19. MINOR FOUNDERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[720] Printers’ Grammar, p. 31.
[722] Mr. Ilive the elder is named in Samuel Negus’s list of Printers, published by Bowyer in 1724, as one of those “said to be high flyers”. He was a benefactor to Zion College, and printed the classical catalogue of their library from the letter P.
[723] Marius de Calasio. Concordantiæ Bibliorum Hebr. et Lat. edente Guil. Romaine, 4 vols., Lond. 1747, folio.
[724] Anecdotes of Bowyer, p. 130.
[725] “Emboldened by his first adventure, he determined to become the public teacher of infidelity. For this purpose he hired the use of Carpenters’ Hall, where for some time he delivered his Orations, which consisted chiefly of scraps from Tindal and other similar writers” (Chalmers’ Biog. Dict., xix, 228).
[726] The Book of Jasher. With Testimonies and Notes explanatory of the Text. To which is prefixed various Readings. Translated into English from the Hebrew, by Alcuin of Britain, who went a Pilgrimage into the Holy Land, etc. Printed in the year 1751. 4to. The fraud was immediately detected and exposed. The work was reprinted, without acknowledgment and with some variations, at Bristol in 1829, by a Rev. C. R. Bond. Both editions are now rare.
[727] Dissert., p. 65.
[728] These are enumerated in Gough’s British Topography, i, 637.
[729] British Topography, i, 597.
[731] A Specimen of the Printing Types and Flowers belonging to John Reid, Printer, Bailie Fyfe’s Close, Edinburgh, etc. Edinburgh, 1768. 8vo. All the other founts shown are either Wilson’s or Caslon’s.
[732] History of Printing in America. 2nd Edit. Albany, 1874. i, 31.
[733] The first attempt to introduce type-founding in America had been made by Mitchelson, a Scotchman, in 1768, and failed. In 1769, Abel Buel, of Connecticut, succeeded in casting several founts of Long Primer. Christopher Sower, in 1772, brought over a foundry from Germany to Germantown in Pennsylvania. John Bay also founded in the same town about 1774. Benj. Franklin and his grandson Bache brought over a foundry from France in 1775 to Philadelphia, which, however, had ceased its operations when Baine and his grandson, some ten years later, established their foundry in the same city.
[734] See Abridgments of Specifications relating to Printing, p. 87. See also ante, p. [78].
[735] Typog. Antiq., p. 81. This appears to be the person whom Gough, in his list of departed worthies of the eighteenth century, includes among the letter founders, as “Jurisson, d. 1791”. (Gent. Magaz., lxxiii, part i, p. 161.)
[737] “British Foundry. S. & C. Stephenson respectfully submit the present edition of their Specimen to the public with the hope that they shall continue to experience the flattering encouragement hitherto received, and for which they beg to return their most sincere thanks.
“To those of the Trade who have not hitherto used the Types of the British Foundry, it may be necessary to observe, that they are composed of the very best Metal, and that they are justified to paper and body agreeable to the usual standard.
“As the Establishment of this Foundry comprises eminent engravers on wood and brass, orders in either of these branches will be executed in the best stile of the Art. February, 1797.”
A first part of the specimen appears to have been issued in 1796, and the whole book in 1797.