8. JOSEPH MOXON
[335] Nicholas Nicholls’ tiny specimen, printed four years earlier, exhibited only a few lines specially cut, and dedicated privately to the King.
[336] In 1677 he published Geometrical Operations, London, 4to, translated by himself from Dutch into English.
[337] Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum; or the Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters, viz.: the Roman, Italick, English,—Capitals and Small; showing how they are compounded of Geometrick Figures and mostly made by Rule and Compass. Useful for Writing Masters, Painters, Carvers, Masons and others that are Lovers of Curiosity; by Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. London. Printed for Joseph Moxon on Ludgate Hill at the Sign of Atlas. 1676. 4to. (Dedicated to Sir Christopher Wren.)
[338] The theory of the proportion of letters had been dealt with by several foreign authors in the sixteenth century. In 1509 Fra Luca Pacioli’s book, entitled De Divinâ Proportione, was printed at Venice, containing woodcut illustrations of the various letters of the alphabet. In 1525 Albert Dürer published in Nuremberg his Unterweisung der Messung mit dem Zirkel und Richtscheit, reducing all letters to a combination of circles and straight lines. In 1529 Geofroy Tory’s Champfleury appeared at Paris, an extraordinary treatise, deriving every letter of the Latin alphabet from the goddess IO, of the letters of whose name every other letter is formed; and proportioning each to the human body and countenance in their various poses and aspects. Fantastic as his work was, it is credited with having revolutionised the form of the Roman letter in France. Like Moxon, Tory sub-divided the square of each letter into a number of minute squares, in which he constructed his model letters. A somewhat similar work was published at Saragossa, in Spain, in 1548, by Ycair, entitled Orthographia Practica, containing specimens of alphabets, and intended, like all of the above-named works, more for the use of the caligrapher and sculptor than for the printer.
[339] Mechanick Exercises, or the Doctrine of Handy-Works. Began Jan. 1, 1677. And intended to be Monthly continued. By Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. London. Printed for Joseph Moxon on Ludgate Hill at the Sign of the Atlas. Two vols., 4to.
Vol. I (14 numbers). The Smiths, the Joyners, the Carpenters, and the Turner’s Trades. 1677–80.
Vol. II (24 numbers). Applied to the Art of Printing, 1683–6. (Dedicated to Dr. Fell, Bishop of Oxford.)
[340] Mores says that before Moxon’s time letter-cutters worked by eye and hand only, and practised their art by guess-work (Dissert., p. 43).
[341] See chap. iv.
[342] Or rather a hair space, of which seven go to the body; so that one such space divided by six would give a 42nd part!
[344] Of the eighteen letters of the alphabet, the b, c, h, l, m, n, o, s, u, are in Roman, the a and e in Italic.
[345] A copy of this rare broadside is in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
[346] The full title of this rare little tract, consisting of eight leaves only, is translated as follows:—Aibidil Gaoidheilge Caiticiosma, etc. (The Irish Alphabet and Catechism, precept or instruction of a Christian, together with certain articles of a Christian faith which are proper for everyone to adopt who would be submissive to the ordinance of God and the Queen of this Kingdom. Translated from Latin and English into Irish by John O’Kearney . . Printed in the town of the Ford of Hurdles, (Dublin), at the cost of Master John Ussher, Alderman, at the head of the Bridge, the 20th of June 1571, with the privilege of the great Queen. 1571.) 8vo.
[347] Tiomna Nuadh, etc. (The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, faithfully translated from the Greek into the Irish by William O’Donnell.) Séon Francke: a mBaile athá Cliath (Dublin), 1602. Fol. This work was printed in the house of Sir William Ussher, Clerk of the Council.
[348] Leabhar na nurnaightheadh gcomhchoidchiond agus mheinisdraldachda na Sacrameinteadh, etc. (Translated from the English by W. Daniel, Archbishop of Tuam), a dtigh Shéon Francke, alias Franckton, a Mbaile athá Cliath (Dublin), 1608. Fol. Not published till 1609. In his dedication, Daniel says that, “having translated the book, I followed it to the presse with jealousy and daiely attendance, to see it perfected; payned as a woman in travell desirous to be delivered.”
[349] A B C, or the Institution of a Christian. Printed by the Company of Stationers. Dublin, 1631. 8vo.
