THE PRINTER’S MARK IN
ENGLAND.

printer's mark

WALTER LYNNE.

The consideration of the Printer’s Mark as an institution in this country is characterized by extreme simplicity, both as to its origin and to its design. From an entry in one of the Bagford volumes (Harleian MSS. 5910) in the British Museum, we learn that “rebuses or name devices were brought into England after Edward III. had conquered France: they were used by those who had no arms, and if their names ended in Ton, as Hatton, Boulton, Luton, Grafton, Middleton, Seton, Norton, their signs or devices would be a Hat and a tun, a Boult and a tun, a Lute and a tun, etc., which had no reference to their names, for all names ending in Ton signifieth town, from whence they took their names.” Even in England, therefore, the merchant’s trade device was the direct source of the Printer’s Mark, which it antedated by over a century. It will be convenient, first of all, to explain that the first printing-press in England was that of William Caxton at Westminster, whose first book was issued from this place November 18, 1477; the second was that of Theodoricus de Rood, at Oxford, the first book dated December 17, 1478; the third was that of the unknown printer at St. Albans, 1480, and the fourth was that of John Lettou, in the city of London, 1480, the last-named being soon joined by William de Machlinia, who afterwards carried on the business alone. The earliest phases of wood-engraving employed at one or other of these four distinct houses were either initial letters or borders around the page. At Caxton’s press, as the late Henry Bradshaw has pointed out in a paper read before the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, February 25, 1867, simple initials are found in the Indulgences of 1480 and 1481; at the Oxford press an elaborate border of four pieces, representing birds and flowers, is found in some copies of the two books printed there in October, 1481, and July, 1482. Of illustrations in the text, we find a series of diagrams and a series of eleven cuts illustrating the text of the first edition of “The Mirror of the World,” 1481; a series of sixteen cuts to the second edition of “The Game of Chesse Moralised,” 1483; and two works of the following year, “The Fables of Esop” and the first edition of “The Golden Legend,” each contains not only a large cut for the frontispiece, but in the case of the former, a series of 185 cuts, and, in the latter, two series of eighteen large and fifty-two small cuts. At the Oxford press only two books are known with woodcut illustrations, in neither case cut for the work; at the St. Albans press the only known illustrations in the text are the coats-of-arms found in the “Book of Hawking, Hunting and Coat-Armours,” 1486; at the press of Lettou and W. de Machlinia there is no trace of illustrations.

printer's mark

THE ST. ALBANS PRINTER.

These few introductory facts, condensed from Mr. Bradshaw’s paper above mentioned, have a distinct interest to us as leading up to the employment of the Printer’s Mark. It is certainly curious that at Caxton’s press the very familiar device was only first used about Christmas, 1489, in the second folio edition of the Sarum “Ordinale.” At first this bold and effective mark was used, as in the “Ordinale,” the “Dictes of the Philosophers,” and in the “History of Reynaud the Fox,” at or close to the beginning of the volume. In Caxton’s subsequent books it is always found at the end. At the St. Albans press the device with “Sanctus Albanus” is found in two of the eight books printed there, “The English Chronicle,” 1483, where it is printed in red, and in “The Book of Hawking,” etc., 1486; it is formed of a globe and double cross, there being in the centre a shield with a St. Andrew’s cross.

So far as regards Caxton’s device, it is easier to name the books in which it appeared than to explain its exact meaning. The late William Blades accepts the common interpretation of “W. C. 74.” Some bibliographers argue that the date refers to the introduction of printing in England, and quote the colophon of the first edition of the “Chess” book in support of this theory. But the date of this work refers to the translation and not to the printing, which was executed at Bruges, probably in 1476. Caxton did not settle at Westminster until late in that year, and possibly not until 1477. In all probability the date, supposing it to be such, and assuming that it is an abbreviation of 1474, refers to some landmark in our printer’s career. Professor J. P. A. Madden, in his “Lettres d’un Bibliophile,” expresses it as his opinion that the two small letters outside the “W. 74 C” are an abbreviation of the words “Sancta Colonia,” an indication that a notable event in the life of Caxton occurred in 1474 at Cologne. Ames, Herbert, and others have copied a device which Caxton never used: it is much smaller than the genuine one (which, in other respects, it closely resembles) which we reproduce from Berjeau. The opinion that the interlacement is a trade mark is, Mr. Blades points out in his exhaustive “Life,” much strengthened by the discovery of its original use. In 1487, Caxton, wishing to print a Sarum Missal, and not having the types proper for the purpose, sent to Paris, where the book was printed for him by G. Maynyal, who in the colophon states distinctly that he printed it at the expense of William Caxton of London. When the printed sheets reached Westminster, Caxton, wishing to make it quite plain that he was the publisher, engraved his design and printed it on the last page, which happened to be blank. Mr. Blades gives 1487 as the year in which this Missal (of which only one copy is known) was printed, but Mr. Bradshaw puts it at 1489. The former enumerates twelve books printed by Caxton in which his device occurs—all ranging from the aforesaid Missal to the year 1491, the date of his death.

printer's mark

WILLIAM CAXTON.

wynkyn de worde / W C

WYNKYN DE WORDE.

