A History of the Old English Letter Foundries / with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography.

CHAPTER II. TYPE FACES (CONTINUED). THE LEARNED, FOREIGN, AND PECULIAR CHARACTERS.

GREEK.

REEK type first occurs in the Cicero de Officiis, printed at Mentz in 1465, at the press of Fust and Schoeffer. The fount used is exceedingly rude and imperfect, many of the letters being ordinary Latin.111 In the same year Sweynheim and Pannartz at Subiaco used a good Greek letter for some of the quotations occurring in Lactantius; but the supply being short, the larger quotations were left blank, to be filled in by hand. The first book wholly printed in Greek was the Grammar of Lascaris, by Paravisinus, in Milan, in 1476, in types stated to be cut and cast by Demetrius of Crete. The fount (about a Great Primer in body) is a curious one, and contains breathings, accents and a few abbreviations. The headings to the chapters are wholly in capitals, which are very bold.112 It is to the glory of Milan that not only was the first Greek book printed within its walls, but also the first Greek classic and the first portion of the Greek Scriptures. The former was the Æsop, printed, it is supposed, in 1480, but without printer’s name. The resemblance, however, {58} between the fount of this work and that of the Lactantius is so close that there seems much reason for crediting Paravisinus with the performance. The Greek of the Psalter of 1481 is very different, the lower-case being larger, and remarkably bold and compact in appearance. The capitals generally resemble the Lactantius fount.

Jenson, at Venice, appears to have cut Greek type as early as about 1470. In 1486 two Cretan printers produced respectively a Greek Psalter, with accents and breathings, and Homer’s Batrachomyomachia. It was, however, reserved to Florence to boast of the first complete edition of Homer, which was printed in that city in 1488. This work, one of the most glorious monuments of the typographic art, appears in a beautiful Great Primer type, of remarkable elegance and neatness, with few abbreviations. The printer was Demetrius of Crete.

But it was at Venice that Greek printing was destined to reach its greatest excellence in the fifteenth century, at the press of Aldus, who in 1495 produced his famous Aristotle, in a beautiful letter which eclipsed all its predecessors. His fount was about a Double Pica in body, and much bolder and more imposing than any which had yet appeared, as well as being better cast and justified. The splendid Greek impressions of the elder Aldus are too well known to need further notice here. Renouard mentions nine separate founts used at this press.

The fame of the Italian Greek presses early roused emulation in France. Among the first printers of Paris, however, the Greek quotations and words introduced in their works were scanty and indifferent. Gering used but a very few letters, and Jodocus Badius, in 1505, excused the poverty of his Annotationes in Nov. Testamentum, by pleading the paucity of his types. The early works of the first Henri Estienne were similarly defective. In 1507, however, Greek punches were cut and matrices struck by Gilles de Gourmont, and the first wholly Greek work was printed at his press in this year, being a Greek Alphabet, with rules for pronunciation and reading. In the same year he also printed the Batrachomyomachia. Greek printing, once started in Paris, made rapid progress. Jodocus Badius, Vidouvé, Colinæus, and Christian Wechel, all distinguished themselves. Geofroy Tory contributed largely to the improvement in the form of the character. But it was not till Robert Estienne, with the title of “Regius in Græcis Typographus,”113 commenced his career, that Greek printing reached its greatest perfection in France. On the establishment of an Imprimerie Royale by Francis I,114 Claude Garamond, the first typographical artist of his day, {59} was entrusted with the care of engraving punches and preparing matrices for three founts of Greek, about an English, Long Primer, and Double Pica in body, which henceforth became famous throughout Europe as the “Characteres Regii.”115 These characters, modelled as to their capitals on the alphabet of Lascaris, and as to their “lower-case” and abbreviations from the beautiful Greek calligraphy of Angelus Vergetius of Candia, first appeared in the Eusebius, printed, in 1544,116 by Robert Estienne, to whom the use of the types was, by virtue of his office, conceded, and who employed them in the production of some of the most brilliant Greek impressions Europe has ever seen.117 During the seventeenth century the Royal Greek punches and matrices lay for the most part idle; but in 1691, Anisson, Director of the Imprimerie Royale, rescued them from obscurity, and caused new punches to be cut and matrices struck, to supply what were missing, by Grandjean, the famous Parisian founder.

