundry of his own. Baskerville appears to have
employed the most skilled artists he could obtain,
and it is said that he spent upwards of ^600
some say ^800 before he obtained a fount to
suit him. His letters to Dodsley show how
anxious he was to attain perfection. The result
of all this care and labour was shown in the
quarto edition of Virgil which appeared in 1757*
266 ENGLISH PRINTING
and was followed by quarto editions of Milton's
Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.
The appearance of Baskerville's publications
gave rise to no little controversy. By some they
were hailed with unstinted praise ; while others,
such as Mores and Dr. Bedford, looked upon
them with something little short of contempt.
Yet it is difficult to understand the grounds of
these adverse criticisms. As regards type, there
is very little to choose between Caslon's Roman
and that of Baskerville, while the italic of Basker-
ville was unquestionably the most beautiful, type
that had ever been seen in England ; and the
ridiculous criticism passed on it that its very
fineness was injurious to the eyesight, was shown
to be utterly worthless by Franklin's letter to the
printer, which is printed in Reed's Old English
Letter Foundries. But there are also other features
of excellence about these books of Baskerville's.
They are simplicity itself. There is not a single
ornament or tail-piece introduced into them to
divide the attention. The books were printed
with deep and wide margins, and the lines were
spaced out with the very best effect.
The first public body to recognise Baskerville's
ability was the University of Oxford, which in
July 1758 empowered him to cut a fount of
Greek types for 200 guineas. This order proved
to be beyond his power. It is generally admitted
that, his Greek type was a failure, and he wisely
FROM 1750 TO 1800 267
made no further attempts at cutting learned char-
acters. Some of the punches of Baskerville's
Greek types are still preserved at Oxford, and are
the only specimens of his foundry that we have.
In his Preface to Paradise Lost, Baskerville
stated that the extent of his ambition was to
print an octavo Prayer Book and a folio Bible.
In connection with this ambition, he applied to
the University of Cambridge for appointment as
their printer, a privilege which was granted to
him, but at the cost of such a heavy premium
that he obtained no pecuniary profit from it. The
Prayer Book printed in two forms appeared in
1760, and the same year saw the prospectus and
specimen of the Bible issued, the Bible itself
appearing in 1763 in imperial folio. Both are
beautiful specimens of the printer's art.
But Baskerville soon became disgusted with
the ill-natured criticism to which he was sub-
jected, coupled with the failure of booksellers to
support him, and was anxious to have done with
the business. The year before the publication
of the Bible, he wrote to Horace Walpole a letter
given by Reed (p. 278) in which he says that he
is sending specimens of his foundry to foreign
courts in the hope of finding among them a
purchaser for the whole concern, and during the
next few years he was in correspondence with
Franklin with the same object. Fortunately for
his country, these attempts were unsuccessful
268 ENGLISH PRINTING
during his life-time, and between the years 1760-
1773 he produced not only several editions of the
Bible and Common Prayer, but the works of
Addison, 4 vols. 1761, 4to ; the works of Con-
greve, 3 vols. 1761, 8vo; ^Esop's Fables', and in
1772 a series of the classics in quarto, which,
Reed says, 'suffice, had he printed nothing else,
to distinguish him as the first typographer of his
time' (p. 281).
Baskerville died on January 8th, 1775, and
for a few years his widow carried on the foundry ;
but at the same time endeavoured to dispose
of it. Both our Universities refused it, and no
London foundry would touch it, because the
booksellers would have nothing but the types of
Caslon and Jackson. The type was eventually
sold in 1779 to the Socidte' Litteraire-typo-
graphique of France for ^3700, and was used in
a sumptuous edition of the works of Voltaire.
Yet one firm was found bold enough to model
its letter on that of Baskerville. In 1764 Joseph
Fry, a native of Bristol, began letter-founding in
that city. He took as a partner William Pine,
proprietor of the Bristol Gazette, but the business
was not carried on in their name but in that of
Isaac Moore, their manager. In 1768 they re-
moved the foundry to London, and issued a
prospectus. But so strong was the prejudice
against Baskerville's letter or, perhaps, it would
be better to say, so strong was the hold which
FROM 1750 TO 1800 269
Caslon's foundry had obtained that they were
compelled to recast the whole of their stock. This
took them several years ; meanwhile, they issued
one or two editions of the Bible in their first fount
In 1776 Isaac Moore severed his connection with
the firm. In 1782 Mr. Pine also withdrew, and
Joseph Fry admitted his two sons, Edmund and
Henry, into partnership. At length in 1785 ap-
peared the first specimen-book of Fry's foundry,
and it was frankly admitted in the preface that
the founts of Roman and italic were modelled
on those of Caslon.
Joseph Fry retired from the business in 1787.
Amongst the books printed with his later type
may be mentioned the quarto edition of the
classics edited by Dr. Homer.
Caslon the First died at Bethnal Green on
January 23rd, 1766. His son, Caslon the Second,
died intestate on the I7th August 1778, when the
business came to his son, William Caslon theThird.
In the same year that Joseph Fry published his
Specimen of Types, Caslon the Third also pub-
lished a specimen-book of sixty-two sheets, in
every way worthy of the reputation the firm had
established. It included, besides Romans and
italics of great beauty and regularity, every
variety of oriental and learned founts, and several
sheets of ornaments and flowers, arranged in
various designs. This book was dedicated to the
king, and contained an address to the reader in
270 ENGLISH PRINTING
which, after reviewing the establishment of the
foundry, Caslon referred bitterly to the eager
rivalry of other printers and their open avowal
of imitation. In 1793 Caslon the Third disposed
of his share in the Chiswell Street business to his
mother and his brother Henry's widow.
Mrs. William Caslon, senior, died in October
1795, when the business was sold by auction and
bought by Mrs. Henry Caslon for ^520.
Joseph Jackson, who shared with the Caslons
the favour of the London booksellers, was one of
two apprentices formerly in the employ of William
Caslon n. Some dispute arose in the foundry
about the price of certain work, and Joseph
Jackson and Thomas Cottrell, having acted as
ringleaders in the movement, were dismissed,
and being thrown on their own resources, set up
a foundry of their own in Nevil's Court, Fetter
Lane. Of the two Jackson proved far the more
skilful, but seems to have been of a roving dis-
position. After working for a year or two with
Cottrell he went to sea, leaving Cottrell to carry
on the business alone. This he did with a fair
measure of success, though his foundry was never
at any time a large one. After a few years'
absence Jackson returned to England in 1763,
and again turned his attention to letter-cutting,
serving for a time under his old partner Cottrell ;
but having obtained the services and, what was
of more value, the pecuniary help of two of
FROM 1750 TO 1800 271
Cottrell's workmen, he set up for himself, and
quickly took a foremost place in the trade. Among
his most successful work was a fount of English
' Domesday/ for the Domesday Book published by
order of Parliament in 1783, which was preferred
to that cut by Cottrell for the same purpose.
Jackson also cut a fount for Dr. Woide's facsimile
of the Alexandrian Codex with great success. But
perhaps his most successful effort was the two-
line English which he cut for Macklin's edition
of the Bible, begun in 1789. At the time of his
death in 1792 he was at work upon a fount of
double pica for Bowyer's edition of Hume's
History of England. After his death his foundry
was purchased by William Caslon in.
Both Macklin's Bible and Hume's History
were printed at the press of Thomas Bensley
in Bolt Court, Fleet Street. As a printer of
sumptuous books Bensley had only one rival,
William Bulmer, who is generally accorded the
first place. But Bensley was certainly earlier in
the field. His work was quite equal to that of
Bulmer, and, apart from this, the world owes
more to his enterprise than it has ever yet
acknowledged.
Thomas Bensley was the son of a printer in
the Strand, and in 1783 he succeeded to the busi-
ness of Edward Allen in Bolt Court, a house
adjoining that in which Johnson had lived. He
at once turned his attention to printing as a fine
272 ENGLISH PRINTING
art. Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Decameron
(vol. ii. p. 397, etc.), gives a list of the works
printed by Bensley, and says that he began with
a quarto edition of Lavater's Physiognomy in
1 789, following this up with an octavo edition of
Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd in 1790. In
this list, however, Dibdin has omitted the folio
edition of Burger's poem Leonora, printed by
Bensley in 1796, with designs by Lady Diana
Beauclerc. In 1797 he printed a very beautiful
edition of Thomson's Seasons, in royal folio, with
engravings by Bartolozzi and P. W. Tomkins
from pictures by W. Hamilton.
But the chief glories of his press are the
Bible and Hume's History. The first was begun
in 1 789 ; but Jackson's death caused some delay
when the Book of Numbers had been reached,
owing to more type being required. For some
reason, not clearly shown, Bensley would not
employ Caslon, but applied to Vincent Figgins,
who for ten years had been in the service of
Jackson, to complete the type. Figgins' foundry
was in Swan Yard, Holborn, where he had estab-
lished himself after Jackson's death in 1792. He
succeeded with the task set him, and his type,
which was an exact facsimile of Jackson's, was
brought into use in the Book of Deuteronomy.
The whole work was completed in seven volumes,
in the year 1800, and this date appears on the
title-page; but the dedication to the king was
FROM 1750 TO 1800 273
dated 1791, and the plates, which were the work
of Loutherbourg, West, Hamilton, and others,
were variously dated between those years. The
text was printed in double columns, in a hand-
some two-line English, with the headings to
chapters in Roman capitals, no italic type being
used, and no marginalia.
Robert Bowyer's edition of Hume was in the
press at the time of Jackson's death, but was not
completed until 1806. The type used in this is a
double pica, and the founder, it is said, declared
that it should ' be the most exquisite performance
of the kind in this or any other country.' He
died before its completion, and the work was
completed by Figgins ; but the book is a lasting
memorial to the skill both of the founder and the
printer.
In January 1791 appeared the first number
of Boydell's Shakespeare. The history of this
notorious undertaking was briefly this. Boydell
was an art publisher in Pall Mall, where he had
established a gallery and filled it with the work
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West, Opie,
and Northcote, chiefly in Shakesperian subjects.
George Nicol the bookseller proposed to the
Boydells that William Martin, brother of Robert
Martin of Birmingham, should be employed to
cut a set of types with which to print an edition
of Shakespeare's works, to be illustrated with the
drawings then in Boydell's gallery. This William
2M
274 ENGLISH PRINTING
Martin had learnt his art in the foundry of Bas-
kerville ; and such is the irony of fate, that less
than twenty years after the death of that eminent
founder, his work, scorned by the booksellers of
London in his own day, was imitated in what
was certainly one of the most pretentious books
that had ever come from the English press. The
printer selected for the work was William Bulmer,
a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he was
apprenticed to Mr. Thomson, the printer, of
Burnt House Entry, St. Nicholas Churchyard.
At that time he formed a friendship with Thomas
Bewick, the engraver, who in his Memoir tells us
that Bulmer used to ' prove ' his cuts for him.
After serving his time, Bulmer came to London
and entered the printing-office of John Bell, who
was then issuing a miniature edition of the poets.
A fortunate accident won him his acquaintance
with Boydell and Nicol, and so led to his sub-
sequent employment at the Shakespeare press.
