About the year 1750 his inclination for letters induced him to turn his {269} attention to typography, and to add to his business of a japanner that of a printer.[545]
The condition of printing in England at this period was still anything but satisfactory. Fine printing was an art unknown; and although under the influence of Caslon’s genius the press was recovering from the reproach under which it lay at the beginning of the century, England was still very far behind her neighbours both in typographical enterprise and achievement. Once more it was left to an outsider to initiate the new departure; and as in 1720 the art of letter-founding had been roused from its lethargy by the genius of a gunsmith’s apprentice, so in 1750 the art of printing was destined to find its deliverer in the person of an eccentric Birmingham japanner. Whatever may be the judgment of posterity as to the merits of Baskerville’s performances, to him is undoubtedly due the honour of the first real stride towards a higher level of national typography; an example which became the incentive to that outburst of enthusiasm—that “matrix and puncheon mania,” as Dibdin terms it—which brought forth the series of splendid typographical productions with which the eighteenth century closed and the nineteenth opened.
Baskerville’s first essay in his new enterprise was deliberate, and gave ample proof of the enthusiasm of the man. Six years elapsed before any work issued from his press. During that period he is said to have sunk upwards of £600[546] in the effort to produce a type sufficiently perfect to satisfy his fastidious taste. He engaged the best punch-cutters that could be had,[547] in addition to which he made his own moulds, chases, ink, presses, and, indeed, almost the entire apparatus of the art.
The following extracts from letters in the possession of Mr. S. Timmins, to whose industrious researches the student of typography is indebted for much new light on the history of Baskerville’s career, and to whose courtesy we are indebted for the present opportunity of placing them before our readers, will {270} best describe the marvellous industry and enthusiasm which carried our printer to the successful issue of his great enterprise. The letters form part of a correspondence between Baskerville and his friend R. Dodsley, the publisher, respecting the preparations for his earliest printing venture:—
Baskerville to R. Dodsley. 2nd October 1752.
“To remove in some measure your impatience, I have sent you an impression of fourteen punches of the Two-lines Great Primer, which have been begun and finished in nine days only, and contain all the letters Roman necessary in the Titles and Half-titles. I cannot forbear saying they please me, as I can make nothing more correct, nor shall you see anything of mine much less so. You’ll observe they strike the eye much more sensibly than the smaller characters, tho’ equally perfect, till the press shows them to more advantage. The press is creeping slowly towards perfection. I flatter myself with being able to print nearly as good a colour and smooth a stroke as the enclosed. I should esteem it a favour if you’d send me the Initial Letters of all the Cantos lest they should not be included in the said fourteen, and three or four pages of any part of the Poem from whence to form a Bill for the casting a suitable number of each letter. The R wants a few slight touches, and the Y half an hour’s correction. This day we have resolutely set about thirteen of the same siz’d Italic Capitals, which will not be at all inferior to the Roman, and I doubt not to complete them in a fortnight. You need, therefore, be in no pain about our being ready by the time appointed. Our best respects to Mrs. Dodsley and our friend, Mr. Beckett.”
Baskerville to R. Dodsley. 19th October 1752.
“As I proposed in my last, I have sent you impressions from a candle of twenty Two-lines Great Primer Italick, which were begun and finished in ten days only. We are now about the figures, which are in good forwardness, and changing a few of those letters we concluded finished. My next care will be to strike the punches into copper and justify them with all the care and skill I am master of. You may depend on my being ready by your time (Christmas), but if more time could be allowed, I should make use of it all in correcting and justifying. So much depends on appearing perfect on first starting . . .”
Baskerville to R. Dodsley. 16th January 1754.
“I have put the last hand to my Great Primer, and have corrected fourteen letters in the specimen you were so kind to approve, and have made a good progress in the English, and have formed a new alphabet of Two-line Double Pica and Two-line Small Pica capitals for Titles, not one of which I can mend with a wish, as they come up to the most perfect idea I have of letters.”