In the Low Countries, as early as 1501, Thierry Martens, at Louvain, had Greek types with which he printed occasional words. He produced an edition of Æsop in 1513, and in 1516 a Grammar of Theodore de Gaza’s, and a little book of Hours, in Greek. The latter is considered an excellent piece of typography. Greek printing attained to considerable celebrity in the Low Countries. The Greek fount used in Plantin’s Polyglot, in 1569–72, is said to have been cut by the famous French founder and engraver, Le Bé.

Spain claims a prominent place in the history of early Greek printing in Europe, as it was at Alcala in that country that the famous Complutensian Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes was printed in 1514–17,118 including the entire text of the Bible in Greek. The fount employed in the New Testament is very grand and imposing, and is said to have been cut specially for the work on the models of Greek manuscripts of the eleventh or twelfth century.

Before the completion of this great work, Germany had secured the honour of producing the first entire Greek Testament at the press of Froben of Basle. Froben’s Greek is somewhat cramped and stiff. Oporinus, who printed in the {60} same city in 1551, besides using a fount identical with that of Froben, introduced a smaller and much neater letter at the same time. Numerous printers produced Greek works in Germany at this period, perhaps the most famous being Andrew Wechel, who began at Paris with types inherited from his father, but in 1573 established himself at Frankfort, where he printed several very fine works in a new and most elegant Greek, said to have been acquired from the Estiennes, to whose letter it bears the closest resemblance.

The first appearance of Greek type in England is observed in De Worde’s edition of Whitintoni Grammatices, printed in 1519, where a few words are introduced cut in wood. Cast types were used at Cambridge in a book entitled Galenus de Temperamentis, translated by Linacre, and printed by Siberch in 1521. Siberch styles himself the first Greek printer in England; but the quotations in the Galenus are very sparse, and he is not known to have printed any entire book in Greek. In 1524, Pynson also used some Greek words and lines, without accents or breathings, in Linacre’s De emendatâ structurâ Latini sermonis; but added an apology for the imperfections of the characters, which he said were but lately cast, and in a small quantity. The first printer who possessed Greek types in any quantity was Reginald Wolfe, who held a royal patent as printer in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, and printed, in 1543, Two Homilies of Chrysostom, edited by Sir John Cheke, the first Greek Lecturer at Cambridge. Eight years later, in the first volume of Dr. Turner’s Herbal, printed at Mierdman’s press in London, the Greek words were given in Black, and quotations in Italic. In Edinburgh, in 1563, and as late as 1579, the space for Greek words was left blank in printing, to be filled in by hand. The Oxford University press, re-established in 1585, was well supplied with Greek types, which were used in the Chrysostom of 1586, and the Herodotus of 1591. The beautiful Greek fount used in the Eton Chrysostom119 in 1610–12—a work which takes rank with the finest Greek impressions in Europe—is supposed to have been obtained from abroad, probably from Paris or Frankfort. Its similarity to the Greek of the Estiennes is remarkable. Indeed, the “characteres regii” of France were at that time, and for long afterwards, the envy and models for all Europe. The Eton Greek types, of which probably the matrices were not in England, were acquired by the Oxford University, to which body, in 1632, application was made by Cambridge for the loan of a Greek fount to print a Greek Testament, the sister University possessing no Greek types of her own. A Greek press was established in London in 1637, under peculiar circumstances, which are detailed in our account of the Oxford press. There is every reason to suppose that of the handsome Greek letter provided {61} for this press,120 not only the types, but the matrices were acquired. After this, Greek printing became general in London and Oxford. The various typefounders all provided themselves with a good variety of sizes, some of which were very small and neat. There was a very fine Brevier Greek in Grover’s foundry in 1700, and a Nonpareil in that of Andrews in 1706; but for minute Greek printing, England could produce nothing to equal the Sedan Greek Testament, printed by Jannon in 1628.

