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.



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 L1000 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. Chrysostom, 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 ligatures and abbreviations which characterised the Greek typography of that period' (p. 141).



The work is said to have cost its promoter L8000.

The title-page to the first volume was handsomely 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, husbandman, of Wenlock, county Salop, and on the 25th July 1592 he apprenticed himself to John Norton. In 1601 he was admitted a freeman of the Company.

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 Augsburg 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 L10, and a similar sum to his wife.

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 Transcripts (vol. iv. pp. 283-285), and includes the following notable works:—

Beza's Testament in Latin, Camden's Britannia, Comines' History, Cornelius Tacitus, Du Moulin's Defence of the Catholique Faith, Gerard's Herball, Goodwin's History of Henry VIII., Plutarch's Works, Rider's Dictionary, Spalato's Sermons, Usher's Gravissimae questiones, Verstegan'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 Bonham. He took up his freedom on the 4th February 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 in 1599, and later with John Bill in a share of the Royal printing-house. He is frequently mentioned 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 administration 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 complaint 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 London. 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 Vautrollier, 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 Kingston of Paternoster Row, and was admitted a freeman of the Stationers' Company on the 25th of June 1597, being translated from the Company 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 13-1/2 x 8-1/2''. 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, 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 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 signature '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 publication. But by that time it had been printed, 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 7th January 1597, after serving a seven years' apprenticeship with John Windet. The following April he registered a book entitled The Polycie of the Turkishe Empire. 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 13s. 40d., 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 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 business 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 Politie, 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 headbands 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 miscellaneous character, the effect is by no means bad. The border to the title-page of the fifth book 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 uniformly 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, Wither's 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 preserved the examination of the author, the booksellers, 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 declared 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 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. 12 et seq.)

On the 10th 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 almanacs then belonging to the Stationers, but they might print prognostications brought to them first.

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 paralysed 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 L165, and shortly afterwards passed into the possession of Thomas Harper. They included 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 temporary 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, 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, 1634, 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 same subject, whose works brought them into the Court of High Commission. Thus, on the 15th 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 Ferdinando 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, Conflicts and Comforts of Conscience, A Plea to an Appeal, and Seven Vials. 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 publisher. 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 confessed to printing several other unlicensed books. A short term of imprisonment appears to have 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 Actor's 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 L1000, to be degraded from his degree, to have both his ears cropped in the pillory, and to spend the rest of his days in prison; while Sparke was fined L500, 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 Papisticae, 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.[11]

In 1637 appeared Prynne's other notorious tract, Newes from Ipswich, a quarto of six leaves, for which he was fined by the Star Chamber a further sum of L5000, and condemned to lose the rest of his ears, and to be branded on the cheek with the letters S. L. (i.e. scurrilous libeller), a sentence that was carried out on the 30th 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 indictment, 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,[12] who about this time was fined L1000 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 Clementis ad Corinthios Epistola prior in Greek and Latin, and in conjunction with Bishop Lindsell of Peterborough, now proposed to make ready for the press one or more Greek copies every year, if Greek types, matrices, and money were forthcoming. The King expressed his desire to encourage the work, and therefore commanded the Archbishop that the fine of L300, 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 converted to the buying of Greek letters. The King 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 Blackfriars. 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 11th July 1637 was published another Star Chamber Decree concerning printers. Professor 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 growing power of the press, the long-continued attack 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 11th 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 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. Adam Islip. Thomas Purfoote. Miles Fletcher. Thomas Harper. John Beale. John Raworth. John Legate. Robert Young. John Haviland. George Miller. Richard Badger. Thomas Cotes. Marmaduke Parsons. Bernard Alsop. Richard Bishop. Edward Griffin. Thomas Purslowe. Rich. Hodgkinsonne. John Dawson.

Each of these was to be bound in sureties of L300 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 the same way as first editions. The Company were to have the right of search, and four typefounders, 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 who had at times come before the High Commission 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 comment by writers on this subject; but judging from the evidence of Arthur Nicholls, one of the four appointed, the number was quite sufficient. 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 remained 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.

