6. THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY FOUNDRY

[230]

[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:—

[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.

7. THE STAR CHAMBER FOUNDERS, AND THE LONDON POLYGLOT

[297] Harl. Miscell., Lond., 1745, 4to, iii, 277. The full title and description of this curious tract is as follows:—“The London Printer, his Lamentation; or the Press oppressed, or over-pressed. September 1660. Quarto, containing 8 pages. In this sheet of Paper is contained, first, a short account of Printing in general, as its Usefulness, where and by whom invented; and then a Declaration of its Esteem and Promotion in England by the several Kings and Queens since its first Arrival in this Nation; together with the Methods taken by the Crown for its better Regulation and Government till the year 1640; when, says the Author, this Trade, Art and Mystery was prostituted to every vile Purpose both in Church and State; where he bitterly inveighs against Christopher Barker, John Bill, Thomas Newcomb, John Field and Henry Hills as Interlopers, and, under the King’s Patent, were the only instruments of inflaming the People against the King and his Friends, etc.”

[298] Mores makes a serious mistake in calling this founder Arthur Nicholas.

[299] In the British Museum Catalogue of Early English Books to 1640, the name of John Grismand appears as publisher of twenty-four books between 1597 and 1636. It is probable that the earlier of these, at any rate, were issued by the father of our founder. The name of one Thomas Wright also occurs as a publisher in 1610.

[300] Harl. MS. 5910, pt. i, p. 148.

[301] Moxon, in his account of the Customs of the Chapel (Mechanick Exercises, ii, 363), gives a full description of this yearly Feast, which, he says, “is made by Four Stewards, viz., two Masters and two Journey-men; which Stewards, with the Collection of half a Crown apiece of every Guest, defray the Charges of the whole Feast.” The List of Stewards, above referred to, contains, among others, the names of nearly all the seventeenth century letter-founders. Seventy feasts were held between 1621 and 1681, the first few probably being half-yearly. Three or four Stewards officiated at each. The names of the founders occurring in the list are as follows, the figures appended to each indicating the number of the feast at which each served his stewardship, with the approximate date:

[302] Arber’s Transcripts, iii, 363–8.

[303] Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1649, pp. 362, 523. Among the entries of admission to Merchant Taylors’ School occurs: “Johannes Grismond, filius unicus Johannes Grismond, Typographi, natus Londini, in parœciâ de Giles, Cripplegate, Aprilis 1, 1647: an. agens 8. Admissus est Aprilis 3, 1654.”

[304] Domestic, 1637–8. Vol. 376, Nos. 13 and 14.

[305] The list of matrices is given on p. [173], post.

[306] Dissertation, p. 40.

[307] The first project of a Polyglot Bible is due to Aldus Manutius, who, probably between 1498 and 1501, issued a specimen-page containing the first fifteen verses of Genesis, in collateral columns of Hebrew, Greek and Latin. The typographical execution is admirable. A facsimile is shown in Renouard’s Annales de l’Imprimerie des Aldes, 2nd and 3rd editions.

[308] It was begun in 1502; completed in 1517, but not published till 1522.

[309] In addition to the four great Bibles, the following polyglot versions had also appeared before 1657:—

[310] These Proposals were printed by R. Norton for Timothy Garthwaite at the lesser North Gate of St. Paul’s Church, London, 1652.

[311] It is described by the Rev. H. J. Todd in his Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Right Rev. Brian Walton, D.D. London, 2 vols., 8vo, 1821. Mr. Todd’s work contains much valuable information respecting the Polyglot.

[312] Among the MSS. in Sydney College is a letter written by Abraham Wheelock to the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, dated Jan. 5, 1652, in which, referring to the specimen, he says: “When the sheete, here sent, was printed off, I corrected at least 80 errata in it. It as yet serves to show what letters Mr. Flesher, an eminent printer, my friend and printer of my booke, hath” (Todd’s Memoirs, i, 56). James Flesher, son (?) of Miles Flesher (one of the twelve Star Chamber printers named in the Act of 1637), entered into a bond of £300 to the Stationers’ Company in 1649, and held the office of City printer in 1657. His name occurs in the list of the Brotherly Meeting of Printers as Steward at the 42nd Feast. In 1664 he served, together with Roycroft, on the jury at the trial of John Twyn; see ante, p. [132].

[313] Walton’s Polyglot is supposed to be the second book printed by subscription in England. In 1617, Minsheu’s Dictionary in Eleven Languages was published by subscription, the names of those who took a copy of the work being printed. Minsheu’s venture, however, turned out a failure. In Dr. Walton’s case this mode of publication was, owing to the energy of the promoter and the number of his friends, successful. The subscription was £10 per copy, or £50 for six copies. The estimated cost of the first volume was £1,500, and of succeeding volumes £1,200 each. Towards this, £9,000 was subscribed four months before the first volume was put to press.

[314] Parr’s Life and Letters of Usher. Lond., 1686, fol., p. 590. Dr. Walton received the Protector’s permission to import the paper for his work, duty free.

