[520] Cut for Dr. C. Wilkins, Oriental Librarian to the East India Company.
[521] The Diary of Lady Willoughby, as relates to her Domestic History in the Reign of King Charles I. London, 1844. 4to.
[522] Particulars of a most valuable property for Investment called the Caslon Letter Foundry; also a most extensive Modern Foundry on which has been expended upwards of £50,000, which will be sold by auction by W. Lewis and Son . . . on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 1846, at 11 for 12 precisely (unless previously disposed of by private contract). In the list of matrices catalogued, the cutters’ names are added, those of Hughes, Bessemer, and Boileau being among the most frequent.
12. ALEXANDER WILSON, 1742
[523] The History of the Art of Printing, containing an Account of its Invention and Progress in Europe, with the names of the famous Printers, the places of their birth and the works printed by them, and a Preface by the Publisher to the Printers in Scotland. Edinburgh, printed by James Watson. Sold at his shop opposite the Lucken Booths, and at the shops of David Scot in the Parliament Close, and George Stewart a little above the Cross, 1713, 12mo. Watson’s preface is stated to have been written by John Spotswood, Advocate. The historical portion is a condensed translation of De la Caille’s Histoire de l’Imprimerie, published at Paris in 1689.
[524] Specimen of Types in the Printing House of James Watson. 1713. 48 pp., of which 26 are devoted to Dutch “Bloomers” or Initials, and the remainder to Romans and Italics from French Canon to Nonpareil, with a fount of Greek, one of Black, and a few signs, etc.
[526] Typographia, p. 362.
[527] Ireland, during a portion of the eighteenth century appears to have been well supplied with type from native sources. Of the fortunes of Wilson’s branch foundry here alluded to, we have no further record, unless we are to connect the following statement with the enterprise of the Scotch typographers:—Boulter Grierson in 1764 petitioned the Lord Lieutenant for a renewal of the Patent granted to his distinguished father George Grierson by George II in 1731, for King’s printer in Ireland. Among other reasons in support of his prayer, he states: “That the art of making types for printing was unknown in Ireland until very lately, when your petitioner’s father encouraged it by laying out about One Thousand pounds in that article alone, in order to establish that art in the said kingdom, and there are now as good types made here as any imported, by which means there is a great saving to the public, and great part of the money that would be otherwise sent to foreign country’s is left in this kingdom.” (We are indebted to the kindness of a lady descendent of George Grierson for this interesting extract.) According to a note of Lemoine which we quote at p. [264n], Dublin printers in 1797 were getting their types either from Wilson of Glasgow, or from London. It is therefore probable that, whether George Grierson’s enterprise may have consisted in the encouragement of Wilson’s foundry or in the establishment of another foundry of his own, the art did not long hold its ground in Ireland, and was discontinued in the latter half of the century, only to be once revived, and that for a short period only, by Dr. Wilson’s grandsons in 1840. See p. [265].
[528] For an account of Baine’s subsequent career as a type-founder, see post, chap. xix.