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 Jonsonus Virbius: 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 considerable 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, and 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 published in 1640 from the press of Richard Bishop, who had succeeded to the business of William Stansby, Selden's De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta disciplinam Ebraeorum, 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 pamphlets for Michael Sparke the London publisher; but in spite of this we find him holding his position until 1640, though in the meantime John Lichfield had been succeeded in business 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. Wycliff's 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 Cambridge 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 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 engravings 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 gentlemen 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 Freeman's Oath, the second an Almanac, the third, published in 1640, The Psalms in Metre, Faithfully 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 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.

[Footnote 11: Domestic State Papers, vol. 357, No. 172, 173; vol. 371, No. 102.]

[Footnote 12: Domestic State Papers, vol. 354, No. 180.]



CHAPTER VIII

FROM 1640 TO 1700

Having 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 condemnation 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 the fortunes of the opposing factions, was almost 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, and the press was unequal 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 warning 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 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 Westminster, 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 evil did not stop here, for careless workmanship, indifference, and want of enterprise, are the leading characteristics of the printing trade during the latter half of the seventeenth century. But as, even in this darkest hour of the nation's fortunes, 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, especially 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, published in 1643. In 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 Simmons, who printed most of them, and who was one of the Commonwealth men, deserved the position he afterwards obtained. The first collected edition of Milton's poems was published 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 perpetuate 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 he 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 something 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 Salmasius, 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 assortment of type, and his press-work was much above the average of that period.

Among other books that came from the London 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 poor type, and no pretensions to artistic workmanship.

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 L300, 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 Bibliographica (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. 1.).

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 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 Gresmond 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. Although they were for many years stationers to King Charles II., 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 Anglicanum, the first volume of which appeared in 1655.

As a monument of study and research this 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-work was 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 well. Like the Monasticon, this work was illustrated 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 Chaldean 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 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 undertaking 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, Minsheu's Dictionary in Eleven Languages having been published in this manner in 1617. The terms were L10 per copy, or L50 for six copies. The estimated cost of the first volume was L1500, and of succeeding volumes L1200, and such was the spirit with which the work was taken up that L9000 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, the Psalms in Ethiopic, and the New Testament has, in addition to the four principal texts, the Ethiopic and Persian.

The whole work occupied six folio volumes, measuring 16 x 10-3/4, and was printed by Thomas Roycroft from types supplied by the four recognised 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 Life of Alfred the Great. Mr. Reed adds that, in spite of a certain want of uniformity in the bodies, the Ethiopic and Samaritan were especially good, and the Syriac and Arabic boldly cut.

But it was not only for its typographic excellence 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 undertaking, 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 acknowledged by the editor, but on the Restoration those passages were altered or omitted to make room for compliments to Charles II.

Amongst those who ably assisted Walton in his labours was Dr. Edmund Castell, who prepared 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 impression 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 themselves. There is still preserved in the Public Record Office a document which throws considerable 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 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 exposed 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 registration 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.

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 adherent 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 II. 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 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 proposed 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 L3300, 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 publications!



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 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 Newcomb.

At pages 26 and 27 L'Estrange notices the petition of certain of the printers to be incorporated 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 impoverished 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 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 20th and 22nd February 166-3/4.

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 overthrow 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 12th October 1662. The chief witnesses against Twyn were Joseph Walker, his apprentice, Sir Roger L'Estrange, and Thomas Mabb, a printer. Their evidence 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 40s. 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 printing 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 Robert Copland as an excuse for indifferent printing. 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 16th October 1665, he stated that eighty of the printers had died of the Plague (Cal. 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 Universities; but there are no notes of individual 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 II. 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 find 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,[13] 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.).

From this we learn that the largest employer in the trade at that time was James Fletcher, who kept five presses, and employed thirteen workmen 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 Transposed, and a good deal else that galled the Government 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 Herringman; while Roycroft, we know, was employed 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 hydrographer. Having spent some years in Holland, he was very much enamoured of the Dutch types, and in 1676 he wrote a book entitled Regulae 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 propounded in earlier days by Albert Durer and the French printer, Geoffrey Tory, but no improvement in printing ever resulted from them.

Moxon's foundry was fitted with a large assortment 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 subjects. 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 possession 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 English Samaritan matrices from which the type for Walton's Polyglott in 1657 had been cast.

