15. JOSEPH AND EDMUND FRY, 1764
[611] Hugh Owen. Two Centuries of Ceramic Art in Bristol, 1873, 8vo.
[612] Of these books we have one before us—A Collection of Hymns adapted for Public Worship. Bristol, (1769), 12mo, in the Long Primer of the foundry, showing, besides, several varieties of title-letters and flowers.
[613] Catalogue, i, 310, “Grande feuille collée sur une toile ou batiste fine.”
[614] Rowe Mores, after quoting the above, adds drily: “Their letter is neat. We do ‘set aside the influence of custom,’ and call it the law of fools, but we must recommend to the consideration of the proprietors the difference between scalping and counterpunching.” (Dissertation, p. 84.)
[615] “The Inventors, sensible of the great utility of their Discovery, have mentioned it to several of the Trade, who have made very considerable offers to encourage the laying open the Secret: But as their desire is, that every Printer in the Kingdom might be benefited by it they propose to make the Discovery as universal as possible, by making an honourable and generous present of it to the whole trade: To many of whom they are under some Obligations for the kind encouragement of their new Foundery. And as that is an object they desire here to recommend, they would further propose, (as they have nearly compleated all their founts, and can serve the Trade on as good Terms as any in the Kingdom, and with Types they will warrant to wear as long) that every Printer who shall give them an order for Ten Pounds worth of Type or more (Five Pounds of which to be paid on ordering and the Remainder on the Delivery) shall be made acquainted with the above improvements. So that the whole Advantage proposed is the selling some Founts of Letter which every Printer does or will want. And as they expect that the Trade in general will approve of their Plan, they beg that the Encouragers of it would send their orders with all convenient Speed to the above Foundery; (as they intend as soon as they have got a sufficient Number to lay open the whole) which they hope will not be less universal than the desire of being made Partakers of so interesting a Discovery: for it merits nothing less than the most cordial Encouragement of every Printer in Europe, though here so freely offered. And it will appear when laid open to be of such Service as nothing like it has been discovered in Printing for some Centuries. . . . The whole expence of altering the present presses to the above Improvement will be but about forty shillings.” A notice of this invention, as well as of a patent type-case designed by the same partners, is found in the Abridgments of Specifications for Printing, 1617–1857, London, 1859. 8vo, p. 88.
[616] History and Art of Printing, p. 244.
[617] After commending Caslon and Jackson, he says: “As to the productions of other Founderies we shall be silent, and leave them to sound forth their own good qualifications, which by an examiner are not found to exist” (p. 230).
[618] The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testament, with Notes Explanatory, Critical and Practical, selected from the Works of several Eminent Divines. London, I. Moore and Co., Letter Founders and Printers in Queen Street, near Upper Moorfields. 1774. Folio.
The Same, in 5 vols., 8vo:—Vols. 1, 2, 3, 1774; Vol. 4, 1776; Vol. 5 (Apocrypha) 1775.
[619] A Commentary on the Holy Bible, containing the Whole Sacred Text of the Old and New Testaments, with Notes, etc. Bristol, Printed and Sold by William Pine. 1774, 12mo.
[620] The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testament, with Notes Explanatory, Critical and Practical, selected from the Works of several Eminent Authors. London. Printed and Sold by J. Fry and Co., Letter Founders and Printers in Queen Street, near Upper Moorfields. 1777. Folio.
The Same, 4 vols., 1777. 8vo.
[621] Amongst other works printed by him there is preserved a tract, entitled An Answer to a Narrative of Facts . . . lately published by Mr. Henry Burgum as far as relates to the Character of Wm. Pine. Bristol. Printed in the year 1775. 8vo. This is a letter of rejoinder addressed by Pine to Burgum, repelling charges relating to the publication of an offensive pamphlet. Pine also printed several works for the Wesleys.
[623] The pedigree of the matrices is indicated, as far as can be ascertained, by the initials (see our [note 2] at p. 227); but in several cases, particularly in the case of the Blacks, the origin is considerably more remote than the foundry named. The error of inferring anything as to their origin from the names of famous old printers appearing on the drawers in which they were stored at James’s foundry has already been pointed out—see ante, p. [230]. Several of these founts Dr. Fry appears to have received in a defective state, necessitating in some cases a complete re-justifying of the matrices, and in others the cutting of a considerable number of punches, and casting on bodies which did not always agree with those named in the sale Catalogue. This circumstance will account for many of the apparent discrepancies between the original founts and the renovated founts as they appear in the Type Street specimens.
