No specimen, however, is to be found of the Russian fount, which Mores, writing in 1778, hopes Cottrell is about to cut “for a gentleman who compiles a Russian Dictionary; the same gentleman who translated into English, The Grand Instructions of Her Imperial Majesty Catherine II, for a new Code of Laws for the Russian Empire. London, 1768, 4to., to whom we wish success.”

Cottrell died in 1785. He is described as obliging, good-natured, and friendly, rejecting nothing because it is out of the common way, and expeditious in his performances. Nichols, in recording his death, says “Mr. Cottrell died, I am sorry to add, not in affluent circumstances, though to his profession of a letter-founder were superadded that of a doctor for the toothache, which he cured by {292} burning the ear; and had also the honour of serving in the Troop of His Majesty’s Life Guards.”[597]

The following is the summary of his foundry as gathered from his specimen book, together with the additional founts cut subsequently:—

MR. COTTRELL’S FOUNDRY.

Of the history of the Foundry during the nine years following Mr. Cottrell’s death, no record remains. In 1794 it became the property of Robert Thorne, a former apprentice of Cottrell’s, who removed the business from Nevil’s Court to No. 1, Barbican, whence he issued in that year his first specimen and a price list announcing his new undertaking.[598]

The specimen book consists entirely of elegantly shaped large letters cast in sand, from five-line up to nineteen-line, a then unprecedented size. The bulk of these, comprising the sizes from five to twelve-line, advancing by one pica em in body, it may be surmised, are from Cottrell’s models; the thirteen, sixteen, and nineteen-line, being added by Thorne. For his specimen of ordinary-sized letter, Thorne probably made use at first of Cottrell’s book as it stood.[599]

But it is evident by the specimen published four years later, in 1798, that if he ever was possessed of the matrices of these founts, he entirely discarded them, in conformity with the passing fashion, in favour of others more closely resembling the beautiful faces of Jackson and Figgins. His specimen of 1798 is indeed one of the most elegant of which that famous decade can boast. For {293} lightness, grace, and uniformity, the series of Romans and Italics which are exhibited excels that of almost all his competitors. The book, which contains not a single fount which had previously appeared in Cottrell’s book, consists of forty-eight leaves, of which thirty are devoted to Roman and Italic, and the remainder to Titlings, Shaded letters, and Flowers, with one fount of Double-Pica Script. A postscript to the specimen states that four more founts were nearly ready, completing the series, the preparation of which had evidently been the labour of many years.[600] It is therefore the more to be regretted, that Thorne, in common with all his contemporaries, was compelled almost immediately, by the sudden change of public taste in favour of the new style of Roman, to abandon the further prosecution of this excellent series, and devote himself to the production of founts according to “modern” fashion.

In 1801 a revised price list was issued announcing a rise in the price of type owing to the advanced cost of raw material and journeymen’s wages[601]; and in 1803 appeared the specimen of the new Roman series, representing the product of five years’ incessant toil and sacrifice. It cannot be said that this specimen of “Improved Types”[602]—one of the first completed in the trade—bears any comparison with the artistic elegance of its predecessor.

It exhibits the new Roman and Italic in ten, seven, and five-line Pica, Canon, two-line Great Primer (two faces), two-line English (two faces), Double Pica (two faces), Great Primer (two faces), English, Pica, Long Primer (two faces), Bourgeois, Brevier, and Minion. Ornamenteds—two-line Pica (two faces), two-line Small Pica (two faces). Shadeds—two-line Small Pica (two faces), two-line Nonpareil (three faces). Script—Double Pica.