Sermons of Calvin, Bullinger, and Latimer are all that we have to illustrate his work during the next two years. But in 1563 appeared a handsome folio, the editio princeps of Acts and Monumentes of these latter and perillous Dayes, touching matters of the Church, better known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
During Mary's reign Foxe had found a home on the Continent, and may there have met with Day. In 1554, while at Strasburg, he had published, through the press of Wendelin Richel, a Latin treatise on the persecutions of the reformers, under the title of Commentarii rerum in Ecclesia gestarum maximarumque persecutionem a Vuiclevi temporibus descriptio. From Strasburg he removed to Basle, and from the press of Oporinus, in 1559, appeared the Latin edition of the Book of Martyrs. He did not return to England until October of that year, when he settled in Aldgate, and made weekly visits to the printing-house of John Day, who was then busy on the English edition.
Fig. 20.—From Foxe's 'Actes and Monumentes,' printed by John Day, 1576.
Foxe's Actes and Monumentes is a work of 2008 folio pages, printed in double columns, the type used being a small English black letter, the same which had been used in Becon's Works, supplemented with various sizes of italic and Roman. It was illustrated throughout with woodcuts, representing the tortures and deaths of the martyrs. A very handsome initial letter E, showing Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers, is also found in it. A Royal proclamation ordered that a copy of it should be set up in every parish church. From this time Foxe appears to have worked as translator and editor for John Day, and was for a while living in the printer's house.
Archbishop Parker meanwhile had induced Day to cast a fount of Saxon types in metal. The first book in which these were used was Aelfric's 'Saxon Homily,' i.e. the Sermon of the Paschal Lamb, appointed by the Saxon bishop to be read at Easter before the Sacrament, an Epistle of Aelfric to Wulfsine, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, all of which were included in the general title of A Testimonye of Antiquity, 'shewing the auncient fayth in the Church of England touching the Sacrament of the body and bloude of the Lord here publykely preached and also receaved in the Saxons tyme, above 600 yeares agoe.'
Speaking of Day's Saxon fount, the late Mr. Talbot Reed, in his Old English Letter Foundries (p. 96), says:—
'The Saxon fount ... is an English in body, very clear and bold. Of the capitals eight only, including two diphthongs are distinctively Saxon, the remaining eighteen letters being ordinary Roman; while in the lowercase there are twelve Saxon letters, as against fifteen of the Roman. The accuracy and regularity with which this fount was cut and cast is highly creditable to Day's excellence as a founder.'
Although this book (an octavo) bore no date, the names of the subscribing bishops fix it as 1566 or 1567. In the latter year appeared the Archbishop's metrical version of the Psalter, which he had compiled during his enforced exile under Mary. In connection with this it may be well to point out that Day printed many editions of the Psalter with musical notes. In 1568 he used the Saxon types again to print William Lambard's Archaionomia, a book of Saxon laws. Amongst his other productions of that year must be mentioned the folio edition of Peter Martyr's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans; Gildas the historian's De excidio et conquestu Britanniæ, 1568, 8vo; and a French version of Vandernoot's Theatre for Worldlings, 'Le Theatre auquel sont exposés et monstrés les inconveniens et misères qui suivent les mondains et vicieux, ensemble les plaisirs et contentements dont les fidèles jouissent.' There is a copy of this very rare book in the Grenville collection. The Theatre for Worldlings was translated into English the following year, and contained verses from the pen of Edmund Spenser, then a boy of sixteen. But Day's press played little part in the spread of the romantic literature with which the name of Spenser is so closely linked. Day's work was with the Reformation and the religious questions of the time. Nevertheless, that he felt the influence of the coming change is shown from a publication that issued from his press in 1570. This was the authorised version of a play which had been acted nine years before by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple before Her Majesty. It had shortly afterwards been published by William Griffith of Fleet Street as:—
'The Tragedy of Gorboduc, whereof Three Actes were wrytten by Thomas Norton and the two last by Thomas Sackvyle. Set forth as the same was shewed before the Queenes most excellent Maiestie in her highnes Court of Whitehall, the xviii day of January Anno Domini 1561, By the gentlemen of Thynner Temple in London.' Day's edition was entitled:—