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 proposed 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 1758, 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 premises 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 II. (1685) for 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 century, that it had remained practically a dead letter from the time of the Great Fire.



The troubles of the Civil War had suspended 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 University by a gift of a complete type-foundry, consisting of punches, matrices, and founts of Roman, Italic, Orientals, 'Saxons,' and black letter, besides 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 printing office was removed to the basement of that building, the first book bearing the Theatre imprint 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 splendid 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 Controller 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 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 Bibliographica 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 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 duodecimo, 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 broadsides relative to the Prince of Orange. A new 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 Marmaduke 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 until 1702. After his death the press at Cambridge 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 literature, he printed several pamphlets on the war between the English and the Indians. He died in 1681, 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, Benjamin 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, America's Messinger, Being an Almanack for the Year of Grace 1686.

In 1688 Bradford issued proposals for printing a large Bible (Hildeburn, Issues of the Pennsylvania 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 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 10th April 1693. Among his most famous publications 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.

[Footnote 13: Dom. S. P., Chas. II., vol. 243, p. 181.]

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. Brudenell, Thomas, Newgate Market. Buck, John, Cambridge. Buck, or Bucks, Thomas, Cambridge. Clowes, John, Grub Street. Coe, Andrew, ... Cole, Peter, ... Coles, Amos, Ivy Lane. Constable, Richard, Smithfield. Cotes, or Coates, Richard, Aldersgate Street. Cottrell, James, ... Crouch, Edward, ... Crouch, John, ... Dawson, Gertrude, Aldersgate Street. Dugard, William, Merchant Taylors' School. Ellis, William, Thames Street. Field, John, ... Fletcher, or Flesher, James, Little Britain. Griffith, or Griffin, Edward, Old Bailey. Grismond, John, Ivy Lane. Hall, Henry, Oxford. Hare, Adam, Red Cross Street. Harper, Thomas, Little Britain. Harrison, Martha, ... Heldersham, Francis, ... Hills, Henry, Southwark. Hunscott, Joseph, Stationers' Hall. Hunt, William, Pie Corner. Husbands, Edward, Golden Dragon, Fleet Street. Ibbitson, Robert, Smithfield. Lee, William, Fleet Street. Leyborne, Robert, Mugwell Street. Litchfield, Leonard, Oxford. Mabb, Thomas, Ivy Lane. Maxey, Thomas, Bennett Paul's Wharf. Maycock, John, Addlehill. Meredith, Christopher, St. Paul's Churchyard. Miller, Abraham, Blackfriars. Mottershead, Edward, Doctors' Commons. Moxon, James, Houndsditch. Neale, Francis, Aldersgate Street. Newcombe, Thomas, Bennett Paul's Wharf, near Baynards Castle. Norton, Roger, Blackfriars. Partridge, John, Blackfriars. Payne, or Paine, Thomas, ... Playford, John, ... Purslowe, Elizabeth, Little Old Bailey. Ratcliffe, Thomas, Doctors' Commons. Raworth, Ruth, ... Ross, Thomas, ... Rothwell, John, ... Royston, John, } ... Royston, Richard,} Roycroft, Thomas, ... Simmons, Matthew, ... Thompson, George, ... Tyton, Francis, ... Walkeley, Thomas ... Warren, Thomas, ... Wilson, William, ... Wright, John, ... Wright, William, ...

APPENDIX No. II

List of severall printing houses taken ye 24th July 1668:—

The Kings printing office in English.

The Kings printing office in Hebrew, Greek, and Latine. Roger Norton.

The Kings printer in ye Oriental tongues. Thomas Roycroft.

Collonell John Streater by an especial provisoe in ye Act. [The same who in 1653 had been committed to the Gatehouse for printing 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. " 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. " Cotes. " Simmons. " Anne Maxwell.

Custome house printer.

Printers yt were Masters at ye passeing of ye Act wch are disabled by ye fire:—

Mr. John Brudenall. " Hayes. " Child. " Warren. " Leybourne. " Wood. " Vaughan. " Ouseley.

Printers set up since ye Act and contrary to it:—

Mr. William Rawlins. " John Winter " John Darby. " Edward Oakes.

