231 In the following observations on the first Oxford types we are mainly indebted, in common with all students of the subject, to the careful researches and notes of the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw of Cambridge.

232 Bagford attributes this general cessation of printing in Oxford, Cambridge, York, Tavistock, St. Albans, Canterbury and Worcester to Cardinal Wolsey’s interference while legate.

233 S. Joannis Chrysostomi opera Græce, octo voluminibus. Etonæ, in Collegio Regali, Excudebat Joannes Norton, in Græcis &c. Regius Typographus. 1610–13. Fol.

234 Sir Henry Savile (who is not to be confounded with his kinsman and namesake, Long Harry Savile, Camden’s friend) was formerly Greek tutor to Queen Elizabeth. In 1585 he was made Warden of Merton, and in 1596 became Provost of Eton College, where he died in 1621, ætat. 72.

235 Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Books. London, 1807–12. 6 vols., 8vo, v, 111, 122.

236 The passage referred to is the following vague reply to an inquiry addressed by Sir Henry Savile to Casaubon: “De characteribus Stephanicis longa historia, longæ ambages. Itaque melius ista coram.”

237 Dupont, Histoire de l’Imprimerie. Paris, 1854. 2 vols., 8vo, i, 488.

238 Diary and Correspondence. London, 1850–2. 4 vols. 8vo, iii, 300.

239 Printing was introduced into Cambridge in 1521, when John Siberch printed Bullock’s Oratio and seven other works. He styled himself the first printer in Greek in England, although none of his works were wholly printed in that language. The fount used for the quotations in the Galeni de Temperamentis was probably procured from abroad. The residence of Erasmus at Cambridge lent undoubted impetus to the art, which progressed actively while the Oxford press was idle. The first University printers, three in number, were appointed in 1534, by virtue of a charter granted by Henry VIII, in terms considerably more liberal than those first granted to Oxford. At no period of its career has the Cambridge press boasted of a type-foundry. In 1626 Archbishop Usher made an effort to procure from Leyden, for the use of the press, matrices of Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic and Samaritan letters, which, had he been successful, might have formed the nucleus of a foundry. Unfortunately, the Archbishop was forestalled by the Elzevirs, who secured the matrices for their own press (Parr’s Life of Usher. London, 1686, fol., p. 342–3). The University made an effort in 1700 to enrich their press by the purchase of a fount of the famous Paris Greek types of Francis I, known as the King’s Greek. But as the French Academy insisted, as a condition of the purchase, that all works printed in these characters should bear the imprint “characteribus Græcis e Typographeo regio Parisiensi,” the Cambridge Syndics, unable to accede to the terms, withdrew from the negotiations (Gresswell’s Early Parisian Greek Press. Oxford, 1833, i, 411; and De Guignes’ Typographie Orientale et Grecque de l’Imprimerie Royale. Paris, 1787, p. 85).

240 Novum Testamentum. Cantabrigiæ. Apud Tho. Buck. 1632. 8vo.

241 Anecdotes, i, 119. Elsewhere (v, 111) Beloe asserts that the type thus used was the Greek of Sir Henry Savile. Although the same size, and in many points closely resembling this letter, it differs from it materially in other respects. This may possibly be accounted for on the supposition that some of the Savile characters having been lost, they had been replaced either by new matrices, or by the addition of letters from some other fount. Buck discarded many of the cumbrous abbreviations used in the Chrysostom, greatly to the advantage of his text (see 4th Report Historical MSS. Commission, p. 464).

242 Rushworth’s Collections, ii, 74.

243 Works of Laud. Oxford, 1847–60. 7 vols., 8vo, v, 80.

244 The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New, etc. Printed at London by Robert Barker . . . and by the Assignes of John Bill. Anno 1631. 8vo.