Wynkyn de Worde, a native of Lorraine, who was with Caxton at Bruges or Cologne, carried on the business of his master at Westminster until 1499, when he removed to the sign of the Golden Sun, Fleet Street, London. He had nine Marks, the earliest of which is often described as one of Caxton’s, from the genuine example of which, as we have already stated, it differs in being smaller, with a different border, and in having a flourish inserted above and below the letters. The second is an elongated variation of No. 1, with the name Wynkyn de Worde on a narrow white space beneath the device. The next four devices are more or less elaborations upon that of which we give a reproduction; the seventh is the Sagittarius device in black with white characters: between the sagittarii is seen the sun and flaming stars, and below the initials “W C” in Roman letters, with the name Wynkyn de Worde at the foot; the eighth is a picturesque Mark copied from one belonging to Froben, with the omission of part of the background; it consists of a semicircular arch, supported by short-wreathed pillars, with foliated capitals, plinths and bases: on the top of each is a boy habited like a soldier, with a spear and shield bending forwards; a large cartouche German shield is supported by three boys. The ninth Mark of this printer was a large and handsome one, being a royal and heraldic device which Wynkyn de Worde used as a frontispiece to the Acts of Parliament, in the form of an upright parallelogram which encloses a species of arched panel or doorway, formed of three lines, imitating clustered columns and Gothic mouldings, and two large square shields, that on the left charged with three fleurs-de-lys for France, and the other bearing France and England quarterly, each of which is surmounted by a crown. For a very minute description of these Marks, and their variations, the reader is referred to Johnson’s “Typographia,” and Bigmore and Wyman’s “Bibliography of Printing,” the former of whom enumerates 410 books which issued from this press.

Rychard Pynson	R / Richard Pynson
R. PYNSON.	R. PYNSON.

Among the 200 odd books which Richard Pynson printed between 1493 and 1527, we find six Marks (besides variants), of which five are very similar, and of these we give two examples, the smaller being one of the earliest, in which it will be noticed that the drawing is much inferior to the larger example; the sixth Mark is a singular one, consisting of a large upright parallelogram surrounded by a single stout line, within which are the scroll, supporters, shield and cypher, crest, helmet and mantling, and the Virgin and St. Catherine, and in many other particulars differing from the other five examples. Robert Redman, who, after quarrelling with Richard Pynson, and apparently succeeding him in business, employed a device almost identical with that which Pynson most frequently used, and to which therefore we need not further refer. In chronological sequence the next English printer who employed a device is Julian Notary, who was printing books for about twenty years subsequent to 1498, first at Westminster, then near Temple Bar, and finally in St. Paul’s Churchyard. He had two devices (of which there are a very few variations), of which we give the more important. The other has only one stout black line, and not two, and it has also the Latinized form of the name—Julianus Notarius. About two dozen different works of this printer are known to bibliographers. In connection with Notary, we may here conveniently refer to an interesting, but admittedly inconclusive article which appears in The Library, i., pp. 102–5, by Mr. E. Gordon Duff, in which that able bibliographer publishes the discovery of two books which would point to the existence of an unrecorded English printer of the fifteenth century. One of these has the title of “Questiones Alberti de modis significandi,” and the other, of which only a fragment is known to exist, is a Sarum “Horæ,” which is dated 1497. In the colophons of neither does the name of the printer transpire, but his Mark is given in both—in the former book in black, and in the latter in red. This mark is identical with Notary’s, with this important exception, that, whereas in Notary’s device his name occurs in the lower half of the device, in these the lower half is occupied by the initials I. H., and the upper half by the initials I N B, the I N being in the form of a monogram, and not distinct. In 1498 this same block was used on the title-page of the Sarum “Missal,” printed by Notary, who altered it to suit his own requirements. We cannot follow Mr. Gordon Duff in his conjectures as to the probability of who this unknown printer may have been, but the matter is one of great bibliographical interest. William Faques, who was the King’s Printer, and who is known to have issued seven books between 1499 and 1508, had only one Mark, which is totally different from those of any of his predecessors, as may be seen from the example given on page 16, where will also be found references to the sources of the scriptural quotations on the white and black triangles.