[350] The Catechism, with the Six points of W. Perkins, translated into Irish by Godfrey Daniel. Dublin, 1652. 8vo.
[351] “The publication of everything valuable in this language by the fathers of Donegal was unfortunately prevented by the troubles of the time of Charles I, by Cromwell’s usurpation. These fathers had procured a fount for this purpose, which, when forced to fly, they carried with them to Louvain, where some fragments of this fount are yet to be found” (Theoph. O’Flanagan on the Ancient Language of Ireland. Transac. of the Gaelic Soc. 8vo, Dublin, 1808, p. 212). Others stated that the fount had been removed to Douay, and there used to print several Catholic tracts. No Irish work whatever is known to have been printed at Douay. Respecting the various foreign Irish founts, the reader is referred to the account given in chapter ii, p. [75].
[352] Life of William Bedell, D.D., by H. J. Monck Mason. Lond., 8vo, 1843, p. 287.
[353] In addition to the A B C and Catechism, already referred to as published by Bedell in 1631, some of his biographers record that he had printed a later edition about 1641, and at the same time the following tracts in Irish, viz.: Some forms of prayer, a selection of passages from Scripture, the first three of Chrysostom’s Homilies on the rich man and Lazarus, and some sermons by Leo. Copies of these have not been seen.
[354] Most of the copies were stated to have been bought up, like the type, by Roman ecclesiastics.
[355] Of this work a copy has not yet been seen.
[356] Tiomna Nuadh. (The New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, faithfully translated from the Greek into the Irish by William O’Donnell). London. Robert Everingham. 1681. 4to.
[357] “Mr. Everingham and Mr. Whiteledge,” says Dunton (Life, p. 331), “were two partners in the trade; I employ’d ’em very much, and look’d upon ’em to be honest and thriving men. Had they confin’d ’emselves a little sooner to Household Love, they might possibly have kept upon their own Bottom; however, so it happen’d, that they lov’d themselves into Two Journey-men Printers again.” Everingham was the printer, in 1680, of a Weekly Advertisement of Books for some London publishers.
[358] Writing to Dr. Marsh of Dublin, Jan. 17th, 1681–2, Boyle refers to a projected Irish Grammar, and offers the use of his type. “I am glad that so useful a designe as that of frameing a compendious Irish Grammar has been conceived by one that is so able to execute it well; but I presume you will want letters for many of the Irish words; in which case you may please to consider what use may be made of those I have already, that may be consistent with the printing of the Old Testament in the language they relate to; for all the designe I had in having them cut off was, that they might be in a readiness to print useful bookes in Irish, whether there or here” (Mason’s Life of Bedell, p. 301).
[359] Leabhuir na Seintiomna, etc. (The Books of the Old Testament translated into Irish by Dr. William Bedell, late Bishop of Kilmore. London.) 1685. 4to.
[360] An Biobla Naomhtha. (W. Bedell’s and W. O’Donnell’s Irish Bible, revised, and printed at London by R. Everingham.) 1690. 8vo.
[361] Mason’s Life of Bedell, p. 305.
[362] The Book of Common Prayer, Irish and English, with the Elements of the Irish Language, by John Richardson. London, 1712. 8vo.
[363] Practical Sermons. London, 1711.
[364] Dissertation, p. 33. It is worthy of note that at the date when Mores wrote an almost universal cessation in Irish printing was taking place at home and abroad. At Louvain no work had appeared since 1663, at Rome since 1707, or at Paris (with the exception of the specimen in Fournier’s Manuale Typographique, 1764), since 1742. In the few Irish works issued at home during this period (with the notable exception of Miss Brooke’s Reliques of Irish Poetry, printed by Bonham of Dublin in 1789, in a new fount, apparently privately cut) the Irish character is generally rendered in copperplate, or in Roman type. It was not till Marcel published his Alphabet Irlandais, at Paris in 1804, and Neilson his Irish Grammar, at Dublin in 1808, that a revival of Irish typography took place, both abroad and at home.
[365] An Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, by John Wilkins, D.D., Dean of Ripon. London, printed . . . for the Royal Society. 1668. Fol.
[366] Dissertation, p. 43. Mores mentions a James Moxon who in 1677 lived near Charing Cross, and sold Joseph Moxon’s books at his house (p. 44).