[566] The Book of Common Prayer, Cambridge, 1760, roy. 8vo, (with long lines); 1760, roy. 8vo, (in double columns); 1761, roy. 8vo; 1762, roy. 8vo (with long lines): 1762, 12mo.
[567] He appears always to have kept a large number of hot plates of copper always ready, between which, as soon as printed, just as they were discharged from the tympan, the sheets were inserted. The moisture was thus expelled, the ink set, and the smooth, glossy surface put on all simultaneously. However well the method may have answered at the time, the discoloration of his books still preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere, shows that the brilliance thus imparted was most tawdry and ephemeral.
[568] “Les caractères sont gravés avec beaucoup de hardiesse, les italiques sont les meilleures qu’il y ait dans toutes les Fonderies d’Angleterre, mais les romains sont un peu trop larges.” . . And of his editions he adds, “Quoiqu’elles fatiguent un peu la vue, on ne peut disconvenir que ce ne soit la plus belle chose qu’on ait encore vue en ce genre.” (Man. Typ., ii, xxxix.)
[569] “Mr. Baskerville . . . made some attempts at letter-cutting, but desisted, with good reason. The Greek cut by him or his for the University of Oxford is execrable. Indeed, he can hardly claim a place amongst letter-cutters. His typographical excellence lay more in trim, glossy paper to dim the sight.” (Dissert., p. 86.)
[570] The Life of Benjamin Franklin, written by himself, etc. (Bigelow’s edition). Philadelphia, 1875, i, 413. Nichols, in error, gives the date of this letter as 1764.
[571] The apparatus was first offered, it is said, to the French Ambassador in London for £8,000. Subsequently Baskerville wrote, on Sept. 7, 1767: “Suppose we reduce the price to £6,000. . . . Let the reason of my parting with it be the death of my son and intended successor, and having acquired a moderate fortune, I wish to consult my ease in the afternoon of life.”
[572] The following works were printed by Martin between 1766 and 1769, viz., Christians’ Useful Companion, 1766, 8vo; Somerville’s Chace, 1767, 8vo; Shakespeare, 9 vols., 1768, 12mo; Bible with cuts, 1769, 4to; and editions of the Lady’s Preceptor.
[573] Letter dated 21 Sept. 1773. “You speak of enlarging your Foundery” (Works, viii, 88).
[574] The remaining copies of Baskerville’s impressions, were, after his death purchased for £1,100 by W. Smart, bookseller, of Worcester, and publisher of the Worcester Guide.
[575] Hutton, History of Birmingham, 1835, p. 197.