[236] The passage referred to is the following vague reply to an inquiry addressed by Sir Henry Savile to Casaubon: “De characteribus Stephanicis longa historia, longæ ambages. Itaque melius ista coram.”
[237] Dupont, Histoire de l’Imprimerie. Paris, 1854. 2 vols., 8vo, i, 488.
[238] Diary and Correspondence. London, 1850–2. 4 vols. 8vo, iii, 300.
[239] Printing was introduced into Cambridge in 1521, when John Siberch printed Bullock’s Oratio and seven other works. He styled himself the first printer in Greek in England, although none of his works were wholly printed in that language. The fount used for the quotations in the Galeni de Temperamentis was probably procured from abroad. The residence of Erasmus at Cambridge lent undoubted impetus to the art, which progressed actively while the Oxford press was idle. The first University printers, three in number, were appointed in 1534, by virtue of a charter granted by Henry VIII, in terms considerably more liberal than those first granted to Oxford. At no period of its career has the Cambridge press boasted of a type-foundry. In 1626 Archbishop Usher made an effort to procure from Leyden, for the use of the press, matrices of Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic and Samaritan letters, which, had he been successful, might have formed the nucleus of a foundry. Unfortunately, the Archbishop was forestalled by the Elzevirs, who secured the matrices for their own press (Parr’s Life of Usher. London, 1686, fol., p. 342–3). The University made an effort in 1700 to enrich their press by the purchase of a fount of the famous Paris Greek types of Francis I, known as the King’s Greek. But as the French Academy insisted, as a condition of the purchase, that all works printed in these characters should bear the imprint “characteribus Græcis e Typographeo regio Parisiensi,” the Cambridge Syndics, unable to accede to the terms, withdrew from the negotiations (Gresswell’s Early Parisian Greek Press. Oxford, 1833, i, 411; and De Guignes’ Typographie Orientale et Grecque de l’Imprimerie Royale. Paris, 1787, p. 85).
[240] Novum Testamentum. Cantabrigiæ. Apud Tho. Buck. 1632. 8vo.
[241] Anecdotes, i, 119. Elsewhere (v, 111) Beloe asserts that the type thus used was the Greek of Sir Henry Savile. Although the same size, and in many points closely resembling this letter, it differs from it materially in other respects. This may possibly be accounted for on the supposition that some of the Savile characters having been lost, they had been replaced either by new matrices, or by the addition of letters from some other fount. Buck discarded many of the cumbrous abbreviations used in the Chrysostom, greatly to the advantage of his text (see 4th Report Historical MSS. Commission, p. 464).
[242] Rushworth’s Collections, ii, 74.
[243] Works of Laud. Oxford, 1847–60. 7 vols., 8vo, v, 80.
[244] The Holy Bible, containing the Old Testament and the New, etc. Printed at London by Robert Barker . . . and by the Assignes of John Bill. Anno 1631. 8vo.
[245] Bagford and others erroneously mention the fine as £3,000.