[454] This Society, which was established in 1698, had already displayed considerable activity in the introduction of printing into the distant fields of its missionary effort. In 1711 it sent out to the missionaries of Tranquebar, on the Coromandel Coast, a printing press furnished with Portuguese types, paper, etc., which, after an adventurous voyage, in which the vessel was plundered by the French of all her other cargo, reached its destination and enabled the missionaries to commence the printing of a Tamulic New Testament, of which the Gospels appeared in 1714, with the imprint “Tranquebariæ in littore Coromandelino, typis Malabaricis impressit G. Adler, 1714.” It is related that the publication of the remainder of the work was delayed from a scarcity of paper, their types being very large; till at length the expedient was adopted of casting a new fount of letter from the leaden covers of some Cheshire cheeses, which had been sent out to the missionaries by the Society. The attempt succeeded, and with these new and smaller types the remainder of the Testament was printed, the whole being published together in 1719. (Cotton, Typographical Gazetteer, 2nd edit., p. 289.)
[455] Liber Psalmorum . . una cum decem Præceptis . . et Oratione Dominicâ . . Arabicè; sumptibus Societatis de Propagandâ Cognitione Christi apud Exteros. London, 1725. 8vo.
[456] Novum Testamentum, Arabicè. Londini. Sumptibus Societatis de Propagandâ Cognitione Christi apud Exteros. 1727. 4to.
[457] “This circumstance,” says Nichols (Anec. Bowyer, p. 317) “has lately been verified by the American, Dr. Franklin, who was at that time a journeyman under Mr. Watts, the first printer that employed Mr. Caslon.”
[458] Dibdin, in repeating this anecdote, uses rather stronger language. “Caslon,” he says, “after giving (I would hope) that wretched pilferer and driveller Samuel Palmer (whose History of Printing is only fit for chincampane paper) half a dozen good canings for his dishonesty, betook himself to Mr. Bowyer.” (Bibl. Decam. II., 379.)
[459] Joannis Seldeni Jurisconsulti Opera Omnia, tam edita quam inedita. In tribus voluminibus. Colligit ac recensuit . . . David Wilkins, S.T.P. . . . Londini, Typis Guil. Bowyer. 1726. Fol. (Begun in 1722.)
[460] Dr. David Wilkins, F.S.A., was Keeper of the Lambeth Library under Archbishop Wake, and drew up a Catalogue of all the MSS. and books there in his time. Besides editing the Selden and the Coptic Testament and Pentateuch, he published some important works in Anglo-Saxon Literature, and edited the learned Prolegomena to Chamberlayne’s Oratio Dominica in 1715. He died in 1740. Rowe Mores considers that in his Coptic studies Dr. Wilkins was indebted to Kircher, the Jesuit, whose Prodromus Coptus, published in Rome in 1636, the Doctor had severely handled.
[461] Quinque Libri Moysis Prophetæ in Linguâ Ægyptiâ. Ex M.S.S. . . . descripsit ac Latine vertit Dav. Wilkins. Londini 1731. 4to. Only 200 copies were printed.
[462] See ante, p. [147]. Nichols, writing about 1813, mentioned that the Coptic fount, having escaped the conflagration of his printing office in 1808, was still in his possession.
[463] Typographia, p. 349.