10. THOMAS AND JOHN JAMES, 1710
[403] Nichols’ note on the James family (Anecdotes of Mr. Bowyer, pp. 585, 609) is at variance with the account given by Rowe Mores. According to the former, Thomas, John and George James were all brothers, and sons of the notorious half-crazy Elianor James, whose husband, Thomas James, the printer, was a large benefactor to Sion College, and died in 1711. On this point, however, Mores, whose relations with the family gave him special opportunities for information, may be considered as more correct in representing Thomas and John as sons of the Rev. John James. George James, the son of Thomas and Elianor, was City Printer in 1724. His office was in Little Britain, where he wrote and printed the Post Boy. He was Common Councilman for the Ward of Aldersgate Without, and died in 1735. His greatgrandfather, Dr. Thomas James, Dean of Wells, was the first Keeper of Bodley’s Library at Oxford in 1605. Portraits of this Dr. Thomas James, and of Thomas and Elianor, the parents of George James, are preserved in Sion College, as is also a portrait of Elizabeth, their daughter, who married Jacob Ilive, the printer, and who was herself a benefactor to the College. Nichols mentions another member of the family, one Harris James, who, he says, was originally a letter-founder, and “formerly of Covent Garden Theatre, where he represented fops and footmen.”
[404] Dissertation, p. 51, et seq.
[405] Rabbi Joseph Athias, son of Tobias Athias, who printed a Spanish Bible for the use of the Jews, was a printer, publisher and typefounder in Amsterdam. He succeeded to the Elzevir foundry as improved and added to by Van Dijk. In 1662–3 he issued an edition of the Old Testament printed in Hebrew type, specially cut by Van Dijk, for the accuracy and beauty of which he received great renown; and in 1667, when a new edition of the Bible was published, the Government of the United Provinces signified their satisfaction by presenting him with a gold medal and a massive gold chain. He is said to have printed a great number of English Bibles. Van Dijk, whose models were so warmly applauded by Moxon, was a letter-cutter only, and worked for various foundries. His founder was John Bus, who cast in Athias’ house, as the title of the following specimen-sheet, issued about 1700, indicates:—Proeven van Letteren die gesneden zijn door Wylen Christoffel van Dijck, welke gegoten werden by Jan Bus, ten huyse van Sr. Joseph Athias woonst in de Swanenburg Street, tot Amsterdam. Demy broadside (showing five Titlings, sixteen Roman and Italic, eight Black and two Music). After passing through several hands, Athias’ foundry was purchased by John Enschedé of Haerlem in 1767, in whose family it still remains.
[406] This should be Dirk Voskens of Amsterdam, who bought the foundry of Bleau in 1677, and was the first Dutch founder who kept types for the Oriental and recondite languages. Like Athias and others, he was a founder only, his punches and matrices being cut and sunk by Rolij. The foundry descended to his great-grandson, and was ultimately put up to auction in 1780, and purchased by the brothers Ploos Van Amstel, and subsequently became absorbed by the Enschedé foundry.
[407] Rolij seems to be Rowe Mores’ way of spelling Rolu, of whose types the following specimen-sheet exists:—Proeven van Letteren dewelcke gegooten worden by Mr. Johannes Rolu, Letter-Snyder woonende tot Amsterdam in de laetste Lelydwars-streat, c. 1710 (probably the specimen referred to by James further on).
[408] Voskens.
[409] “The matter was first composed in the usual way, then the form was affused with some sort of gypsum, which after it was indurated, became a complication of matrices for casting the whole page in a single piece” (Mores, p. 59). As early as the year 1705 a Dutchman, named J. Van der Mey, had, with the assistance of Johann Muller, a German clergyman, devised a method of soldering together the bottoms of common types imposed in a forme, so as to form solid blocks of each page. By this method, two Bibles, a Greek Testament and a Syriac Testament with Lexicon were produced, the plates of all of which, except the last named, were preserved in 1801. See T. Hodgson’s Essay on the Origin and Progress of Stereotype Printing, Newcastle, 1820, 8vo.