As was the case with the Roman letter, many of our printers at the close of the seventeenth century preferred the Dutch Greeks, which at that time were good, particularly those cut by the Wetsteins. Thomas James, in 1710, brought over the matrices of four founts from Vosken’s foundry at Amsterdam. In 1700, Cambridge University, still badly off for Greek, made an offer for the purchase of a fount of the King’s Greek at Paris; but withdrew on the French Academy insisting as a condition that every work printed should bear the imprint, “Characteribus Græcis e Typographeo Regio Parisiensi.” The large number of ligatures and abbreviations in the Greek of that day made the production of a fount a serious business. The Oxford Augustin Greek comprised no fewer than 354 matrices, and the Great Primer as many as 456, and the Pica 508; Fournier, however, went beyond all these, and showed a fount containing 776 different sorts! The impracticability of such enormous founts brought about a gradual reduction of the Greek typographical ligatures—a reform for which the Dutch founders, under the guidance of Leusden, deserve the chief credit. Fournier, in 1764, stated that for some years previously, in Holland, Greek printing had been carried on with the simple letters of the alphabet. Wilson’s beautiful Double Pica Greek,121 used in the Glasgow Homer of 1756, was in its day the finest Greek fount our country had ever seen. A new departure, however, was initiated by the production, in 1763, of Baskerville’s Greek fount122 for the Oxford New Testament. The letter is neat, but stiff and cramped, and apparently formed on an arbitrary estimate of conventional taste, and without reference to any accepted model. The fount was praised, and provoked imitation. Baskerville’s apprentice, Martin, produced a letter still less Greek than his master’s, and the general tendency was countenanced by the form of Bodoni’s types, which were so much admired in this country at the close of the century. A reaction, however, had begun before Bodoni’s time. The Glasgow Greek kept its place in Wilson’s specimens; and Jackson, encouraged by the younger Bowyer’s remark, that the Greek types in common use “were no more Greek {62} than they were English,” cut a beautiful Pica about 1785 for his rising foundry. Early in the nineteenth century, a new fashion of Greek, for which Porson was sponsor and furnished the drawings, came into vogue, and has remained the prevailing form to this day. It may be doubted if the Porsonian letter would be recognised by an ancient Greek scribe as the character of his native land; but at any rate it is neat, elegant, and legible, and dispenses with all useless contractions and ligatures. In taking leave of this subject, it would be an omission not to mention the most beautiful little fount in which Pickering printed his Homer, in 1831. Probably no finer masterpiece of minute Greek printing exists anywhere.

Hebrew printing did not spread very rapidly. De Rossi mentions several works printed at Constantinople during the fifteenth century, as also in the Italian towns to which the family of Soncino printers carried the art. Aldus was possessed of some rude Hebrew characters; but it was Bomberg, who established his Hebrew press in Venice in 1517, who raised the fame of that already famous city by the excellence of his types and workmanship. But as late as 1520, at Naples, in a treatise on the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin letters, by De Falco, the Hebrew words, for lack of types, were written in by hand.

In Western Europe, France was next to Italy in producing Hebrew type. Mention is made of an Alphabetum Hebraicum et Græcum, printed by Gilles de Gourmont in 1507; and in 1508 that able typographer, whose distinction as {63} the first cutter of Greek type in France we have already noticed, produced, under the conduct of his patron, Tissard, a Hebrew Grammar, together with the Oratio Dominica, and other passages in the sacred language. The types made use of were ill-formed and imperfect. Although thus early initiated, Hebrew printing made little or no progress for some years. Jodocus Badius showed a few lines in 1511; and in 1516 Gourmont printed an Alphabetum Hebraicum et Græcum. In 1519, Augustino Giustiniani, a native of Genoa, who had already distinguished himself by superintending the production of Porrus’ Polyglot Psalter at that city in 1516, being invited to Paris by the King, caused new punches and matrices of the Hebrew to be made by Gourmont. The work took a year and a half to complete; when, in 1520, was published the Grammar of the Rabbi Moses Kimhi, the first wholly printed Hebrew work produced in Paris. From this time Hebrew printing made steady progress in France. Most of the printers possessed types, the Wechels and the Estiennes being the most distinguished in their use of them.

In Spain the printers of the Complutensian Polyglot made use of a fine Hebrew fount in 1514–17.

In Germany, as early as 1501, in a book supposed to have been printed at Erfurt, Hebrew letters occur, cut rudely on wood; and at Basle, Strasburg, and Augsburg a similar primitive method was adopted, as it was also in the case of the Hebrew Grammar printed at Leipsic in 1520. In 1512, however, at Tübingen in Wirtemburg, the Septem psalmi pœnitentiales were printed in cast metal type. In 1534, at Basle, the first Hebrew Bible printed by a Gentile was produced at the press of Bebel. Froben’s Bible, in the same town, in 1536, is in a type inferior to that of Bomberg. The running titles are all in the Rabbinical character. In 1587, Elias Hutter printed at Hamburg a Hebrew Bible in large type, in which the “radical” letters appear black in the usual way, and the “serviles” are open, or in outline, while the “quiescents” are in smaller solid letters placed above the line. This Bible was reprinted in 1603, and is a typographical curiosity.