The Shakespeare was followed by the works
of Milton in three volumes folio in 1794-5-7, and
again in 1795 by the Poems of Goldsmith and
Parnell in quarto. In the advertisement to this
work, Bulmer pointed out how much had been
done by English printers within the last few
years to raise the art of printing from the low
depth to which it had fallen a work in which the
Shakespeare press had borne no little part. He
went on to say that much pains had been taken
FROM 1750 TO 1800 275
with this edition of Goldsmith to make it a
complete specimen of the arts of type and block
printing. The types were Martin's, the woodcuts
Bewick's, and the paper Whatman's. One copy
of this book was printed on white satin, and
three on English vellum.
Among the books that appeared within the
last five years of the century was an edition of
Lucretius in three volumes large quarto, which
certainly ranks for beauty of type and regularity
of printing with any book of that period. Like
most of the works of Baskerville, this book was
quite free from ornament, and claims admira-
tion only from the excellence of the press-work.
The notes were printed in double columns in
small pica, the text itself in double pica. In the
whole three volumes not a dozen printer's errors
have been found. This work came from the press
of Archibald Hamilton.
Time has not dealt kindly with some of these
specimens of what was called ' fine' printing. After
the lapse of a century, we begin to see that though
the type and press-work were all that could be
desired, and placed the English printers on a
level with the best of those on the Continent,
there was something radically wrong with the
production of illustrated books. Whether it was
due to the ink, or to the paper, or, as some sup-
pose, to insufficient drying, in all these sumptuous
volumes the oil has worked out of the illustra-
276 ENGLISH PRINTING
tions, leaving an ugly brown stain on the opposite
pages, and totally destroying the appearance of
the books. This applies not only to large and
small illustrations, but in many cases to the
ornamental wood blocks used for head and tail
pieces. In Macklin's Bible, and in the ' Milton '
printed at the Shakespeare press, this discolora-
tion has completely ruined what were undoubtedly,
when they came from the press, extremely beautiful
works.
Before leaving the work of the eighteenth
century, a word or two must be said about the
private presses that were at work during that
time. The first place must, of course, be given
to that at Strawberry Hill. None of the curious
hobbies ridden by Horace Walpole became him
better, or was more useful, than his fancy for
running a printing-press. He was not devoid of
taste, and though no doubt he might have done it
better, he carried this idea out very well. The
productions of his press are very good examples
of printing, and are far above any of the other
private press work of the eighteenth century.
His type was a neat and clear one, though some-
what small, and the ornaments and initial letters
introduced into his books were simple and in
keeping with the general character of the types,
without being in any sense works of art. The
following brief account of the Strawberry Hill
press is compiled from Mr. H. B. Wheatley's
FROM 1750 TO 1800 277
article in Bibliographica, and from Austin Dob-
son's delightful Horace Walpole, a Memoir,
1893. / J
The press was started in August 1757 with
the publication, for R. Dodsley, of two ' Odes ' by
Gray. ' I am turned printer, and have converted
a little cottage into a printing office,' he tells one
friend ; and to another he writes, ' Elzevir, Aldus,
and Stephens are the freshest persons in my
memory' ; and referring to the ' Odes,' he writes
to John Chute in July 1757, ' I found him [Gray]
in town last week ; he had brought his two Odes
to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's
hands.'
Walpole's first printer was William Robinson,
an Irishman, who remained with him for two
years. The Odes were followed by Paul Hentzner's
A Journey into England, of which only 220
copies were printed. In April 1758 came the two
volumes of Walpole's Catalogue of Royal and
Noble Authors, of which 300 copies were printed
and sold so rapidly, that a second edition not
printed at Strawberry Hill was called for before
the end of the year.
In 1760 Walpole wrote to Zouch, in reference
to an edition of Lucan, ' Lucan is in poor forward-
ness. I have been plagued with a succession of
bad printers, and am not got beyond the fourth
book.' It was published in January 1761, and in
the following year appeared the first and second
278 ENGLISH PRINTING
volumes of Anecdotes of Painting in England,
with plates and portraits, and having the imprint,
' Printed by Thomas Farmer at Strawberry Hill,
MD.CCLXII.' Then another difficulty appears to
have arisen with the printers, and the third
volume, published in 1763, had no printer's name
in the imprint. The fourth volume, not issued
till 1780, bears the name of Thomas Kirgate, who
seems to have been taken on in 1772, and held
his post until Walpole's death. Between 1764
and 1768 the Strawberry Hill press was idle, but
in the latter year Walpole printed in octavo 200
copies of a French play entitled Corndlie Vestale,
Tragddie, and from that time down to 1789 it
continued at work at intervals, its chief produc-
tions being Mdmoires du Comte de Grammont,
1772, 4to, of which only 100 copies were printed,
twenty-five of which went to Paris ; The Sleep
Walker, a comedy in two acts, 1778, 8vo ; A
description of the villa of Mr. Horace Walpole,
1784, 4to, of which 200 copies were printed ; and
Hieroglyphic Tales, 1785, 8vo.
Next to the press of Horace Walpole, that of
George Allan, M.P. for Durham, at the Grange,
Darlington, must be noticed. The owner was an
enthusiastic antiquary, and he used his press
chiefly for printing fugitive pieces relating to the
history of the county of Durham. The first
piece with a date was Collections relating to
St. Edmunds Hospital, printed in 1769, and the
FROM 1750 TO 1800 279
last a tract which he printed for his friend
Thomas Pennant in 1 788, entitled Of the Pata-
gonians, of which only 40 copies were worked
off. - '4 v
The productions of his press were very nume-
rous, but of no great merit. Allan was his own
compositor, and gave much time to his hobby;
but his printer appears to have been a dissolute
and dirty workman, who caused him much an-
noyance and trouble. Altogether it may safely
be said that Allan's press cost him a great deal
more than it was worth.
Another of those who tried their hand at
amateur printing was Francis Blomefield, the
historian of Norfolk, who started a press at his
rectory at Fersfield. Here he printed the first
volume of his History in 1736, and also the
History of Thetford, a thin quarto volume, in
1739. But the result was an utter failure. The
type was bad to begin with, and the attempt to
use red ink on the title-pages only made matters
worse. The press-work was carelessly done ; and
it is not surprising to find that the second volume
of the History, published in 1745, was entrusted
to a Norwich printer.
The celebrated John Wilkes also carried on
a private printing-office at his house in Great
George Street, Westminster. Three specimens
of its work have been identified : An Essay on
Woman, 1763, 8vo, of which only twelve copies
28o ENGLISH PRINTING
are said to have been printed l ; a few copies of
the third volume of the North Briton ; and
Recherches sur rOrigine du Despotisme Orien-
tate, Ouvrage posthume de M. Boulanger, 1763,
I2mo. A note in a copy of this volume states
that it was printed by Thomas Farmer, who had
also assisted Horace Walpole at the Strawberry
Hill press.
During the last four years of the century the
Rev. John Fawcett, a Baptist minister of some
repute, established a press in his house at Brearley
Hall, near Halifax, which he afterwards removed
to Ewood Hall. He used it chiefly for printing
his own sermons and writings, among the most
important issues being The Life of Oliver Hey-
wood, 1796, pp. 216; Miscellanea Sacra, 1797;
A Summary of the Evidences of Christianity,
1797, pp. 100; Constitution and Order of a
Gospel Church, 1797, pp. 58; The History of
John Wise, 1798; Gouge's Sure Way of Thriv-
ing', Watson's Treatise on Christian Content-
ment ; and Dr. Williams's Christian Preacher.
Most of these were in duodecimo.
The type used in this press was a very good
one, and the press-work was done with care.
Owing to his growing infirmities Fawcett was
obliged to dispose of the press in 1800. There
is reason to believe that the above list might be
considerably increased.
1 Chalmers' Life of Wilkes.
FROM 1750 TO 1800 281
At Bishopstone, in Sussex, the Rev. James
Hurdis printed several works at his own press,
the most important being a series of lectures on
poetry, printed in 1797, a quarto of three hundred
and thirty pages, and a poem called The Favorite
Village, in 1800, a quarto of two hundred and ten
pages.
To these must be added a press at Lustleigh,
in Devon, made and worked by the Rev. William
Davy, and at which was printed some thirty
copies of his System of Divinity, 26 vols. 1795,
8vo, a copy of which remarkable work is now
in the British Museum, and is considered one of
its curiosities ; a press at Glynde, in Sussex, the
seat of Lord Hampden, from which at least one
work can be traced ; and a press at Madeley, in
Shropshire, from which several religious tracts
were printed in 1774 by the Rev. John Fletcher,
and in 1792 a work entitled Alexanders Feast,
by Dr. Beddoes.
2 N
CHAPTER XI
THE PRESENT CENTURY
|T has been said that printing sprang
into the world fully armed. At
least this is certain, that for nearly
four centuries after its birth the
printing-press in use in all printing-
houses remained the same in form
as that which Caxton's workmen had used in the
Red Pale at Westminster. There had been some
unimportant alterations made in it by an Amster-
dam printer in the seventeenth century ; but until
the year 1800 no important change in the form or
mechanism of the printing-press had ever been
introduced. Some such change was sorely needed.
The productive powers of the old press were quite
unable to keep pace with the ever-increasing de-
mand for books and newspapers that a quickened
intelligence and national anxiety had awakened.
Up to 1815 England was constantly at war, and
men and women alike were eager for news from
abroad. In 1800 Charles Mahon, third Earl
Stanhope, invented a new printing-press.
The Stanhope press substituted an iron frame-
THE PRESENT CENTURY 283
work for the wooden body of the old press, thus
giving greater solidity. The platen was double
the size of that previously in use, thus allowing a
larger sheet to be printed, and a system of levers
was adopted in place of the cumbersome handle-
bar and screw used in the wooden press. The
chief merits of the new invention were increased
speed, ease to the workman, evenness of impres-
sion, and durability. Further improvements in
the mechanism of hand machines were secured
in the Columbian press, an American invention,
brought to this country in 1818, and later in the
Albion press, invented by R. W. Cope of London,
and since that time by many others. Yet even
with the best of these improved presses no more
than 250 or 300 impressions per hour could be
worked off, and the daily output of the most
important paper only averaged three or four thou-
sand copies. But a great and wonderful change
was at hand.
