By 1701 Bentley's activities had begun to bear fruit.
Already (says Monk) some handsome editions of Latin Classics had been printed.... Terence had been edited by Leng, of Catharine Hall, afterwards Bishop of Norwich; Horace by Talbot, the Hebrew Professor; Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius by the Hon. Arthur Annesley, Representative for the University; and Virgil by J. Laughton of Trinity.
Nor was it only in Holland that search was made for beautiful types. In 1700 Matthew Prior was sent, on behalf of the university, to procure Greek type (the famous Grecs du Roi) from the Paris press. The negotiations, however, fell through owing to the demand of the French that on the title-page of any book for which their type was used there should be added after the words typis Academicis, a full acknowledgment in the form Caracteribus Græcis e typographeo regio Parisiensi. Correspondence passed between Prior, the Earl of Manchester, the Chancellor, and the Abbé Bynon, but the university refused to comply with this condition[82].
Of the books printed about this time we may note first the works edited by Bentley himself.
The title-page of the famous edition of Horace (1711) is reproduced here and a full account both of its compilation and of its reception may be read in Monk's Life:
This publication had been long and anxiously expected; and its appearance excited much sensation and surprise. There were found between seven and eight hundred alterations of the common readings of Horace; all of which, contrary to the general practice of classical editors, were introduced into the text.... This book was, it must be confessed, unlike any edition of a Latin author ever before given to the world.
