P RINTING had reached a low ebb in England in the early years of the eighteenth century. A glance through any of the common public prints of the day, such, for instance, as official broadsides, political pamphlets, works of literature, or even Bibles,447 points to a depression and degeneration so marked that one is tempted to believe that the art of Caxton and Pynson and Day was rapidly becoming lost in a wilderness of what a contemporary satirist terms “Brown sheets and sorry letter.”
With the exception of Oxford University, no foundry of the day was contributing anything towards the revival of good printing, or even towards the maintenance of such a standard as did exist. And Oxford, as we have said, owed its best founts to gifts procured, almost entirely, from abroad. Grover and Andrews, the heritors of the old founders, originated little or nothing; and where their efforts were put into requisition (as in the case of Andrews’ attempt to cut the Anglo-Saxon for Miss Elstob’s Grammar) they failed. Scarcely a work with any {233} pretension to fine printing was the impression of honest English type. Watson, the Scotch historian of printing, openly rebuked his brethren of the craft for not stocking their cases with Dutch type. Tonson, a king among English printers is said on one occasion to have lodged in Amsterdam while a founder there was casting him £300 worth of type; and James, the only English founder whose business showed any vitality, owed his success chiefly, if not entirely, to the fact that all his letter was the product of Dutch matrices; and even these, in his hands, were so indifferently cast as to be often as bad as English type.
What was the reason for this lamentable decline—how far it was chargeable on the printer, how far on the founder, or how far both were the victims of that system of Star Chamber decrees, monopolies, patents, restraints and privileges which had characterised the illiberal days of the Stuarts—this is not the place to inquire. Nor, happily, are we called upon to speculate as to what would have been the consequence to English Typography of an uninterrupted prolongation of the malady under which it laboured. But it is necessary to remind ourselves of the critical nature of that malady in order to appreciate properly the providential circumstance which turned the attention of William Caslon to typefounding, and thus served to avert from England the disgrace which threatened her.
William Caslon448 was born at Hales Owen in Shropshire in the year 1692. He served his apprenticeship to an engraver of gun-locks and barrels in London, and at the expiration of his term followed his trade in Vine Street, near the Minories.
The ability he displayed in his art was conspicuous, and by no means confined to the mere ornamentation of gun-barrels—the chasing of silver and the designing of tools for bookbinders frequently occupying his attention. While thus engaged, some of his bookbinding punches were noticed for their neatness and accuracy by Mr. Watts,449 the eminent printer, who, fully alive to the present degenerate state of the typographical art in this country, was quick to recognise the possibility of raising it once more to its proper position. He {234} accordingly encouraged Mr. Caslon to persevere in letter-cutting, promising him his personal support, and favouring him meanwhile with introductions to some of the leading printers of the day.
About the same time, it is recorded that another great printer, the elder Bowyer,450 “accidentally saw in the shop of Mr. Daniel Browne, bookseller, near Temple Bar, the lettering of a book, uncommonly neat; and enquiring who the artist was by whom the letters were made, Mr. Caslon was introduced to his acquaintance, and was taken by him to Mr. James’s foundery in Bartholomew Close. Caslon had never before that time seen any part of the business; and being asked by his friend if he thought he could undertake to cut types, he requested a single day to consider the matter, and then replied he had no doubt but he could. From this answer, Mr. Bowyer lent him £200, Mr. Bettenham451 (to whom also he had been introduced) lent the same sum, and Mr. Watts £100.”452
With this assistance Mr. Caslon established himself in a garret in Helmet Row, Old Street, and devoted himself with ardour to his new profession.453 An opportunity for distinguishing himself presented itself shortly afterwards.
In the year 1720 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,454 acting {235} on a suggestion made by Mr. Salomon Negri, a native of Damascus, and a distinguished Oriental scholar, “deemed it expedient to print for the Eastern Churches the New Testament and Psalter in the Arabic language for the benefit of the poor Christians in Palestine, Syria, Mesapotamia, Arabia and Egypt, the constitution of which countries allowed of no printing.” A new Arabic fount being required for the purpose, Mr. Caslon, whose reputation as a letter-cutter appears already to have been known, was selected to cut it. This he did to the full satisfaction of his patrons, producing the elegant English Arabic which figures in his early specimens. The Society was, according to Rowe Mores, already possessed of a fount of Arabic cast from the Polyglot matrices in Grover’s foundry. But Caslon’s fount was preferred for the text, and in it appeared, in due time, first the Psalter in 1725,455 and afterwards the New Testament in 1727.456
“Mr. Caslon, after he had finished his Arabic fount, cut the letters of his own name in Pica Roman, and placed the name at the bottom of a specimen of the Arabic457; and Mr. Palmer (the reputed author of Psalmanazar’s History of Printing), seeing this name, advised Mr. Caslon to complete the fount of Pica. Mr. Caslon did so; and as the performance exceeded the letter of the other founders of the time, Mr. Palmer—whose circumstances required credit with those who, by his advice, were now obstructed (i.e., whose business was likely to {236} suffer from this new rival)—repented having given the advice, and discouraged Mr. Caslon from any further progress.
