John Baskerville, type-founder and printer, 1706-1775

Catullus, Terence, and Horace were also issued in 1772, and Lucretius in 1773, in 12mo. A 12mo Horace was issued in 1762. It is said to be the most correct, and is thought by some to be the most beautiful, of all the books that Baskerville printed. With the exception of Sternhold and Hopkins’s Psalms in metre, and Tate and Brady’s Psalms, which were printed in the same year, this Horace was the first 12mo book that Baskerville printed. The text was chosen by a Scotchman by the name of John Livie, whom Baskerville employed to edit the book. He took as a basis for his work a little edition printed at Hamburg. Shenstone, who always wanted his finger in every pie, said of this book: “It is really a beauty, and upon the whole as good a text as any we have yet—but excuse my vanity, who think I could have rendered it better, if they had suffered me to have the final determination of it.” In another letter he said: “There may be fifty or more preferable readings to what are received in this new Horace, yet you will find a better text there, upon the whole, than in any one edition extant. As to the beauty of type and press-work, it is too obvious to need vindication. The accuracy of the latter almost exceeds what was ever found in any other book.”

There was a good deal of fuss between Dodsley, who appears to have sold the book in London, and Baskerville and Shenstone, about plates for this book. Baskerville did not accept any of the designs which were drawn for them, but caused Wale and Grignion to execute a frontispiece and vignette. The book was dedicated to Lord Bute, and the King’s drawing-master presented a drawing of the Bute arms, which figure on the dedication page.

Dr. Harwood says that the first edition of Horace, printed in 1762, “is the most beautiful little book, both in regard to type and paper, I ever beheld. It is also the most correct of all Baskerville’s editions of the classics; for every sheet was carefully revised by Mr. Livie, who was an elegant scholar.” He also adds, “the Quarto edition of 1770 is a very beautiful and extremely scarce work, the rarest of all Baskerville’s editions. A good copy, with Gravelot’s plates inserted, is valued at £2.2.”[33]

In 1772 the Brothers Molini, who had branches in London and Paris and in Florence, entrusted to Baskerville the task of printing Ariosto. The prospectus that he printed for them in 1772 states: “The Brothers Molini have undertaken to present an Edition which will satisfy the desires of the Public, and correspond with the reputation of this great man. They have used the presses of the famous Baskerville, whose master-pieces of printing all the world knows and admires.” The work was issued in 1773, with 47 plates by the most eminent artists of the time. There were 491 subscribers to this book, of whom 230 were in London, 121 in Paris, 8 in Madrid, 14 in Holland, Russia, and Germany, and 118 in Italy. It was a great success.

Dibdin says: “The Baskerville edition of Orlando Furioso with the cuts of Bartolozzi is more exquisite than the splendid edition of Zatta. I never see, or even think of, the lovely edition of Baskerville, of 1773, 8vo, 4 vols., without the most unmixed satisfaction. Paper, printing, drawing, plates—all delight the eye, and gratify the heart, of the thorough-bred bibliomaniacal Virtuoso. This edition has hardly its equal, and certainly not its superior, in any publication with which I am acquainted. Look well to the proofs of the plates, which Brunet tells us are sometimes more brilliant in the first two volumes of the octavo, than in those of the quarto, or Large Paper form. But for a drawing-room table, or satinwood book-case, aspire to the quarto: for a companion in green fields, or along quiet lanes, select the octavo.” A copy of the quarto impression, bound in green morocco, was sold for £21.[34] “The engraver Bartolozzi grew weary of the delays of the publisher of these beautiful volumes, who one day in a passion called him an ass, a poltroon, an animal. The artist made no reply; he was working at the moment on the plate of the 43d Chant; without turning from his task, he lightly traced these three words upon the tomb which was engraved upon that plate,—d’asino, de poltrone, d’animale.”

Did Baskerville make the paper on which his books were printed?

His latest biographers, Straus and Dent, say: “There is no place, so far as is known, where the printer himself acknowledges that the paper used for his book is of his own manufacture.” Derrick says: “He manufactures his own paper.” He states in several places that he bought paper for the Bible and for other books; that he has it not in his power to furnish paper which is required for the book, etc. But in his introduction to Milton he said that it gave him great satisfaction to find that his edition of Virgil had been so favorably received, and then he adds, “The improvement in the manufacture of the paper, the colour and firmness of the ink were not overlooked.” This clearly indicates that he had improved the manufacture of the paper.