The extreme rarity of this printer’s books will be best understood when it is stated that there are only two examples in the British Museum; one of these is a “Psalter,” 1504. With W. Faques we exhaust the fifteenth century printers who employed marks to distinguish the productions of their presses.

I N / Iulyan Notary	R F / Richard Fakes
JULIAN NOTARY.	R. FAWKES.

Notwithstanding the similarity in their surnames it is not at all certain that Richard Fawkes (1509–1530), who also appears as Faukes, Fakes, and Faques, was related to the last-mentioned printer. His books are now of excessive rarity. The unicorn (regardant on either side of the device) appears for the first time in an English mark. Henry Pepwell (1505–1539), of the Holy Trinity in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was a bookseller rather than a printer, and all his earlier books were printed in Paris; his Mark, in which occurs the heraldic device representing the Trinity, was suggested by the sign of his shop. The most important example of the thirty books which issued from the little-known press of Peter Treveris, who was apparently putting forth books from 1514 to 1535, is “The Grete herball whiche geveth parfyt knowlege and und[er]standing of all maner of herbes,” etc., 1526, a finely printed folio (“at the signe of the Wodows”), of which a second edition appeared in 1529. The earlier edition contains, on the recto of the sixth leaf, a full-page woodcut of the human skeleton, with anatomical explanations, whilst the last leaf contains a full-page woodcut of the printer’s Mark, with the imprint at the foot. Herbert supposes that the sign of the “Wodows,” mentioned by Treveris in the colophon, might possibly be put for wode hommes or wild men, and alludes to the supporters used in the device. Treveris printed for several booksellers, notably John Reyves, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, and for Lawrence Andrewe, of Fleet Street. In this printer’s Mark, and in fact nearly every other sixteenth century example, there is a very evident French influence, whilst many of the examples are the most transparent imitations of Marks used by foreign printers. Of the three used by John Scott or Skot, who was printing books from about 1521 to 1537, two were mere copies of the Marks used by Denis Roce of Paris. We give an illustration of one example; the second is of the same design, but with a very rich stellated background, and the motto, “A l’aventure, tout vient a point qui peut attendre.” His own device was an exceedingly simple long strip, with the letters Iohn Skot in antique Roman characters. An example of the last mark will be found in “The Golden Letanye in Englysshe,” printed by Skot in “Fauster Land, in Saynt Leonardes parysshe”; but examples of this press are excessively rare, only one, “Thystory of Jacob and his XII Sones,” fourteen leaves, in verse, and printed about 1525, being in the British Museum, and another tract, “The Rosary,” 1537, being in the Althorp Library now transferred to Manchester.

P T / PETRVS TREVERIS	I S / IOHN SCOTT
PETER TREVERIS.	JOHN SCOTT.

Robert Copland, who was a beneficiaire and pupil of Wynkyn de Worde, was a translator as well as a printer and stationer, and his shop was at the sign of the Rose Garland in Fleet Street. Although he carried on business from 1515 to about 1548, only a few of his books are now known, none of which appear to be in the British Museum. The majority were purely ephemeral. The most interesting phase of this printer’s career occurs in connection with one or two books printed by Wynkyn de Worde, notably “The Assembly of Foules,” 1530, at the end of which is “Lenvoy of Robert Copland boke prynter,” one of the three verses running thus:

see endnote

ROBERT COPLAND. Full text

R C / Robert Coplande.

ROBERT COPLAND.