245 Bagford and others erroneously mention the fine as £3,000.

246 Clementis ad Corinthios Epistola prior. 4to. Oxonii, 1633.

247 Augustin Linsdell.

248 Wilkins (D.) Concilia, iv, 485.

249 According to documents in the Record Office, the fine was entered Feb. 18, 163 ³⁄₄, “Fined for errors in printing the Bible, Barker £200, Lucas £100.” It was allowed to stand over from time to time, “to see whether they would set up their press for the printing of Greek.” On June 23, 1635, it was ordered that all Bibles now in Stationers’ Hall which had been erroneously printed should be redelivered to them “with charge to see all the gross faults amended before they vent the same.”

250 Catena Græcorum Patrum in Beatum Job . . . operâ et studio Patricii Junii, Bibliothecarii Regii, etc. Londini, ex Typographio Regio. 1637. Fol. In his dedication to the Archbishop, Young thus refers to the care taken by Laud in the purchase of the type: “Quod quidem si eâ fronte acceperis . . . quâ Britanniam denique characterum elegantiâ in omni linguarum genere locupletas, ac vicinis gentibus, non minus pulchrâ, quam politâ et accuratâ veterum scriptorum editione, invidendam reddis, etc.”

251 The matrices of this fount, as will be seen hereafter, passed into Grover’s foundry, and were sold at the dispersion of James’s foundry in 1782.

252 State Papers, Domestic, 1637–8. No. 75.

253 Probably from the Elzevirs, who in 1626 (as noticed p. 66, note) had succeeded in outbidding the representatives of Cambridge University for the Oriental press and matrices of Erpenius.

254 Thomas Smith at a later date referred to the same gift:—“Circa id temporis . . . D. Guilielmus Laudus . . . postquam ingentem Codicum omne genus manu exaratorum molem pecuniis largissime effusis, ubi ubi merx ista literaria erat reperienda, conquisivisset, elegantissimos typos, omnium ferè linguarum, quæ hodie obtinent, efformari procuravit” (Vitæ, quorundam Virorum . . . Patricii Junii, London, 1707, 4to., p. 27).

255 Works of Laud, v. 168.

256 Ibid., v, 236.

257 Latham’s Oxford Bibles and Printing in Oxford. 1870, p. 46.

258 The University supplied a press and type to King Charles I during the Civil War (Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa. Oxford, 1781. 2 vols., 8vo., i, 281).

259 Lemoine, Typographical Antiquities. London, 1797. 8vo, p. 87. The office of Archi-typographus had been instituted by Laud, about 1637.

260 He it was on whom Tom Brown wrote his famous epigram:—

• “I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
• The reason why, I cannot tell;
• But this alone I know full well,
• I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.”

261 Bagford (Harl. MS. 5901, fo. 89) mentions that Dr. Fell encouraged the fitting-up of a paper mill at Wolvercote, by Mr. George Edwards, “who was a cutter in wood of the great letters, and engraved many other things made use of in the printing of books, and had a talent in maps, although done with his left hand.” Of this mill, Hearne wrote in 1728, “Some of the best paper made in England is made at Wolvercote Mill” (Reliq., ii, 85, ed. 1869).

262 This list, which was appended to the specimen of 1695, doubtless includes a few items acquired by the Press since Dr. Fell’s death. (Harl. MSS. 5901, 5929.)

263 The Coptic fount included in his gift is said to have been cut, not only at his expense, but under his personal supervision, from a character (Mores states) delineated by Mr. Wheeler, rector of St. Ebbe’s, in Oxford.

264 Harl. MS. 5901, fol. 85.

265 Gutch, Collect., i, 271.

266 Athenæ Oxonienses. London, 1691–2. 2 vols., fol., ii, 604. Wood, in speaking of Mill’s Greek Testament, begun in 1681, says that the first sheets were begun at his Lordship’s cost, “at his Lordship’s printing house, near the Theater” (Fasti Oxon., 3rd ed., ii, 381). This was probably the hired house occupied by the University press prior to its removal to the Theatre, concerning the site of which Hearne remarks (Reliq., i, 254), “One part of the wall, being a sort of bastion, is now to be seen, just as we enter into the Theater-yard, at the west corner of the north side of the Schools, viz., where the late printing-house of Bp. Fell stood.” Moxon, in 1683, recognised the Bishop’s “ardent affections to promote Typographie” in England, by dedicating to him the second volume of his Mechanick Exercises, the first practical work on printing written by an Englishman.