He advertised superfine post paper, gilt or plain, glazed or unglazed, of his own manufacture, etc. He was a competitor for the prize at Birmingham in 1772, “for making paper from waste silk.” His paper was placed upon the market by Dodsley himself, and went by the name of “Vellum paper.” Baskerville is frequently spoken of as having invented that kind of paper. A vellum paper still bears his name. In the “Dictionary of Inventions” there is this reference to Baskerville in the article, “Papier Velin:” “This paper is English, at least we presume it to be, and we believe that Baskerville is the inventor of it; the first edition of his Virgil, which appeared in 1757, was printed in great part on that kind of paper.” Augustin Blanché, in his essay upon the “History of Paper and of its Manufacture” (Paris, 1900, page 137), states that at the time of the French Exposition of 1851, the paper manufactured in England was in great part wrapping-paper, but he says: “In 1750, Baskerville invented the method needed to prepare wove paper, on which he printed his famous edition of Virgil.”

This view is confirmed by the following from Mores, page 98, note (Nichols): “When Baskerville came to Cambridge, we told him that the exceeding sharpness of his letter, and the glossy whiteness of his paper, both beyond any thing that we had been used to, would certainly offend; and we spoke much in praise of, and shewed him, the paper with an yellow cast, on which H. Stephen’s capital editions are printed. This, he told us, he could easily imitate, and accordingly executed some sheets; but they were by no means the thing, the colouring not being uniformly dispersed but clouded or waved like a quire of paper stained with rain.”

The paper on which Virgil and Milton were printed has no watermark, and is of a thicker texture, more yellow in color and less glossy in appearance, than the paper on which he subsequently printed. I think he manufactured this paper, but that, finding it more expensive to manufacture it than to buy Dutch paper, he abandoned making paper for printing books, but continued making ornamented post paper for some time. The paper upon which most of Baskerville’s books were printed was made in Holland, and it bears four watermarks. These consist of a fleur-de-lis (cf. “Edwin and Emma,” 1760, and Congreve, 1761), and in another part of the sheet a star and shield with a bar dexter, surmounting the letters L. V. G. This was a Dutch-made paper. Another watermark is found in some sheets of Baskerville’s paper. It consists of a crown, a shield bearing a horn, and certain letters of the maker. This is very clearly seen in the end papers of the copy of Addison in the original boards. A slight modification of this watermark is found in a very finely laid paper used only in the second edition of “Aesop’s Fables” (1764). The first edition of Aesop was printed on wove paper furnished by Dodsley.

Franklin wrote Baskerville in 1773, acknowledging the receipt of some specimens, and said: “The Specimen I shall distribute by the first ship among the printers of America, and I hope to your advantage. I suppose no orders will come unaccompanied by bills or money, and I would not advise you to give credit, especially as I do not think it will be necessary. The Sheet of Chinese paper, from its size, is a great curiosity. I see the marks of the mould in it. One side is smooth, that, I imagine, is the side that was applied to the smooth side of the kiln on which it was dried. The little ridges on the other side I take to be marks of a brush passed over it to press it against that face in places where it might be kept off by air between, which would otherwise prevent it receiving the smoothness.”

Baskerville delivered most of his books in sheets, as was the custom of his day, but one or two were issued in blue paper covers, i.e., “Avon,” and “Edwin and Emma;” and others in boards covered with marbled paper. I do not think he issued any books in morocco bindings. They were expensive volumes, and were probably bound up to please themselves by persons who bought them.

All of Baskerville’s printing was done in about sixteen years. During this period he printed, as near as can be ascertained, about sixty-seven books. This number is reduced by reprints of the Virgil, the Prayer Books, and some others, so that in reality only between fifty and sixty original books were printed by him. They are not all of equal merit, and I think his reputation as a great printer must ultimately rest upon not more than twelve. These, I take it, will be found to be, Virgil, of 1757; Milton, of 1758; the Book of Common Prayer, of 1760; Folio Bible, of 1763; Aesop’s Fables, of 1761; Addison, of 1761; Horace, duodecimo, of 1762; Horace, octavo, of 1770; his editions of the Latin Classics, in 1772, comprising Lucretius, Catullus, Terence, and Sallust and Florus, octavo, in 1774; and Terence and Lucretius, duodecimo; and Orlando Furioso in 1773.