[410] “Being called into our company,” says Ged, in his Narrative, “he bragged much of his great skill and knowledge in all the parts of mechanism, and particularly vaunted, that he, and hundreds besides himself, could make plates to as great perfection as I could: which occasioned some heat in our conversation.”
[411] Hansard (Typog. p. 823), shows an impression of two pages of a Prayer Book, from plates which had escaped “Caslon’s cormorant crucible.”
[412] C. Crispi Sallustii Belli Catilinarii et Jugurthini Historiæ. Edinburgi; Guilielmus Ged, Aurifaber Edinensis, non typis mobilibus, ut vulgo fieri solet, sed tabellis seu laminis fusis, excudebat. 1739, 8vo (reprinted 1744). According to the account given by Ged’s daughter in the narrative above referred to, the Sallust was completed in 1736. No copy of that date is, however, known. Some of the plates of the work are still in existence.
[413] The story may be read in detail in Biographical Memoirs of William Ged, including a particular account of his progress in the art of Block printing. London, 1781, 8vo. Fenner died insolvent about the year 1735. James Ged, after working for some time with his father, engaged in the rebellion of 1745, and narrowly escaped execution. He ultimately went to Jamaica, a year before his father’s death.
[414] Despite Mores’ prophecy that Ged’s invention, even if at first successful, would soon have sunk under its own burden, the method was successfully revived, or rather re-invented, about the year 1781 by Dr. Tilloch of Edinburgh, in conjunction with Mr. Foulis, printer to the University of Glasgow, at whose press were printed a stereotype edition of Xenophon’s Anabasis in 1783, and several chap-books. Messrs. Tilloch and Foulis did not persevere with their venture, which was about the year 1800 successfully revived and perfected by Mr. Wilson, a London printer, aided by Earl Stanhope. In France, Firmin Didot, in 1795, attempted a method similar to that of Van de Mey in 1705; but abandoning this, succeeded in 1798 in producing good stereo plates by a system of polytypage, as described ante, p. [13]. The reader is referred to Hodgson’s Essay for specimens and particulars of the successive efforts to perfect the stereotype process at home and abroad.
[415] Mores contradicts himself as to this date, giving it as 1738 in one place, and 1736 in another. As, however, he is particular to mention that John James, in 1736, after his father’s death, commenced his specimen of the foundry, the earlier date may be assumed to be correct.
[416] Timperley, who quotes this document (Encycl. p. 655), gives no particulars as to the letter in which it is printed.
[419] The Oxford University foundry must, of course, be included as a fourth foundry existing at this time, but does not rank as a trading establishment. Cottrell’s foundry was also started in 1757, but it is doubtful whether he had yet finished cutting his punches. Smith, in The Printer’s Grammar, 1755, in comparing the standard bodies in use at that time in England, names Caslon and James as the only English founders.
[420] Smith’s Printer’s Grammar, 1755, in referring to the use of flowers in typography, makes mention of “the considerable augmentation which Mr. Caslon has made here in flowers, and in which Mr. James likewise has so far proceeded that we may soon expect a specimen of them” (p. 137).
[421] Nichols, Illust. Lit., viii, 450.
[422] Edward Rowe Mores was born about the year 1729, at Tunstall in Kent, of which place his father was rector. He was educated at Merchant Taylors’ School and Queen’s College, Oxford, and being originally intended for holy orders, took his M.A. degree. He did not, however, enter the Church, but devoted himself to literary and antiquarian pursuits. Besides his Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders, he spent some time in correcting Ames, and in other investigations into the early history of printing. On one occasion, as he himself narrates, he assisted Ilive in correcting the Hebrew proofs of Calasio’s Concordance for the press. His latter life was marred by habits of negligence and intemperance, which hastened his death in 1778 at Low Leyton. His valuable library of books and MSS. was sold by auction by Paterson in August 1779, on which occasion the eighty copies of the Dissertation, being the entire impression, were bought up by Mr. Nichols and given to the public with a short Appendix.
