By whatever means it was accomplished, Barber was introduced to Henry St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, and was engaged as printer to the Ministry, his printing-house becoming 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 considerable 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 Mercator, 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 L1500.

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 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 founding 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 invention, 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 threatened with the loss of work, instead of helping, did his utmost to ruin the undertaking and its inventor. Instead of supplying the best and newest type from which the matrices might be made, he furnished the worst, whilst his workmen 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 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 Basilike 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 Foedera; 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 L1162 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 L1377, making a grand total of L2539, with which he began business anew. In remembrance of his misfortune, Bowyer had several tail-pieces and devices engraved, representing a phoenix rising from the flames.

In 1715 Bowyer the elder printed Miss 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 L200 by the impression. The following year his son, William Bowyer the younger, joined him in the business.

The younger Bowyer had received an University 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 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 Caslon.

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 somewhere about 1716, in which year it is said John Watts, the printer, became his patron, and employed 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 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 printing 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-mentioned 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 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 compete 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 Salisbury 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 for Andrew Millar a good edition in folio of Churchill'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 Encouragement of Learning entrusted to him the printing of the first volume of The Negociations 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 printing 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 death took place on the 4th July 1761, his business 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 unfortunately 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' 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:—

Decr. 15th, 1735—

Printing the first volume of Mr. Pope's Works, Cr., Long Primer, 8vo, 3000 (and 75 fine), @ L2, 2s. per sheet, 14 sheets and a half, 30. 09. 0

Title in red and black, 1. 1

Paid for 2 reams and 1/4 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 1/2 @ L2, 2s. per sheet, L143. 17

Under Dodsley's account is entered on 12th 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 27s. per sht., 9. 09. 0

May 18, 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.

For Andrew Millar Woodfall printed the following works of Thomson the poet—

Oct. 14th 1734. Spring, a poem, 8vo, 250 copies.

Jan. 8th 173-4/5. Liberty, a poem, 1st 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 19th, 1744, in octavo. There were 1500 errata in the work, and a special charge of L2, 4s. 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 17th, 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 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.[14]

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 Iago in the matter of money-getting.[15]

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 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. Septentrionalium Thesaurus was issued in three large folio volumes of great beauty. The work required many unusual founts, and these were mainly furnished from the bequest of Junius.

In 1707 the University published Mill's Greek Testament, which Wood in his Athenae Oxonienses (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 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 University. 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, Bibliothecae Cantabrigiensis ordinandae 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 broadside, printed by that printer, a list of the clergy that were to preach in the cathedral at Norfolk from November 1st, 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.'[16]

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 Archdeaconry 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 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 True Description, as The History of the City of Norwich ... To which is added Norfolk's Furies: or a view of Kett's 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 'Chronological 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 Surges.

'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 ran until 1712, when it was either replaced or supplanted by Samuel Farley's Bristol Postman.[17]

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, 172-1/2. Robert Raikes continued printing there till 1750, and was succeeded by his son Robert, the founder of Sunday Schools.[18]

In the neighbouring county of Devon the Exeter press, finally established after many vicissitudes 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 Orientales Illustres; or The Worthies 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 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 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 Journal. 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 Tunbridgialia, 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 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 31st 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 Mercury. 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 celebrity 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 mediocrity. 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 employer, 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 bookseller 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 19th May 1778.

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 16th October 1725 he began to publish a weekly paper called The New York Gazette, 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, 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. Perhaps 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 upwards 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 retelling. 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 obtaining materials for a printing office. While in England he worked for James Watts in Bartholomew Close, and James Palmer. On his return to America he once more entered Keimer's office as a journeyman. But after a short time, in company with Hugh Meredith, he set up in business for himself. He was the proprietor and printer of Poor Richard's Almanack, which became celebrated, and also of the Pennsylvania Gazette. After a long and prosperous career Franklin died, on April 19th, 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 children, 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 edition of the English Bible with Mark Baskett's imprint, but this is not confirmed. Kneeland died on December 14th, 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 subsequently 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 Hampshire, where he started the New Hampshire Gazette. He was succeeded in his Boston business by his brother Zachariah Fowle, who continued printing there until the Revolution, when he also retired to New Hampshire, where he died in 1776.

[Footnote 14: Chancery Proceedings, 1753 (Record Office).]

[Footnote 15: Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. xii. p. 197.]

[Footnote 16: Harl. MS. 5906.]

[Footnote 17: Hyett and Bazeley, Bibliog. Man. of Glouc. Literature, vol. iii. p. 339.]

[Footnote 18: Allnutt, Bibliographica, vol. ii. p. 302.]



CHAPTER X

1750-1800

The 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 20th, 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 philosophy lectures of Francis Hutcheson, who advised him to become a bookseller and printer. His brother, Andrew, entered the University at a later date, destined for the ministry, and 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 Metaphysicae 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 Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, and editions of Cicero and Phaedrus. All these were in duodecimo or small octavo, printed in a clear readable type, that probably came from Urie's foundry. On the 31st 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 the silver medal offered in Edinburgh for the finest book of not fewer than ten sheets; the magnificent Homer, which Reed in his Old English 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, completely crushed him. He removed his art collection to London for sale; but here another disappointment 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 valuable correspondence between Baskerville and his 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 Wolverley, 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 embarked 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 L600—some say L800—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, 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 Baskerville 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 made no further attempts at cutting learned characters. 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 subjected, 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 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 Congreve, 3 vols. 1761, 8vo; AEsop'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 Societe Litteraire-typographique of France for L3700, 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 removed 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 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 appeared 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 17th August 1778, when the business came to his son, William Caslon the Third. In the same year that Joseph Fry published his Specimen of Types, Caslon the Third also published 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 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 L520.

