At length, after repeated delays, caused mainly by the nervous fastidiousness of the printer, who even corrected his work currenti prelo up to the last moment, the famous Virgil appeared in 1757,[550] and with its publication Baskerville’s reputation was made. Being the earliest performance of this press, the volume possesses a peculiar interest among the productions of English typography. Opinions may differ as to some of the eulogies pronounced on it by bibliographers and bibliophiles,[551] but as a typographical curiosity,[552] and as a pioneer of fine printing in our midst, it is a work to be treasured and reverenced. {273}
From a letter-founder’s point of view its chief interest consists in its being the earliest book printed in the type of the new Birmingham foundry. The fount used is a Great Primer, slender and delicate in form, combining, as Dibdin says, in a singularly happy manner, the elegance of Plantin with the clearness of the Elzevirs. The Italic letter was specially admired for its freedom and symmetry—qualities in which it excelled even the beautiful founts of Aldus and Colinæus.
Baskerville’s merit met with prompt recognition in many quarters, amongst others, by the Delegates of the Oxford Press, who, in 1758 (apparently on his own application), entrusted him with the cutting and casting of a new Greek fount for their own use. A record of this important transaction remains in the following Minutes of the Delegates:—
“June 6, 1758.—Present (among others) Dr. (Sir W.) Blackstone. Order’d that this Delegacy will at their next meeting take into consideration Mr. Baskerville’s Proposals for casting a Set of new Greek Types.
“July 5, 1758.—Ordered that Dr. Blackstone be empowered to agree with Mr. Baskerville of Birmingham to make a new set of Greek Puncheons, matrices and moulds, in Great Primer, for the Use of the University, and also to cast therein 300 Weight of Types, at the Price of 200 Guineas for the whole. And that he and Mr. Prince (Warehouse-keeper) do give proper Directions for that Purpose.
“Jan. 31, 1759.—Agreed that Mr. Musgrave have leave to print his Euripides at the University Press on Mr. Baskerville’s Types as soon as they arrive.[553]
“March 11, 1761.—Ordered, That a Greek Testament in Quarto and Octavo be printed on Baskerville’s Letter, and three or four Gentlemen of Learning and Accuracy be desired separately to correct the Proofs.
“June 23, 1761.—500 copies in Quarto and 2,000 in Octavo ordered to be printed.”
In the accounts for 1761 the following entry records the conclusion of the business:—
“To Mr. Baskerville for Greek Types . . . . £210 0 0.”
Considerable expectation was aroused by this order, which was considered of sufficient importance to deserve mention in the public press, as the following extract from the St. James’s Chronicle of September 5, 1758, testifies:—
“The University of Oxford have lately contracted with Mr. Baskerville of Birmingham for a complete Alphabet of Greek Types of the Great Primer size; and it is not doubted but that ingenious artist will excel in that Character, as he has already done in the Roman and Italic, in his elegant edition of Virgil, which has gained the applause and admiration of most of the literati of Europe, as well as procured him the esteem and patronage of such of his own countrymen as distinguish themselves by paying a due regard to merit.”
The anticipations thus expressed were destined to be disappointed; for {274} Baskerville’s genius appears to have failed him in his efforts to reproduce a foreign character. Even before the appearance of the Oxford Greek Testament, which did not occur till 1763, rumours of the failure of this undertaking had begun to circulate. Writing in 1763, respecting a forthcoming Greek Testament of his own, Bowyer says, “Two or three quarto Editions on foot, one at Oxford, far advanced on new types by Baskerville,—by the way, not good ones.”[554]
The appearance of the work in question[555] justified, to some extent, the criticism. Regular as the Greek character is, it is stiff and cramped, and, as Dibdin says, “like no Greek characters I have ever seen.” Rowe Mores goes to the length of styling it “execrable”; and Bowyer appears to have had it specially in mind when he said to Jackson that the Greek letters commonly in use were no more like Greek than English.