A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898

by Henry R. Plomer

'He has the printing of Tullie, Ovid, and diverse other great workes in Latin. He doth yet, neither great good nor great harme withall.... He hath other small thinges wherewith he keepeth his presses on work, and also worketh for bookesellers of the Companye, who kepe no presses.'

In 1580, on the invitation of the General Assembly, Vautrollier visited Scotland, taking with him a stock of books, but no press, and in 1584 he again went north, and set up a press at Edinburgh, still keeping on his business in London. The venture does not seem to have turned out a success, for Vautrollier returned to London in 1586, taking with him a MS. of John Knox's History of the Reformation, but the work was seized while it was in the press (Works of John Knox, vol. i. p. 32).

As a printer Vautrollier ranks far above most of the men around him, both for the beauty of his types and the excellence of his presswork. The bulk of his books were printed in Roman and Italic, of which he had several well-cut founts. He had also some good initials, ornaments, and borders. In the folio edition of Plutarch's Lives, which he printed in 1579, each life is preceded by a medallion portrait, enclosed in a frame of geometrical pattern; some of these, notably the first, and also those shown on a white background, are very effective. His device was an anchor held by a hand issuing from clouds, with two sprigs of laurel, and the motto 'Anchora Spei,' the whole enclosed in an oval frame.

Vautrollier was succeeded in business by his son-in-law, Richard Field, another case of the apprentice marrying his master's daughter. Field was a native of Stratford-on-Avon, and therefore a fellow-townsman of Shakespeare's, whose first poem, Venus and Adonis, he printed for Harrison in 1593. But we have no knowledge of any intercourse between them.

Field succeeded to the stock of his predecessor, and his work is free from the haste and slovenly appearance so general at that time. Another work from his press was Puttenham's Arte of English Poesy, 1589, 4to. The first edition, of which there is a copy in the British Museum, had no author's name, but was dedicated by the printer to Lord Burghley. In the second book, four pages were suppressed. They are inserted in the copy under notice, but are not paged. This edition also contained as a frontispiece a portrait of the Queen. Another notable work of Field's was Sir John Harington's translation of Orlando Furioso (1591, fol.). This book had an elaborate frontispiece, with a portrait of the translator, and thirty-six engraved illustrations, that make up in vigour of treatment, and breadth of imagination, for shortcomings in the matter of draughtsmanship. The text was printed in double columns, and each verse of the Argument was enclosed in a border of printers' ornaments. A second edition, alike in almost every respect, passed through the same press in 1607. In 1594 Field printed a second edition of Venus and Adonis, and the first edition of Lucrece. His later work included David Hume's Daphne-Amaryllis, 1605, 4to; Chapman's translation of the Odyssey (1614, folio); and an edition of Virgil in quarto in 1620.

Foremost among the later men of this century stands Christopher Barker, the Queen's printer, who was born about 1529, and is said to have been grand-nephew to Sir Christopher Barker, Garter King-at-Arms. Originally a member of the Drapers' Company, he began to publish books in 1569 (Arber, i. p. 398), and to print in 1576, and purchased from Sir Thomas Wilkes his patent to print the Old and New Testament in English. Barker issued in 1578 a circular offering his large Bible to the London Companies at the rate of 24s. each bound, and 20s. unbound, the clerks of the various Companies to receive 4d. apiece for every Bible sold, and the hall of each Company that took £40 worth to receive a presentation copy (Lemon's Catal. of Broadsides).

Fig. 24.—Christopher Barker's Device..

In 1582 Barker sent to Lord Burghley an account of the various printing monopolies granted since the beginning of the reign, and expresses himself freely on them. He also attempted to suppress the printers in Cambridge University. In and after 1588 he carried on his business by deputies, George Bishop and Ralph Newbery, and in the following year, on the disgrace of Sir Thomas Wilkes, he obtained an exclusive patent for himself and his son to print all official documents, as well as Bibles and Testaments. At one time Barker had no fewer than five presses, and between 1575 and 1585 he printed as many as thirty-eight editions of the Scriptures, an almost equal number being printed by his deputies before 1600. Christopher Barker died in 1599, and was succeeded in his post of royal printer by Robert Barker, his eldest son.

On the 23rd June 1586 was issued The Newe Decrees of the Starre Chamber for orders in Printing, which is reprinted in full in the second volume of Arber's Transcripts, pp. 807-812. It was the most important enactment concerning printing of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and formed the model upon which all subsequent 'whips and scorpions' for the printers were manufactured. Its chief clauses were these: It restricted all printing to London and the two Universities. The number of presses then in London was to be reduced to such proportions as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London should think sufficient. No books were to be printed without being licensed, and the wardens were given the right to search all premises on suspicion. The penalties were imprisonment and defacement of stock.