In the Low Countries, Hebrew words, probably cut in wood, occur in the Epistola apologetica Pauli de Middleburgo, printed at Louvain in 1488; and Gand125 gives 1506 as the probable date of a Hebrew Dictionary, sine notâ, but attributed to Martens. This, however, appears doubtful, as in 1518 Martens first announced his intention to print in Hebrew. His first-dated Hebrew work was a Grammar, in 1528; though Schwab considers that the Dictionary above referred to properly belongs to the year 1520. Martens’ earliest founts were a large Hebrew with vowel points, and a small, without. Hebrew printing was also practised at {64} Leyden in 1520. The splendid type cut by Le Bé, the Frenchman, for Plantin’s Polyglot, printed at Antwerp in 1569–72, placed the Netherlands in the front rank of Hebrew typography. Amsterdam, during the seventeenth century, excelled all other cities in its Hebrew printing. Abraham and Bonaventura Elzevir printed here in Hebrew about 1630, and the Hebrew Bibles of Janson in 1639, Athias in 1667, and Van der Hooght in 1705, are justly regarded as masterpieces of Hebrew typography.

The first specimen of Hebrew printing in England occurs in Wakefield’s Oratio de laudibus et utilitate trium linguarum, printed by De Worde in 1524, where a few words appear, rudely cut on wood. In the same work the author complained that he was compelled to omit a third part, because the printer had no Hebrew types. Hebrew words cut in wood are also used in Humfrey’s Life of Bishop Jewell, printed by John Day in 1573; and Todd, in his Life of Walton, mentions a work of Dr. Peter Baro on Jonah, printed at the same press in 1579, in the preface to which occur several verses of Hebrew. As late as 1603 Dibdin points out that in a poem, published at Oxford, composed by Dr. Thorne, Regius Professor of Hebrew at that University, a phrase in Hebrew is added, with the remark, “Interserenda hoc in loco . . . sed enim Typographo deerant characteres.” Todd, however, mentions a work printed at Oxford in 1597, in which Hebrew type is used, while a translation from S. Chrysostom, of John Willoughbie, printed by Barnes in 1602, shows two distinct founts in use. The first English book in which any quantity of Hebrew type was made use of was Dr. Rhys’s Cambro-brytannicæ Cymræcæve linguæ institutiones, printed by Thomas Orwin in 1592. Minsheu’s Ductor in Linguas, in 1617, printed by John Browne, shows Hebrew which serves not only for its own language, but also for the Syriac. And in 1621 John Bill used a newer and better letter for printing Dr. Davies’s Antiquæ linguæ Britannicæ . . rudimenta. The Hebrew fount made use of in Walton’s Polyglot in 1657 was probably the first important fount cut and cast in this country; and, as we shall have occasion to notice, was found fault with by the critics of that great undertaking. Oxford received a great and small Hebrew126 among the matrices presented to her by Dr. Fell; and both there and in London several Hebrew works were printed at the close of the seventeenth century, although none of striking importance. It is significant of the superior reputation of the Oxford Hebrew, that the Hebrew and Chaldæan versions in the Oratio Dominica of 1700 were among the versions printed for the London publisher of that work in the University types. Thomas James, although he visited Amsterdam in 1710, at that time the centre of the best {65} Hebrew printing in Europe, failed to secure any matrices; and most of those which subsequently were added to his foundry appear to have been cut by English founders. Among them were four founts of Rabbinical Hebrew,127 for which character there existed no matrices in England in Walton’s time, as he was compelled to cut the alphabet shown in his Prolegomena in wood. Mores counted as many as twenty-three different founts in James’s foundry in his day, eight of which were with points, the remainder without. For those without points it was early the practice to cast points on a minute body, to be worked in a separate line below the letter. Caslon cut several good founts of Hebrew (one of which was of the open or outline description first introduced by Hutter); and during the eighteenth century the character became a necessary part of the stock of every founder. It would be difficult, however, to point to any striking achievement in Hebrew typography earlier than Bagster’s Polyglot in 1817–21, in which the Hebrew text is printed in a very small and beautiful type cut by Vincent Figgins, which in its day had the reputation of being the smallest Hebrew with points in England, and of equalling in size and exceeding in beauty even the elegant letter of Jansson of Amsterdam, two centuries before.