267 A copy of this letter may be seen in the preface to Hickes’ Thesaurus, 1705, p. xliii.

268 The Gothic and Runic punches, and the punches and matrices of the Saxon, formed part of the interesting exhibit of the Oxford University Press at the Caxton Exhibition in 1877.

269 Nichols, Literary Anecdotes, iv, 147.

270 The Oxford Ethiopic types appear to have gone astray, if not at this period, shortly afterwards; for Dr. Mawer, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1759 respecting his proposed Supplement to Walton’s Polyglot, says that the use of the University types had been offered him (in 1743) for printing a specimen of his work, “but,” he adds, “an obstruction was here thrown in my way by reason of the Ethiopic types being most of them lost, and incapable of printing half a page.” (Todd’s Life of Walton, London, 1821, i, 332.)

271 Nichols, Lit. Anec., iv., 146. One of the first works printed in the recovered types was King Alfred’s Saxon version of Boethius’ Consolationis Philosophiæ Libri. Oxford, 1698, 8vo. It was edited by Mr. Christopher Rawlinson, from a transcript by Francis Junius among the MSS. at Oxford. Opposite the title is a head of Junius by Burghers, from a sketch by Van Dyck, in the Picture Gallery.

272 A. J. Butler, Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt. Oxford, 1884. 2 vols., 8vo, ii, 257.

273 These additions duly appeared in the second Oxford specimen of 1695, from which the inventory at p. 148 is quoted.

274 There is an amusing account of a visit to the University Press in 1682 in Mrs. D’Anvers’ Academia: or the Humours of the University of Oxford, in Burlesque verse (1691), pp. 25–27.

275 Harl. MS. 5901, fo. 4. The Specimen is given in 5929.

276 Oratio Dominica, πολύγλωττος πολύμορφος, nimirum, plus centum Linguis, Versionibus, aut Characteribus reddita et expressa. Londini, 1700, 4to. 76 pp. The editor was B. M(otte). Typogr. Lond.

277 This circumstance is thus frankly noted in the preface: “Porrò, ne Characterum alienorum copiâ me jactitare videar, scias velim, schedas duas, Linguas Hebraicam, et cæteras usque ad Slavonicam complexas, in Typographéo instructissimo inclytæ Academiæ Oxoniensis excusas esse, cui faustissima quæque comprecator quisquis est qui patriam amat, et bonam mentem colit.”

278 These include the Malabaric, Brahman, Chinese, Georgian, Sclavonic (Hieronymian), Syriac (Estrangelo), and Armenian. The Anglo-Saxon versions are from type, as is also the Irish, which is Moxon’s fount cut for Boyle.

279 A second edition appeared in 1713. In 1715 a similar work was published by Chamberlayne in Amsterdam, entitled Oratio Dominica in diversas omnium fere gentium linguas versa et propriis cujusque linguæ characteribus expressa. Amstelodami 1715. 4to, with dissertations by Dr. Wilkins and others. This production is superior in general appearance to the English book, but the Oriental and other foreign characters being almost entirely copperplate, its typographical value is decidedly inferior.

280 The Bible-side height is slightly above the ordinary English height. The Learned-side height is about the same as the French height. Ancient jealousies between the two rival “Sides” have much to answer for in the growth of this anomaly. Happily, the difference of “height” is now the only difference between the Bible and the Learned Presses.

281 Writing in 1714, Bagford boasted that the Sheldonian Theatre, Plantin’s Office at Antwerp, the King’s Office in Paris, the King of Spain’s Printing House, (Plantin’s Office at Leyden—since Elzevir’s—is a sorry shed), Janson’s in Amsterdam, and that of the Jews in the same city, were not to compare with the Oxford House (Harl. MS. 5901). The imprint, E Theatro Sheldoniano, was continued on Oxford books till 1743.

282 Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archæologicus. Oxon. 1703–5. Fol., 3 vols.