Kippis, in “Biographia Britannica” (1778), page 671, has an article upon Baskerville. He says: “These publications rank the name of Baskerville with those persons who have the most contributed, at least in modern times, to the beauty and improvement of the art of printing. Indeed, it is needless to say to what perfection he has brought this excellent art. The paper, the type, and the whole execution of the works performed by him are the best testimonies of their merit.”

Baskerville certainly brought the art of printing to a degree of perfection till then unknown in England. He trusted nothing to the manufacture of others. “He was at once his own manufacturer of ink, presses, chases, moulds for casting, and all the apparatus for printing, and he also made some of the paper upon which he printed his books. The means by which he produced these masterpieces of printing are excluded from the province of printing in these days, by the triple incongruities of fine as possible—quick as possible—cheap as possible,” and as has before been said, his trade of japanning book-work was conducted as follows: “He had a constant succession of hot plates of copper ready, between which, as soon as printed ... the sheets were inserted. The wet was thus expelled, the ink set, and a glossy surface put on all simultaneously.”[35]

Reed says that “However well the method of hot pressing may have answered at the time, the discoloration of his books still preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere, shows that the brilliance thus imparted was most tawdry and ephemeral.” This is not true, as is shown by the specimens I have. They are nearly all in perfect condition. Of course some of them are foxed, or spotted, but no more than other books of the time, while the most of them are in absolutely perfect condition.

“Baskerville first introduced into England what is generally termed ‘fine printing,’ by producing a type of superior elegance, and an ink which gave additional beauty to the type. The peculiar excellence attached to his types and the celebrity he consequently attained gave a stimulus to the exertions and called forth the emulation of British printers.”[36] Fine work has therefore been progressively improving.

In the “Bibliography of Printing,” published in 1880, Baskerville is termed a celebrated printer. It is said his type is “admired for its elegance even at the present day, and books printed by him now bear a very high value. He introduced great improvements in nearly every branch of printing, and produced many masterpieces of typography.”[37]

“Baskerville is the only English printer who, up to his time, had received the stamp of foreign reputation or approbation. He was an artistic printer, for to secure beauty in typography, art must be applied to the paper, and tone of the paper, margin, ink, spacing, size of type, &c. The secret is a finding out an elegant proportion in all, i.e., in a small book the type should not be thick or too black, nay, even in the shape, cutting of a letter, quality and fitness is evoked. It should harmonise with the mass of letters, and yet be distinct.”[38]

In 1762 Baskerville found that he was carrying his type-founding and printing at the expense of his japanning business; as he wrote to Franklin, “Had I no other dependence than type-founding and printing, I must starve.” Apparently he became tired of his typographic work, considering it too expensive and too much unappreciated, and desired to sell it. One of his friends suggested that he apply to the government for aid, the result of which was that he wrote the following letter to Horace Walpole, then a member of Parliament, and an author of high repute:

This letter is interesting as showing not only the embarrassments under which Baskerville labored, but the relation which existed between the type-founder and printer and the member of Parliament at that time. Baskerville was a British tradesman, and dearly loved anybody that was in power. Nothing came of this letter. I cannot ascertain that Walpole paid any attention to it. Baskerville then went to Paris to endeavor to sell his letter-founding and printing establishment. He asked £8000, which was declined as being too much. Negotiations were again renewed, in 1765, through the medium of Franklin, who was in Paris, and the price was reduced to £6000. But Franklin wrote that the French government was too poor to buy it; that they had not money enough to keep their public buildings in repair, and so nothing came of the attempt to sell during Baskerville’s life. Upon his death his widow advertised the business for sale, and stated at the same time that she continued the business of letter-founding in all parts. Apparently she received no offer, and on December 11, 1775, she advertised all the printing material for sale at auction on the third of January, 1776, saying that it consisted of “Four accurate improved Printing Presses; several large Founts of Type, different Sizes; with Cases, Frames, screwed Chases, and every other useful Apparatus in that Branch of Trade.” For some reason this auction was postponed until April 1, when a few founts of type were sold. Apparently the printers were afraid of the popular prejudice against Baskerville’s type.