In 1505 an Arabic Vocabulary at Granada had the words printed in Gothic letter with the Arabic points placed over them; and in other presses where there were no Arabic types, the language was expressed in Hebrew letters or cut in wood. De Guignes and others mention a fount of Arabic used by Gromors in Paris, in 1539–40, to print Postel’s Grammar, and add that the fount subsequently disappeared and was lost; and as late as 1596, in a book printed at Paris, the Arabic words had to be rendered in Hebrew. In 1591 the Vatican press had a fine fount of Arabic, a specimen of which is given by Angelo Roccha in his Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, printed at that press. The Medicean and Borromean presses also had founts; and at Leyden, Raphlengius and Erpenius {66} were both celebrated for their Arabic letter. In 1636 the foundry of the Propaganda showed specimens of Arabic, previous to which date Savary de Brèves had had cut in Constantinople, and finished by Le Bé of Paris, the famous Arabic founts which were used to print the Psalter at Rome in 1614, and subsequently were purchased by Vitré for the French king,128 and used in Le Jay’s magnificent Paris Polyglot of 1645. The punches and matrices of these founts still exist. Cotton mentions an Arabic press in Upsala in 1640.

In England it was not till early in the seventeenth century that Arabic printing began to be practised. In Wakefield’s Oratio de laudibus . . trium linguarum, Arabicæ, Chaldaicæ et Hebraicæ, printed by De Worde in 1524, a few rude Arabic letters are introduced, cut in wood. In Minsheu’s Ductor in Linguas, 1617, the Arabic words are printed in Italic characters. Laud’s gift of Oriental MSS. to Oxford in 1635, and the appointment of an Arabic lecturer, was the first real incentive to the cultivation of the language by English scholars. Previous to this, it is stated that the Raphlengius Arabic press at Leyden had been purchased by the English Orientalist, William Bedwell; but if brought to this country, it does not appear that it was immediately made use of.129 The Arabic words in Thomas Greave’s oration, De Linguæ Arabicæ Utilitate, printed at Oxford in 1639, were written in by hand; and the same author, when publishing his Elementa Linguæ Persicæ at the press of James Flesher at London, in 1649, explained in his preface that his work had been ready for publication nine years before, but having no types with which to print it, it had been delayed. A year earlier, in 1648, Miles Flesher, predecessor to James and one of the Star Chamber printers, had published in the same type, and at the same press, a work entitled De Siglis Arabum et Persarum Astronomis. James Flesher was the printer who printed in his own types the original specimen-page of the London Polyglot in 1652. His Arabic, however, is a smaller character than that subsequently made use of by Roycroft for this grand work. Dr. Fell’s gift of matrices to Oxford in 1667 included a fount of Arabic,130 which appeared in the specimen of the foundry, and was used also in the Oratio Dominica of 1700. Prior to this, however, Pocock’s Carmen Tograi was printed at Oxford by Hall in 1661, “Typis Arabicis Academicis,” in a letter differing both from Flesher’s {67} and Dr. Fell’s. In 1721, William Caslon cut for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge the fount of Arabic for the Psalter of 1725, and the Testament of 1727. This fount,131 with those of Oxford and the Polyglot, shared among them nearly all the Arabic printing in England for about a century later, when new faces began to be cut or imported. The Polyglot Arabics passed through Grover’s foundry into that of Thomas James, at the sale of which, in 1782, they were bought in an imperfect state by Dr. Edmund Fry for the Type Street foundry. Mores mentions three other Arabic founts cut by English founders, but includes them among the lost matrices in his collection.