“Mr. Caslon, disgusted,458 applied to Mr. Bowyer, under whose inspection he cut, in 1722, the beautiful fount of English (Roman) which was used in printing the edition of Selden’s Works459 in 1726.”
Caslon’s excellent performance of this task may best be judged of by an inspection of this noble work, which remains conspicuous not only as the impression of the first letter cast at the Caslon foundry, but as marking a distinct turning-point in the career of English typography, which from that time forward entered on a course of brilliant regeneration. The Hebrew letter used in the Selden was also of Caslon’s cutting, and must therefore share with the English Roman the honour of a first place in the productions of his foundry.
His next performance was a fount of Pica Coptic for Dr. Wilkins’s460 edition {237} of the Pentateuch,461 a letter which Rowe Mores commends as superior to the Oxford Coptic in which Dr. Wilkins’ New Testament had been printed in 1716.462 This fount Caslon also cut under the direction of Mr. Bowyer, his generous patron, whom he always acknowledged as his master from whom he had learned his art.
Caslon’s business, thus established, rapidly advanced in fame and excellence. Although at the outset it depended mainly on the support of his three chief patrons, it was soon able to stand alone and compete with the best houses in the trade.
“It is difficult,” observes Mr. Hansard, “to appreciate the obstacles which Mr. Caslon encountered at the commencement of his career. At present the theory and practice of letter-founding are not, as in his time, an ‘art and mystery,’ and efficient workmen in every branch are easily procured. He had not only to excel his competitors in his own particular branch of engraving the punches, which to him was probably the easiest part of his task, but to raise an establishment and cause his plans to be executed by ignorant and unpractised workmen. He had also to acquire for himself a knowledge of the practical and mechanical branches of the art, which require, indeed, little genius, but the most minute and painful attention to conduct successfully. The wishes and expectations of his patrons were fulfilled and exceeded by his decided superiority over his domestic rivals and Batavian competitors. The importation of foreign types ceased; his founts were, in fact, in such estimation as to be frequently, in their turn, exported to the Continent.”463
In 1728 Mr. Caslon narrowly escaped committing an error which might seriously have affected his after career. The foundry of the Grovers being then in the market, he contracted for the purchase of it.464 Fortunately for English typography, the business fell through, and Caslon was still left a free man to pursue his own method, unburdened by the incubus of a large and useless stock of matrices, which, had they been suffered to mingle with his own beautiful productions, would have degraded his foundry to a patchwork establishment little better than that of his competitors at home and abroad. As it was, he had the advantage of completing his specimens after his own plan, and impressing with the mark of his own genius every fount which bore his name.
His fame in 1730 was such, that (as Ged, in his narrative of the invention of {238} Block-Printing, states) he had already eclipsed most of his competitors, and had introduced his founts into some of the chief printing houses of the metropolis, and even secured the custom of the King’s printers to the exclusion of all others.465 Although Ged’s narrative goes to show that Caslon shared the scepticism of his contemporaries with regard to the utility of stereotyping, and was even ready to back his opinion with his money, it is satisfactory to observe that he was no party to the discreditable persecution to which that unfortunate inventor was subjected by other members of the craft. Indeed, the only successful experiment made by Ged appears to have been a cast from Caslon’s type.
That the success of the new foundry was not achieved wholly without opposition is apparent from the following anecdote preserved by Mr. Nichols, and told in connection with the account of Bishop Hare’s Hebrew Psalter, published by Bowyer in 1733.466
This work, it appears, had been originally intended to be printed at the press of Palmer, with whom Caslon, as we have seen, had already had dealings of a not altogether satisfactory character.