It was then suggested by Dr. Harwood, the distinguished bibliographer, that the nation should purchase the types as a nucleus of a national typography, which he wished to see established. Unfortunately his efforts came to nothing, and then Mrs. Baskerville advertised the types for sale again, saying that she would “conform to sell them at the same Prices with other Letter founders.” Only one purchaser appears to have embraced this offer, Mr. James Bridgewater, who printed an edition of Hervey’s “Meditations” “with a new type cast on purpose by Mrs. Baskerville.” Having exhausted all efforts to sell the type in England, Sarah Baskerville, in 1779, sold it for £3700 to a French society, which was founded by Beaumarchais for the purpose of buying the type and printing a complete edition of Voltaire. As, however, nearly half of Voltaire’s works were prohibited in France at that time, and frequently editions were burned, and men who bought and read them were sent to prison, it was found necessary to establish the printing-press at Kehl, near Strassburg, in a deserted fort. Toward the end of 1780 proposals appeared and were secretly circulated through France, and two years later proposals in English were distributed openly in England. Finally, after repeated delays from various causes, the edition of 15,000 copies was printed in 1789. Of these only 2000 copies found subscribers, and the entire enterprise was a financial disaster.

Perhaps the greatest compliment paid to the memory of Baskerville was this edition of the works of Voltaire. The Kehl Press was finally broken up about 1810, although before that time some of the type was sent to Paris and sold. This is shown by the fact that certain books printed in Paris between 1790 and 1806 were printed with Baskerville’s type, and an advertisement of the sale of Baskerville type, printed with the types themselves in black and red, which is in the possession of the Merrymount Press, Boston, was issued early in the nineteenth century. This begins: “The store-room of the Foundry of Baskerville, which presents to printers a new resource in this art, contains the types hereafter mentioned,” and closes as follows: “We will send out a sample of proofs of said types, with their price, while we are completing a Specimen or Book of Proofs of all that the Foundry of Baskerville contains.”

Reed also calls attention to four works of Alfieri, all bearing the imprint, dalla Tipografia di Kehl, co’ caratteri di Baskerville, and dated severally 1786, 1795, 1800, and 1809. These trace the survival of the Baskerville types to a date twenty years later than that at which they are commonly supposed to have perished. “It is to be hoped,” says Reed, “that their discovery may in due time reward the patience of those whose ambition it is to recover for their native land these precious relics of the most brilliant of all the English letter-founders.”[39] It is impossible to say precisely what became of the Baskerville founts which had gone to France, but so late as 1891, a book appeared in France professedly printed en Caractère Baskerville du xviii siècle. This may be a contemporary French copy of Baskerville’s work. The last book printed in England with the Baskerville imprint and with his types was a reprint of Berners’s “Treatyse of Fysshinge wyth an Angle,” published by Pickering in 1827.

William Martin, who cut the types for the famous Shakespeare Press of Boydell and Nicol, acquired his first knowledge of the art of type-founding at the Baskerville, Birmingham, Foundry. He produced the founts of type from which the works of the Shakespeare Press were printed, and, regarded simply as type-specimens, the productions of the Shakespeare Press justify his reputation as a worthy disciple of his great master, Baskerville. His Roman and Italic types were cut in decided imitation of the famous Birmingham models; although Hansard points out with disapproval that in certain particulars he attempted unwisely to vary the design. “As to the type,” he says, “the modern artist, Mr. Martin, has made an effort to cut the ceriphs and hair strokes excessively sharp and fine; the long ſ is discarded, and some trifling changes are introduced; but the letter does not stand so true or well in line as Baskerville’s, and, as to the Italic, the Birmingham artist will be found to far excel.”[40]