Syriac did not make its appearance in England till the middle of the seventeenth century. The language was usually expressed in the earlier works in Hebrew characters. A letter of Bishop Usher’s, in 1637, mentions a project to {68} purchase Syriac type abroad, and negotiations appear to have been made both in Paris (where the Bishop’s correspondent informed him there were at that time three or four founts) and at Geneva, with a view to procuring the characters.132 But it was not till the prospectus and preliminary specimen of Walton’s Polyglot were issued in 1652 that we find Syriac type in use in this country. The Polyglot contains the entire Bible in Syriac. In 1661 there was a fount at Oxford, which appears in Pocock’s Carmen Tograi, and differs from the fount subsequently presented by Dr. Fell,133 which was used in the Oratio Dominica of 1700, and other Oriental publications of the University. The Polyglot fount134 found its way to Caslon’s foundry, who added two new founts of his own cutting. In 1778 Mores noted six founts altogether in the country. A fresh interest was taken in Syriac printing by the exertions of Dr. Claudius Buchanan, who, in 1815, had the Gospels and Acts printed in types cut and cast under his supervision by Vincent Figgins. After his death, his work fell into the hands of Dr. Lee to complete, who, objecting to the omission of the vowel points, printed the entire New Testament in 1816. In 1825 Dr. Fry produced the beautiful Nonpareil Syriac for Bagster’s Polyglot, and in 1829 Mr. Watts cast the fount of Estranghelo for the edition of the Bible published that year, which at the time was the only Syriac Bible in Nestorian characters printed in this country.

In England the first Armenian types were those presented by Dr. Fell to {69} Oxford in 1667. In the Prolegomena of Walton’s Polyglot, the alphabet there given had been cut in wood. In 1736 Caslon cut a neat Armenian135 for Whiston’s edition of Moses Chorenensis, and these two were the only founts in England before 1820.

The only Sclavonic fount in England was that given by Dr. Fell to Oxford, and this, Mores states, was replaced in 1695 by a fount of the more modern Russian character, purchased probably at Amsterdam. The Oratio Dominica of 1700 gives a specimen of this fount, but renders the Hieronymian version in copperplate. Chamberlayne’s Oratio Dominica at Amsterdam in 1715 does the same; but the Cyrillian type differs from that of Oxford. The press of the Propaganda showed founts both of Cyrillian and Hieronymian in 1753, and founts occur in nearly all the Polyglot specimens of the chief European foundries.

The MODERN SCLAVONIC, better known to us as RUSSIAN, is said to have appeared first in portions of the Old Testament, printed at Prague in 1517–19. Ten years later there was Russian type in Venice. A Russian press was established at Stockholm in 1625, by order of Gustavus Adolphus, and in 1696 there were matrices in Amsterdam, from which came the types used in Ludolph’s Grammatica Russica, printed at Oxford in that year, and whence also, it is said, the types were procured which furnished the first St. Petersburg press, established in 1711 by Peter the Great. At Amsterdam, also, a second attempt to translate and print the Bible into Russian, begun about 1698, was frustrated by the loss of the MSS. and library of Ernest Gluck, the editor and translator, at the siege of Marienburg, in 1702. The presses at St. Petersburg increased, and it is probable that on the establishment of the press in connection with the Academy of Sciences, in 1727, Russian types were cast in that city. Breitkopf of Leipsic {72} had matrices prior to 1787; Fournier, at Paris, in 1766, showed a specimen of a fount in his foundry; Marcel, in his Oratio Dominica, 1805, showed another; and Bodoni of Parma, in his Manuale Tipografico, 1818, had no less than twenty-one sizes.

The Emperor Alexander, in 1813, promoted the publication of a Bible by the Russian Bible Society, which resulted in the printing of the Gospels in 1819, and of the entire New Testament in 1823.

In England, Mores notes that in 1778 there was no Russian type in the country, but that Cottrell was at that time engaged in preparing a fount. It does not appear that this project was carried out, and the earliest Russian we had was cut by Dr. Fry from alphabets in the Vocabularia, collected and published for the Empress of Russia in 1786–9. This fount appeared in the Pantographia in 1799. About 1820 Thorowgood procured matrices in two sizes from Breitkopf, and these three founts were the only ones enumerated by Hansard in 1825.

Voskens, the Dutch founder, had Anglo-Saxon matrices at the beginning of the eighteenth century, but, except in England and Holland, the character was not used. Caslon and most of his successors cut Saxon founts. Mores noted eleven different founts existing in England in 1778. This number was afterwards increased by numerous new founts cut by Fry, Figgins, and Wilson; and Hansard enumerated twenty-three in 1825.

The Anglo-Norman Saxon character in which the Domesday Book was written, was twice imitated in type during the eighteenth century, once by Cottrell, whose attempt was not wholly successful, and again by Joseph Jackson, under the supervision of Abraham Farley, in 1783. Jackson’s types were used in the facsimile printed by Nichols in that year, and the matrices, it is stated, were deposited with the British Museum. {75}