[624] “It affords them”—the proprietors—“great Satisfaction to observe that the original Shape of their Roman and Italic Letters continues to meet the Approbation of the Curious, both in and out of the Printing Trade: nevertheless, to remove an Objection which the difference in Shape, from the letters commonly used here, raised in some, whereby their Introduction into several Capital Offices have been prevented; they have cut entire new sets of Punches, both Roman and Italic; and they flatter themselves they have executed the Founts, as far as they are done, in an elegant and masterly Manner, which in this Specimen are distinguished by the title NEW, and which will mix with and be totally unknown from the most approved Founts made by the late ingenious Artist, William Caslon.” For Caslon’s acknowledgment of this compliment, see ante, p. [249].
[625] “However desirous the proprietor of another Foundery may be to persuade the public into an idea of a superiority in his own favour, owing to Rapid improvements for upwards of Sixty years, a little time may, perhaps, suffice to convince impartial and unbiassed Judges that the very elegant Types of the WORSHIP STREET MANUFACTORY, though they cannot indeed boast of their existence longer than about Twenty years ! will yet rank as high in Beauty, Symmetry, and intrinsic Merit as any other whatever, and ensure equal approbation from the Literati not only in this Country but in every quarter of the Globe.”
[626] For a short time following Mr. Fry’s death his widow is said to have been associated with her sons in the conduct of the letter-foundry. Mrs. Fry lived at Great Marlow, and afterwards in Charterhouse Square, London, where she died, Oct. 22, 1803, aged 83.
[627] The Printer’s Grammar. London, printed by L. Wayland. 1787. 8vo.
[628] We have the following volume very beautifully printed:—C. Plinii Cæcilii Secundi Epistolarum Libri x. Sumptibus editoris excudebant M. Ritchie et J. Samuells. Londini, 1790. 8vo. At end:—Typis Edmundi Fry.
[629] This excellent artist was a Scotchman, and printed in Bartholomew Close in 1785. He was one of the first who started in emulation of Baskerville as a fine printer; his series of Mr. Homer’s Classics (Sallust, 1789; Pliny, 1790; Tacitus, 1790; Q. Curtius; Cæsar, 1790; Livy, 1794) established his reputation. His quarto Bible and the Memoirs of the Count de Grammont are also celebrated. He printed on Whatman’s paper with admirable ink and most careful press-work, and is stated to have produced most of his books by his own personal and manual labour.
[630] From this press the following elegantly printed volume was issued in 1788:—The Beauties of the Poets, being a Collection of Moral and Sacred Poetry, etc., compiled by the late Rev. Thomas Janes of Bristol. London, printed at the Cicero Press by and for Henry Fry, No. 5 Worship Street, Upper Moorfields. 1788. 8vo. At one time Henry Fry appears to have had a partner named Couchman.
[631] A New Guide to the English Tongue in five parts by Thomas Dilworth . . . Schoolmaster in Wapping. Stereotype Edition. London. Andrew Wilson, Camden Town. 8vo. Contains portraits, tail piece and 12 fable cuts.
[632] Pantographia; containing accurate copies of all the known Alphabets in the World, together with an English explanation of the peculiar Force or Power of each Letter; to which are added specimens of all well authenticated Oral Languages; forming a comprehensive Digest of Phonology. By Edmund Fry, Letter Founder, Type Street, London, 1799. Roy. 8vo. A few copies were printed on vellum, one of which is in the Cambridge University Library.
[633] The Printer’s Grammar or Introduction to the Art of Printing: containing a concise History of the Art, etc., by C. Stower, Printer. London. Printed by the Editor. 1808, 8vo. The same work also shows extracts and specimens from Pantographia.
[634] Hazard was also the designer of a pair of cases, a plan of which is shown by Stower, p. 463.
[635] The Rev. Samuel Lee, B.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, was a constant visitor at Type Street, and personally directed the cutting of many of the founts.
