A Mrs. Eaves went to live at Easy Hill about 1750. She took her two daughters, and very likely her son, with her. She had made an unfortunate marriage with one Richard Eaves, who, “having been found guilty of some fraudulent practices in regard to a relation’s will, was obliged to quit the kingdom.”[4] Her husband left her without money or any means of support. Baskerville became interested in her, and she went to his house probably as a housekeeper. Shortly afterwards Baskerville and she were living together as man and wife. Although her husband was not known to be dead, she passed as Mrs. Baskerville. She accompanied him to London to visit Dodsley, and was everywhere received as his wife. It does not appear that his social position in Birmingham was at all impaired by this connection. He was very kind and attentive to Mrs. Eaves, and when Eaves died, Baskerville married the widow in June, 1764. They had one son, who died in infancy. Baskerville was inconsolable, and in a letter to Franklin gave the death of his son as one of the reasons for desiring to sell his type in France. He said: “Let the reason of my parting with it be the death of my son and intended successor.”
When Baskerville began the work that made him famous, he was a middle-aged man, fifty years old, who had amassed a large fortune, and was living in quiet comfort on his own estate. He was carrying on a very large and lucrative japanning business, which he continued to conduct during his life. He was a person of much consequence in Birmingham when he took up the matter of type-founding and printing.
As for Baskerville’s private character, we have the accounts of his friends and of his critics, and it is not easy to come to a just conclusion. Hutton, in his “History of Birmingham,”[5] says: “In private life he was a humorist; idle[6] in the extreme; but his invention was of the true Birmingham model, active. He could well design, but procured others to execute; wherever he found merit he caressed it: he was remarkably polite to the stranger; fond of shew: a figure rather of the smaller size, and delighted to adorn that figure with gold lace.... Although constructed with the light timbers of a frigate, his movement was solemn as a ship of the line. During the twenty-five years I knew him, though in the decline of life, he retained the singular traces of a handsome man. If he exhibited a peevish[7] temper, we may consider good nature and intense thinking are not always found together. Taste accompanied him through the different walks of agriculture, architecture, and the finer arts. Whatever passed through his fingers, bore the lively marks of John Baskerville.”
Chambers, in his “Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire,” gives an interesting sketch of Baskerville, in which his will is printed with the exception of those portions where, as, Mr. Chambers regrets to say, Baskerville “unblushingly avows not only his disbelief of, but his contempt for revealed religion, and that in terms too gross for repetition.” Chambers was evidently not a partial critic. He records the fact that Mr. Noble,[8] who well remembered Baskerville, says he taught his respected father to write, and he maintained an acquaintance with him as long as he lived. “I have been very often with him to Baskerville’s house, and found him ever a most profane wretch, and ignorant of literature to a wonderful degree. I have seen many of his letters, which, like his will, were not written grammatically; nor could he even spell well. In person, he was a shrivelled old coxcomb. His favourite dress was green, edged with a narrow gold lace, a scarlet waistcoat, with a very broad gold lace; and a small round hat, likewise edged with gold lace. His wife was all that affectation can describe: she lived with him in adultery many years. She was originally a servant: such a pair are rarely met with. He had wit; but it was always at the expense of religion and decency, particularly if in company with the clergy. I have often thought there was much similarity in his person to Voltaire, whose sentiments he was ever retailing.”
Mr. Paterson, in a letter in Nichols’s “Literary Anecdotes,” wrote: “I could give you also a note on Baskerville, to demonstrate that he knew very little of the execution of typography beyond the common productions which are to be found every day in Paternoster-row, and therefore, in a comparative view, might readily conclude that he had outstript them all.” But, adds Chambers, “Dibdin, whose judgment in these matters few will call in question, says that ‘Rowe Mores, in his abuse of Baskerville, exhibits the painful and perhaps mirth-provoking efforts of a man kicking against the thorns. Baskerville was a wonderful creature as an artist, but a vain and silly man.’”
Many lies were told about Baskerville and his work.
The following from the “European Magazine” (December, 1785, page 463) is a fair sample. A correspondent, whose name is not disclosed, but who signs himself Viator, makes the following statement, to which Mr. Chambers gives place in his “Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire:” “I was acquainted with Baskerville, the printer, but cannot wholly agree with the extracts concerning him, from Hutton’s History of Birmingham. It is true he was very ingenious in mechanics, but it is also well known he was extremely illiterate, and his jokes and sarcasms on the Bible, with which his conversation abounded, shewed the most contemptible ignorance of eastern history and manners, and indeed of every thing. His quarto edition of Milton’s Paradise Lost, with all its splendour, is a deep disgrace to the English press. He could not spell himself, and knew not who could. A Warwickshire country schoolmaster, of some parish charity school, we presume, was employed by him to correct this splendid edition, and that dunce has spelt many words in it according to the vulgar Warwickshire pronunciation. For example, many of the western vulgar clap an h to every word beginning with an open vowel, or even the w, as hood for wood, my harm for my arm, heggs for eggs, &c., &c., and again as viciously dropping the h in verbs, as ave for have, as for has, &c., &c. Many instances of this horrid ignorance we find in the ingenious Baskerville’s splendid Milton, where as is often put for the verb has, and has for the conjunction as, with several others of this worse than cockney family. Nor can I by any means agree with Mr. Hutton that ‘it is to the lasting discredit of the British nation that no purchaser could be found for his types.’—What was the merit of his printing?—His paper was of a finer gloss, and his ink of a brighter black than ordinary; his type was thicker than usual in the thick strokes, and finer in the fine, and was sharpened at the angles in a novel manner; all these combined gave his editions a brilliant rich look, when his pages were turned lightly over; but when you sit down to read them, the eye is almost immediately fatigued with the gloss of the paper and ink, and the sharp angles of the type; and it is universally known that Baskerville’s printing is not read; that the better sort of the London printing is infinitely preferable for USE, and even for real sterling elegance. The Universities and London booksellers therefore are not to be blamed for declining the purchase of Baskerville’s types, which we are told were bought by a Society at Paris, where tawdry silk and tinsel is preferred to the finest English broad cloth, or even Genoa velvet.”[9]
This spiteful story has thus been in type and reproduced in one form and another for more than a hundred years. Nobody appears to have questioned it, and yet it is false, and maliciously so. An examination of the quarto edition of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” shows that “as” is never put for the verb “has,” and “has” is never put for the conjunction “as.” There is no such word in the book as “eggs,” and no such combination of words as “my arm.” It is impossible to find there the mistakes which Viator says are in this book and make it “a deep disgrace to the English press.”