In 1806 Frederick Kcenig, the son of a small
farmer at Eisleben in Saxon Prussia, came to
England with a project for a steam printing
press. The idea was not a new one, for sixteen
years before an Englishman, named William
Nicholson, took out a patent for a machine for
printing, which foreshadowed nearly every funda-
mental improvement even in the most advanced
machines of the present day. But from want
of means, or some other cause, Nicholson never
284 ENGLISH PRINTING
actually made a machine. Nor did Kcenig's
project meet with much encouragement until he
walked into the printing-house of Thomas Ben-
sley of Bolt Court, who encouraged the inventor
to proceed, and supplied him with the necessary
funds. There is reason to believe that Kcenig
made himself acquainted with the details of
Nicholson's patent during the time that his
machine was building. He also obtained the
assistance of Andrew F. Bauer, an ingenious
German mechanic. His first patent was taken
out on the 2Qth March 1810, a second in 1812, a
third in 1814, and a fourth in 1816. The first
machine is said to have taken three years to build,
and upon its completion was erected in Bensley's
office in Bolt Court. There seems to be consider-
able uncertainty as to what was the first publica-
tion printed on it. Some say it was set to work
on the Annual Register, one writer 1 asserting
that in April 181 1, 3000 sheets of that publication
were printed on it ; but Mr. Southward, in his
monograph Modern Printing, confines himself
to the statement that two sheets of a book were
printed on the machine in 1812. Curiously
enough neither Bensley's publication, the Annual
Register, nor the Gentleman's Magazine takes
any notice of the new invention, although in the
Gentleman's Magazine for 1811 there is a notice
1 The History of Printing. London : Printed for the Society for Pro-
moting Christian Knowledge, 1855, 8vo.
THE PRESENT CENTURY 285
of a printing machine invented at Philadelphia,
which apparently embodied all the same principles
as Kcenig's (Gent. Mag., vol. Ixxxi. p. 576).
In 1814 John Walter, the second proprietor
of the Times, saw Kcenig's machine, and ordered
one to be supplied to the Times office, the first
number printed by steam being that of the
28th November 1814. This machine was a
double cylinder, which printed simultaneously
two copies of a forme of the newspaper on one
side only. But it was a cumbersome and com-
plicated affair, and its greatest output 1800
impressions per hour.
In 1818 Edward Cowper, a printer of Nelson
Square, patented certain improvements in print-
ing, these improvements consisting of a better
distribution of the ink and a better plan for con-
veying the sheets from the cylinders. Having
joined his brother-in-law, Augustus Applegarth,
they proceeded to make certain alterations in
Kcenig's machine in Bensley's office which at
one stroke removed forty wheels, and greatly
simplified the inking arrangements. In 1827
they jointly invented a four-cylinder machine,
which Applegarth erected for the Times. The
distinctive features of this machine were its ability
to print both sides of a sheet at once, its admir-
able inking apparatus, and great acceleration of
speed, the new machine being capable of printing
five thousand copies per hour.
286 ENGLISH PRINTING
These machines at once superseded the Kcenig,
and were to be found in use in all parts of the
country for printing newspapers until quite lately.
In 1848 the same firm constructed an eight-
cylinder vertical machine, which was one of the
sights of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Shortly
afterwards Messrs. Hoe, of New York, made
further improvements in the mechanism, raising
the output to 20,000 per hour. All these machines
had to be fed with paper by hand, but in 1869 it
occurred to Mr. J. C. Macdonald, the manager of
the Times, and Mr. J. C. Calverley, the chief
engineer of the same office, that much saving
of labour would result if paper could be manu-
factured in continuous rolls ; and the result of
their experiments was the rotary press, which
was named after Mr. John Walter, the fourth
of that name, then at the head of the Times
proprietorship. Since then the improvement in
printing machines has steadily continued, and
may be said to have culminated in the Hoe
' double supplement ' press in use at the present
day in many newspaper offices, which is capable
of printing, cutting, and folding 24,000 copies
per hour of a full-sized newspaper.
These great changes in presses and press-work
have occasioned similar changes in type-founding.
At the beginning of the century, the firm of
Caslon had been given a new lease of life by the
energy of Mrs. Henry Caslon, who in 1799 had
THE PRESENT CENTURY 287
purchased the foundry, a third share in which
a few years earlier had been worth ^3000, for
the paltry sum of $20. She at once set to work
to have new founts of type cut, and was ably
helped by Mr. John Isaac Drury. The pica then
produced was an improvement in the style of
Bodoni, and quickly raised the foundry to its
old position. Mrs. Caslon took into partner-
ship Nathaniel Catherwood, but both died in
the course of the year 1809. The business then
came into the hands of Henry Caslon n., who
was joined by John James Catherwood. Other
notable firms were those already noticed in the
last chapter Mrs. Fry, Figgins, Martin, and
Jackson. One and all of these suffered severely
from the change in the fashion of types at the
beginning of the century, the ugly form of type,
known as fat-faced letters, then introduced, re-
maining in vogue until the revival of Caslon's
old-faced type by the younger Whittingham.
Upon the advent of machinery and cylinder
printing, the use of movable type for printing
from was supplemented by quicker and more dur-
able methods, and William Ged's long-despised
discovery of stereotyping is now an absolutely
necessary adjunct of modern press-work. This,
again, was in some measure due to Earl Stan-
hope, who in 1800 went to Andrew Tilloch, and
Foulis, the Glasgow printer, both of whom had
taken out a patent for the invention, and learnt
288 ENGLISH PRINTING
from, them the process. He afterwards associated
himself with Andrew Wilson, a London printer,
and in 1802 the plaster process, as it was called,
was perfected. This remained in use until 1846,
when a system of forming moulds in papier
mdchd was introduced, and this was succeeded
by the adaptation of the stereo-plates to the
rotary machines.
It would be foreign to the purpose of this
work, which is concerned with printing as applied
to books, to attempt to describe the Linotype and
its rival processes which have been recently in-
troduced to further facilitate newspaper printing.
We must, therefore, return to our book-printers,
and note first that the Shakespeare Press
of William Bulmer, for which Martin the
type-founder was almost exclusively employed,
continued to turn out beautiful examples of typo-
graphic work during the early years of the nine-
teenth century. A list of the works issued from
this press up to 1817 is given by Dibdin in his
notes to the second volume of his Decameron,
pp. 384-395. Some of the chief items were The
Arabian Nights Entertainments, 5 vols. 1802,
8vo ; The Book of Common Prayer, with an
introduction by John Reeves, 1802, 8vo; The
Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales,
translated by Sir R. C. Hoare, 2 vols. 1806, 4to;
Richardson's Dictionary of the Arabic and Per-
sian Languages, .2 vols. 1 806-10, 4to ; Hoare's
THE PRESENT CENTURY 289
History of Wiltshire, 1812, folio; Dibdin's Typo-
graphical Antiquities,^ vols. 1812, 4to; and the
same author's Bibliotheca Spenceriana, 4 vols.
1814-15, 8vo, and Bibliographical Decameron,
3 vols. 1817, 8vo. These three last are con-
sidered to be some of the best work of this press,
which also turned out many books for private
circulation only. William Bulmer died on Sep-
tember 9th, 1830, after a long and active life,
and was succeeded by his partner Mr. William
Nichol.
Nor had Thomas Bensley slackened anything
of his enthusiasm for fine printing. Twice during
the first twenty years of the century he suffered
severely by fire: the first time in 1807, when a
quarto edition of Thomson's Seasons, an edition
of the Works of Pope, and many other books
were destroyed ; the second in 1819, on June 26th,
when the premises were totally burnt down. This
was followed by the death of his son, and shortly
afterwards he retired from business, and died on
September nth, 1835. Not only was he an
excellent printer, but he did more than any
other man of his time to introduce the improved
printing machine into this country.
John Nichols was another of the great printers
of his day, and he too was burnt out on the night
of February 8th, 1808. No better account of the
magnitude of his undertakings at that time could
be found than his own description of the disaster,
20
2 9 o ENGLISH PRINTING
which he contributed to the Gentleman 's Magazine
in the following March :
'Amongst the books destroyed are many of
very great value, and some that can never be
replaced. Not to mention a large quantity of
handsome quarto Bibles, the works of Swift,
Pope, Young, Thomson, Johnson, etc. etc., the
Annals of Commerce, and other works which may
still be elsewhere purchased, there are several
consumed which cannot now be obtained at any
price. The unsold copies of the introduction to
the second volume of the Sepulchral Monuments-,
Hutchins' Dorsetshire ; Bigland's Gloucestershire;
Hutchinson's Durham ; Thorpe's Registrum and
Custumale Roffense; the few numbers that re-
mained of the Bibliotheca Topographica ; the
third volume of Elizabethan Progresses ; the
Illustrations of Ancient Manners; Mr. Cough's
History of Fleshy, and his valuable account of
the Coins of the Seleucidce, engraved by Barto-
lozzi ; Colonel de la Motte's Allusive Arms ;
Bishop Atterbury's Epistolary Correspondence;
and last, not least, the whole of six portions of
Mr. Nichols' Leicestershire, and the entire stock
of the Gentle mans Magazine from 1782 to 1807,
are irrecoverably lost.'
' Of those in the press, the most important
were the concluding portion of Hutchins' Dorset-
shire (nearly finished) ; a second volume of
Manning and Bray's Surrey (about half printed) ;
THE PRESENT CENTURY 291
Mr. Bawdwin's translation of Domesday for
Yorkshire (nearly finished) ; a new edition of
Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven ; Mr. Cough's
British Topography (nearly one volume) ; the
sixth volume of Biographia Britannica (ready
for publishing) ; Dr. Kelly's Dictionary of the
Manx Language ; Mr. Neild's History of Prisons;
a genuine unpublished comedy by Sir Richard
Steele; Mr. Joseph Reid's unpublished tragedy
of Dido ; four volumes of the British Essayists ;
Mr. Taylor Combe's Appendix to Dr. Hunter s
Coins-, part of Dr. Hawes' annual report for 1808;
a part of the Biographical Anecdotes of Hogarth\
two entire volumes, and the half of two other
volumes of a new edition of the anecdotes of
Mr. Bowyer,' etc.
Writing to Bishop Percy in July of that year,
Nichols stated that he had lost ^10,000 beyond
his insurance in this outbreak.
John Nichols died on the 26th November
1826, after a long and laborious life. He was a
born antiquary, and a voluminous author, his chief
works being The History and Antiquities of the
Town and County of Leicester, completed in 1815
in eight folio volumes, and Literary Anecdotes of
the Eighteenth Century, 1812-15, an expansion
of the Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of
William Bowyer, which had been printed in 1782.
This work was afterwards supplemented by Illus-
trations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth
292 ENGLISH PRINTING
Century, 6 vols. 1817-31, to which his son after-
wards added two additional volumes. John
Nichols was Common Councillor for the ward
of Farringdon Without from 1784 to 1786, and
again from 1787 to 181 1. In 1804 he was Master
of the Stationers' Company. He was succeeded
in business by his son John Bowyer Nichols, and
the firm subsequently became J. Nichols, Son,
and Bentley. Like his father, John Bowyer Nichols
was editor and author of many books, and was
appointed Printer to the Society of Antiquaries
in 1824. He died at Haling on October i9th,
1863, leaving seven children, of whom the eldest,
John Gough Nichols, born on 22nd May 1806,
became the head of the printing-house, and editor
of the Gentleman s Magazine, as his father and
grandfather had been before him. He was one
of the founders of the Camden Society (1838),
and edited many of its publications. He was the
promoter and editor of The Herald and Genea-
logist, and his researches in this direction were of
great importance. The Dictionary of National
Biography enumerates thirty-four works from his
pen, most of which it would be safe to say were
also printed by him. He died on i4th Novem-
ber 1873.
Another press of importance in the first half
of the nineteenth century was that of Thomas
Davison. He was the printer of most of Byron's
works, and many of those of Campbell, Moore
THE PRESENT CENTURY 293
and Wordsworth ; but his chief claim to notice
rests upon the magnificent edition of Whitaker's
History of Richmondshire in two large folio
volumes, printed in 1823, and upon that of
Dugdale's Monasticon, in eight folio volumes,
issued between 1817 and 1830, an undertaking of
great magnitude. In Timperley's Encyclopaedia
it is stated that Davison made important im-
provements in the manufacture of printing ink,
and that few of his competitors could approach
him in excellence of work.
The story of the firm of Eyre and Spottis-
woode would, if material were available, form an
interesting chapter in the history of English
printing. It is the direct descendant in the royal
line of Pynson, Berthelet, the Barkers, and finally
of John and Robert Baskett, the last of whom
assigned the patent to John Eyre of Landford
House, Wilts, whose son, Charles Eyre, the great-
grandfather of the present George Edward Briscoe
Eyre, succeeded to the business in 1770. During
the seventeenth century, the work of the Govern-
ment and the sovereign had been divided among
several firms, but in the eighteenth century it
was again given to one man, John Baskett. In
the printing of the Bible and Book of Common
Prayer the Universities of Oxford and Cam-
bridge have also a share; but all the other
Government work is done by Messrs. Eyre and
Spottiswoode.
294 ENGLISH PRINTING
Charles Eyre, not being a practical printer,
obtained the co-operation of William Strahan.
On the renewal of the patent in 1798, the name of
John Reeves was inserted, but Mr. Strahan pur-
chased his interest. In 1829, the patent was
again renewed to George Eyre, the son of Charles,
John Reeves, and Andrew Strahan. George
Edward Eyre, son of George William Strahan,
was born at Edinburgh in April 1715, and, after
serving his apprenticeship in Edinburgh, took his
way to London, where, it is believed, he found
a post in the office of Andrew Miller. In 1770
the printing-house was removed from Blackfriars
to New Street, near Gough Square, Fleet Street.
William Strahan was intimately associated with
the best literature of his time, among those for
whom he published being Dr. Johnson, Hume,
Adam Smith, Robertson, and many other eminent
writers. In 1774 he was Master of the Stationers'
Company, Member of Parliament for Malmesbury,
and sat for Wootton Bassett in the next Parlia-
ment. Among his greatest friends was Benjamin
Franklin, who kept up a correspondence with him
in spite of the strong political differences between
them. Strahan died at New Street on July 9th
1785, leaving three sons and two daughters. The
youngest son, Andrew, succeeded his father in the
Royal Printing House, and one of the daughters
married John Spottiswoode of Spottiswoode,
whose son, Andrew, afterwards entered the firm.
THE PRESENT CENTURY 295
Andrew Strahan was noted for his benevolence,
and on his death in 1831 he left handsome be-
quests to the Literary Fund and the Company
of Stationers.
Andrew Spottiswoode, who died in 1866 at
the ripe age of seventy-nine, had a large printing
business apart from the office of Queen's Printer,
and his imprint will be found in much of the
lighter literature of the period. His son, William
Spottiswoode, after a distinguished career at
Oxford, ultimately attained high rank as a
mathematician, and in 1865 became President of
the Mathematical Section of the British Asso-
ciation. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society in 1853, and became its President on
3oth November 1878. He died on 27th June
1883.
Equally renowned is the firm of Gilbert and
Rivington. Early in the second half of the
eighteenth century (the exact date is not known)
John Rivington, the fourth son of John Riving-
ton the publisher, and direct descendant of Charles
Rivington of the Bible and Crown in Paternoster
Row, succeeded to the business of James Emon-
son, printer, of St. John's Square, Clerkenwell.
John Rivington died in 1785, and was succeeded
by his widow, who in 1786 took as partner John
Marshall. A series of classical works, of which
they were the printers, was very favourably re-
ceived. These included the Greek Testament,
296 ENGLISH PRINTING
Livy, and Sophocles, as well as a series of Latin
poets and authors, edited by Michael Maittaire.
The business next passed into the hands of Deo-
datus Bye. He in turn admitted Henry Law as
partner, and the firm became successively Law and
Gilbert and Robert and Richard Gilbert. The
partnership being dissolved early in the present
century by the death of Robert Gilbert, Richard
carried on the business alone until 1830, when he
took into partnership Mr. William Rivington, a
great-grandson of the first Charles Rivington, and
from that day the firm has gone by the name of
Gilbert and Rivington. Richard Gilbert died
in 1852, and for eleven years after his death the
printing business was carried on by Mr. William
Rivington, who issued many valuable and
standard works on subjects of classical and
ecclesiological interest.
William Rivington retired from business in
1868, being succeeded by his son, William John
Rivington, and his nephew, Alexander. The
business increased largely in their hands ; one of
their first undertakings being the purchase in
1870 of the plant of the late Mr. William Mavor
Watts, by which they secured a large addition to
their collection of Oriental types. In 1875 Mr.
E. Mosley entered the firm, and Mr. William
John Rivington left it to join the publishing
house of Sampson Low, Marston and Searle.
Mr. Alexander Rivington retired from the firm
THE PRESENT CENTURY 297
in 1878, being thus the last Rivington connected
with the house, which shortly afterwards was
turned into a limited liability company.
Messrs. Gilbert and Rivington's collection of
Oriental and other foreign types enables them to
print in every known language, their specimen
books embracing 267 distinct tongues. They
are Oriental printers to the British Museum,
India Office, British and Foreign Bible Society.
Speaking of the Oriental work, the most striking
feature in the firm's business, a correspondent to
the British Printer (March- April 1895), says :
' Most of the type faces noticed were on English bodies, and
the composition is somewhat similar. Arabic is composed just as
with English. Sanskrit possesses some little features of accents
and kerned sections, which render justification quite a fine art,
accents on varying bodies needing to be utilised. . . . The firm
does much Hindustani work, and possesses seven sizes of type in
this language. Amongst the curiosities are the cuneiform
types, the wedge-like series of faces in which old Persian,
Median, and Assyrian inscriptions are written ; and last, but by
no means least in interest, the odd-looking hieroglyphic type
faces, which are on bodies ranging from half nonpareil to three
nonpareils, and some idea of their extent may be derived by
noting that this type occupies fourteen cases of one hundred
boxes each.'
To the firm of Messrs. Clowes of Stamford
Street belongs the credit of being the first to print
cheap periodical literature. William Clowes the
elder, a native of Chichester, born in 1779, was
apprenticed to a printer of that town, and coming
to London in 1802 commenced business on his
2 P
298 ENGLISH PRINTING
own account in the following year 1803. By
marriage with the daughter of Mr. Winchester
of the Strand, he obtained a share of the Govern-
ment printing work. On moving to Stamford
Street, Blackfriars Road, he was chosen to print
the Penny Magazine, edited by Charles Knight,
the first attempt to provide the public with good
literature in a cheap periodical form. The work
was illustrated with woodcuts, and so great was
its success that from No. i to No. 106 there were
sold twenty million copies ; but the undertaking
was heavily handicapped by the paper tax of
threepence per pound (see The Struggles of a
Book, C. Knight, 1850, 8vo). In 1840 an article
appeared in the Quarterly Review, written, it is
said, by Sir F. B. Head, but which is more in
the style of T. F. Dibdin, on the Clowes printing-
office. Even at that time there were no less than
nineteen of Applegarth and Cowper's machines at
work there, with a daily average of one thousand
per hour each. Besides these there were twenty-
three hand presses and five hydraulic presses.
The foundry employed thirty hands, and the
compositors numbered one hundred and sixty.
In 1851 Messrs. Clowes printed the official
catalogues of the Great Exhibition, for which
they specially cast 58,520 Ibs. of type. They
subsequently printed the catalogues of the Ex-
hibitions of 1883-1886, and the Royal Academy
catalogues, and have been connected from their
THE PRESENT CENTURY 299
inception with two works of a very different
character, Hymns Ancient and Modern the
circulation of which has to be reckoned in mil-
lions and the great General Catalogue of the
Library of the British Museum, for their excel-
lent printing of which all ' readers ' are indebted
to them. William Clowes the elder died in 1847.
He was succeeded by his son, William, who died
in 1883; and a third William, a grandson, is
one of the managing directors of the firm
which in 1881 was turned into a limited liability
company.
But the chief honours of book production in
London during the present century have been
rightly awarded to the Chiswick Press.
Charles Whittingham the elder was born at
Calledon, near Coventry, in 1767, and was ap-
prenticed to a printer of that city. As soon as
his time was out he came to London, and set up
a press in Fetter Lane, his chief customers being
Willis, a bookseller of Stationers' Court, Jordan
of Fleet Street, and Symonds of Paternoster Row.
His beginning was humble enough, his chief
work lying in the direction of stationery, cards,
and small bills. His first important publisher
was a certain Heptinstall, who set him to print
new editions of Boswell's Johnson, Robertson's
America, and other important works. This was
enough to set him going, and in 1797 he moved
to larger premises in Dean Street, Fetter Lane,
300 ENGLISH PRINTING
and then began to issue illustrated books. In
1803 he took a second workshop at 10 Union
Buildings, Leather Lane, and again in 1807 he
moved to Goswell Street. In 1811 he took his
foreman Robert Rowland into partnership, and
shortly afterwards left him to manage the city
business, while he himself set up a press at
Chiswick and took up his abode at College House.
Here he continued to work until his death in
1840. For a short time, from 1824 to 1828, he
was joined with his nephew Charles, to whom at
his death he left the Chiswick business.
There is not much to be said of the work of
the elder Whittingham. He confined his atten-
tion to the issue of small books, such as the
British Classics, which he began to print in 1803.
His books are chiefly notable for the printing of
the woodcuts, which by the process known as
overlaying, he brought to great perfection. His
relations with the publishers were, however, none
of the best. They accused him of piracy, and
considered it to be against the best interests of
the trade to issue small and cheap books. The
productions of the elder Whittingham's press
have, moreover, been largely overshadowed by
those of his nephew.
Charles Whittingham the younger was a
genuine artist in printing. He loved books to
begin with, and thought no pains too great to
bestow upon their production. Born at Mitcham,
THE PRESENT CENTURY 301
on October 3Oth, 1795, he was apprenticed to his
uncle in 1810. In 1824 he was taken into
partnership, but this lasted only four years, and
he then set up for himself at 21 Took's Court,
Chancery Lane. A near neighbour of his at that
time was the publisher William Pickering, who
since 1820 had been putting in the hands of
the public some excellently printed and dainty
volumes. It is stated in the Dictionary of National
Biography that the series known as the Diamond
Classics was printed for Pickering at the Chiswick
Press. But this was not the case. He had no
dealings whatever with the Whittinghams or the
Chiswick Press before his introduction to Charles
Whittingham the younger in 1829. The Diamond
Classics, which he began to issue while he was
living in Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1822, were
printed by C. Corrall of Charing Cross, and the
Oxford English Classics, in large octavo, chiefly
by Talboys and Wheeler of Oxford, while most
of his other work, amongst it the first eleven
volumes of the works of Bacon, was done by
Thomas White, who is first found at Bear Alley,
and subsequently at Johnson Court and Crane
Court in Fleet Street.
Few of these early books of Pickering's had
any kind of decoration beyond a device on the
title-page. Simplicity, combined with what was
best in type and paper, seem to have been the
publisher's chief aim at that time ; but in some
. So much of the DIARTvl ! ff t
LADY WILLOUGHBY
as relates to her Domeflic Hiflory^
& to the Eventful Period of the
Reign of CHARLES
the Firft.
Imprinted for LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, & LONG-
MANS, PaternofterRow, over againft War-
wick Lane, in the City of
London. 1844.
FIG. 35. Old-faced Type.
THE PRESENT CENTURY 303
of the Diamond Classics will be found the small
and artistic border-pieces which he afterwards
used frequently.
The first of Pickering's books in which any-
thing of a very ornamental character occurs is
The Bijou, or Annual of Literature, a publica-
tion which fixes very clearly his association with
Whittingham. The Bijou first appeared in 1828,
printed by Thomas White, with one or two
charming head-pieces designed by Stothard. The
volume for 1829 was also printed by White, and
is noticeable as having the publisher's Aldine
device, showing that this came into use during
the year 1828. The volume for 1830 was
printed by C. Whittingham of Took's Court.
The meeting between the two men had been
brought about by Basil Montagu in the summer
of 1829. They found themselves kindred spirits
on the subject of the artistic treatment of books,
and a friendship sprang up between them, that
ceased only with Pickering's death in 1854, and
was productive of some of the most beautiful
books that had ever come from an English press.
Mr. Arthur Warren in his book, The Charles
Whittinghams, Printers (p. 203), tells us : ' The
two men met frequently for consultation, and
whenever the bookseller visited the press, which
he often did, there were brave experiments to-
ward. The printer would produce something
new in title-pages, or in colour work, or ornament,
FIG. 36. Early Chiswick Press Initials.
THE PRESENT CENTURY 305
and the bookseller would propound some new
venture in the reproduction of an ancient volume.
. . . They made it a point, moreover, to pass
their Sundays together, either at the printer's
house or at Pickering's.'
In the artistic production of books they were
ably assisted by Whittingham's eldest daughter
Charlotte, and Mary By field. The former designed
the blocks, many of which were copied from the
best French and Italian work of the sixteenth
century, and the latter engraved them.
Among the notable books produced by these
means were the Aldine Poets, editions of Milton,
Bacon, Isaak Walton's Complete Angler, the
works of George Peele, reprints of Caxton's books,
and many Prayer-books. In 1844 Pickering and
Whittingham were in consultation as to the pro-
duction of an edition of Juvenal to be printed
in old-face great primer, and the foundry of the
latest descendant of the Caslons was ransacked
to supply the fount. The edition was to be
rubricated and otherwise decorated, and this, or
the printer's stock trouble, ' lack of paper,' occa-
sioning some delay, the revived type first appeared
in a fiction entitled Lady Willoughbys Diary, to
which it gave a pleasantly old-world look in
keeping with the period of which the story treats.
By the kindness of Mr. Jacobi, the present
manager of the Chiswick Press, an exact copy
of the title-page of this book is here given, and
2Q
FIG. 37. Early Chiswick Press Devices.
THE PRESENT CENTURY 307
with it examples of the decorative initials and
devices, in the revival of which also the Chiswick
Press led the way.
Pickering died in 1854, and though Charles
Whittingham the younger lived to the age of
eighty-one, his death not taking place till 1876,
he had retired from business in 1860. The
business was afterwards acquired by Mr. George
Bell.
In the English provinces Messrs. Clay, of
Bungay, in Suffolk, have made for themselves
a reputation both as general printers and more
particularly for the careful production of old
English texts ; and Messrs. Austin, of Hertford,
are well known for their Oriental work. But the
pre-eminence certainly rests with the Clarendon
Press at Oxford, whose work, whether in its
innumerable editions of the Bible and Prayer-
book, its classical books, or its great dictionaries,
is probably, alike in accuracy of composition, in
excellence of spacing and press-work, and in
clearness of type, the most flawless that has ever
been produced. Book-lovers have been known
to complain of it as so good as to be uninterest-
ing, but it certainly possesses all the distinctive
virtues of a University Press.
If England has no lack of good printers at
the present day, in Scotland they are, at least,
equally plentiful.
The Ballantyne Press was founded by James
3o8 ENGLISH PRINTING
Ballantyne, a solicitor in Kelso, with the aid
of Sir Walter Scott. Ballantyne and Scott
had been school-fellows and chums, and an in-
cident in their school life recorded by Ballantyne
aptly illustrates the characters of the two men.
Ballantyne was studious but not quick, and often
when he was bothered with his lessons, Scott
would whisper to him, ' Come, slink over beside
me, Jamie, and I '11 tell you a story.' Although
their roads lay apart for some years, while Scott
was studying in Edinburgh and Ballantyne was
carrying on the Kelso Mail, they met and renewed
their friendship in the stage coach that ran be-
tween Kelso and Glasgow. Shortly afterwards,
Ballantyne called on Scott, and begged him to
supply a few paragraphs on legal questions of the
day to the Kelso Matl. This Scott readily under-
took to do, and when the manuscript was ready he
took it himself to the printing-office, and with it
some of the ballads destined for Lewis's collec-
tion then publishing in Edinburgh. Before he
left he suggested that Ballantyne should print a
few copies of the ballads, so that he might show
his friends in Edinburgh what Ballantyne could
do. Twelve copies were accordingly printed, with
the title of Apologies for Tales of Terror. These
were published in 1799, and Scott was so pleased
with their appearance that he promised Ballan-
tyne that he should be the printer of a selection
of Border ballads that he was then making. This
THE PRESENT CENTURY 309
selection was given the title of Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border, and formed two small octavo
volumes, with the imprint, ' Kelso, 1802.'
Ballantyne's work, as shown in these volumes,
was equal in every way to the best work done by
Bensley and Bulmer at this time. Good type and
good paper, combined with accuracy and clear-
ness, at once raised Ballantyne's reputation.
Longman and Rees, the publishers, declared
themselves delighted with the printing, and Scott
urged his friend to remove his press to Edin-
burgh, where he assured him he would find
enough work to repay him for the removal.
After some hesitation Ballantyne acquiesced in
the proposal, and having found suitable premises
in the neighbourhood of Holyrood House, set up
' two presses and a proof one/ and shortly after-
wards, in April 1803, printed there the third
volume of the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border.
From this time forward Scott made it a point
that whatever he wrote or edited should be printed
at the Ballantyne Press. The first quarto, the
Lay of the Last Minstrel, was published in
January 1805. The poem was printed in a some-
what heavy-faced type ; but in other respects the
typography left nothing to be desired. In the
same year Ballantyne and Scott entered into
partnership, Scott taking a third of the profits of
the printing-office. So rapidly did James Ballan^
tyne extend his business that in 1819 Scott, in. a
310 ENGLISH PRINTING
letter to Constable, says that the Ballantyne
Press ' has sixteen presses, of which only twelve
are at present employed/ In 1826 the firm be-
came involved in the bankruptcy of the publishers
Messrs. Constable. After this Ballantyne was
employed as editor of the Weekly Journal, and
the literary management of the printing-house.
He died on the iyth January 1833. The firm is
now known as Ballantyne, Hanson and Co., and
admirably sustains its old traditions.
Another great Scottish printing-house, that
of T. and A. Constable, was founded by Thomas
Constable, the fourth son of Archibald Constable
the publisher. He learned his art in London
under Mr. Charles Richards, and on returning
to Edinburgh, in 1833, he founded the present
printing-house in Thistle Street. Shortly after-
wards he was appointed Queen's Printer for
Scotland, and the patent was afterwards extended
to his son Archibald, the present titular head of
the house. Some years later he received the
appointment of Printer to the University of
Edinburgh. Thomas Constable inherited and
incorporated with his own firm the printing
business of his maternal grandfather, David
Willison, a business founded in the eighteenth
century. The firm has always been noted for its
scholarly reading and the beauty of its workman-
ship ; and only the fact that this volume is being
printed by it prevents a longer eulogy.
Among other Scottish firms who are doing
THE PRESENT CENTURY 311
excellent work mention may be made also of
Messrs. R. and R. Clark of Edinburgh, who
tread very closely on the heels of the Clarendon
Press, and Messrs. Maclehose, the printers to the
University of Glasgow. In America also there
is much good work being done, that of Mr.
De Vinne and of the Riverside Press, Cambridge,
being of the very highest excellence.
In the history of English printing, the close
of the nineteenth century will always be memor-
able for the brilliant but short-lived career of the
Kelmscott Press.
In May 1891 Mr. William Morris, whose
poems and romances had delighted many readers,
issued a small quarto book entitled The Story of
the Glittering Plain, which had been printed at
a press that he had set up in the Upper Mall,
Hammersmith.
Lovers of old books could recognise at once
that in its arrangement, and, to some extent, in
its types, this first-fruit of the Kelmscott Press
went straight back to the fifteenth century, re-
sembling most nearly the quartos printed at
Venice about 1490. Until within a few years of
that date printed books, like the old manuscripts,
had dispensed altogether with a title-page. Their
first few pages might be occupied with a prologue
or a table of contents, and though, when the text
was reached, it was usual to herald it with an
Incipit or Incomincia, followed by the title of the
work, the information as to date of issue, printer
3 i2 ENGLISH PRINTING
or publisher, and place of imprint or sale, which
we look to find in the title-page, was only given
in a crowning paragraph or colophon at the end
of the book, save for one or two accidental in-
stances. The full title-page, as we know it, is
not found before about 1520, and did not come
into general use, so as to supersede the colophon,
until many years after that date. But about 1480
the advantage of getting the short title of the
book clearly stated at its outset was becoming
pretty generally recognised, and from this date
onwards what may be called the label title-page
that is, a first page containing the title and nothing
elseis very frequently found. Ten years later
a practice occasionally adopted elsewhere became
common at Venice, and the first page of the text
of a book was decorated with an ornamental
border, and occasionally with a little picture as
well. It was this temporary fashion which com-
mended itself to Mr. Morris, and The Story of the
Glittering Plain was issued with one of these label
title-pages and with the first page of the story sur-
rounded by a very beautiful border cut on wood
from a design by Mr. Morris himself, here re-
produced by the kind permission of his executors.
