[294] Novum Testamentum, juxta exemplar Millianum. Typis Joannis Baskerville. Oxonii e Typographeo Clarendoniano 1763. Sumptibus Academiæ, 4to & 8vo. (See also post, chap. xiii). The Baskerville Greek punches, matrices and types still preserved at Oxford, are supposed to be the only relics in this country of the famous Birmingham foundry.

[295] Though dated 1768 on the title, this specimen appears not to have been completed for two years, as it bears the date Sept. 29, 1770, on the last page, and includes specimens of purchases made in that year.

[296] Dissertation, p. 45. These strictures we cannot but regard as somewhat hypercritical. It was no uncommon thing to cast a small face of letter on a body larger than its own; and in the case of Hebrew and other Orientals, where detached points were cast to work over the letter, it was by no means unusual at that time, and till a later period, to designate the latter by the name of the body which it and the point in combination collectively formed. With regard to the gradual lapse of obsolete and superannuated founts from the specimen, Mr. Mores’ antiquarian zeal appears to have blinded him to the fact that the Oxford press may have issued their specimens as an advertisement of their present resources, rather than as an historical collection of their typographical curiosities.

7. THE STAR CHAMBER FOUNDERS, AND THE LONDON POLYGLOT

[297] Harl. Miscell., Lond., 1745, 4to, iii, 277. The full title and description of this curious tract is as follows:—“The London Printer, his Lamentation; or the Press oppressed, or over-pressed. September 1660. Quarto, containing 8 pages. In this sheet of Paper is contained, first, a short account of Printing in general, as its Usefulness, where and by whom invented; and then a Declaration of its Esteem and Promotion in England by the several Kings and Queens since its first Arrival in this Nation; together with the Methods taken by the Crown for its better Regulation and Government till the year 1640; when, says the Author, this Trade, Art and Mystery was prostituted to every vile Purpose both in Church and State; where he bitterly inveighs against Christopher Barker, John Bill, Thomas Newcomb, John Field and Henry Hills as Interlopers, and, under the King’s Patent, were the only instruments of inflaming the People against the King and his Friends, etc.”

[298] Mores makes a serious mistake in calling this founder Arthur Nicholas.

[299] In the British Museum Catalogue of Early English Books to 1640, the name of John Grismand appears as publisher of twenty-four books between 1597 and 1636. It is probable that the earlier of these, at any rate, were issued by the father of our founder. The name of one Thomas Wright also occurs as a publisher in 1610.

[300] Harl. MS. 5910, pt. i, p. 148.

[301] Moxon, in his account of the Customs of the Chapel (Mechanick Exercises, ii, 363), gives a full description of this yearly Feast, which, he says, “is made by Four Stewards, viz., two Masters and two Journey-men; which Stewards, with the Collection of half a Crown apiece of every Guest, defray the Charges of the whole Feast.” The List of Stewards, above referred to, contains, among others, the names of nearly all the seventeenth century letter-founders. Seventy feasts were held between 1621 and 1681, the first few probably being half-yearly. Three or four Stewards officiated at each. The names of the founders occurring in the list are as follows, the figures appended to each indicating the number of the feast at which each served his stewardship, with the approximate date: