Dibdin says that “the prayer books of Baskerville are probably more frequently seen within the pews of a church than any other, at least they were so within these dozen years past; they are of two forms or sizes, royal octavo and crown octavo. The crown octavo impression, which is the rarer of the two, is executed in a small character, in double columns, upon thin paper, but of a close and durable texture. I do not remember to have seen more than one copy of the royal octavo in an uncut state, and of the crown octavo not a single copy, so popular were these impressions upon a first appearance.”
The Addison was issued in 1761, and is a wonderful specimen of the art of Baskerville. Speaking of this book, Dibdin almost goes into ecstasies. He says: “He who hath the Baskerville edition, 1760, 4to, 4 vols., hath a good and even a glorious performance. It is pleasant (and of course profitable) to turn over the pages of these lovely tomes, at one’s Tusculum [villa], on a day of oppression from heat, or of confinement from rain—and if the copy be in goodly calf, full charged, gilt binding—with marble edges to the leaves—such as Posthumus discards, but which Atticus dearly doats on—why, so much the better: so therefore hasten, gallant young Bibliomaniac, with six sovereigns and six shillings to boot, to make yourself master of such a copy.”[29] Dibdin was a true bibliophile.
“Aesop’s Fables” were printed for Dodsley, who appears to have prepared them, perhaps in collaboration with Shenstone. This edition was ultimately published on February 9, 1761, and is a very beautiful little production. The book is much marred by the cuts which Dodsley insisted on putting in. However, it sold very well, and there was talk of second and third editions. Speaking of it Warren says: “That book of Baskerville’s is the most charming thing that I have ever touched.”
Dodsley found Baskerville too expensive. He maintained the warmest interest in Baskerville’s work, but found his charges excessive for ordinary purposes of trade. He never allowed him to print anything for him except his “Selected Fables,” and he fussed very much about these. He went to Baskerville’s house, where he stayed while the last sheets of the “Fables” were passing through the press, and then he printed a London edition in a cheaper form. He complained that he should lose £30 by Baskerville’s impression, and that he should not be more than £10 gainer on the whole, taking the Birmingham and London editions together. In 1758 Rev. John Huckell’s poem “Avon” was printed by Baskerville and sold by Dodsley, but at the printer’s expense and risk. By the persuasion of Shenstone he was induced to permit Baskerville to print another edition of the “Fables” in 1764.[30] The truth was that Baskerville did not print commercially, while Dodsley published commercially.
The prices charged by Baskerville were very high for the times. He wrote to a man who inquired about prices: “My price for printing your friend’s poem is Two Guineas a sheet without pressing, and Two pounds Seven to be pressed as other books which I have printed are pressed.” At this price the printing of the poem would have cost twenty guineas. It is needless to say that Baskerville did not print it. It appears that the expense of printing a sheet at a common press was 18 shillings, and the expense at Baskerville’s Press about £3.10. This is quite sufficient to explain the disinclination of booksellers to give orders to Baskerville for printing.
The reasons why Baskerville’s printing was a financial failure are obvious to us, although they were not to him. In the first place, he did something new, and that is always a great shock to the British public. He produced type different from any which had been used, and better, but the man whose office was stuffed with Caslon type and Dutch type did not think so. He was not likely to throw away type which printed his books well enough for sale, and buy new type which this gentleman from Birmingham had cut. He said: “Let him cut type, and get a new ink and a new kind of paper and print in a new way. The old type, the old ink, the old paper, and the old way are good enough for me.” Baskerville was artistic, the English public was not. In the second place Baskerville’s books were so expensively produced that the man who bought one of them as a specimen of Baskerville’s work did not wish to buy another. It was the same thing that happens with every printer who does artistic work,—each production of his press exhausts his clientage more or less. And lastly, his books were reprints, and they were brought out at a time when the press was overloaded with productions of very brilliant men. Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, in two volumes, was issued in 1755. Oliver Goldsmith, Pope, Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Akenside, Colley Cibber, Gray, Dr. Young, Burke, and a host of others were then producing books for the printer.