It contained also a number of decorative initial
letters, to use the clumsy phrase which the misap-
propriation of the word capitals to stand for
ordinary majuscules, or 'upper case' letters, makes
inevitable. Mr. Morris's initials were, of course,
THE STORY OF THE GLITTER,
ING PLAIN OR THE LAND OF
LIVING MEN
CHAPTER L OF THOSE THREE
WHO CAME TO THE HOUSE
OF THE RAVEN
IT HAS BEEN
told that there was
once a young man
of free kindred and
whose name was
Hallblithe : he was
fair, strong, & not
untried in battle;
hewas oftheHouse
of the Raven of old
time* C This man loved an exceeding fair
damsel called the Hostage, who was of the
House of the Rose, wherein it was right &
due that the men of the Raven should wed*
C She loved him no less, & no man of the
kindred gainsaid their love, and they were
to be wedded on Midsummer Night;
C But one day of early spring, ivhen the
days were yet short and the nights long,
Hallblithe sat before the porch of the house
smoothing an ash stave for his spear, and
he heard the sound of horse<hoofs drawing
nigh, and he looked up and saw folk riding^
2 R
314 ENGLISH PRINTING
true capitals i.e. they were used to mark the be-
ginnings of chapters, and the only fault that could
be found with them was that they were a little too
large for the quarto page. These also were from
Mr. Morris's own designs, ideas in one or two
cases having been borrowed from a set used by
Sweynheym and Pannartz, the Germans who
introduced printing into Italy; but the borrow-
ing, as always with Mr. Morris, being absolutely
free. As for the type, it was clear that it bore
some resemblance to that used by Nicolas Jenson,
the Frenchman who began printing in Venice in
1470, and whose finer books, especially those on
vellum, are generally recognised as the supreme
examples of that perfection to which the art of
printing attained in its earliest infancy. Mr.
Morris's type was as rich as Jenson's at its best,
and showed its authorship by not being quite
rigidly Roman, some of the letters betraying a
leaning to the 'Gothic' or 'black-letter' forms,
which had found favour with the majority of the
mediaeval scribes. At the end of the book came
the colophon in due fifteenth-century style, with
information as to when and where it was printed.
The ornamental design bearing the word ' Kelm-
scott,' by way of the device or trade-mark without
which no fifteenth-century printer thought his
office properly equipped, was not used in this
book, but speedily made its appearance.
Pretty as was this edition of the The Story of
THE PRESENT CENTURY 315
the Glittering Plain, it yet raised a doubt the
doubt as to whether there was any real life in this
effort to start afresh from old models, or whether
it was a mere antiquarian revival and nothing
more. The history of printing or rather of the
handwriting which the first printers took as their
models recorded, at least, one instance in which
an antiquarian revival had been of permanent
service ; for the Roman letter, which the printers
have used now for four centuries, was itself a
happy reversion on the part of the fifteenth-century
scribes to the Caroline minuscules of 600 years
earlier, which had gradually been debased past
recognition. There was no room for a second
such sweeping reform as this, but those who
compared the best modern printing with the
masterpieces of the craft in its early days knew
that the modern books by the side of the old ones
looked flat and grey; and the new Glittering
Plain, though not entirely satisfactory, was
certainly free from these faults. A few months
later the appearance of the three-volume reprint of
Caxton's version of the Golden Legend of Jacobus
de Voragine, sufficed to show that the Kelmscott
Press was capable of turning out a book large
enough to tax the resources of a printing-office,
and the new book was not only larger but better
than its predecessor. It became known that this,
but for an accident, should have been the first
book issued from the new press ; and it was
316 ENGLISH PRINTING
evident that the initial letters were exactly right
for this larger page, while the splendid woodcuts
from the designs of Sir Edward Burne-Jones
revived the old glories of book-illustration. In
the Golden Legend also appeared the first of
those woodcut frontispiece titles which formed,
as far as we know, an entirely new departure, and
confer on the Kelmscott books one of their chief
distinctions. Printed sometimes in white letters
on a background of dark scrollery, sometimes in
black letters on a lighter ground, these titles are
always surrounded by a border harmonising with
that on the first page of text, which they face.
They thus carry out Mr. Morris's cardinal
principle, that the unit, both for arrangement of
type and for decoration, is always the double
page. How persistently even the best printers in
the trade ignore this principle is known to any
one who has asked for a specimen of how a book
is to be printed, it being almost impossible to get
more than a single page set up. If a double page
is insisted on, the craftsman, ingenious in avoid-
ing trouble, will print the same page twice over,
thus confusing the eye by the exact parallelism
of line with line and paragraph with paragraph.
But Mr. Morris, who had all the capacity of
genius for taking pains, understood that, when a
book lies open before us, though we only read
one page at a time, we see two, and in the selec-
tion of the type, the adjustment of letterpress and
THE PRESENT CENTURY 317
margins, and finally in the pursuit of a decorative
beginning, either to the book itself, or to its
sections, he never arranged a single page except
in relation to the one which it was to face.
As far as permanent influence is concerned
Mr. Morris's Roman letter, the ' Golden type,' as
it was dubbed, from its use in the Golden Legend,
is the most important of the three founts which
he employed. His own sympathies, however,
were too pronouncedly mediaeval for him to be
satisfied with it, and for the next large book
which he took in hand, a reprint of Caxton's
Recuyell of the Histories of Troy, the first work
printed in the English tongue, he designed a
much larger and bolder type, an improvement
on one of the ' Gothic ' founts used by Anton
Koberger at Nuremberg in the fifteenth century.
This ' Troy ' type was subsequently recut in a
smaller size for the double-columned Chaucer,
and in both its forms is a very handsome fount,
while the characters are so clearly and legibly
shaped that, despite its antique origin, any child
who knows his letters can learn to read it in a
few minutes. With these three founts the Kelm-
scott Press was thoroughly equipped with type ;
but until his final illness took firm hold on him
Mr. Morris was never tired of designing new
initials, border-pieces, and decorative titles with
a profusion which the old printers, who were par-
simonious in these matters, would have thought
m
such as choose to seek it: it is neither
prison, nor palace, butadccent borne* J
LL ramcn i ]s[e
CneR praise nor type
blame, but say that
so itis:some people
praise this homeli-
ness overmuch, as
if the land were the
very axle/tree of the
world ; so do not I, nor any unblind-
ed by pride in themselves and all that
belongs to them : others there are who
scorn it and the tameness of it: not
1 any the more: though it would in-
deed be hard if there were nothing
else in the world, no wonders, no ter-
rors, no unspeakable beauties* Y c *
when we think what a small part of
the world's history, past, present, &
to come, is this land we live in, and
howmuch smaller still in the history
of the arts, &yet how our forefathers
clung to it, and with what care and
FIG. 39. The Kelmscott ' Troy ' Type.
THE PRESENT CENTURY 319
extravagantly lavish. Including those completed
by his executors after his death, he printed in all
fifty-three books in sixty-five volumes, and this
annual output of nine or ten volumes of all sizes,
save the duodecimo, which he refused to recognise,
gave his work a cumulative force which greatly
increased its influence. Had he printed only a
few books his press might have been regarded as
a rich man's toy, an outbreak of asstheticism in a
new place, of no more permanent interest than
the cult of the sunflower and the lily in the
'eighties. Even the great Chaucer by itself
might not have sufficed to take his press out
of the category of experiments. But when folio,
quarto, octavo, and sexto-decimo appeared in
quick succession, each with its appropriate deco-
rations, and challenging and defying comparison
with the best work of the best printers of the
past, the experimental stage was left far behind,
and publishers and printers awoke to the fact
that a model had been set them which they would
do well to imitate.
As to what will be the permanent result of
Mr. Morris's efforts to reform modern printing it
is too soon as yet to speak, but signs of their
influence are already abundantly visible. The
books issued from the 'Vale Press' of Messrs.
Ricketts and Shannon have their admirers ; but
they have that rather irritating degree of likeness
which makes every difference and the differences
4 IAIAAOC A (i)
8c KOH rd T* I6NTO rd T* CCCOJUCNO np6 T* WNTO, 70
xai NHCCC' ArHcar' 'AxaicoN "IXioN eTcco
HN 5ia JU.CJNTOCUNHN, THN oi Hope 4>oT3oC 'AnoXXcON '
6 cxpm 9pONCON aropHcaro Kai juereeineN-
" cb 'AxiXeO, KeXeai jue, di^iXe, jauoHcacoai
JUHNIN 'An6XXcoNoc, eKaTHBeXerao aNQKTOc- 75
Toirap ercoN epeco, cu 5e CUNOCO KGI JULOI OUOCCON
A JLLCN juoi npo9pcoN eneciN Kai xepciN aprisem.
ft rap oiojuiai aNdpa xoXcoceueN, 6c jue'ra ndNTcoN
'ApreicoN Kpare'ei Kai oi nefeoNrai 'Axaioi.
KpeicccoN rap DaciXeuc, ore xcocerai ciNQpi xepKi- 80
eY nep rap re x6Xor< re Kai aurfiixap Kayanevj/H,
aXXd re Kai Juer6nicocN exei KOTON, O9pa reXeccH,
IN CTHeeccm coTci. cu d^ 9pdcai, eY jue cacoceic."
rbN V anaueiB6juLNOC npoc^H n65ac COKUC 'AxiX-
XeOc-
"eapCHcac judXa elne eeonp6nioN, OTI oTcea* 85
ou jua rap 'AnoXXcoNa di(9i\ON, & re cu. KdXxaN.
eOx6jueNOC AawaoTci eeonponiac aNa9aiNeic,
ou TIC eueO zcoNTOC KOI eni XOONI depKOJU^NOlo
col KoiXnc napa NHUCI Bapeiac xeTpac enoicei
cujundNTCON AONQCON, ou5' AN 'ArauuNONa e'i'nHc, go
be NGN noXXoN apicroc 'AxaicoN euxerai eTNai."
Kai TOTC dH edpCHce Kai Huda jmdNnc CIJULUJU.CON
" OUT* ap' o r' euxcoXAc Inm&LJuperai oue'
aXX' ?NCK* apHTftpoc, SN AT(JUHC' '
ouo' aneXuce ourarpa Kai oOK ancbisaT' anoiNa, 95
TOUNCK' ap' uXre' &OOKCN CKHBoXoc Ad' In dcocei.
odd' o re np:N AaNaoTcm aeixea XoiroN ancocei,
npfN r* anb narpl 9f\co d6iiNai eXiKconiba KotipHN
anpidrHN ONdnoiNON, arem e' iepHN lKar6ufiHN
cc XpucHN- T6re KCN JU.IN iXaccdjixeNoi nenieoiucN." 100
FIG. 40. The Macmillan Greek Type.
THE PRESENT CENTURY 321
are numerous appear a wilful and regrettable
divergence.
The ' Macmillan Greek type,' designed by Mr.
Selwyn Image, which has now been in use for
some time, may be regarded as another offshoot
of Mr. Morris's theories, and deserves all the
praise due to a brave experiment. By permis-
sion of the Messrs. Macmillan a page of it, taken
from their ' Parnassus ' Homer, is here shown,
and few modern types will bear comparison
with it. That it is not wholly and entirely
successful is due to the fact that for so many
centuries Greek types have been dominated by
the models set by Aldus and the other printers
of the early sixteenth century, who tried to
imitate the rapid cursive hand of the Greek
scholars of their day. Had the introduction
of printing been preceded by a revival of the
beautiful Greek book-hand of the eleventh cen-
tury, similar to the revival of the Caroline
minuscules, all would have been well. But in
going back himself to the eleventh century Mr.