[636] Dr. Fry’s system was virtually that first introduced by Mr. Alston, of Glasgow, to which reference is made ante, p. [78], where details are also given as to the other principal systems of type for the Blind. A “lower-case” was subsequently added to Dr. Fry’s fount by his successors, and in this form the type was largely used by the various Type Schools following Mr. Alston’s method. Full particulars of this award, with specimens, maybe seen in Vol. I of the Transactions of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts.
[637] Hansard mentions a Two-line English Engrossing, two sizes of Music, and the matrices of Dr. Wilkins’ Philosophical Character; none of which, however, formed part of this Foundry.
[638] Of the supposed antiquity of this interesting fount an account has already been given at pages 200–5, ante. By a curious confusion of names and dates, Dr. Fry, in his specimens stated that “this character was cut by Wynkyn de Worde, in exact imitation of the Codex Alexandrinus in the British Museum” ! This absurd anachronism—the more extraordinary as emanating from an antiquary of Dr. Fry’s standing—appears to have arisen from the fact that at the sale of James’ Foundry the matrices lay in a drawer which bore the name, “De Worde.” This circumstance misled Paterson, the auctioneer, into advertising the fount as the genuine handiwork of De Worde, a printer who lived a century before the Codex was brought into this country. The further coincidence that Dr. Woide of the British Museum was, at the time of the sale, engaged in producing an edition of the Codex, with facsimile types prepared by Jackson the founder, doubtless added—by the similarity of the names De Worde and Dr. Woide—to the confusion. After its purchase, the fount first appeared in Joseph Fry and Sons’ Specimen of 1786, without note. But, in the subsequent specimens of the Foundry, bearing his own name, Dr. Fry introduced the fiction, which remained unchallenged for a quarter of a century.
[639] In addition to which Dr. Fry possessed, in an imperfect condition (many of the characters having been recut), the Great Primer Arabic of Walton’s Polyglot. According to Hansard he also had a set of matrices, English body, from the first punches cut by William Caslon; but this seems to be an error.
[640] Used in Bagster’s Polyglot. The same fount was cast on Long Primer with movable points. Hansard is in error in stating that Dr. Fry cut a Nonpareil Syriac.
[641] An error still less explicable than that of the Alexandrian Greek, but which not only Dr. Fry’s successors, but Hansard himself has copied. The following seems to be the “good authority” on which the assertion is based. In 1819, Mr. Bulmer, the eminent printer, printed for the Roxburghe Club, Mr. Hibbert’s transcript of the MS. fragment of the translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, made by Caxton about 1480, and preserved in the library of Pepys at Magdalen College, Cambridge. The body of the work was set in the English Black bought by Dr. Fry at James’ Sale—but in two places a smaller size of type was required to print passages omitted in Caxton’s translation, but supplied by the Editor in the original French of Colard Mansion’s edition. For these passages the Pica Black was selected, and as the French text contained several accents and contractions, these had to be specially cut. This task Dr. Fry performed, and understanding that the letter was to be used for printing a work of Caxton’s, he appears, without further enquiry, to have assumed that the work in question was a fac-simile reprint, and that his old matrices had been discovered to bear the impress of the veritable character used by that famous man. Had he seen the book in question he would have discovered that not only was it a transcript from a MS. of which no printed copy had ever been known to exist, but that the very passages in which the boasted type was used, were passages which did not even appear in a work of Caxton at all. The matrices are very old. They were in Andrews’ foundry about 1700, and in all probability came there from Holland, as they closely resemble the other old Dutch Blacks in James’ Foundry.
[642] In the Small Pica, No. 2, was printed The Two First Books of the Pentateuch, or Books of Moses, as a preparation for learners to read the Holy Scriptures. The types cut by Mr. Edmund Fry, Letter Founder to His Majesty, from Original Irish Manuscripts, under the care and direction of T. Connellan (2nd Edit.) Printed at the Apollo Press, London, J. Johnson, Brook Street, Holborn, 1819. 12mo.
[643] Whatever singularity M. Didot may have indulged in in the first strikes from his famous punches for his own use, the matrices now in the possession of Dr. Fry’s successors are of most unmistakeable copper throughout. And it does not appear that more than one set of the strikes was needed to meet all the demands made upon this complicated letter by the printers of the day.
[644] Gentleman’s Magazine, May, 1836.