[315] Origine de l’Imprimerie de Paris. Paris, 1694, 4to, p. 59.

[316] Discours Historique sur les principales editions des Bibles Polyglottes. Paris, 1713, 12mo, p. 209.

[317] This useful little tract was reprinted with improvements in the following year, entitled: “Introductio ad lectionem linguarum Orientalium, Hebraicæ, Chaldaicæ, Samaritanæ, Syriacæ, Arabicæ, Persicæ, Æthiopicæ, Armenæ, Coptæ . . . in usum tyronum . . . præcipuè eorum qui sumptus ad Biblia Polyglotta (jam sub prelo) imprimenda contulerunt. Londini. Imprimebat Tho. Roycroft, 1655. 18mo.” Republished at Deventer in 1658. The Armenian and Coptic alphabets were cut in wood, and reappeared in the Prolegomena of the Polyglot.

[318] “The latter part,” says Bowyer, “is much more incorrectly printed than the former, probably owing to the editor’s absence from the press, or to his being over-fatigued by the work. The Hebrew text suffered much in several places by the rapidity of the publication.”

[319] Rev. Mr. Twells, author of Life of Dr. Pocock.

[320] Biblia Sacra Polyglotta, complectentia Textus Originales, Hebraicum cum Pentateucho Samaritano, Chaldaicum, Græcum; Versionumque antiquarum, Samaritanæ Græcæ LXX Interpr. Chaldaicæ, Syriacæ, Arabicæ, Æthiopicæ, Persicæ, Vulg. Lat. Quicquid comparari poterat. Cum Textuum et Versionum Orientalium Translationibus Latinis . . . Omnia eo ordine disposita, ut Textus cum Versionibus uno intuitu conferri possint. Cum Apparatu, etc. etc. . . . Edidit Brianus Waltonus, S.T.D. Londini. Imprimebat Thomas Roycroft, 1657. 6 vols., fol.

[321] One of the compositors employed on the work was Ichabod Dawks (grandfather to Wm. Bowyer), of whose son and his curious script type, see The Tatler, No. 178, etc.

[322] See ante, p. [98].

[323] In some cases a few of the matrices have undergone renovation in the hands of their successive owners.

[324] “The Æthiopic of the Congregation,” i.e., of the Propaganda at Rome, “is not to be compared with ours. And Ludolphus, whose abode was at Gotha, sent his Lexicon to be published at London, where it was printed by Mr. Roycroft upon the type of the English Polyglot” (Mores, p. 12).

[325] “The elegant face of the Samaritan is justly attributed by Cellarius to the English, for it was first used in our Polyglot. It differs widely from the type used by Scaliger in his Emend. Temp., and by Leusden at the end of his Scholæ Syriacæ, and from another used in an encomiastic of Abr. Ecchelensis upon F. Kircher, which type belonged to the Congregation at Rome; and which was afterwards more neatly cut by Voskens” (ibid., p. 13).

[326] In his “loyal” dedication, Walton asserts that from the outset he had intended to dedicate the work to Charles II, and that Cromwell’s patronage of the work had been offered only as the price of a public compliment for himself (Todd, i, 82 et seq.).

[327] “The first view of this dedication,” he says, “will prove it to have been printed with different and inferior types, the hasty produce of a courteous after thought” (Introd. Classics, i, 27).

[328] “Thomas Roycroft died August 10, 1677. In 1675 he was master of the Stationers’ Company, and in 1677 he gave to them two silver mugs, weight 27 ozs. 3 dwts. In the rear of the altar at St. Bartholemew’s the Great is this epitaph:—‘M.S. Hic juxta situs est Thomas Roycroft, armiger, linguis Orientalibus Typographus Regius, placidissimis moribus et antiquâ probitate ac fide memorandus, quorum gratiâ optimi civis famam jure merito adeptus est. Militiæ civicæ Vicetribunus. Nec minus apud exteros notus ob libros elegantissimis suis typis editos, inter quos sanctissimum illud Bibliorum Polyglottorum, opus quam maxime eminet. Obiit die 10 Augusti, ann. Reparatæ Sal. MDCLXXVII, postquam LVI ætatis suæ annum implevisset. Parenti optimè merito, Samuel Roycroft, filius unicus, hoc monumentum pie posuit.’‏”

[329] Lexicon Heptaglotton, Hebraicum, Chaldaicum, Syriacum, Samaritanum, Æthiopicum, Arabicum, conjunctim; et Persicum separatim, etc., etc. Authore Edmundo Castello, S.T.D., etc. Londini, Imprimebat Thomas Roycroft, L.L. Orientalium Typographus Regius, 1669. Two vols., fol.

[330] State Papers, Domestic, 1665. Vol. 142, No. 174.

[331] State Papers, Domestic, 1667. Ent. Book 23, p. 337.

[332] In the List of Stewards of the Brotherly Meeting of printers referred to p. 166, Nicholas Nicholls’ name occurs with James Flesher’s as a Steward at the 42nd Feast.

[333] Dissertation, p. 46.

[334] See ante, p. [148].