The three Marks of Copland make allusion to the roses which appeared as a sign to his shop. The most elaborate design is an upright parallelogram within which appears a flourishing tree springing out of the earth, and supporting a shield suspended from its branches by a belt and surrounded by a wreath of roses; on the left-hand side is a hind regardant collared with a ducal coronet standing as a supporter, and on the right is a hart in a similar position and with the same decorations; there are four scrolls surrounding the centre-piece, on the top one is “Melius est,” on the right-hand one “nomen bonum,” on the bottom one “q diuitie,” and on the left-hand one “multe. Prou. xxii,” i.e. “A good name is better than much riches.” The second device, of which we also give an example, is self-explanatory, and is perhaps the more original. It has also an additional interest from the fact that it was used by William Copland, 1549–1561, who was probably a son of Robert, and who simply altered the mark to the extent of substituting his own Christian name for that of Robert in the scroll at the bottom of the device. Over sixty books by this printer are described by bibliographers, and many of them are in the British Museum. Robert Wyer, whose shop was at the sign of St. John the Evangelist, in St. Martin’s parish, in the rents of the Bishop of Norwich, near Charing Cross, was another printer whose works were more remarkable for their number than for their typographic excellence. His earliest dated work is the “Expositiones Terminarum Legum Anglorum,” 1527, and his latest “A Dyalogue Defensyue for Women,” 1542, but as to nearly sixty others of his works no date is attached, he may have commenced earlier than the first date and continued after the second. The marks of Wyer consisted of two or three representations of St. John the Divine writing, attended by an eagle holding the inkhorn; he is seated on a rock in the middle of the sea intended to represent the Isle of Patmos. Laurens, or Lawrence, Andrewe, by Ames stated to be a native of Calais, printed a few books during the third decade of the sixteenth century, and resided near the eastern end of Fleet Street at the sign of the Golden Cross. His Mark consisted of a shield which is contained within a very rudely cut parallelogram; the escutcheon is supported by a wreath beneath an ornamental arch, and between two curved pillars designed in the early Italian style, with a background formed of coarse horizontal lines. Three of his books are in the British Museum. The Museum possesses only one book with the imprint of Andrew Hester, who was a bookseller of the “White Horse,” St. Paul’s Church Yard, and this is an edition of Coverdale’s Bible, “newly oversene and correcte,” which appears to have been printed for him by Froschover, of Zurich, 1550. Among English Marks of the period, Hester’s possesses the merit of being original.

ROBERT WYER	S / E AH R
ROBERT WYER.	ANDREW HESTER.

LVCRECIA ROMANA / THOMAS BERTHELETVS

THOMAS BERTHELET.

I B / ¶ IOHAN BYDDELL.

JOHN BYDDELL.

One of the most prolific of the printers of the first half of the sixteenth century was Thomas Berthelet, who succeeded Pynson in the office of King’s Printer, at a salary of £4 yearly, and who (or his immediate successors, for he died at the end of 1555) issued books from 1528 to 1568, of which nearly 150 are known to bibliographers, sixty being in the British Museum. His shop was at the sign of the “Lucretia Romana,” a charming engraving—the most carefully executed of its kind used in this country up to that time—of which, with his own name on a scroll, he used as a Mark. Several of his books were printed in Paris. He issued a large number of works in classical literature, and among the more notable of his publications were Chaloner’s translation of Erasmus’s “Praise of Folly,” 1549, Gower’s “De Confessione Amantis,” and the “Institution of a Christen Man,” with a woodcut border to the title by Holbein. John Byddell, otherwise Salisbury, 1533–44, was another printer whose Mark was derived from the sign of the shop in which he carried on business, namely, “Our Lady of Pity,” next Fleet Bridge, but he afterwards removed to the Sun near the Conduit, which was probably the old residence of Wynkyn de Worde, for whom he was an executor. The Lady of Pity is personified as an angel with outstretched wings, holding two elegant horns or torches, the left of which is pouring out a kind of stream terminating in drops, and is marked on the side with the word “Gratia”; that on the right contains fire and is lettered “Charitas”: the lower ends of these horns are rested by the angel upon two rude heater shields, on the left of which is inscribed “Johan Byddell, Printer,” and on the other is a mark which includes the printer’s initials; round the head of the figure are the words, “Virtus beatos efficit.” This is merely a copy of one of the Marks used by J. Sacon, a Lyonese printer, 1498–1522. Byddell’s books were distinctly in keeping with the seriousness of his sign, and among others we find such titles as “News out of Hell,” 1536, “Olde God and the Newe,” 1534, “Common Places of Scripture,” 1538, etc., besides two “Primers.” Thomas Vautrollier, who printed books at Edinburgh and London from about 1566 to 1605, had four Marks, in all of which an anchor is suspended from the clouds, and two leafy boughs twined, with the motto “Anchora Spei,” and with a framework which is identical with that of Guarinus, of Basle. Vautrollier was a native of France; nearly all his books were in Latin. In 1584 he printed an edition of Giordano Bruno’s “Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante,” with a dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, and for which he had to flee the country, for the imprint, “Stampato in Parigi,” was an obvious and unsuccessful attempt to hoodwink the authorities. In the following year he printed at Edinburgh “A Declaration of the Kings Majesties intention and meaning toward the lait Actis of Parliament.” J. Norton, 1593–1610, also used the same Mark.

ANCHORA SPEI.

THOMAS VAUTROLLIER.

