The first announcement of the London Polyglot was made in 1652, when Dr. Walton published A Brief Description of an Edition of the Bible in the Original Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek, with the most ancient Translations of the Jewish and Christian Churches, viz. the Sept. Greek, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, etc., and the Latin versions of them all; a new Apparatus, etc.310 {171} This Description, which set forth the various improvements in the proposed Polyglot on its predecessors, was accompanied by a specimen-sheet311 containing the first twelve verses of the first chapter of Genesis in the following order: On one side, Hebrew with interlinear Latin translation, Latin (Vulgate), Greek (Septuagint) with Latin, Chaldean paraphrase with Latin, Hebrew-Samaritan, Samaritan. On the other side, Syriac with Latin, Arabic with Latin, Latin translation of the Samaritan, Persian with Latin. The imprint to this highly interesting specimen (a copy of which is said to be in the Library of Sydney College, Cambridge) was: Londini, Typis Jacobi Flesher; from which it appears that James Flesher was the first possessor of some of the types cast by the polyglot founders, and subsequently used by Roycroft in this great work.312

Flesher’s Specimen, which we have unfortunately not been able to discover, met with many critics. Amongst others was Dr. Boate, the Dutch scholar (who had already found fault with the Hebrew character used in the Paris Polyglot, which he described as “a very scurvy one, and such as will greatly disgrace the work”), was very disparaging to the new undertaking. It was probably in deference to this critic that Dr. Walton added the following MS. note to the copy of the specimen now at Sydney College, Cambridge: “Typos Hebr. et Syr. cum punctis meliores, parabimus, etc.”

The time occupied in securing the co-operation and assistance of the learned men of the day, in getting subscribers,313 in arranging copy, and finally in {172} providing the necessary types, delayed the commencement of the undertaking till September 1653. Writing to Usher on July the 18th of that year, Dr. Walton thus notes the near completion of the preliminary arrangements: “I hope we shall shortly begin the work; yet I doubt the founders will make us stay a week longer than we expected. . . . We have resolved to have a better paper than that of 11s. a ream, viz., of 15s. a ream.”314

Towards the end of September 1653, the impression of the first volume was begun at the press of Thomas Roycroft, in Bartholomew Close, whose name will always be honourably associated with this famous work.

Very little is known of the actual manual labour employed in the production, beyond the fact that two presses only were said to have been kept at work, and that the types were supplied by more than one of the four authorised founders.

Chevillier315 speaks somewhat contemptuously of the typographical execution (fabrique de l’Imprimerie) of the London as compared with that of the Paris Polyglot. And if, as Le Long points out, “he means by that term the beauty of the paper and the magnificence of the types, it must be admitted that the Paris edition is superior; but if he means the arrangement of the texts and versions, and the general disposition of the entire work, then it is much inferior; for Walton has mapped out his work so precisely that at a single opening of the book you see the texts and versions all at a glance; thus giving a great facility for comparison, wherein the chief usefulness of compilations of this sort consist.”316

Not the least noticeable feature about the work is the fact that from the time of its first going to press to its completion, the printing barely occupied four years. The first volume was completed at the beginning of September 1654. A month later, from the same press was published Dr. Walton’s Introductio ad Lectionem Linguarum Orientalium for the use of subscribers.317 In 1655 the second volume of the Bible was finished; in 1656 the third, and about {173} the close of 1657 the remaining three.318 “And thus,” says a contemporary,319 “in about four years was finished the English Polyglot Bible,320 the glory of that age, and of the English Church and Nation; a work vastly exceeding all former attempts of the kind, and that came so near perfection as to discourage all future ones.”

Apart altogether from the literary and scholastic value of the Bible, the amount of labour and industry represented in its mere typographical execution is astonishing. Each double page presents, when open, some ten or more versions of the same passage divided into parallel columns of varying width, but so set that each comprehends exactly the same amount of text as the other. The regularity displayed in the general arrangement, in the references and interpolations, in the interlineations, and all the details of the composition and impression, are worthy of the undertaking and a lasting glory to the typography of the seventeenth century.321

The matrices of three of these founts, the Samaritan, the Ethiopic, and the Syriac, have survived to the present day, and in the course of this work we shall have occasion to trace their descent from the original makers to the present owners. Meanwhile, it is with great sa­tis­fac­tion that we are able here to show a specimen of types actually cast from these venerable relics as they now exist.323 Of the Arabic fount, some of the punches and matrices also exist, but in too incomplete and dilapidated a state to allow of their being used.

