This was too much, even for academic controversy of the eighteenth century; Colbatch, having first disavowed the authorship of the Remarks, appealed to the Heads of Colleges. This body declared the book to be "a most virulent and scandalous libel" and Crownfield was prosecuted in the Vice-Chancellor's Court for having sold it. Dr Crosse, the Vice-Chancellor, was a "quiet and timid man" and after hazarding a judgment in Crownfield's favour, adjourned the case. In the next year Bentley was cited to appear in the Vice-Chancellor's Court to give evidence concerning the libel. "There was no difficulty," says Monk, "in obtaining the citation, but a great one in getting it served upon the Master: the Esquire-beadles ... were all as averse to such perilous service, as the mice in the fable were to undertake the office of belling the cat." One of the beadles, however, was bribed with a double fee, and Bentley offered no resistance. Instead, he contrived, by an exchange with a brother-chaplain, to be on duty at St James's during the month in which the Court was to assemble and eventually the proceedings against him were abandoned.
The most ambitious work which the University Press undertook about this time was an edition of the Suidas Lexicon in three volumes folio. For this enterprise Bentley was chiefly responsible. Ludolf Kuster, a professor from Berlin, had collated three of the Suidas manuscripts at Paris and was invited by Bentley to take up his residence at Cambridge and to publish his edition of the lexicon at the Press. Accordingly on 4 October, 1701, the university made an agreement with John Owen, an Oxford stationer, by which Owen undertook to purchase an edition of 1500 copies (150 on large paper) of Suidas in three volumes at the price of £1 10s 6d per sheet[84].
The exact relation of Owen to Cambridge is not quite clear. Evidently, he was a protegé of Bentley and though there is no record of his official appointment as a Cambridge printer, several books bear his imprint as Typographus, including Cellarius, Geographia 1703; Ockley, Introductio 1706; Caesar, 1706; Minucius Felix, 1707; Sallust, 1710[85]. The word typographus, as Bowes pointed out, is used rather loosely and Owen seems only to have been the publisher of the books quoted; on the other hand, there are among Crownfield's vouchers for 1705 the following:
June 23. 1705
Then received of Mr Corn. Crownfield (for the use of Mr Davies, and for correcting Caesars Commentary) the summe of thirty seven shillings and four pence, being for 28 sheets at 16d the sheet from A to Ee, inclusive by me
| £ | s | d | ——————————John Owen |
| 01 | 17 | 4 |
Compos'd in Caesar's Commentary's the sheets Ccc, Ddd, Eee, Fff at 8s the sheet—l1 12s 0d
Sept. 17. 1705
Receiv'd by John Owen
These receipts appear to show that Owen actually was at work as a compositor upon Davies's edition of Caesar which appeared with the imprint Impensis Joannis Oweni, Typographi[86].