Richard Grafton, 1537–72, who was a scholar and an author, is one of the best known of the sixteenth century printers, and, although he issued a large number of books, confined himself to a single Mark, which was a rebus or pun upon his name. Grafton was for several years in partnership with Edward Whitchurche, and also with John Butler. The most important works accomplished by the two first named were the first issue of the Great or Cromwell’s Bible, 1539, and Coverdale’s version of the New Testament, 1538–9, in Latin and English; the latter being partly printed in Paris by Regnault, and completed in London: as nearly the entire impression was burnt by order of the Inquisition, it is of great rarity and value. Grafton, who was printer to Edward VI. both before and after his accession to the throne, issued a magnificent edition of Halle’s “Chronicle,” 1548, and an “Abridgement of the Chronicles” by himself in 1562, which in ten years reached a fourth edition. Grafton found printing a much more hazardous calling than the grocery business to which he had been brought up, for he was constantly in difficulties, which on one occasion nearly cost him his life. The idea which found expression in Grafton’s Mark naturally suggested itself to William Middleton, or Myddleton, 1525–47, who succeeded to the business of Robert Redman, and issued books from the sign of the “George next to St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street.” He had two devices, of which we give the larger and more important: in the smaller the shield is supported on either side by an angel. About forty of William Middleton’s books have been described, one of the most notable being John Heywood’s “Four P’s, a very merry Enterlude of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedler.” Reginald or Reynold Wolfe, 1542–73, was the King’s Printer and a learned antiquary. Wolfe was probably of foreign extraction, for there were several early sixteenth century printers of the same surname in France, Germany, and Switzerland. His printing-office was in St. Paul’s Churchyard, at the sign of the Brazen Serpent, which emblem he used as a device, a subject which, as we have already seen, was frequently employed for a similar purpose abroad. Wolfe’s other device, of which there are two sizes, consisted of an elegant cartouche German shield, on which is represented a fruit-tree and two boys, one of whom is drawing down the fruit with a stick, whilst the other is taking it up off the ground. Over sixty books have been catalogued as the work of Reginald Wolfe. John Wolfe, originally a fishmonger, started printing about 1560, and from that year until 1601 we have an almost continuous stream of his books, on a very great variety of subjects. Like several others of the early printers, he was in constant warfare with the authorities, whose rules and restrictions of the press were a source of ever-recurring annoyances. He appears to have had as much difficulty in managing his “authors” as with the Stationers’ Company, for he is referred to more than once in very uncomplimentary terms in the Martin Marprelate tracts of the period. The Mark here reproduced from Berjeau represents a fleur-de-lys seedling supported by two savages, with the motto “Ubique Floret.” John Day, 1546–84, is undoubtedly one of the best known and most prolific of the sixteenth century printers, nearly 300 books having him as their foster-father. He appears to have started in business at the sign of the Resurrection, a little above Holborn Conduit, but removed in or about 1549 to Aldersgate Street; he had several shops in various parts of the town, where his literary wares might be disposed of, and he is remarkable in being the first English printer who used Saxon characters, whilst he brought those of the Greek and Italic to perfection. It is not possible to give in this place even a brief summary of Day’s career, and it must suffice us to mention that Archbishop Parker was among his patrons, and that the more important books which appeared from his press included Fox’s “Acts and Monuments,” 1563, and the “Psalmes in Metre with Music,” 1571 (for the printing of which he received a patent dated June 2, 1568). His best known device, of which we give an example, has a double meaning; first it is a pun on his name, and secondly an allusion to the dawn of the Protestant religion. He used another Mark, which is a large upright parallelogram, within the lines of which is a very elegant Greek sarcophagus bearing a skeleton lying on a mat. At the head of the corpse are two figures standing and looking down at it, of which the outer one is in the dress of a rich citizen, having his left hand on his sword, and the other, who is pointing to the body, is dressed like a doctor or a schoolmaster: from his mouth issues a scroll rising upwards in eight folds, on four of which are engraven in small Roman capitals, “Etsi Mors in dies accelerat,” and the remainder of the sentence, “Post Fvnera virtus vivet tamen,” appears in similar letters on another scroll, which is elegantly twined round the branches of a holly placed behind the sepulchre, to indicate by a tree that blooms at Christmas the evergreen nature of virtue; the sarcophagus, figures, and tree stand by the side of a river, with some distant vessels, on the left hand of which are rocky shores, with cities, etc., and in the upper corner of the left is the sun breaking out of the clouds; the initials I D appear on the lower left hand. This Mark is exceedingly rare; it occurs on the last leaf of J. Norton’s translation of the Latin “Catechism,” 1570, and also at the end of Churton’s “Cosmographical Glass.” There are several variations of the Mark which we reproduce on p. 79. William Seres, who was for some time anterior to 1550 in partnership with Day (and at other times with Anthony Scoloker, Richard Kele, and William Hill), printed over 100 books, in many of which his monogram serves the purpose of a Mark.