Of the Orientals, the Hebrew is, perhaps, the least good. The Syriac and Arabic are fine bold characters. The Greek is neat, though somewhat in­sig­ni­fi­cant. The Eth­i­o­pic324 and Sa­mar­i­tan325 are both good and elegant faces. The Italic is particularly neat. As might be expected from founts procured from various foundries in that day, there is a certain absence of uniformity in the {175} bodies on which the different founts are cast. This only makes the more remarkable the accuracy and precision with which the columns are arranged. In most copies the columns are divided by red lines, ruled by hand—in itself an enormous task.

It will thus be seen that the Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic texts run throughout the work. The Chaldean text and Targums are all given in Hebrew type. The Hebrew text is printed throughout masoretically.

In addition to the above fundamental characters used, the Prolegomena show the following Alphabets cut in wood, viz.:—Rabbinical Hebrew, Syriac duplices, Nestorian and Estrangelan, Armenian, Coptic, Illyrian, both Cyrillian and Hieronymian, Iberian, Gothic, Chinese, and the character of the Codex Alexandrinus. These are, for the most part, rudely cut, and valuable only as curiosities.

From our point of view, the chief glory of the English Polyglot is that it is wholly the impression of English type. It marks an epoch in the history of our national letter-founding, as, before it appeared, no work of importance had been printed in any of the learned characters except Latin and Greek. The Hebrew, Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic were probably cut expressly for the work, under the supervision of its learned editors, and became thus the models or prototypes of the numerous Oriental founts which during the eighteenth century figured so largely in the works of English scholarship.

The original preface to the Polyglot contained an honourable reference to Cromwell, who had, from the first, encouraged the undertaking and materially assisted it by remitting the tax on the paper imported from abroad for the use of the work. But the Protector’s death took place in the year after the publication; and the Restoration, which followed two years later, was made the occasion for a somewhat ignoble act of time-service on the part of Walton, who cancelled {176} the last three leaves of the preface, and added a Dedication to Charles II, in which, among other attacks on the memory of his former patron, he referred to Cromwell as “Draco ille magnus.”326 The particular typographical interest of this Royal Dedication is that it is printed in the handsome Double Pica Roman and Italic used by Day in the Ælfredi of 1574, and subsequently by Barker and Lucas in Young’s Catena on Job, in 1637, and in other works. The somewhat worn condition of the types leads Dibdin to condemn the founts as inferior327; but in point of elegance and grandeur this venerable letter remained still one of the best of which our national typography could boast.

In recognition of his services, Charles made Walton his chaplain-in-ordinary, and created him subsequently Bishop of Chester. Nor was he the only worker to whom the completion of this great enterprise brought honour. Roycroft, after what may be considered a feat of rapid and skilful typography, was permitted to take the title Orientalium Typographus Regius.328

The value of the English Polyglot was vastly enhanced by the addition to it of Dr. Edmund Castell’s Heptaglot Lexicon,329 which, after seventeen years of incessant labour, commencing with the first announcement of the Polyglot, was printed, at Roycroft’s press, in 1669, in two volumes, uniform in size and style with the Bible, of which henceforth it formed a necessary complement.

Respecting this famous work, there is little to add from a typographical point of view to what has already been noted with regard to the Polyglot. The {177} same types are, with few exceptions, used in both. Mores considers, but wrongly, that the Amharic shown in Castell’s work is metal, and the same as that used in the Oratio Dominica of 1713. This letter (which also appeared in the first edition of the Oratio Dominica in 1700) belonged to Oxford University, who procured it in 1692, being the Ethiopic character with additions. But the few letters shown in the Heptaglot are evidently engraved by hand, and not cast.

It is to be regretted that Castell’s work, which has been pronounced one of the greatest and most perfect works of the kind ever performed by human industry and learning, and which represented an amount of heroic perseverance in the midst of adverse circumstances scarcely credible, was almost the ruin of its author, both in constitution and fortune. It sold slowly, and at the time of his death upwards of 500 copies were left on hand. The encouragement he received both from royal and episcopal patronage was inadequate to cover the losses which the undertaking had involved, and he died in comparative obscurity in 1685.

