Notwithstanding Mrs. Baskerville’s avowed intention of continuing the business, many attempts had been made, and were still made, to dispose of the foundry. It was offered to the Universities and declined; and the London booksellers preferred the types of Caslon and his apprentices.[580] The stock lay a dead weight till 1779, when the whole was purchased by Beaumarchais for the Société Litteraire-Typographique, for the sum of £3,700, and transferred to France.
Much blame and even contempt was bestowed at the time on the bad taste and unpatriotic spirit of the English nation in thus allowing the materials of this famous press to go out of the country.[581] De gustibus non est disputandum. Deprived of the master-hand of their designer, the types which startled the world into admiration in the Virgil of 1757, had lost their magic by 1779; and it seems hardly reasonable to blame the printers of this country for preferring the sterling types of Caslon and Jackson, in which works as beautiful were being produced, and by far simpler methods than those employed by the Birmingham genius. Nor does it appear that after the purchase by the French there was any general feeling of regret in this country at the opportunity missed. It is, however, a fact that for some important works produced towards the close of the century—particularly those of Bulmer’s press—it was considered an advantage to secure the services of artists of the Birmingham school, both in the formation of the types and the execution of the press-work. As the pioneer of fine printing in England, Baskerville deserves, and will receive the grateful approbation of all lovers of the art. But it would be idle to say that he was not speedily matched and even surpassed by the performance of others, or that his types, had they remained in this country, would have been more valuable on account of their intrinsic excellence than of their historical interest.
That the French were well satisfied with their bargain, may be gathered from the following letter quoted by Nichols, dated Paris, August 8th, 1780:—
“The English language and learning are so cultivated in France, and so eagerly learned, that the best Authors of Great Britain are now reprinting in this Metropolis: Shakespeare, Addison, Pope, Johnson, Hume, and Robertson, are to be published here very soon. Baskerville’s types, which were bought it seems for a trifle, to the eternal disgrace of Englishmen, are to be made use of for the purpose of propagating the English Language in this country.”[582] {285}
Nichols himself adds, after deploring the comparative failure of Baskerville, to receive appreciation in his native land: “We must admire, if we do not imitate the taste and economy of the French nation, who, brought by the British arms in 1762 to the verge of ruin, rising above distress, were able, in seventeen years, to purchase Baskerville’s elegant types, refused by his own country, and to expend an hundred thousand pounds in poisoning the principles of mankind by printing the Works of Voltaire.”
This great work, for the express purpose of printing which Baskerville’s types were procured, was thus announced to the English public in 1782[583]:—
“A complete edition of the Works of Voltaire, printed by subscription, with the types of Baskerville.
“This work, the most extensive and magnificent that ever was printed, is now in the press at Fort Kehl, near Strasburgh, a free place, subject to no restraint or imprimatur, and will be published towards the close of the present year. It will never be on sale. Subscribers only can have copies. Each set is to be numbered, and a particular number appropriated to each subscriber at the time of subscribing. As the sets to be worked off are limited to a fixed and small number, considering the great demand of all Europe, those who wish to be possessed of so valuable a work must be early in their application, lest they be shut out by the subscriptions being previously filled. Voltaire’s Manuscripts and Port-Folios, besides his Works already published, cost 12,000 guineas. This and other expenses attending the publication, will lay the Editors under an advance of £100,000 sterling. The public may from thence form a judgment of the extraordinary care that will be taken to make this edition a lasting monument of typographical elegance and grandeur,” etc. June 4, 1782.
The “proposals” were accompanied by two pages of specimens of the type.
Of this famous edition of Voltaire an interesting account is given in Lomenie’s Beaumarchais et ses Temps.[584] The Society in whose name Beaumarchais undertook the work consisted of himself alone. Besides the Voltaire MSS. and the Baskerville types, he bought and set to work three paper-mills in the Vosges, and after much difficulty secured the old fort at Kehl as a neutral ground on which to establish in security his vast typographical undertaking. The enterprise was one involving labour, time and cost vastly beyond his expectations, and his correspondence with his manager at Kehl presents an almost pathetic picture of his efforts to grapple with the difficulties that beset his task. “How can we promise,” he wrote in 1780, “in the early months of {286} 1782 an edition which has neither hearth nor home in March 1780? The paper-mills have to be made, the type to be founded, the printing press to be put up, and the establishment to be formed.” And on another occasion he writes: “Here am I, obliged to learn my letters at paper-making, printing and bookselling.”
It was not until 1784 that Volume One appeared; and the whole work in two editions was not completed till 1790,[585] by which time France was in the throes of the Revolution, and little likely to heed the literary exploits even of one of her most talented sons. Of the 15,000 copies printed, only 2,000 found subscribers; and after the dissolution of the establishment at Kehl[586] (where, besides, he printed an edition of Rousseau and a few other works) all the benefit Beaumarchais received from his enterprise was a mountain of waste-paper.