[423] A Dissertation upon English Typographical Founders and Founderies, by Edward Rowe Mores, A.M. and A.S.S. (London) 1778. 8vo (only 80 copies printed).
[424] Consisting of eight founts of Hebrew, four of Samaritan, three of Arabic, four of Greek, five of Roman or Italic, three of Saxon, one of Anglo-Norman, and four of Black.
[425] “Such as those which being uniques cannot be perfected without new punches, and if they were made complete, it would be no more than oleum et operam, etc., because they are either out of use or the times afford better, as the Antique Hebrew (spec. 7); Leusden’s Samaritan (spec. 27); 2-line Great Primer Hebrew (spec. 38); the Runic, Gothic, and some other recondites, the matrices for which are incomplete or useless. But of the founts which are in daily use the imperfects will continue, as they mutually aid and help out one another. For the same reason also will continue those which have been cast aside (not by their owner) under the name of waste.”
[426] In another place Mr. Mores states that the “waste and pye” of the foundry contained upwards of 6,000 matrices.
[427] This is the old Black from Grover’s foundry; see ante, p. [199].
[428] This sly allusion leaves little doubt as to the light in which Mr. Mores viewed the Coster legend so industriously defended by such writers of his own day as Meerman, Bowyer and Nichols.
[429] “Excusatos nos habeant eruditi quibus obvenerit typorum Jamesianorum specimen accuratis perlustrare oculis, quod minus quam expetendum esset, in linguis præsertim reconditoribus, elimatum prodeat; in animo erat de dedisse emendatissimum et si sat se fecisse existiment opifices, si, posthabitis preli, ceterisque maculis, ostendatur literarum facies—limæ non defuit labor,—at cessante Fusore cessavit Fornax et defuerunt fusi ad emaculandum typi.”—Preface to the Specimen.
[430] i.e., [P.] Polyglot, [A.] Andrews, [G.] Grover, [R.] Rolij, [N.] Nicholls, [S.A.] Sylvester Andrews, [Anon.] “Anonymous.” Of founts marked *, punches or matrices still exist.
[431] Two sets of Small Pica and two sets of Pearl not shown in Specimen, were also sold. A Canon, 2-line Great Primer, three Great Primers, an English, Pica, and Bourgeois, had been lost.
[432] It is to be borne in mind that Andrews’ foundry included that of Moxon, from whom many of his oldest founts doubtless came.
[433] A Great Primer, Pica, Small Pica and Long Primer had been lost, but the Long Primer punches remained.
[434] A 2-line English, Double Pica and Pica had been lost.
[435] There were also, not in Specimen, a 2-line Great Primer, Double Pica, Pica, two Small Picas and a set of 2-line Nonpareil Capitals. A Paragon, Bourgeois and two sets of Nonpareil had been lost.
[436] This was the fount used in the Catena on Job, 1637.
[437] “Remarkably beautifully cut and justified.”
[438] A Double Pica, Pica and Long Primer had been lost.
[439] A 2-line English had been lost.
[440] Also a Double Pica not in specimen.
[441] i.e., Black—of which the following sets, not in Specimen, were also sold:—Double Pica, two Great Primers, two English, four Small Picas, Long Primer, three Breviers and Nonpareil. A 2-line Great Primer, Double Pica, Long Primer and Bourgeois had been lost.
[442] Of these, one was a 4-line, to which belonged a set of “leaden” lower-case matrices.
[443] There is more difficulty in tracing these to their original sources than in the case of the matrices, as not only are the numbers not given, but the bodies named may very likely vary from the actual bodies to which the matrices were justified.
[444] See p. [191]. Though the matrices of this fount do not appear in the Catalogue, they were evidently in James’s foundry, as they are mentioned in the list drawn up by James in 1767, and are not specified among the matrices lost. They were acquired at the sale of Dr. Fry, and may possibly have been included with the Saxons, or with the imperfect lots.
[445] Lit. Anec., iii, 438.
[446] See our facsimiles from the Specimen at pages [200] and [204], ante.