(Dom. S. P. Chas. II., vol. 243, No. 126.)

APPENDIX No. III

NUMBER OF PRESSES AND WORKMEN EMPLOYED IN THE PRINTING-HOUSES OF LONDON IN 1668

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. 1 Apprentice. 7 Workmen. At Mr. Rycroft's [Roycroft's] 4 Presses. 2 Apprentices. 10 Workmen [three of whom were not free of the Company.] At Mr. Ratcliffe's, 2 Presses. 2 Apprentices. 7 Workmen. At Mr. Maycock's, 3 Presses. 3 Apprentices. 10 Workmen. At Mr. Newcombe's, 3 Presses and a Proof Press. 1 Apprentice. 7 Compositors. 5 Pressmen. At Mr. Godbidd's, 3 Presses. 2 Apprentices. 5 Workmen. At Mr. Streater's, 5 Presses. 6 Compositors. 2 Pressmen. At Mr. Milbourne's, 2 Presses, 0 Apprentices. 2 Workmen. At Mr. Catterell's [Cottrell?], 2 Presses. 0 Apprentices. 2 Compositors. 1 Pressman. At Mrs. Symond's, 2 Presses. 1 Apprentice. 5 Workmen. At Mrs. Cotes, 3 Presses. 2 Apprentices. 9 Pressmen. At Mrs. Griffin's, 2 Presses. 1 Apprentice. 6 Workmen. At Mr. Leach's, 1 Press and no more provided by Mr. Graydon. 1 Workman. At Mr. Maxwell's, 2 Presses, 0 Apprentice. 3 Compositors. 3 Pressmen. At Mr. Lillicropp's, 1 Press. 1 Apprentice, 1 Compositor. 1 Pressman. At Mr. Redman's, 2 Presses. 1 Apprentice. 4 Compositors. 2 Pressmen. At Mr. Cowes [Coe's?], 1 Press. At Mr. Lloyd's, 1 Press. At Mr. Oake's, 2 Presses. 0 Apprentices. 2 Workmen. At Mr. Purslowe's, 1 Press. 0 Apprentices. 1 Workman. At Mr. Johnson's, 2 Presses. 0 Apprentices. 3 Workmen. Mr. Darby, } These three printers are Mr. Winter, } to be indicted at ye next Mr. Rawlyns, } session. At Mr. Crouch's, 1 Press. 0 Apprentices. 1 Workman.



CHAPTER IX

1700-1750

Having to some extent shaken itself free from the cramping influences of monopolies and State interference, the output of the English printing press at the commencement 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 Holland, and all the best and most important books published in Queen Anne's days were printed with Dutch letter, as it was called. Jacob Tonson is said to have spent some L300 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 typefounders 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 matrices, 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 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 belonging to the Priory of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, and it continued to be the most important in London until the days of Caslon. The proportion of Dutch to English types in the printing offices at that time is well illustrated by the valuable 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 the Athenaeum 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 L4000, and for security mortgaged 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 Mr Andrews.

2. A large ffount of Nonpl Letter new cast by ditto.

3. Another ffount of Nonpl Letter, old, the which standing and sett up in a Com'on prayer in 24mo compleat.

4. A large ffount of Minn Letter new cast by Mr Andrews.

5. Another large ffount of Minn Letter, new cast in Holland.

6. The whole Testament standing in Brevr and Minn Letter, old.

7. A large ffount of Brevr Letter, new cast in Holland.

8. A very large ffount of Lo: Primer Letter, new cast by Mr Andrew.

9. A large ffount of pica Letter very good, cast by ditto.

10. Another large ffount of ditto, never used, cast in Holland.

11. A small quantity of English, new cast by Mr Andrews.

12. A small quantity of Great Primr 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 20th 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 '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 described 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 interesting 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 constitute Benjamin Tooke and John Barber to be Royal printers in reversion, in anticipation of the ending of Baskett's lease in 1739; but Baskett purchased this reversion from Barber, and afterwards obtained a renewal of his patent for sixty years, the last thirty of which were subsequently acquired by Charles Eyre for L10,000.

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 himself 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'Avenant; 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.