“His Lordship, however,” says Nichols (quoting Psalmanazar’s account of the transaction), “had excepted against Mr. Palmer’s Hebrew types which were of Athias’ font,467 and a little battered, and insisted upon his having a new set from Mr. Caslon, which greatly exceeded them in beauty. But Mr. Palmer was so deeply in debt to him (Caslon) that he knew not how to procure it from him without ready money, which he was not able to spare. The Bishop likewise insisted upon having some Roman and Italic types cast with some distinguishing mark, to direct his readers to the Hebrew letters they were designed to answer, and these required a new set of punches and matrices before they could be cast; and that would have delayed the work, which Mr. Palmer was in haste to go about that he might the sooner finger some of his Lordship’s money. This put him upon such an unfair stratagem as, when discovered, quite disgusted his lordship against him; namely, representing Mr. Caslon as an idle, dilatory workman, who would in all probability make them wait several years for those few types, if ever he finished them. That he was indeed the only Artist that could supply him with those types, but that he hated work and was not to be depended upon; and therefore advised his Lordship to make shift with some sort which he could substitute and would answer the same purpose, rather than run the risk of staying so long and being perhaps disappointed.
“The Bishop, however, being resolved, if possible, to have the desired types, sent for Mr. Bowyer, and asked him whether he knew a letter-founder that could {239} cast him such a set out of hand, who immediately recommended Mr. Caslon; and being told what sad and disadvantageous character he had heard of him, Mr. Bowyer not only assured his Lordship that it was a very false and unjust one, but engaged to get the above-mentioned types cast by him, and a new font of his Hebrew ones, in as short a time as the thing could possibly be done. Mr. Caslon was accordingly sent for by his Lordship, and having made him sensible of the time the new ones would require to be made ready for use, did produce them according to his promise, and the book was soon after put to the press.”468
Among the other interesting founts cut by Caslon about this time, may be mentioned the Pica Black, of which we show a specimen, and which received special commendation for its faithful following of the traditional Old English character first used by Wynkyn de Worde.
He also cut an Armenian for Whiston’s edition of Moses Choronensis,469 and an Etruscan for Mr. J. Swinton of Oxford, the learned antiquary and philologist, who published his De Linguâ Etruriæ470 in 1738; as well as a Gothic and several other of the foreign and learned characters.
All of these, with exception of the Etruscan and an Ethiopic cut still later, were completed before 1734, in which year the first Specimen of his foundry appeared.
This famous broadside, of which very few copies are now extant, dates from Chiswell Street, to which address Mr. Caslon had transferred the Helmet Row Foundry (after an intermediate sojourn in Ironmonger Row), about the year 1734.
The sheet is arranged in four columns, and displays altogether thirty-eight founts, namely:
Of these, all, with three exceptions, are Caslon’s own handiwork, and represent the untiring industry of fourteen years. Of the excellence of the performance it is sufficient to say that the Specimen placed Caslon absolutely without rival at the head of his profession; “and,” as Nichols says, “for clearness and uniformity, for the use of the reader and student, it is doubtful whether it has been exceeded by any subsequent production.”
The three founts referred to as not the product of Caslon’s hand, were the Canon Roman, from Andrews’ foundry, formerly Moxon’s, and exhibited in the {241} Mechanick Exercises471; the English Syriac, which is from the matrices of the Polyglot472; and the Pica Samaritan, which was cut by a Dutchman named Dummers.
Fame appears to have followed rapidly on the appearance of this Specimen. The sheet was included as an inset plate in the second edition of Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopædia in 1738,473 with the following flattering notice:—“The above were all cast in the foundery of Mr. W. Caslon, a person who, though not bred to the art of letter-founding, has, by dint of genius, arrived at an excellency in it unknown hitherto in England, and which even surpasses anything of the kind done in Holland or elsewhere.”
Caslon made a further addition to his stock of matrices in 1739 by the purchase of half of Mitchell’s foundry,474 of which the most interesting items were a Pica Greek, sets of Music and flower matrices, and six sizes of Black. The remainder, consisting of Romans and Italics, do not appear to have added much to the resources of the Chiswell Street foundry.475
In the year 1742 Mr. Caslon’s eldest son, William—at that time twenty-two years of age—entered the business, and in the Specimen of the same year his name first appears in conjunction with his father’s. Unfortunately, no copy of this Specimen (which had evidently been seen by Nichols476) is known to be extant. Another Specimen, also unfortunately missing, is mentioned by the same authority, who says, “the abilities of the second Caslon appeared to great {242} advantage in the specimen of the types of the learned languages in 1748.”477 A further Specimen was issued in the following year, in broadside form, which displayed a large variety of letters, from Canon to Pearl, many of them being the handiwork of Caslon the younger. It is possible that this last sheet may have been sent, for the most part, abroad; for while no copy of it is to be found in this country, we find one mentioned with commendation by Fournier in 1766,478 and another preserved to this day in the Sohmian Collection at Stockholm, where, along with several other rare English and foreign specimens, it has been recently discovered by, the indefatigable Mr. William Blades.