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 II. 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 disposition. 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 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 III.

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 business 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 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 1789, 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 Buerger'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 1789; 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 established 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 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 handsome 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 Martin had learnt his art in the foundry of Baskerville; 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 subsequent 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 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 admiration 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 suppose, to insufficient drying, in all these sumptuous volumes the oil has worked out of the illustrations, 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 discoloration 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 somewhat 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 article in Bibliographica, and from Austin Dobson's delightful Horace Walpole, a Memoir, 1893.

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 forwardness. 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 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 Cornelie Vestale, Tragedie, and from that time down to 1789 it continued at work at intervals, its chief productions being Memoires 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 last a tract which he printed for his friend Thomas Pennant in 1788, entitled Of the Patagonians, of which only 40 copies were worked off.

The productions of his press were very numerous, 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 annoyance 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 are said to have been printed[19]; a few copies of the third volume of the North Briton; and Recherches sur l'Origine du Despotisme Orientale, Ouvrage posthume de M. Boulanger, 1763, 12mo. 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 issue's being The Life of Oliver Heywood, 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 Thriving; Watson's Treatise on Christian Contentment; 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.

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 Alexander's Feast, by Dr. Beddoes.

[Footnote 19: Chalmers' Life of Wilkes.]



CHAPTER XI

THE PRESENT CENTURY

It 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 Amsterdam 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 demand 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 framework 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 handlebar and screw used in the wooden press. The chief merits of the new invention were increased speed, ease to the workman, evenness of impression, 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 thousand copies. But a great and wonderful change was at hand.

In 1806 Frederick Koenig, 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 fundamental improvement even in the most advanced machines of the present day. But from want of means, or some other cause, Nicholson never actually made a machine. Nor did Koenig's project meet with much encouragement until he walked into the printing-house of Thomas Bensley of Bolt Court, who encouraged the inventor to proceed, and supplied him with the necessary funds. There is reason to believe that Koenig 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 29th 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 considerable uncertainty as to what was the first publication printed on it. Some say it was set to work on the Annual Register, one writer[20] asserting that in April 1811, 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 of a printing machine invented at Philadelphia, which apparently embodied all the same principles as Koenig's (Gent. Mag., vol. lxxxi. p. 576).

In 1814 John Walter, the second proprietor of the Times, saw Koenig'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 complicated affair, and its greatest output 1800 impressions per hour.

In 1818 Edward Cowper, a printer of Nelson Square, patented certain improvements in printing, these improvements consisting of a better distribution of the ink and a better plan for conveying the sheets from the cylinders. Having joined his brother-in-law, Augustus Applegarth, they proceeded to make certain alterations in Koenig'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 admirable inking apparatus, and great acceleration of speed, the new machine being capable of printing five thousand copies per hour.

These machines at once superseded the Koenig, 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 manufactured 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 purchased the foundry, a third share in which a few years earlier had been worth L3000, for the paltry sum of L520. 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 partnership Nathaniel Catherwood, but both died in the course of the year 1809. The business then came into the hands of Henry Caslon II., 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, remaining 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 durable 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 Stanhope, 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 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 mache 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 introduced 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 typographic work during the early years of the nineteenth 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 Persian Languages, 2 vols. 1806-10, 4to; Hoare's History of Wiltshire, 1812, folio; Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, 4 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 considered to be some of the best work of this press, which also turned out many books for private circulation only. William Bulmer died on September 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 11th, 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, 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 remained of the Bibliotheca Topographica; the third volume of Elizabethan Progresses; the Illustrations of Ancient Manners; Mr. Gough's History of Pleshy, and his valuable account of the Coins of the Seleucidae, engraved by Bartolozzi; 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 Gentleman's Magazine from 1782 to 1807, are irrecoverably lost.'

'Of those in the press, the most important were the concluding portion of Hutchins' Dorsetshire (nearly finished); a second volume of Manning and Bray's Surrey (about half printed); Mr. Bawdwin's translation of Domesday for Yorkshire (nearly finished); a new edition of Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven; Mr. Gough'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 L10,000 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 Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 6 vols. 1817-31, to which his son afterwards added two additional volumes. John Nichols was Common Councillor for the ward of Farringdon Without from 1784 to 1786, and again from 1787 to 1811. 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 16th, 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 Genealogist, 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 14th November 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 and Wordsworth; but his chief claim to notice rests upon the magnificent edition of Whitaker's History of Rickmondshire 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 improvements 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 Spottiswoode 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 Government 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 Cambridge have also a share; but all the other Government work is done by Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode.

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 purchased 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 Parliament. 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. Andrew Strahan was noted for his benevolence, and on his death in 1831 he left handsome bequests 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 Association. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1853, and became its President on 30th 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 Rivington the publisher, and direct descendant of Charles Rivington of the Bible and Crown in Paternoster Row, succeeded to the business of James Emonson, 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 received. These included the Greek Testament, 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 Deodatus 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 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 own account in the following year 1803. By marriage with the daughter of Mr. Winchester of the Strand, he obtained a share of the Government 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. 1 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 lbs. of type. They subsequently printed the catalogues of the Exhibitions of 1883-1886, and the Royal Academy catalogues, and have been connected from their inception with two works of a very different character, Hymns Ancient and Modern—the circulation of which has to be reckoned in millions—and the great General Catalogue of the Library of the British Museum, for their excellent 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.