SVSCIPITE INSITVM VERBVM IACO I / RG	W / WYLLYAM MYDDYLTON
RICHARD GRAFTON.	WILLIAM MIDDLETON.

VBIQVE FLORET

JOHN WOLFE.

ARISE FOR IT IS DAY

JOHN DAY.

Like so many other of the early printers, Richard Jugge, 1548–77, whose shop was at the sign of the Bible at the north door of St. Paul’s, was a University man, having studied at King’s College, Cambridge. “He had a license from Government to print the New Testament in English, dated January, 1550; and no printer ever equalled him in the richness of the initial letters and general disposition of the text which are displayed therein.” On the accession of Elizabeth to the throne, he printed the proclamation, November 17, 1558. About seventy books are catalogued as coming from his press. His elegant Mark consists of a massive architectural panel, adorned with wreaths of fruit, and bearing in the centre an oval within which is a pelican feeding her young, surrounded by the mottoes, “Love kepyth the Lawe, obeyeth the Kynge, and is good to the commen welthe,” and “Pro Rege Lege et Grege.” On the left of the oval stands a female figure having a serpent twined round her right arm, with the word “Prudentia” underneath, whilst the second female figure, with a balance and a sword, is called “Justicia”; in the bottom centre in a small cartouche panel is the name R. Jugge in the form of a monogram. This Mark was also used by J. Windet and by Alexander Arbuthnot, of Edinburgh, of which we give the example of the last named. Hugh Singleton, 1548–82, appears to have earned as much notoriety among his contemporaries for his “rather loose” principles as for the books which he printed. He was often in conflict with the authorities, and very narrowly escaped severe punishment for printing one of Stubbs’ outbursts, for which the author and Page the publisher had their right hands cut off with a butcher’s knife and a mallet in 1581; Singleton was pardoned. His Mark, of which there are variations, is sufficiently self-explanatory, although it may be mentioned that for a time he dwelt at the Golden Tun in Creed Lane. Walter Lynne, 1547–50, who was a scholar and an author, had a shop at “Sommer’s Key near Billingsgate” and printed about twenty sermons and other religious tracts in octavo, employed the device given as an initial to the present chapter. John Wyghte, or Wight, resembled Singleton somewhat in his facility for running his head against established customs, and was on one occasion fined for keeping his shop open on St. Luke’s Day, and on another for selling pirated books. His shop was at the sign of the Rose, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and his books—beginning with an edition of the Bible—range from the year 1551 to 1596. His device was a portrait of himself, which varies considerably both in size and in other respects. Perhaps the most curious and interesting work which he published was “A Booke of the arte and manner how to plant and graffe all sortes of trees,” 1586, translated from the French by Leonard Mascall, and dedicated to Sir John Paulet.

see endnote

A. ARBUTHNOT.
Full text

H S	WELCOM THE WIGHT: THAT BRINGETH SVCH LIGHT / I W
HUGH SINGLETON.	JOHN WIGHT.

The employment of the Geneva arms as a Printer’s Mark is confined, in this country, to Rowland Hall, who, at the death of Edward VI., accompanied several refugees to Geneva, where he printed the Psalms, Bible, and other works of a more or less religious character; his books range from 1559 to 1563, and about two dozen are known to bibliographers, and half of this number are in the British Museum. His Mark has a double interest; first, from his residence in Geneva, and secondly from the fact that the sign of his shop, “The Half Eagle and Key,” was a still further acknowledgment of the protection which he enjoyed in Geneva. This was not his only Mark, but it is the only one to which we need refer. The name of Richard Tottell, 1553–97, is much better remembered in connection with the epoch-making little book, “Songes and Sonettes,” 1557, the first miscellany of English verse, than either of the other seventy or eighty publications which bear his imprint. His shop was in Fleet Street at the sign of the Hand and Star, the same idea serving him as a Mark: the hand and star in a circle, with a scroll on either side having the words “cum privilegio,” the whole being placed under an arch supported by columns ornamented in the Etruscan style. One of the most curious of the large number of books which came from the press of Henry Bynneman, 1567–87, is “The Mariners boke, containing godly and necessary orders and prayers, to be observed in every ship, both for mariners and all other whatsoever they be that shall travaile on the sea, for their voyage,” 1575; a still more curious production of his press has the following title, “Of ghostes and spirites walkyng by night, and strange noyes, crackes and sundry fore warnynges, which commonly happen before the death of men, great slaughters, and alterations of kyngdomes,” 1572. Bynneman had served with Reynold Wolfe, and when he started in business on his own account met with much encouragement from Archbishop Parker, who allowed him to have a shop or shed at the north-west door of St. Paul’s. He appears to have had two Marks, one of which was derived from the sign of his shop, “The Mermaid,” with the motto, “Omnia tempus habent,” and the other (here reproduced) of a doe passant, and the motto, “Cerva charissima et gratissimus hinnulus pro.” Thomas Woodcock, 1576–94, who dwelt at the sign of the Black Bear, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, was a bookseller rather than a printer; his Mark is an evident double pun on his surname.

