These new founts appear in a specimen of 1815, a book which contains 24 pages of large letter from 16-line to 4-line; 35 pages of Roman and Italic from French Canon to Pearl; together with Titlings, Black Letter, and Flowers, and a few Orientals.
Two years later, Mr. Figgins put forward a specimen of Newspaper founts, showing a series of eight sizes, on a broadside sheet,—the first specimen of the kind, we believe, specially addressed to the proprietors of the public press. The title of this sheet is printed in the 5-line German Text, which Hansard describes as a typographical curiosity.
Speaking of Mr. Figgins about 1812, Mr. Nichols remarks (in the passage which called for the acknowledgment already quoted): “With an ample portion of his kind instructor’s reputation, he inherits a considerable share of his talents and industry, and has distinguished himself by the many beautiful specimens he has produced, and particularly of Oriental Types.”[709] {341}
The foundry had, in the year 1801, been removed from Swan Yard, Holborn, to West Street, West Smithfield, where, besides the work of completing the founts most commonly in use, several important and interesting tasks of a special character had engaged Mr. Figgins’ attention. Among these may be mentioned the Small Pica Hebrew for Bagster’s Polyglot,[710] in 1817, which had the distinction in its day of being the smallest Hebrew with points in England. Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Decameron (ii, 408), while specially commending the Polyglot, quotes a letter from Mr. Bagster in reference to the Figgins Hebrew fount, which it will be interesting to repeat here. Writing to Dibdin, Mr. Bagster remarks:
“The difficulty to the compositor of the Hebrew with points far exceeds every other language. You are doubtless aware that every line is composed of three distinct lines; i.e., points and accents both above and below the line of letters. I wrote to the printer and letter founder to display these, and one of the letters (that of Mr. Figgins which follows) is enclosed as their accounts nearly agree. The difference between the fount with points, and that which is without them is very striking. The former requires 25 points and accents and 136 mixed letters; whereas the latter has only 32 altogether and one stop—a difference between the founts of 132 characters—the first with points exceeding by so considerable a number, and some are so minute that one ounce is found to contain no less than 236.
“When I embraced the design of this work, no suitable fount of Hebrew existed. It became therefore necessary to cut the steel punches and the brass (sic) matrices before the fount of letter could be cast; and thus our country is enriched by the creation of this new fount.
“The Greek and Roman type I think will also be admired for the delicate neatness of their execution. The Hebrew and Greek types are of the neatest form, and the latter is that of Porson.” . . .
Mr. Figgins’ letter enclosed is as follows:—
“The number of Hebrew matrices are 82; these are all first cast on a minion body, and 54 of them are again cast on a diamond body, to admit of marks and accents being put over them. The accents and points are 25 in number, of which there are, of the thinnest sort, about 240 to the ounce. The number of boxes required to contain the fount are:— {342}
“Minion Hebrew 82 Spaces (4), em and en quads (2), large quad (1) 7 Diamond Hebrew 54 Spaces same as Minion 7 Minikin accents and marks 25 Spaces, etc., same as Minion 7 182 “I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
V. FIGGINS.”
“West Street, London, 16th Oct., 1816.
| “Minion Hebrew | 82 |
| Spaces (4), em and en quads (2), large quad (1) | 7 |
| Diamond Hebrew | 54 |
| Spaces same as Minion | 7 |
| Minikin accents and marks | 25 |
| Spaces, etc., same as Minion | 7 |
| 182 |
The Syriac used in Bagster’s Polyglot[711] was not cut by Mr. Figgins; but he had previously produced three sizes of this character, viz.: a Double Pica, English, and Long Primer (two founts), under the direction and partly at the expense of Dr. Claudius Buchanan, the eminent Indian missionary and Orientalist, whose work on Christian Researches in Asia, with notices of translations of the Scriptures into the Oriental Languages, had been published at Cambridge, in 1811. At the time of his death, in 1815, Dr. Buchanan was engaged in editing for the British and Foreign Bible Society a Syriac New Testament, which appeared in the following year, printed in Figgins’ type.[712]
The founts already specified—to which may be added a Small Pica Irish, copied from the copper-plate engravings in Charles Vallancey’s Irish Grammar, and some additional Greeks, cut under Porson’s superintendence—constituted the chief features of Mr. Figgins’ foundry in respect of the learned and foreign founts. With regard to its progress in the characters of more general use, it will be sufficient to quote Mr. Hansard’s note, written in 1825, and based doubtless on an examination of the excellent, specimen of 1821, with its additions in 1822 and 1823:—“No foundry existing is better stocked with matrices for those extraneous sorts which are cut more with a view to accommodation than profit; such as astronomical, geometrical, algebraical, physical, genealogical, and arithmetical sorts; and I feel it particularly incumbent on me to add that, as his specimen bears equal rank with any for the number and beauty of its founts, so he has strayed less into the folly of fat-faced preposterous disproportions, than either Thorne, Fry or Caslon. I consider his Five-line Pica German text a typographical curiosity.”[713] {343}