Image was obliged perpetually to conciliate eyes
used to the later cursive forms, and the result is
too obviously eclectic. The mere fact, however,
that such an effort has been made is full of pro-
mise for the future, for it is only by new effort,
joined with constant reference to old models,
that types can be improved.
2S
INDEX OF PRINTERS, TYPEFOUNDERS, ETC.
Abree, J., 253.
Alday. See Aide.
Aide, Edward, 163, 169.
Aide, Elizabeth, 169.
Aide, John, 101, 163.
Allen, Edward, 271.
Allen, John, 220.
Alsop, Bernard, 171, 172, 179, 181,
194, 221.
Andrewe, Laurence, 53, 57, 58.
Andrews, J. and R., 210.
Arbuthnot, A., 146 sq.
Archer, T., 171.
Aspley, W., 163.
Asplyn, , 137.
Austin, Messrs., 307.
Austin, R., 221.
B. T., t'.e. Brudnell, T., 190.
Badger, R., 179.
Baker, J., 102.
Baldwyn, Richard, 101.
Baldwyn, W., 101.
Ballantyne, Hanson and Co., 309.
Ballantyne, James, 307 sq.
Bankes, Richard, 55, 59, 60, 133.
Barber, John, 233, sq.
Barbier, Jean, 30.
Barker, Christopher, 97, 118 sq., 154,
208, 230.
Barker, Robert, 154 sq., 176, 216, 218,
230.
Barnes, Joseph, 124, 183.
Baskerville, John, xiii, 265 sq., 274.
Baskett, John, 230, 231, 232.
Bassandyne, T., 146 sq.
Beale, John, 179.
Bell, Jane, 221.
Bensley, Thomas, 271 sq., 284, 289.
Bentley, W., 221.
Berthelet, Thomas, 61 sq., 69, 82.
Bignon, J., 41.
Bill, John, 155, 160.
Bishop, George, 112, 120, 155.
Bishop, Richard, 166, 179, 183,194,221.
Bliss, Joseph, 251, 252.
Blomefield, F. (private press), 279.
Blount, Edward, 163.
Blythe, Robert. 101.
' Bonere.' See Bonham, W.
Bonham, John, 101.
Bonham, William, 52, 53, 74, 75, 76,
101, 129.
Bonny, W., 250.
Bourgeois, Jean le, 44.
Bourman, N., 101, 129.
Bourne, C., 254.
Bourne, N., 171.
Bowyer, William, the elder, 236 sq.
Bowyer, William, the younger, 238 sq
Boyden, Thomas, 101.
Bradford, Andrew, 257, 258.
Bradford, W., 220, 221, 256.
Bremer, alias Bulle. See Bulle J.
Brice, Andrew, 252, 253.
Bridges, H., 224.
Broad, Alice, 218.
Broad, T., 218, 221.
Brodehead, G., 101.
Broke, R., 101.
Browne E., 101.
3 2 4
ENGLISH PRINTING
Brudenell, J., 201, 208, 225.
Brudenell, T., 190, 222.
Bryan, S., 253.
Buck, J., 222.
Buck, T., 216, 222.
Bucks. See Buck, T.
Bulkeley, S., 218, 219.
Bulle, alias Bremer, J., 26.
Bullock, R., 112.
Bulmer, William, 271, 274, 288, 289.
Burges, F., 248, 249 ; his widow, 249.
Burtoft, J., 101.
Butter, N., 171, 173, 189.
Byddell, John, 37, 66, 68 sg., 76.
Bye, Deodatus, 296.
Bylton, T., 101.
Bynneman, H., 137.
Caley, R., 102.
Case, J., 101.
Caslon I., letterfounder, xiii, 239 sg.,
269 ; his widow, 270.
Caslon II., letterfounder, 269, 287 ;
his widow, 270, 287.
Caslon III., letterfounder, 269.
Cater, E., 101.
Catherwood, N., typefounder, 287.
Cawood, Gabriel, 112.
Cawood, John, 83, 101, 109 sg.
Caxton, William, ix, i sg., 33, 57.
Chandeler, G., 102.
Chandler, R., 255.
Charlewood, J., 102.
Charteris, H., 144, 149^.
Charteris, Robert, 151.
Chase, W., 250.
Chepman, Walter, 139 sg.
Child, Mr., 225.
Chiswick Press, xii, xiii, 300.
Clarendon Press, xiii, 214, 307.
Clark, Messrs. R. and R., 311.
Clarke, J., 101.
Clarke, Mrs., 233.
Clay, Messrs., 307.
Cleston, N., 101.
Clowes, John, 189, 222.
Clowes, William, 297 sg.
Coates. See Cotes, R.
Coe, A., 222, 224, 227.
Cole, P., 222.
Coles, A., 222.
Collins, Freeman, 250.
Constable, R., 222.
Constable, T., 310.
Cooke, Henry, 83, 101.
Cooke, W., 101.
Copland, Robert, 37, 47 sg., 61
Copland, William, 76, 101.
Corrall, C., 301.
Coston, S., 101.
Cotes, R., 222.
Cotes, T., 179, 182.
Cotes, Mrs., 224, 226.
Cottesford, H., 101.
Cottrel, J., 200, 222, 224, 225.
Cottrell, Thomas, typefounder, 270.
Cowper, E., 285.
Crespin, J., 147.
Croke, A., 101.
Crosse, R., 101.
Crossgrove, H., 250.
Crost, A., 101.
Crouch, E., 222.
Crouch, J., 222.
Crouch, N., 224, 227.
Crowndale, C., 248.
Dabbe, H. See Tab, H.
Daniel, R., 216.
Darby, J., 209, 225, 227.
Darker, S., 251.
Davidson, T., 142.
Davison, T., 292, 293.
Davy, Rev. William (private press), 281.
INDEX
325
Dawson, Gertrude, 194, 222.
Dawson, J., 179, 194.
Day, John, 29, 79 sq., 101, 106, 137,
154, 158, 198, 211.
Day, Stephen, 185.
Devell, T., 101.
De Vinne, F., 311.
Dexter, Gregory, 175.
Dicey, W., 251.
Dockwray, T., 101.
Doesborch, J. van, 57.
Dover, Simon, 206.
Drury, J., typefounder, 287.
Dugard, William, 191, 222.
Duxwell, T., 101.
East, T., 165, 169.
Eld, George, 169.
Ellis, W., 222.
Eyre, Charles, 294.
Eyre and Spottiswoode, 293.
Faques, R. See Fawkes, R.
Faques, W., 40, 44.
Farley, Edward, 253.
Farley, Samuel, of Bristol, 251 ; of
Exeter, 251 sq.
Farmer, Thomas, 278, 280.
Fawcett, Rev. John (private press),
280.
Fawcett, T., 172.
Fawkes, R., 45, 58.
Fayreberne, J., 101.
Field, John, 194, 222, 224.
Field, Richard, 117 sq., 162.
Fifield, Alexander, typefounder, 180.
Figgins, V., typefounder, 272.
Fleet, Thomas, 259.
Flessher. See Fletcher.
Fletcher, James, 194, 197, 206, 209,222,
224, 225.
Fletcher, Rev. John (private press),
281.
Fletcher, Miles, 169, 170, 179, 194,
237-
Foster, John, 220.
Foulis, A. and R., 261 sq.
Fowle, D., 260.
Fox, John, 101.
Franklin, B., 258.
Franckton, J., 152.
Freez, F., 122.
Frenche, P., 101.
Fry, Edmund, Henry, and Joseph,
typefounders, 268 sq.
Gamlyn or Gammon, A., 101.
Gammon. See Gamlyn.
Ged, William, stereotype founder, 235.
Gee, Thomas, 101.
Gent, Thomas, 246, 254 sq.
Gibson, Thomas, 65, 79.
Gilbert, Richard and Robert, 296.
Gilbert and Rivington, 295.
Gilfillan, J., 255.
Glover, Joseph, 185.
Godbid, William, 200, 224, 225.
Goez, EL, 122.
Goez, M. van der, 122.
Gonneld, James, 101.
Gough, John, 37, 53, 54 sq., 60, 101.
Grafton, Richard, 66, 70 sq., 73, 76,
"3-
Green, S., 219.
Green, S., the younger, 220.
Grene, R., 101.
Griffin. See Griffith, E.
Griffith, E., 170, 179, 222.
Griffith, W., 90, 101, 138.
Grismand, J., typefounder, 180, 194,
200, 222.
Grismond. See Grismand.
Grover, James, 211.
Grover, T., 211, 212.
Gryffyth, Sarah, 224, 227.
326
ENGLISH PRINTING
Guine, H., 257.
Racket, Thomas, 102.
Hall, H., 222.
Hamilton, A., 275.
Hare, A., 222.
Harper, Thomas, 169, 179, 192, 194,
222.
Harris, B., 220.
Harrison, John, 108.
Harrison, Luke, 108.
Harrison, Martha, 222.
Harrison, R., 101.
Harvey, R., 101.
Haviland, John, 166, 170, 179.
Hayes, J., 200, 202, 208.
Hayes, Mr., 225.
Heldersham, F., 222.
Herford, John, 127 sq.
Heron, John, 53.
Hester, Andrew, 101.
Hills, Henry, 194, 222.
Hinton, Thomas, 251.
Hodge, Robert, 257.
Hodgkinson, R., 179, 195, 200, 224.
Hodgkys. See Hoskins.
Holder, R., 101.
Holt, J., 257.
Holyland, J., 101.
Hopyl, W., 43.
Hoskins or Hodgkys, 139.
Hostingue, L., 140.
Huke, G., 101.
Hunscott, J., 222.
Hunt, J., 222.
Hunt, T., 24.
Hurdis, Rev. J. (private press), 281.
Husbands, E., 222.
Huvin, J., 30.
Hyll, J., 101.
Hyll, R., 101.
Hyll, W., 101.
Ibbitson, Robert, 189, 200, 222.
Ireland, R., 101.
I slip, A., 179.
Jackson, Joseph, typefounder, 270 sq.
Jacobi, T., 43.
Jaggard, Isaac, 163.
Jaggard, William, 163.
James, J., 212.
James, T., letterfounder, 229 ^.,235,
239-
Jaques, J., 102.
Johnson, M., 219.
Johnson, T., 224, 227.
Jones, William, 173 sq. t 180.
Judson, J., 102.
Jugge, Richard, 97, 102, in, 112 sq.,
147.
Keball, J., 102.
Keimer, S., 258.
Kele, John, 102.
Kele, Richard, 60, 75, 133.
Kele, Thomas, 53, 76.
Kelmscott Press, xiii, 311 sq.
Kerver, Theilman, 47.
Kevall, R., 102.
Kevall, Stephen, 102.
Kingston, Felix, 162, 179.
Kirgate, Thomas, 278.
Kneeland, S., 259.
Kyng, J-> I02 -
Kyrfbrth, C, 124.
Lacy, , 137.
Lant, R., 76, 102.
Law, Henry, 296.
Leach, Thomas, 209, 224, 227.
Lee, W., 222.
Legate, John, 135 sg., 179.
Legg. See Legge, C.
Legge, Cantrell, 136, 168.
Lekpreuik, R., 143 sg.
Lettou, John, u, 26, 27.