283 This learned lady, mistress of eight languages besides her own, was the daughter of Ralph Elstob, a Newcastle merchant, and was born in 1683. Besides making the English translation which accompanies her brother’s Latin version of the Homily on St. Gregory’s Day, she transcribed and translated many Saxon works at an early age. “Miss Elstob,” says Rowe Mores, “was a northern lady of ancient family and a genteel fortune. But she pursued too much the drug called learning, and in that pursuit failed of being careful of an one thing necessary. In her latter years she was tutoress in the family of the Duke of Portland, where we have visited her in her sleeping-room at Bulstrode, surrounded with books and dirtiness, the usual appendages of folk of learning. But if any one desires to see her as she was when she was the favourite of Dr. Hudson and the Oxonians, they may view her pourtraiture in the initial G of the English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory” (Dissertation, p. 29). Miss Elstob died in 1756, and was buried at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.

284 It is interesting to note that among the money contributors on this occasion (a list of whom is preserved in Nichols’ Anecdotes of Bowyer, pp. 496–7), Robert Andrews and Thomas James, the letter-founders, appear as donors of five guineas each, and Thomas Grover of two guineas.

285 Humphrey Wanley, son of Nathaniel Wanley, was secretary to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and afterwards librarian to the Earl of Oxford. He was an adept in the Saxon antiquities and calligraphy, and was an important contributor to Hickes’ Thesaurus, for which work he compiled the historical and critical catalogue of Saxon and other MSS. He died in 1726, aged fifty-four. Much of his correspondence is preserved among the Harleian MSS.

286 Nichols’ Anecdotes of William Bowyer. London, 1782, 4to., p. 498.

287 The Rudiments of Grammar for the English Saxon Tongue. London, 1715. 4to. A specimen of the letter is given in chapter ix, post.

288 “This type Miss Elstob used in her Grammar, and in her Grammar only. In her capital undertaking, the publication of the Saxon Homilies, begun and left unfinished, whether because the type was thought unsightly to politer eyes, or whether because the University of Oxford had cast a new letter that she might print the work with them, or whether (as she expresses herself in a letter to her uncle, Dr. Elstob), because ‘women are allowed the privilege of appearing in a richer garb and finer ornaments than men,’ she used a Saxon of the modern garb. But not one of these reasons is of any weight with an antiquary, who will always prefer the natural face to ‘richer garb and finer ornaments.’ And on his side is reason uncontrovertible.” (Rowe Mores, Dissert., p. 29.)

289 i.e., William Caslon.

290 Nichols’ Anecdotes of Bowyer, p. 319. Literary Anecdotes, ii, 361, etc.

291 Dissertation, p. 28.

292 A few of the punches and matrices were shown in the Caxton Exhibition of 1877.

293 The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1759, 4to. This fine work is printed in Caslon’s Great Primer Roman. The copperplate initials and vignettes are very fine, the former containing views of several of the different colleges and public buildings at Oxford.

294 Novum Testamentum, juxta exemplar Millianum. Typis Joannis Baskerville. Oxonii e Typographeo Clarendoniano 1763. Sumptibus Academiæ, 4to & 8vo. (See also post, chap. xiii). The Baskerville Greek punches, matrices and types still preserved at Oxford, are supposed to be the only relics in this country of the famous Birmingham foundry.

295 Though dated 1768 on the title, this specimen appears not to have been completed for two years, as it bears the date Sept. 29, 1770, on the last page, and includes specimens of purchases made in that year.

296 Dissertation, p. 45. These strictures we cannot but regard as somewhat hypercritical. It was no uncommon thing to cast a small face of letter on a body larger than its own; and in the case of Hebrew and other Orientals, where detached points were cast to work over the letter, it was by no means unusual at that time, and till a later period, to designate the latter by the name of the body which it and the point in combination collectively formed. With regard to the gradual lapse of obsolete and superannuated founts from the specimen, Mr. Mores’ antiquarian zeal appears to have blinded him to the fact that the Oxford press may have issued their specimens as an advertisement of their present resources, rather than as an historical collection of their typographical curiosities.