Roycroft’s office appears to have suffered severely by the Fire of London in 1666, and a large number of copies of Castell’s Lexicon, then in course of printing, were destroyed. To the same disastrous event may also be attributed the disappearance of some of the founts of the Polyglot founders, after the completion of the Lexicon. Mores, however, succeeds in tracing the most interesting of these; and the fact that all the matrices did not go down to posterity as a single property, is additional proof that they were not all the production of one artist. The Arabic, larger Syriac, and Samaritan passed into the foundry of the Grovers, and the Ethiopic into that of Robert Andrews, who, it seems probable, also inherited the Hebrew and Black. The smaller Syriac came into Mr. Caslon’s hands.

NICHOLAS NICHOLLS.—This founder was son of Arthur Nicholls, the Star Chamber founder, and, as appears by the mention of him in his father’s petition to Archbishop Laud, already quoted, was brought up to the Art, in which, as early as 1637, he was “so expert and able as to be able to perform anything touching the same.” During the Civil Wars he appears to have suffered in the royal cause, and, like many others, at the Restoration to have looked for substantial reward at the hands of the son of the Royal Martyr.

In 1665 he presented to the king a petition to be appointed His Majesty’s Letter Founder. The original document is in the Record Office,330 and is as follows:— {178}

“To the KINGE’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE. The humble peticion of Nicholas Nicholls. Most humbly sheweth

“That the petitioner in the worst of tymes was a constant and loyall sufferer for the causes of your Majestie and that of your Royall ffather of glorious memory, and thereby reduced to greate extreamities.

“Now soe it is, That the peticioner by Industrie hath attained to a considerable skill in the Art of cutting and casting all kinds of Letters and faire Characters (as by the annexed may appeare) And your Majestie beinge the great encourager of good Literature

“Your Majestie’s peticioner most humbly prays your Grace and ffavour to serve in the place of Letter Founder to your Majesties Presses That soe your Majesties presses may be supplyed with Characters in some measure worthy of your Royall Greatness. And the peticioner makes no question but he shall perform that service (with the blessing of God) to your Majestie’s full content and satisfaction.

“And the peticioner (as in duty bound) shall alwaies pray for your Majesties long and prosperous Reigne over us.”

Attached to the petition, in the centre of a folio sheet, is the tiny polyglot specimen, of which we here present our readers with an exact facsimile. English typography possesses few relics more interesting than this quaint little page—the earliest known type-founder’s specimen in the country.

The execution, particularly of the Roman fount, is very poor, and one wonders, in examining it and comparing it with the recently completed Polyglot, at the artist’s claim “to considerable skill in cutting and casting of faire characters.” It is possible, however, that the unusual minuteness of the type may have been held to be a merit compensating for defects in execution. And as none of the founts are known to have been used in any other work of the time, it may be presumed the letters were cut specially for this specimen. The Roman and Greek founts are Pearl in body, and the Orientals Nonpareil, and display the text “Vivas o rex in perpetuum” in Latin, Greek, Hebrew (with points), Syriac, Samaritan, Ethiopic and Arabic. This loyal aspiration, effusively dedicated as “the prayer of the devoted heart, and the specimen of the Art of the least of the subjects of the greatest of the Kings,” is surrounded by a neat flower-border (also Nonpareil in body), and printed somewhat roughly on coarse paper. Despite its defects, it appears to have found favour with the august personage to whom it was offered, as we find, on January 29th, 1667, a minute of a “Warrant for swearing Nicholas Nicholls, Letter Founder to His Majesty.”331

Of the subsequent operations of Nicholls we know very little.332 He probably inherited his father’s foundry, and cast from his matrices. The NICHOLS whom {179} Mores mentions as having founded in 1690,333 could hardly (if the date be correctly given) be the same man who was a practised letter-founder in 1637.

To this last-named founder no doubt belongs the fount of Great Primer Roman and Italic acquired by the Oxford University Press, which had the unenviable distinction of being designated in their Specimen of 1695, as “cut by Mr. Nichols—not good.”334