When, on the 25th day of March, 1779, Charles Whittingham was apprenticed to learn “the art and mysteries of printing, bookbinding and stationery,” the “art and mysteries of printing” had very much fallen into decay in England. Only one man, John Baskerville, seemed to have had the ambition, the skill, or the courage to make the business anything better than a plain trade. Even he, with money at his command, after six years of experiment and ten years of production, abandoned his attempt to create an English taste for fine printing. He produced books that astonished people who were sufficiently interested to examine them, and delighted the smaller number who purchased them, but when one went into the manufacture of paper, type, and all the apparatus of printing, it was not enough that he should be called one of the best printers of the world, he needed profit. The fact was that English people did not concern themselves with Baskerville’s enterprise in printing because they knew little, and cared less, about fine printing. The young Whittingham, who was learning his trade at Coventry as an apprentice, undoubtedly heard of Baskerville’s strange hazard at Birmingham, which was only a few miles away. A tradition survives that he saw some of Baskerville’s admirable volumes and conceived an ambition to excel in the same direction. It is probable that Whittingham went from Coventry to Birmingham when he was free of his apprenticeship, and studied at the famous Baskerville Press, which was then in existence. However that may be, he went to London and set up a press in a garret in Dean Street, Fetter Lane, hence the Chiswick Press and the productions of Pickering.

Baskerville considered the title-page to be a part of the book which required the most painstaking care, and he certainly produced a series of title-pages that have never been excelled. It had been the custom to crowd as much information about the book as possible upon the title-page. On the other hand, Baskerville endeavored to make his title-pages as concise as possible, and wherever a long title was necessary, as it was in the Prayer Books, he so chose the type and spaced the lines that there was no fault to be found. The title-page to his Bible is probably the most beautiful of them all, although the title-page to the New Testament is even more simple than the title-page to the book itself. It is a beautiful page and fine printing, without a superfluous line or an irritating decoration. It is a relief to turn from the crowded and rubricated red-line title-pages of the period to the restful simplicity of the title-pages of Baskerville.

And yet the master of the art of printing in the twentieth century wrote of Baskerville’s title-pages as follows: “There was then and there is now a rule obeyed by many printers that the main display line of a title must always be a full line. If the letters are too few the type must be widely spaced and one or more of these lines must fill the measure. No printer observed this rule more rigidly than Baskerville. Not only in his edition of Catullus, but in his quarto editions of Virgil, Juvenal, and Persius, the letters of the titles are spread over the page as if they had been dislocated by explosion. Even in the title-page of his Book of Common Prayer, for which he laid out more lines of display than could be gracefully put upon the page with a needed relief of white space, the letters in some lines are wedged widely apart in a useless attempt to give the lines the desired prominence. It is a handbill, not a title.”[41] He should have reproduced the title-page of the New Testament as an answer to this harsh criticism.

In the early days, a printer’s type was his own. He made it and used it. He did not sell it. English-cast types did not become a marketable ware for more than a century after printing was introduced into England. As late as 1799, it was the statute law in England that no one should be allowed to possess or use a printing-press or types for printing without giving notice to a justice of the peace and obtaining a certificate, and any justice of the peace might issue a warrant to search any premises and seize any press or printing-types not thus certificated. This remained the law with regard to type-founding until 1869; but happily the law was not enforced, except for a few years after it was passed. Printers received patents and monopolies for printing certain books. The result was great degeneracy in the quality of printing. A privileged printer, sure of his monopoly, had no inducement to execute good work at more cost or pains than was necessary. Old type would do as well as new, and bad type as well as good. The typography of the whole Stuart period is a disgrace to English art.[42]

Printing in England in the early part of the eighteenth century was in a sorry state. Official broadsides, political pamphlets, works of literature, and even Bibles show a depression and degeneration so marked that one is tempted to believe the art of printing was rapidly becoming lost in a wilderness of what may be termed “Brown sheets and sorry letter.” No foundry was contributing anything towards the revival of good printing, with the exception of the Oxford University, and Oxford owed its founts to gifts procured mainly from abroad. Scarcely one good piece of printing was the impression of English type, and even the Scotch printers were rebuked for not stocking their cases with Dutch type. Tonson, the foremost English printer, is said on one occasion to have lodged in Amsterdam while a founder there was casting him £300 worth of type. James, the only English founder who showed any vitality, owed his success chiefly, if not entirely, to the fact that all his letters were the product of Dutch matrices, and even these, in his hands, were so indifferently cast as to be often as bad as English type. How far this decline was due to the printer or the founder, or how far both were the result of that system of Star Chamber decrees, monopolies, patents, restraints, and privileges which characterized the illiberal days of the Stuarts, it is impossible to say, but the fact is that English typography was in a very bad way.

