In addition to the above, the specimen included ninety-seven varieties of flowers, chiefly from the Grovers’ foundry; while other odd flowers, with signs, rules, braces, and various imperfect founts (contained in sixteen drawers) were also sold, though not shown. At the end of the list of matrices came what was perhaps the most interesting feature of the sale, viz., a set of punches contained in a press named “Caxton,” consisting of twenty drawers. Of these the majority were Roman and Italics, which we will not specify, as it is impossible to determine whose handiwork they were in the first instance. We give, however, the contents of drawers A E F and G, which contained the following punches of the learned languages443:

A.— Æthiopic English* [P.] [A.]
Samaritan Pica* (English?) [P.] [G.]
Samaritan Long Primer
Syriac English (Pica?) [G.]
Arabic Great Primer [A.]
Arabic Pica (English?) [A.]
Greek Brevier
Saxon Pica [A.]
Hibernian444 Pica* [M.] [A.]
E.— Greek

Great Primer,* points and ligatures

 [G.]
F. Greek

Pica, points and ligatures

G. Greek

Nonpareil, points and ligatures

 [A.]

It is at least remarkable that so few punches should have existed in so large a foundry; but it is to be remembered that the wear and tear of the matrices in those days was not so great as now, and the necessity for a new set of strikes from the punches was consequently less frequent. We may even suppose, from Mr. Mores’ own reference to the subject, already quoted, that it was a common practice to discard a set of punches as useless as soon as they had left their impression in the matrices.

The concluding items of the Catalogue are “about 60 or 70 moulds, from 5-line Pica down to Nonpareil, some two, some three or more of a sort which {230} will be lotted according to their bodies; also a parcel of iron ladles; a vice, 33 lbs. weight, several gauges, dividers, blocks, setting-up sticks, dressing sticks, etc.,”—a meagre list, which, if it represents the working plant of the foundry, points to a rough and ready practice of the art which, even in Moxon’s time, would have been considered primitive.

A word must be added respecting the Catalogue. Whether it was taken precisely as Mr. Mores left it, or whether Mr. Paterson, the auctioneer (whose “talent at Cataloguing” Nichols, in his Anecdotes, approvingly mentions),445 completed it, we cannot say. It is as precise, perhaps, as any catalogue of so confused a collection could be. An opening was, however, left for a good deal of misapprehension, by the fact that the nests of drawers in which the matrices were stored, instead of bearing distinguishing numbers, bore the names of famous old printers, which duly figured in the Catalogue.446 Misled by this circumstance, it seems more than likely that Paterson may have enhanced the importance of his lots by dwelling on the fact that one fount was “De Worde’s”, another “Cawood’s,” another “Pynson’s,” and so on. The absurdity of this delusion becomes very apparent when we see the Alexandrian Greek some years later puffed by its purchasers as the veritable production of De Worde (who lived a century before the Alexandrian MS. came to this country), and find Hansard, in 1825, ascribing seven founts of Hebrew and a Pearl Greek to Bynneman.

What was the result of the sale financially we cannot ascertain. Of the fate of its various lots we know very little either, except that Dr. Fry secured most of the curious and “learned” matrices. How far the other foundries of the day, at home and abroad, enriched themselves, or how much of the collection fell into the hands of the coppersmiths, are problems not likely to find solution.

With the sale, however, disappeared the last of the old English foundries, and closed a chapter of English typography, which, though not the most glorious, is certainly not the least instructive through which it has passed.

The only specimen of this foundry is that appended to the Catalogue of the sale:—