Baskerville cut a fount of Greek type for the University of Oxford, and cast 300 weight of type at two hundred guineas for the whole. He delivered the types in March, 1761, and was paid the two hundred guineas. His connection with the types ceased here. He did not print the editions of the Greek Testament which appeared at Oxford in 1763. He never visited Oxford, and there is nothing to show that he was ever consulted about the types after they had been delivered. They were said to be “not good ones.” William Bowyer, the printer, said that there were two or three quarto editions on foot, “one at Oxford, far advanced on new types by Baskerville—by the way, not good ones.” Reed says that “the appearance of the book justified to some extent the criticism.” Regular as the Greek type is, it is stiff and cramped, and, as Dibdin says, “like no Greek characters I have ever seen.” At another time Dibdin calls the letters large and distinct. The type was certainly more English than the Greek types then in use, and was the precursor of numerous types cut in England during the next century. To the student of to-day Baskerville’s Greek type is far easier to read than any of its contemporaries. The letters are far from being execrable, as Mores called them. They are in effect cursive, well formed, and probably modelled, like those invented by Aldus, upon some calligraphy of the day. At the time they were condemned as hybrid, and were used for no other books. The story is very plain. Oxford wanted a better Greek type than then existed, and employed Baskerville to cut it. He did so, and produced a type infinitely better than any in existence. Therefore the English printers, of whom Bowyer was one, rejected it. The old type was good enough for them. But Baskerville’s type held the field and gave us a finer Greek type than we had before.
Dibdin wrote the following appreciative and discriminating notice of Baskerville: “With the business of a japanner he united that of a printer, to which latter he was led from a pure love of letters, and an ambition to distinguish himself in an art, which he justly thought superior to every other, and which has perpetuated his name, while the perishable materials of his japan ware have mouldered into dust. It is said he was fastidiously nice in his attempts at a perfect letter, that he did not attain the ‘eureka’ till he had expended nearly £800 of his fortune. Finally when tired of printing, he tried every expedient to dispose of his printing materials, but the caprice or inattention of our booksellers induced them coldly to reject every overture on the subject. Four years after the death of Baskerville, in 1775, these types were purchased by a literary society at Paris, for £3700.[31]
“Baskerville is said to have been small in stature, and fond of making the most of his figure by costly dress, and a stately deportment. He was cheerful and benevolent; at times extremely idle, but of an inventive turn, and prompt to patronize ingenuity in others; he retained the traces of a handsome man even during the last twenty-five years of his life; and his civility to strangers gained him the esteem of all who came to inspect his office. Although he printed a sumptuous English Bible and Greek Testament, he is supposed to have entertained an aversion to Christianity; and with this view he directed his remains to be interred in a mausoleum in his own grounds. The typography of Baskerville is eminently beautiful—his letters are in general of a slender and delicate form, calculated for an octavo or even quarto, but not sufficiently bold to fill the space of an imperial folio, as is evident from a view of his great Bible. He united in a singularly happy manner the elegance of Plantin with the clearness of the Elzevirs: his 4to and 12mo Virgil, and small Prayer-book, or 12mo Horace of 1762, sufficiently confirm the truth of this remark. He seems to have been extremely curious in the choice of his paper and ink: the former being in general the fruit of Dutch manufacture, and the latter partaking of a peculiarly soft lustre bordering on purple. In his Italic letter, whether capital or small, I think he stands unrivalled; such elegance, freedom, and perfect symmetry being in vain to be looked for among the specimens of Aldus and Colinaeus. In erudition, correctness, or in the multiplicity of valuable publications, he is not to be compared with Bowyer: there are some even who indiscriminately despise all his editions of the classics; but his 4to and 12mo editions of Virgil and Horace defend him from the severity of this censure. Upon the whole, Baskerville was a truly original artist; he struck out a new method of printing in this country, and may be considered as the founder of that luxuriant style of typography which at present so generally prevails; and which seems to have nearly attained perfection in the neatness of Whittingham, the elegance of Bulmer, and the splendor of Bensley.”[32]
The quarto editions by Baskerville of Virgil, Horace, Terence, Lucretius, Juvenal and Persius, and Catullus, etc., Sallust and Florus, in seven volumes, were valued in 1825 at £29.18.6. The Virgil had proof impressions of the plates of Hollar and Ponce; and the Horace contained the engravings of Pine, with a head of the poet from Worlidge’s “Gems.”