[405] Rabbi Joseph Athias, son of Tobias Athias, who printed a Spanish Bible for the use of the Jews, was a printer, publisher and typefounder in Amsterdam. He succeeded to the Elzevir foundry as improved and added to by Van Dijk. In 1662–3 he issued an edition of the Old Testament printed in Hebrew type, specially cut by Van Dijk, for the accuracy and beauty of which he received great renown; and in 1667, when a new edition of the Bible was published, the Government of the United Provinces signified their satisfaction by presenting him with a gold medal and a massive gold chain. He is said to have printed a great number of English Bibles. Van Dijk, whose models were so warmly applauded by Moxon, was a letter-cutter only, and worked for various foundries. His founder was John Bus, who cast in Athias’ house, as the title of the following specimen-sheet, issued about 1700, indicates:—Proeven van Letteren die gesneden zijn door Wylen Christoffel van Dijck, welke gegoten werden by Jan Bus, ten huyse van Sr. Joseph Athias woonst in de Swanenburg Street, tot Amsterdam. Demy broadside (showing five Titlings, sixteen Roman and Italic, eight Black and two Music). After passing through several hands, Athias’ foundry was purchased by John Enschedé of Haerlem in 1767, in whose family it still remains.
[406] This should be Dirk Voskens of Amsterdam, who bought the foundry of Bleau in 1677, and was the first Dutch founder who kept types for the Oriental and recondite languages. Like Athias and others, he was a founder only, his punches and matrices being cut and sunk by Rolij. The foundry descended to his great-grandson, and was ultimately put up to auction in 1780, and purchased by the brothers Ploos Van Amstel, and subsequently became absorbed by the Enschedé foundry.
[407] Rolij seems to be Rowe Mores’ way of spelling Rolu, of whose types the following specimen-sheet exists:—Proeven van Letteren dewelcke gegooten worden by Mr. Johannes Rolu, Letter-Snyder woonende tot Amsterdam in de laetste Lelydwars-streat, c. 1710 (probably the specimen referred to by James further on).
[408] Voskens.
[409] “The matter was first composed in the usual way, then the form was affused with some sort of gypsum, which after it was indurated, became a complication of matrices for casting the whole page in a single piece” (Mores, p. 59). As early as the year 1705 a Dutchman, named J. Van der Mey, had, with the assistance of Johann Muller, a German clergyman, devised a method of soldering together the bottoms of common types imposed in a forme, so as to form solid blocks of each page. By this method, two Bibles, a Greek Testament and a Syriac Testament with Lexicon were produced, the plates of all of which, except the last named, were preserved in 1801. See T. Hodgson’s Essay on the Origin and Progress of Stereotype Printing, Newcastle, 1820, 8vo.
[410] “Being called into our company,” says Ged, in his Narrative, “he bragged much of his great skill and knowledge in all the parts of mechanism, and particularly vaunted, that he, and hundreds besides himself, could make plates to as great perfection as I could: which occasioned some heat in our conversation.”
[411] Hansard (Typog. p. 823), shows an impression of two pages of a Prayer Book, from plates which had escaped “Caslon’s cormorant crucible.”
[412] C. Crispi Sallustii Belli Catilinarii et Jugurthini Historiæ. Edinburgi; Guilielmus Ged, Aurifaber Edinensis, non typis mobilibus, ut vulgo fieri solet, sed tabellis seu laminis fusis, excudebat. 1739, 8vo (reprinted 1744). According to the account given by Ged’s daughter in the narrative above referred to, the Sallust was completed in 1736. No copy of that date is, however, known. Some of the plates of the work are still in existence.
[413] The story may be read in detail in Biographical Memoirs of William Ged, including a particular account of his progress in the art of Block printing. London, 1781, 8vo. Fenner died insolvent about the year 1735. James Ged, after working for some time with his father, engaged in the rebellion of 1745, and narrowly escaped execution. He ultimately went to Jamaica, a year before his father’s death.
[414] Despite Mores’ prophecy that Ged’s invention, even if at first successful, would soon have sunk under its own burden, the method was successfully revived, or rather re-invented, about the year 1781 by Dr. Tilloch of Edinburgh, in conjunction with Mr. Foulis, printer to the University of Glasgow, at whose press were printed a stereotype edition of Xenophon’s Anabasis in 1783, and several chap-books. Messrs. Tilloch and Foulis did not persevere with their venture, which was about the year 1800 successfully revived and perfected by Mr. Wilson, a London printer, aided by Earl Stanhope. In France, Firmin Didot, in 1795, attempted a method similar to that of Van de Mey in 1705; but abandoning this, succeeded in 1798 in producing good stereo plates by a system of polytypage, as described ante, p. [13]. The reader is referred to Hodgson’s Essay for specimens and particulars of the successive efforts to perfect the stereotype process at home and abroad.