William Caslon, a gunsmith’s apprentice, made the first attempt, about 1720, to found English type, and in 1730 his types were very much used. But the condition of printing was still anything but satisfactory; and although under the influence of Caslon’s genius the press was recovering from the reproach under which it lay at the beginning of the century, England was still very far behind her neighbors both in typographical enterprise and achievement. Fine printing was unknown. Once more it was left to an outsider to initiate a new departure; and in 1750 the art of printing found its deliverer in the person of an eccentric Birmingham japanner, Baskerville. To him is due the honor of the first real stride towards a higher level of national typography; an example which became the incentive to that outburst of enthusiasm—that “matrix and puncheon mania,” as Dibdin terms it—“which brought forth the series of splendid typographical productions with which the eighteenth century closed and the nineteenth century opened.”

The magnificent works which between 1759 and 1772 continued to issue from his press not only confirmed him in his reputation, but raised his name to a unique position among the modern improvers of the art. The paper, the type, and the general execution of his works were such as English readers had not been accustomed to, while the disinterested enthusiasm with which, regardless of profit, he pursued his ideal, fully merited the eulogy of the printer-poet who wrote:

Straus and Dent say of him: “Baskerville is the English representative of that Renaissance of printing which in a measure helps to distinguish the second half of the eighteenth century. It needs but small bias to place him above that trio of artists—Didot in Paris, Bodoni at Parma, Ibarra at Madrid. Baskerville has been called the English Bodoni, but it would perhaps be fairer to say that Bodoni is the Italian Baskerville. His work cannot compare in bulk with that of the other masters, but we have his reasons for confining his efforts to so small an outlay. The subtle splendor of his work grants it a corner by itself in the world’s book-shelf; his own peculiar genius is stamped upon almost every one of his productions. The types themselves were cut upon principles which might well be followed to-day by those who would introduce into their making a geometrical exactitude. Whatever may have been the popular dislike of his work in England at the time, there can be no question that he has had a lasting influence upon all work of the kind after his day. Printers and type-founders alike are indebted to his inventive genius.”

Baskerville made his will January 6, 1773, writing it with his own hand. As near as can be ascertained, it disposed of about £12,000. He gave £2000 to discharge a settlement made before marriage to his wife. He also gave her £2000 to be paid out of his book accounts, stock in trade, etc. He gave £500 to his “little favorite,” being the granddaughter of his wife, if she lived to be twenty-one years old; if not, the £500 to his wife. He gave £1400 in trust to pay to the children of his nieces, “to become payable on the day of my wife’s future marriage, which if she choose I wish her happy equal to her merit, but if she continues a widow the last mentioned legacies are entirely void.” He gave £500 to the Protestant Dissenting Charity School in Birmingham towards erecting a commodious building.

Then follows that portion of the will which Dr. Chalmers deemed too indecent to print: “My further will & pleasure is and I Hearby Declare that the Device of Goods & Chattles as Above is upon this Express Condition that my Wife in Concert with my Exᵒʳˢ do Cause my Body to be Buried in a Conical Building in my own premises, Heartofore used as a mill which I have lately Raised Higher and painted and in a vault which I have prepared for It. This Doubtless to many may appear a Whim perhaps It is so—But is a whim for many years Resolve’d upon as I have a Hearty Contempt of all Superstition the Farce of a Consecrated Ground the Irish Barbarism of Sure and Certain Hopes &c. I also consider Revelation as It is call’d Exclusive of the Scraps of Morality casually Intermixt with It to be the most Impudent Abuse of Common Sense which Ever was Invented to Befool Mankind. I Expect some srewd Remark will be made on this my Declaration by the Ignorant & Bigotted who cannot Distinguish between Religion & Superstition and are Taught to Believe that morality (by which I understand all the Duties a man ows to God and his fellow Creatures) is not Sufficient to entitle him to Divine favour with professing to believe as they Call It Ceartain Absurd Doctrines & mysteries of which they have no more Conception than a Horse. This Morality Alone I profess to have been my Religion and the [Rule] of my Actions, to which I appeal how far my profession and practice have Been Consistant.”

And finally he gave to his executors each “6 Guineas to Buy a Ring which I hope they will Consider as a Keepsake.”