POST TENEBRAS LVX	CERVA CHARISSIMA ET GRATISSIMVS HINNVLVS PRO
ROWLAND HALL.	HENRY BYNNEMAN.

CANTABO IEHOVÆ QVIA BENEFECIT

THOMAS WOODCOCK.

During the last years of the sixteenth century, and the first three decades of the seventeenth, there were two Jaggards among the London printers; by far the better known is Isaac, who, with Edward Blount, issued the first folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays; he seems to have had no Mark, but William, 1595–1624, used the rather striking device (page 88), which is thus described: Serpent biting his tail, coiled twice round the wrist of a hand issuing from the clouds and holding a wand from which springs two laurel branches, and which is surmounted by a portcullis (the Westminster Arms); in the last coil of the serpent the word “Prudentia.” Equally distinct is the mark of Felix Kingston, or Kyngston, who printed a very large number of books from 1597 to 1640; in this device we have the sun shining on the Parnassus, and a laurel tree between the two conical hills, with a sunflower and a pansy on either side.

PRVDENTIA

WILLIAM JAGGARD.

The Mark of William Norton, 1570–93, whose shop was at the King’s Arms, St. Paul’s Churchyard, was in a double sense a pun on his name, consisting as it did of a representation of a Sweet-William growing through a tun inscribed with the letters “NOR”; and something of the same kind may be said of that employed by Richard Harrison, 1552–62, whose Mark is described by Camden as “an Hare by a sheafe of Rye in the Sun, for Harrison.” In this connection we may also here refer to the Mark employed by Gerard (or Gerald) Dewes, 1562–87, whose shop was at the sign of the Swan in St. Paul’s Churchyard; this is described by Camden thus: “and if you require more [i.e. in reference to the prevailing taste for picture-writing such as the designs of Norton and Dewes] I refer you to the witty inventions of some Londoners; but that for Garret Dewes is most remarkable, two in a garret casting Dewes at dice.” In the same category also may be included the Mark of Christopher and Robert Barker, the Queen’s Printers, who used a design of a man barking timber, with the couplet

From these and many other instances which might be cited, it will be seen that by the end of the sixteenth century the Printer’s Mark in England had declined into a very childish and feeble play upon the names of the printers, and the subject therefore need not be further pursued.

PARNASSO ET APOLLINE DIGNA

FELIX KINGSTON.

T C / VIRESSIT VVLNERE VERITAS

THOMAS CREEDE.

SPARSA COEGI.

JOHN WALTHOE.

