The Syriac used in Bagster’s Polyglot711 was not cut by Mr. Figgins; but he had previously produced three sizes of this character, viz.: a Double Pica, English, and Long Primer (two founts), under the direction and partly at the expense of Dr. Claudius Buchanan, the eminent Indian missionary and Orientalist, whose work on Christian Researches in Asia, with notices of translations of the Scriptures into the Oriental Languages, had been published at Cambridge, in 1811. At the time of his death, in 1815, Dr. Buchanan was engaged in editing for the British and Foreign Bible Society a Syriac New Testament, which appeared in the following year, printed in Figgins’ type.712

The founts already specified—to which may be added a Small Pica Irish, copied from the copper-plate engravings in Charles Vallancey’s Irish Grammar, and some additional Greeks, cut under Porson’s superintendence—constituted the chief features of Mr. Figgins’ foundry in respect of the learned and foreign founts. With regard to its progress in the characters of more general use, it will be sufficient to quote Mr. Hansard’s note, written in 1825, and based doubtless on an examination of the excellent, specimen of 1821, with its additions in 1822 and 1823:—“No foundry existing is better stocked with matrices for those extraneous sorts which are cut more with a view to accommodation than profit; such as astronomical, geometrical, algebraical, physical, genealogical, and arithmetical sorts; and I feel it particularly incumbent on me to add that, as his specimen bears equal rank with any for the number and beauty of its founts, so he has strayed less into the folly of fat-faced preposterous disproportions, than either Thorne, Fry or Caslon. I consider his Five-line Pica German text a typographical curiosity.”713 {343}

Further specimens were issued in 1824 and 1826, each indicating the rapid growth of the rising foundry between those dates. They were followed in 1827 by a compact little 16mo volume; and from that date specimens are frequent.

Mr. Figgins died at Peckham, Feb. 29th, 1844. He was for several years Common Councillor for the Ward of Farringdon Without; “an amiable and worthy character, “says Nichols,” and generally respected.“ He had relinquished business in 1836, leaving it to his two sons, Vincent Figgins II and James Figgins, who issued their first specimen book, a handsome quarto, under the style of V. & J. Figgins, in 1838. Mr. Vincent Figgins II died in 1860,718 when the business was carried on by Mr. James Figgins I and his son, Mr. James Figgins II. On the retirement of the former, then Mr. Alderman Figgins, M.P., the entire management devolved on his son, the present proprietor. The foundry was removed from West Street, Smithfield, to Ray Street, Farringdon Road, in 1865. {344}