In Ames’ Typographical Antiquities,479 published in 1749, appears a specimen of “Mr. Caslon’s Roman letter and the names of the sizes now in use,” the introductory note to which affords the first definite notice of the younger Caslon in connection with the foundry. “The art,” says Ames, “seems to be carried to its greatest perfection by Mr. William Caslon, and his son, who, besides the type of all manner of living languages now by him, has offered to perform the same for the dead, that can be recovered, to the satisfaction of any gentleman desirous of the same.”
Another contemporary record of equal interest, which seems, moreover, to allude to one or more of the three missing Specimens above mentioned, is contained in a little essay on the Original, Use, and Excellency of Printing, published in 1752480; in which the anonymous writer, after dealing with the invention, remarks: “Altho’ the chief honour is due to the Inventor, yet the perfection and beauty that Printing is now arrived at is very much owing to them that came after. Many in the present age have not a little contributed thereto. Among whom I cannot but particularly mention Mr. William Caslon and his Son, Letter Founders in Chiswell Street, who have very much by their indefatigable labours promoted the honour of this Art, and who have lately printed three broadsheet specimens of their curious types; one of them consisting of all the common sorts of letter used in printing; the second sheet is {243} divers sorts of their Orientals, Old-English, and Saxon; and the third contains a great variety of curious Flowers and Fancies for Ornamenting of Title Pages, Tickets, &c., also several sorts of Titling letter of Roman, Old-English and Greek; and the whole, for their master strokes and curious flourishes, outdo all that have been cast in England, Holland or any other place before.”
The above is one of many compliments paid to Caslon at this period by his contemporaries. Smith, in his Printer’s Grammar in 1755, goes out of his way more than once to commend the founder by whose genius “letter is now in England of such a beautiful cut and shape as it never was before.” Baskerville, in a passage quoted elsewhere,481 frankly acknowledges him as the greatest master of the art. Ames and Chambers, as has been noticed, vie with one another in proclaiming his pre-eminence; Mores himself styles him the Coryphæus of modern letter founders, and Lemoine awards him the title of the English Elzevir.
In 1750 Mr. Caslon’s reputation was such that his Majesty George II. placed him on the Commission of the Peace for Middlesex, which office he sustained with honour to himself and advantage to the community till the time of his death.
In June of the same year, the Universal Magazine482 contained an Article on Letter Founding, extracted chiefly from Moxon, and accompanied by a view of the interior of Caslon’s Foundry, containing portraits of six of his workmen. The view (of which our frontispiece is a reproduction) represents four casters at work, one rubber (Joseph Jackson), one dresser (Thomas Cottrell), and three boys breaking off, etc. Considering the extent of the business at the time, it may be doubted whether this represents the entire working staff of the establishment, or whether the view is of a portion only, in which, for the convenience of the artist, the four processes of the manufacture are assembled. The processes of punch-cutting and justifying were conducted in private by the Caslons themselves; yet not, as history shows, in such secrecy as to prevent their two apprentices, Cottrell and Jackson, from observing and learning the manual operation of that part of the “art and mystery.”483
A movement among the workmen of the Foundry in 1757 for a higher scale of wages, although decided in favour of the men, resulted in the dismissal of the two ex-apprentices, who were supposed to have been ringleaders in the {244} movement. With the experience acquired during their term of service at Chiswell Street, both these men were enabled to establish foundries of their own; and it is to the credit of Cottrell’s good sense, if not of his good feeling, that he subsequently supported his own claim to the patronage of the trade by announcing on his specimens that he had “served his apprenticeship to William Caslon, Esq.”
The active part taken by the Second Caslon in the operations of the Foundry may be best judged of by a reference to the Specimen Book of 1764.484 In this book the number of founts which originally appeared on the broadside of 1734 is more than doubled,485 most of the additions (with the exception of those which had formed part of Mitchell’s Foundry) being the handiwork of Caslon II. The following advertisement appears on the last page:—
“This new Foundery was begun in the year 1720, and finish’d 1763; and will (with God’s leave) be carried on, improved and inlarged by William Caslon and Son, Letter-Founders in London.—Soli Deo Gloria.”
Rowe Mores, whose prejudice against the Second Caslon is undisguised, waxes facetious on the head of this innocent declaration,486 although he can find but little to blame in the Specimen itself, “in which,” he says, “is nothing censurable but the silly notion and silly fondness of multiplying bodies”—the Specimen showed a long-bodied English and a large-face Long Primer and Bourgeois—“as if the intrinsic of a foundery consisted in the numerosity of the heads!” Such animadversions, however, leave untouched the younger Caslon’s reputation as an able and successful typefounder, which was, indeed, so well established that during the later years of his father’s life he appears to have had the sole management of the business.