Some time before his death, being consulted by friends, who were aware of his opinions, as to how he would be buried, Baskerville said they could “bury him sitting, standing or lying, but he did not think they could bury him flying.”[43]

He was buried in the conical building, previously used as a mill, which he had raised higher and painted, and in a vault which he had prepared, at Easy Hill. The epitaph, written by himself, runs as follows:

STRANGER—
BENEATH THIS CONE IN UNCONSCRATED (sic) GROUND
A FRIEND TO THE LIBERTIES OF MANKIND
DIRECTED HIS BODY TO BE INHUM’D
MAY THE EXAMPLE CONTRIBUTE TO EMANCIPATE THY MIND
FROM THE IDLE FEARS OF SUPERSTITION
AND THE WICKED ARTS OF PRIESTHOOD

When Baskerville House was sold to a Mr. Ryland in 1789, the owner did not disturb the body, and it remained for nearly fifty years in comparative peace. During the Birmingham riots of 1791, Baskerville House was stormed, sacked, gutted, and burned. It was not, however, until alterations were made on the property for business purposes that Baskerville’s coffin was removed, and taken to a warehouse, where it remained for some time subject to visits from the curious, and even to scientific observations of the condition of the body. Mr. Ryland, ascertaining that a show was made of the remains, insisted that they should be suitably interred, and Mr. Marston, in whose shop the coffin had been placed, applied to the rector of St. Philip’s for permission to bury the body there. This was refused on account of Baskerville’s atheism, when Mr. Knott, the bookseller, said that he had a vault in Christ’s Church, and should consider it an honor to have Baskerville’s remains rest there, and they were there placed about 1829. Even here Baskerville’s body did not rest permanently, for the necessary extension of Birmingham caused Christ’s Church to be demolished, and his remains, which should have been placed in St. Philip’s Church by the side of his wife, being again refused interment there by the rector, were placed in one of the catacombs of the Church of England Cemetery at Warstone Lane. And so, finally, after being turned out of the garden at Easy Hill for a canal-wharf, exposed to neglect and ignominy in a plumber’s warehouse, interred by stealth in the vaults of Christ’s Church, and then again removed by the march of business, Baskerville’s bones at last found permanent rest in a quiet cemetery of the Church of England. It is in a spot remote, not easily discoverable, and where few are likely to see the stone, which has been transferred thither from Christ’s Church. The inscription upon it reads as follows:

IN THIS CATACOMB RESTS THE REMAINS OF
JOHN BASKERVILLE
THE FAMOUS PRINTER
HE DIED IN 1775, BUT THE PLACE OF HIS BURIAL
WAS UNKNOWN UNTIL
APRIL 12, 1893, WHEN THE OPENING OF THE
UNREGISTERED CATACOMB NO. 521
DISCOVERED A COFFIN, WHICH ON FURTHER
EXAMINATION WAS FOUND TO CONTAIN HIS BODY

What is it that makes the life and work of this middle-aged, vain, and silly Birmingham Englishman interesting to us? Why do we collect his imprints, and why do we talk about him? I think it is because he had the true artistic vision and courage. He conceived the idea of a perfect book, such as had not been printed in England. He did not grow into it. He did not make one book, and then a better one, and then a better one, until at last he achieved the beautiful book. He conceived the book as an artist conceives a statue before he strikes a blow with his chisel into the marble. It was wonderful that he should have done so. He had grown up in a manufacturing and mercantile business, making japan work for sale, and profiting by its sale. Most men never get out of the work and of the ideas of the work which they do until they are fifty years of age. He did. Why was it? I think, as I have said, it was because he had an artistic perception and conceived the thing which he was to do, and adhered to his conception. Everything shows that he wrought in the true artistic spirit: having conceived the thing to be done, he proceeded to do it. All his work was executed upon a hand-press. His printing-office was what we should call a private printing-office in his house. He cut the type; he made the ink and improved the press; he devised the paper; and from start to finish the work was his. Everybody who will do better work than anybody else must have this spirit and conception of the work he proposes, and must adhere to it, or he will not produce perfect work. It is this that makes Baskerville interesting to us, and makes the productions of his little private press treasures in the world of art.

FINIS

BASKERVILLE EDITIONS

IN THE COLLECTION OF J. H. BENTON