[529] These eminent printers, the most elegant typographers of which Scotland can boast, produced in their day some of the finest editions ever printed. Robert was originally a barber, but began as a printer in 1740. In 1743 he was appointed printer to Glasgow University, one of his first productions being an edition of Demetrius Phalereus in that year. In 1744 he brought out his famous “immaculate” edition of Horace in 12mo at Glasgow. Shortly afterwards his brother Andrew, who had been a teacher of French at the University, joined him, and the two together, by great industry and excellent artistic taste, produced a large number of beautifully printed works, some of which will rank with the finest achievements of Bodoni, or Barbou, or even the Elzevirs. Their classics, both Greek and Latin, were as remarkable for their exactness as for their beauty, and it is recorded that the brothers, following the example of some of the old masters, were in the habit of publicly exhibiting their proof sheets and offering a reward for the detection of any error. Andrew Foulis died in 1775, and Robert in the following year. The business was carried on under the old name of R. & A. Foulis for some years by Andrew Foulis, son of Robert. This printer it was who was associated with Tilloch in his patent for stereotype in 1784. He died in 1829 in great poverty.
[530] Homeri Opera, Græce (ex edit. Sam. Clarke). Glasguæ; in Ædibus Academicis excudebant Robertus et Andreas Foulis, Academii Typographi 1756–8, 4 vols., fol. This work is one of the most splendid editions of Homer ever printed. Each sheet was corrected six times before being finally worked. Flaxman’s illustrations were designed for the work.
[531] After stating that it was the ambition of the publishers of this work to rival the finest productions of the Stephani of Paris, the preface continues (p. viii):—“Omnes quidem tres regios Stephanorum characteres græcos expresserat jam apud nos, atque imitatione accuratissimâ repræsentaverat Alexander Wilson, A.M., egregius ille Typorum artifex, quem et hoc nomine adscripserat sibi Alma Mater. In his autem grandioris formæ characteribus Stephanianis id unum desiderari quodammodo videbatur, scilicet, si res ita ferre posset, ut, salvâ tamen ilia solidæ magnitudinis specie quâ delectantur omnes, existeret una simul elegantiæ quiddam, magis atque venustatis. Rogatus est igitur ille artifex, ut, in hoc assequendo solertiam suam, quâ quidem pollet maximâ, strenue exercet. Quod et lubenter aggresus est, et ad votum usque videtur consecutus vir ad varias ingenuas artes augendas natus.”
[532] Poems of Mr. Gray. Glasgow, printed by Robert and Andrew Foulis, Printers to the University. 1768. 4to. This edition was published simultaneously with Dodsley’s first collected edition of Gray’s Poems, in London; and far exceeded it in beauty of typography and execution. Writing to Beattie in 1768, Gray says, “I rejoice to be in the hands of Mr. Foulis (the famous printer of Glasgow) who has the laudable ambition of excelling the Etiennes and the Elzevirs as well in literature as in the proper art of his profession.”
[533] “This is the first work in the Roman character which they (A. and R. Foulis) have printed with so large a type, and they are obliged to DOCTOR WILSON for preparing so expeditiously, and with so much attention, characters of so beautiful a form.”
[534] A View of the Various Editions of the Greek and Roman Classics. London, 1775. 12mo. Improved editions in 1778, 1782, and 1790.
[535] Renouard, speaking of the twenty volume edition of Cicero printed by the Foulis in 1749, prefers its type to that of the Elzevirs. Catalogue de la Bibliothèque d’un Amateur. Paris, 1819. 4 vols. 8vo. ii, 75.
[536] Hansard states that the Long Primer Greek matrices of the foundry were “from the type cast in which the Elzevirs printed some of their editions”—(Typographia, 404).
[537] In a later specimen is shown a “New Small Pica Italic” cut for the King’s printer in Edinburgh, 1807.
[538] Lemoine, Typographical Antiquities, 1797, says, “Ireland, by its connection with London and Scotland, produces some very neat printing; Wilson’s types are much approved of at Dublin. Alderman George Faulkner may be considered as the first printer in Ireland in his time; but it must be remembered his letter was all cast in London.” p. 99.