Caslon I, having lived to see the result of his genius and industry in the regeneration of the Art of Printing in England, retired, universally respected, from the active management of the Foundry, and took up his residence first in {245} a house opposite the Nag’s Head in the Hackney Road, removing afterwards to Water Gruel Row, and finally settling in what was then styled a country house at Bethnal Green, where he resided till the time of his death.
“Mr. Caslon,” says Nichols, “was universally esteemed as a first-rate artist, a tender master, and an honest, friendly, and benevolent man.”487 The following anecdote, preserved by Sir John Hawkins in his History of Music, gives a pleasing glimpse into his private life, and shows that in his devotion to the severer arts the gentler were not neglected.
“Mr. Caslon,” says Sir John, “settled in Ironmonger Row, in Old Street; and being a great lover of music, had frequent concerts at his house, which were resorted to by many eminent masters. To these he used to invite his friends and those of his old acquaintance, the companions of his youth. He afterwards removed to a large house in Chiswell Street, and had an organ in his concert room.488 After that, he had stated monthly concerts, which, for the convenience of his friends, and that they might walk home in safety when the performance was over, were on that Thursday in the month which was nearest the full moon; from which circumstance his guests were wont humourously to call themselves ‘Luna-tics.’ In the intervals of the performance the guests refreshed themselves at a sideboard, which was amply furnished; and when it was over, sitting down to a bottle of wine, and a decanter of excellent ale, of Mr. Caslon’s own brewing, they concluded the evening’s entertainment with a song or two of Purcell’s sung to the harpsicord, or a few catches; and, about twelve, retired.”489
Mr. Caslon’s hospitalities were not confined to his musical friends merely. His house was a resort of literary men of all classes, of whom large parties frequently assembled to discuss interesting matters relating to books and studies.490
Mr. Caslon was thrice married. His second and third wives were named respectively Longman and Waters, and each had a good fortune. By his first wife he had two sons and a daughter: William, who succeeded him at Chiswell {246} Street; Thomas, who became an eminent bookseller in Stationers’ Hall Court, where he died in 1783, after having in the previous year served the office of Master of the Stationers’ Company; and Mary, who married first Mr. Shewell, one of the original partners in Whitbread’s brewery, and afterwards Mr. Hanbey, an ironmonger of large fortune. A brother of Mr. Caslon, named Samuel, is mentioned by Rowe Mores, and appears to have served at Chiswell Street for a short time as mould maker, leaving there subsequently, on some dispute, to work in the same capacity for Mr. Anderton of Birmingham.
Mr. Caslon died, much respected, at Bethnal Green, on Jan. 23rd, 1766, aged 74, and was buried in the Churchyard of St. Luke’s, the parish in which his three foundries were all situated. The monument to his memory, kept in repair by bequest of his daughter, Mrs. Hanbey, is thus briefly inscribed:— W. CASLON, Esq., ob. 23rd Jan., 1766, ætat 74. A life-size portrait of him by Kyte is preserved at Chiswell Street, representing him holding in his hand the famous Specimen Sheet of 1734.
William Caslon II issued in the year of his father’s death a Specimen in small quarto, bearing his own name and containing the same founts as those exhibited in the 1764 book.491 This Specimen, consisting of thirty-eight leaves, was again reprinted in 1770 by Luckombe in his History of Printing,492 of which work it occupies pages 134 to 173.
About the year 1768 the Chiswell Street foundry was called upon to supply a Syriac fount for the Oxford University Press, and Caslon produced the Long Primer Syriac which occurs in his subsequent specimens. He had previously supplied the University with a Long Primer Hebrew, and the old ledgers of the foundry show that numerous transactions of a similar kind took place during the latter half of last century.
In 1770, besides the specimen of Luckombe, another indirect specimen of the Caslon types was issued by a Mr. Cornish, printer, in Blackfriars, in a very {247} small form—32mo—exhibiting a series of Romans, two founts of Black, and three pages of flowers.
It was probably on the Specimen of 1766 that Rowe Mores founded his summary of the contents of the Caslon foundry; and it will be interesting to reproduce this list, as it presents a view of the state of the foundry as it then existed, and, at the same time, distinguishes the authors of the several founts with which it was supplied.
Rowe Mores seizes the opportunity afforded by this enumeration for another sneer at Caslon II. “This is the best account,” he says, “we can give of this capital and beautiful foundery, the possessor of which refused to answer the natural questions, because, forsooth, ‘answering would be of no advantage to us; if we wanted letter to be cast, he would cast it.’ But this we can do ourselves.”493