INDEX
327
Leyborne, R., 222, 225.
Leybourne. See Leyborne, R.
Lichfield, John, 183.
Lichfield, Leonard, 184, 223.
Lillicrapp, P., 224, 227.
Lillicropp. See Lillicrapp.
Lloyd, H., 224, 227.
Lobel, M., 102.
Lownes, H., 167.
Lownes, M., 167.
Lucas, M., 176.
Lyon, B., 250.
Mabb, Thomas, 200, 205, 223.
Maclehose, Messrs., 311.
Machlinia, W. de, 27, 29.
Macmillan, Messrs., xiii.
Mansion, Colard, 4, 6, 10.
Markall, T., 102.
Marsh, Thomas, 97, 102.
Marshall, John, 295.
Marten, W., 102.
Martin, William, typefounder, 273.
Mathewes, Augustine, 173, 180.
Maxey, John, 192.
Maxey, T., 223.
Maxwell, Mr., 227.
Maxwell, Anne, 224.
Maxwell, D., 200.
Maycock, J., 209, 223, 224, 225.
Mayhewes, W., 53.
Mayler, J., 76.
Maynyal, George, 16.
Meredith, C., 223.
Meredith, H., 258.
Meteren, J. van, 72.
Middleton, , 76.
Middleton, W., 68.
Milbourne, T., 224, 225.
Miller, A., 223.
Miller, G., 179.
Milner, Ursyn, 123.
Moravus, Matthew, 26.
Mosley, E., 296.
Mottershead, E., 223.
Moxon, James, typefounder, 194.
Moxon, Joseph, typefounder, 210, 223.
Mychell, John, 75, 132.
Myllar, A., 139 sq.
Neale, F., 223.
Newbery, R., 120, 155.
Newcomb,T., 194^., 209, 223, 224, 225.
Nichols, Arthur, typefounder, 180.
Nichols, John, 289 sq.
Nichols, J. Bowyer, 292.
Nichols, J. Gough, 292.
Norton, Bonham, 75, 155, 161 sq., 169.
Norton, H., 102.
Norton, John, 155, 158 s<?., 180, 194.
Norton, Mark, 112.
Norton, Roger, 194, 197, 224, 225.
Norton, William, 75, 102.
Notary, Julian, 30, 32, 37.
Nuthead, W., 221.
Nutt, R., 212.
Oakes, E., 225, 227.
Okes, J., 172, 182.
Okes, Nicholas, 167, 172, 180
Oporinus, , 86.
Os, Godfried van, 22.
Oswen, John, 131 sg.
Oulton, Richard, 182.
Ouseley, Mr., 225.
Overton, J., 130.
Paget, R., 102.
Paine. See Payne, T.
Palmer, Samuel, 240.
Parker, J., 257.
Parker, P., 210.
Parker, Thomas, 102.
Parsons, M., 179, 180.
Partridge, J., 223.
Pattenson, Thomas, 102.
328
ENGLISH PRINTING
Payne, T., 223.
Pelgrim, J., 43.
Pepwell, Henry, 37, 43, 49, 75, 129.
Petit, T., 66, 76.
Pickering, W., 102.
Pierce, R., 220.
Pigouchet, F., 60, 140.
Playford, J., 223.
Powell, H., 102, 151 sg.
Powell, Thomas, 63, 102.
Powell, W., 68, 102.
Purfoot, T., 98, 102, 179.
Purslowe, Elizabeth, 182, 194, 223,227.
Purslowe, G., 170, 179.
Purslowe, Thomas, 175, 179, 180, 194,
224.
Pynson, Richard, xi, 28j^., 39sq., 57 5 68.
Radborne, R., 102.
Raikes, Robert, 251.
Rastell, John, xi, 51 sg., 74, 76.
Rastell, W., 110.
Ratcliffe, T., 223, 224, 225.
Rawlins, William, 225, 227.
Ra worth, John, 179.
Raworth, Richard, 176, 180.
Raworth, Ruth, 176, 191, 223.
Redman, Elizabeth, 68.
Redman, John, 224, 227.
Redman, Robert, 66, 67 sg.
Regnault, F., 72.
Reynes, John, 109.
Reynes, Lucy, 109.
Richardson, R., 102.
Richardson, Samuel, 241 sq.
Richel, Wendelin, 86.
Riverside Press, 311.
Rivington, Messrs., 246, 295 sg.
Roberts, J., 97, 154.
Robinson, William, 277.
Roger, G., 260.
Rogers, J., 102.
Rogers, O., 102.
Rood, Theodoric, 24.
Ross, J., 148.
Ross, T., 223.
Rothwell, J., 223.
Roycroft, Thomas, 194, 198, 200, 206,
209, 223, 224, 225.
Royston, J., 223.
Royston, R., 223.
Rycharde, Dan Thomas, 127.
Ryddall, W., 102.
Sawyer, T., 102.
Scolar, J., 123, 125.
Scoloker, A., Si, 129 sq.
Scot or Skot, John, 142 sg.
Seres, William, 76,79^., 102, 130, 154.
Shereman, J., 102.
Sherewe, J., 102.
Shober, F., 257.
Short, J., 183.
Siberch, J., 125 sg.
Simmes, V., 139.
Simmons, Mathew, 190, 194, 223, 224,
226.
Singleton, H., 102.
Skot. See Scot, J.
Skot, John, 54, 62.
Smethwicke, J., 163.
Smith, H., 68.
Smyth, A., 102.
Smyth, R., 151.
Snodham, T., 169.
Solemne or Solempne, A. de, 133 sg.
Solempne. See Solemne, A.
Sparke, Michael, 173, 174.
Spottiswoode, A., 295.
Spylman, S., 102.
Stansby, W., 165, 170.
Staples, A., 255.
Steward, W., 102.
Strahan, W., 294.
INDEX
329
Streator, J., 200, 224, 225.
Stroud, J., 137.
Sutton, E., 102.
Sutton, H., 102.
Symonds. See Simmons.
Tab, Henry, 59.
Tab, J., 129.
Talboys and Wheeler, 301.
Talleur, Le, 29, 41.
Taverner, N., 102.
Taylor, William, 175.
Thomas, T., 135.
Thomlyn, A., 139.
Thompson, G., 223.
Tottell, Richard, 97, 102, no, 113 sg.
Tottell, W., 116. '
Toye, Elizabeth, in.
Toye, Robert, 74 sg., 83, in.
Treveris, Peter, 56.
Turke, J., 102.
Turner, William, 173, 183.
Twyn, John, 205.
Tyer, R., 102.
Tyler, E., 224, 225.
Tysdale, J., 102.
Tyton, F., 223.
Urie, Robert, typefounder, 262.
Vaughan, Mr., 225.
Vautrollier, Thomas, 97, 116 sq., 150.
Waldegrave, Robert, 138, 149, 150.
Waley or Walley, C., 102.
Waley, J., 102, no.
Walkley, T., 191, 223.
Wallys, R., 102.
Ward, Caesar, 255.
Ward, Roger, 98.
Warren, Alice, 195, 200.
Warren, Thomas, 195, 223.
Warren, Mr., 225.
Watkins, Richard, 97, 154.
Watts, J., 239.
Watts, W. M., 296.
Way, R., 102.
Wayland, John, 102.
Weyman, William, 257.
Whitchurch, Edward, 70, 73.
White, Grace, 254.
White, John, 254, 255.
White, John, jun., 254, 256.
White, Robert, 224, 225.
White, Thomas, 301, 303.
Whitney, J., 102.
Whittingham, Charles, the elder, 299,
300.
Whittingham, Charles, the younger,
300 sq.
Wilde, J., 241.
Wilkes, John (private press), 279.
Willison, D., 310.
Wilson, Dr. A., typefounder, 263.
Wilson, W., 223.
Windet, J., 165.
Winter, John, 225, 227.
Wolfe, John, 98, 195.
Wolfe, Reginald or Reyner, 102, 103
sq.
Wolfgang, 43.
Wood, Mr., 225
Woodcock, T., 112.
Woodfall, Henry, 243 sq.
Worde, Wynkyn de. See Wynkyn,
Jan, de Worde.
Wrench, W., 183.
Wright, J., 223.
Wright, Thomas, typefounder, 180.
Wright, W., 223.
Wyer, Robert, xi, 47, 57 sq., 76, 102.
Wynkyn, Jan, de Worde, 4, 16, 17, 18,
20 sq., 31 sq., 47, 54, 68, 69, 140, 211.
Young, R., 170.
Zenger, J. P., 257.
2T
330
ENGLISH PRINTING
INDEX TO PLACES
Abingdon, 125.
America, 219 sy., 256, 311.
Antwerp, 16, 57, 72, 122.
Basle, 86.
Birmingham, 256.
Bishopstone, Sussex, 281.
Boston, Mass., 220, 259.
Brearley Hall, 280.
Bristol, 129, 218, 219, 250, 268.
Bruges, 4, 7.
Bungay, co. Suffolk, 307.
Cambridge, 10, 125 sy., 135 sy., 216,
222, 236, 248.
Cambridge, Mass., 219, 311.
Canterbury, 75, 132, 253.
Chester, 256.
Cirencester, 251.
Cologne, 4, 6, 24, 25.
Coventry, 139.
Darlington, 278 sy.
Dublin, 152.
Edinburgh, 139 sy., 309.
Ewood Hall, 280.
Exeter, 218, 251.
Fawsley, near Daventry, 139.
Fersfield, co. Norfolk, 279.
Gateshead, 219.
Geneva, 147.
Glasgow, 261 sy., 311.
Glynde, Sussex, 281.
Gouda, 22.
Ham, East, 137.
Haseley, near Warwick, 139.
Hemel Hempstead, 137.
Hempstead. See Hemel Hempstead.
Hertford, 307.
Ipswich, 129 sy.
Ireland, 151 sy.
Kelso, 308, 309.
Liverpool, 256.
Lustleigh, co. Devon, 281.
Madeley, Shropshire, 281.
Molesey, East, 138.
Naples, 26.
Newcastle, 218, 219, 236, 256.
New England, 185 sy.
New Haven, Conn., 257.
New York, 220, 221, 256, 257.
Norwich, 133, 248 sy.
Nottingham, 256.
Oxford, 23, 24, 123 sy., 183 sy., 214,
222, 223, 228, 247 sy., 301, 307.
Paris, 1 6, 30, 46, 47, 60, 72.
Pennsylvania, 220.
Philadelphia, 257.
Plymouth, 219.
Portsmouth (N. H.), 260.
Rome, 26.
Rouen, 29, 44, 140.
St. Albans, 25, 127.
Scotland, 139 sy.
Shrewsbury, 219.
Southwark, 56, 222.
Stonor Park, 138.
Strasburg, 86.
Strawberry Hill, 276.
Tavistock, 126.
Tunbridge Wells, 253.
Virginia, 221.
Westminster, 7, 10, 14, 30.
Wolston Priory, 139.
Woodbridge (N. J.), 257.
Worcester, 131, 253.
York, 122 sy., 218, 219, 254.
Edinburgh : T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty
Z\sr