printer's mark

R. WARE.

The natural result, moreover, of this decline was, in the following century, followed by what practically amounts to extinction; and the few exceptions to which we shall refer, and which are to some extent selected at random, prove the truth of that theory. Thomas Creede, 1588–1618, whose shop was at the sign of the Catherine Wheel, near the Old Swan in Thames Street, was one of the prolific printers of the period, and his most common Mark is a personification of Truth, with a hand issuing from the clouds striking on her back with a rod, and encircled with the motto, “Veritas virescit vulnere.” Among the numerous books which he printed was Henry Butte’s “Digets Dry Dinner,” 1599, for William Wood, a bookseller whose shop was at the sign of Time, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and whose Mark was an almost exact copy of one employed by Conrad Bade, a sixteenth century printer of Paris and Geneva (who had apparently adopted his from that of Knoblouch of Strassburg, which we give on another page): it represents a winged figure of Time helping a naked woman out of what appears to be a cave, with the motto, “Tempore patet occulata veritas”; this Mark follows the introductory matter in the above-named work. Making a leap of over half a century, we come across another ambitious Mark, which in the present instance served the additional purpose of a frontispiece; it was employed by John Allen of the Rising Sun, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and is dated 1656; it is rather a fine device of the sun rising behind the hills, with a cathedral on the left-hand side, and the inscription “Ipswiche” and a coat-of-arms, apparently of that city. Although not exactly a printer’s or publisher’s Mark, the charming little plate, engraved by Clark, which John Walthoe, Jr., inserted on the title-page of “The Hive: a collection of the most celebrated Songs,” 1724, is sufficiently near it to be worth reproducing here. T. Cox, a bookseller of “The Lamb,” under the Royal Exchange, Cornhill, was fortunate enough to have a Mark (see page 46), in which John Pine is seen at his best: Cox was not only an eminent bookseller, but was also an exchange-broker. Of much less delicate workmanship, but appropriate nevertheless, is the Mark which we find on the title-pages of the books printed for R. Ware, at the Bible and Sun in Warwick Lane, one of whose books, Dr. Warren’s “Impartial Churchman,” 1728, contains at the end of the first chapter another Mark, an exceedingly rough sketch of a printing-office, with the motto, “vitam mortuis reddo.” On books intended more or less for particular schools, the Printer’s Mark usually takes the shape of the arms of the schools themselves, as in the case of Westminster and Eton; and the same may be said of books printed at Oxford and Cambridge, in the former case a very fine view of the Sheldonian Theatre usually appearing on the title-page of books printed there. John Scolar is an interesting figure among the very early printers of Oxford, and from 1518 he was the official printer of the University; in one of the books he issued there is cited an edict of the Chancellor, under his official seal, enjoining that for a period of seven years to come, no person should venture to print that work, or even to sell copies of it elsewhere printed within Oxford and its precincts, under pain of forfeiting the copies, and paying a fine of five pounds sterling, and other penalties. Scolar’s Mark is one of the very few in which a book appears. John Siberch, the first Cambridge printer, apparently had two Marks, one of which—the Royal Arms, which was the sign of the house he occupied—appears on four of the eight books printed by him at Cambridge in or about 1521; of the second we give a facsimile from his first book, Galen, “De Temperamentis.” The Mark of the majority of eighteenth century booksellers and printers consisted of a monogram formed either with their initials or names. During a portion of his career Jacob Tonson used a bust of what purported to be Shakespeare, partly from the fact that for many years the copyright of the great dramatist’s works belonged to him and partly because one of his shops had for its sign, “The Shakespeare’s Head.”

veritas Liberavit Bonitas Regnauit

JOHN SCOLAR.

I S

JOHN SIBERCH.

The earliest Printers’ Marks of Scottish printers are not of the first importance, but they are sufficiently interesting to merit notice. Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar were granted a patent for the erection of a printing-press at Edinburgh on September 15, 1507, the former finding the money and the latter the knowledge. Each had his distinctive Mark, both of which are of French origin—a theory which is easily proved so far as Myllar’s is concerned from the fact that it displays two small shields at the top corners, each charged with the fleur-de-lys. Myllar’s device, in which we see a windmill with a miller ascending the outside ladder, carrying a sack of grain on his back, is an obvious pun on his name, and was, perhaps, suggested by the Mark of Jehan Moulin, Paris. Chepman’s is a very close copy of that of Pigouchet, Paris, the male and female figures being carefully copied even to the small crosses on their knees; the initials W C are elegantly interlaced. Thomas Davidson is a very interesting figure in the early history of Scottish typography; he appears to have been the first king’s printer of his country, and one of his earliest works is “Ad Serenissimum Scotorum Regem Jacobum Quintum de suscepto Regni Regimine a diis feliciter ominato Strena,” circa 1525; about ten years later came a translation of the “Chronicles of Scotland,” compiled by Boece, and “translatit be maister Johne Bellenden;” Davidson’s Mark is of the same character as Chepman’s, but is, if possible, even more roughly drawn and engraved; whilst Bassandyne copied the device of Crespin of Geneva, with the initials T. B. instead I. C. Arbuthnot’s device of the Pelican, which he used in two sizes, and the Marks of Thomas Vautrollier, have been already referred to. Coming down to the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, we find the few books of Henry Charteris of considerable and varied interest, and his Mark, if by no means carefully drawn and engraved, has at all events the merit of being fairly original.

Androv myllar

ANDRO MYLLAR.

W C / Walterus chepman

WALTER CHEPMAN.

T D / THOMAS DA.

THOMAS DAVIDSON.

IVSTITIA. RELIGIO. SVVM CVIQVE DEVM COLE / HIS SVFFVLTA DVRANT. / H C

H. CHARTERIS.