[155] The General History of Printing. London, 1732, 4to, p. 343.
[156] Among the rubbish of James’s foundry, Mores, who evidently credited the legend, states that he discovered some of the punches from which the two-line Great Primer matrices had been struck. “They are,” he observed, “truly vetustate formâque et squalore venerabiles, and we would not give a lower-case letter in exchange for all the leaden cups of Haerlem” (Dissertation, p. 76). Hansard, in 1825, appears also to have believed in the survival of De Worde’s punches, the form of which he professed to recognise among the Black-letter shown in Caslon’s specimen-book of 1785.
[157] The first Roman, or (as it was sometimes called) White-letter, noticed by Herbert in any of De Worde’s books was in the Whitintoni de heteroclytis nominbus, 1523.
[158] Roberti Wakefeldi . . . oratio de laudibus et utilitate trium linguarum Arabice, Chaldaicæ et Hebraice atque idiomatibus Hebraicis quæ in utroque testamento inveniuntur. Londini apud Winandum de Vorde (1524). 4to.
[159] This is probably the first appearance of Italic type in England.
[160] Pynson was not the first English printer who “put out” his work to foreign typographers. Caxton, in 1487, employed W. Maynyal of Paris to print a Sarum Missal for him; and one book, at least, is known to have been printed for De Worde by a Parisian printer.
[161] Oratio in Pace nuperrimâ, etc. Impressa Londini, Anno Verbi incarnati MDXVIII per Richardum Pynson, Regium Impressorem. 4to.
[162] Thomæ Linacri de emendatâ structurâ Latini sermonis. Londini, apud Richardum Pinsonum. 1524. 4to.
[163] i.e., “Greeting to the Reader: Of thy candour, reader, excuse it if any of the letters in the Greek quotations are lacking either in accents, breathings or proper marks. The printer was not sufficiently furnished with them, since Greek types have been but lately cast by him; nor had he the supply prepared necessary for the completion of this work.”
[164] Redman, who began to print about 1525, in Pynson’s old house, is supposed to have succeeded to the types of his predecessor. His edition of Littleton’s Tenures (no date) shows the Roman letter in Long Primer body.