[712] Novum Testamentum Syriace denuo recognitum atque ad fidem Codicum MSS. emendatum. Impressit R. Watts. London 1816, 4to. Dr. Buchanan was born in 1766 and went to India in 1796, where his researches led to the discovery, among other things, of some interesting Hebrew Manuscripts of portions of the Bible, on goat skins and tablets of brass. He died in the year 1815. The Syriac Testament was corrected by him as far as the Acts, and completed by Dr. Lee, Arabic Professor at Cambridge. See ante, p. [68].
[713] Typographia, p. 360.
[714] The matrices of the Long Primer and Brevier cut for the Scotch Record Commission were given up to the Government.
[715] Hansard omits the Double Pica Greek cut for Oxford University, the matrices of which were retained by Mr. Figgins. A specimen appears in the book of 1823.
[716] The fount for Bagster’s Polyglot.
[717] The punches, matrices and moulds of this fount were deposited in the East India Company’s Library.
[718] It would be an omission not to mention here Mr. Vincent Figgins II’s interesting reprint of the 2nd Edition of Caxton’s Game of the Chesse, London, 1855, sm. folio. Mr. Figgins cut a fount of type after the original, “which” he remarks, “is a mixture of black-letter and the character called secretary,” the black predominating. The “Caxton Black” so produced has been the only attempt made to approach a facsimile of Caxton’s letter by means of type. In his remarks, Mr. Figgins gives his reasons for concluding, from the variety in the form of the letters, that they were not cast from a matrix but cut separately by hand. This theory Mr. Blades, in his “Life of Caxton,” disproves, pointing out that the Type No. 2* used in the second edition of Caxton’s work is really an old fount originally cast from matrices, and, when worn, trimmed up by hand to form the punches for a new fount—a circumstance amply sufficient to account for the irregularities observed. These irregularities are, of course, sufficient to prevent the absolute possibility of anything like an exact facsimile by means of type. It is, however, interesting to note that John Whittaker’s famous restorations of Caxtonian and other early printed works, were to a certain extent accomplished by means of typography. Mr. Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Decameron (ii, 415), describes the operation as follows:—“He has caused to be engraved or cut four founts of Caxton’s letter. These are cut in the manner of binders’ tools for lettering, and each letter is separately charged with ink, and separately impressed on the paper. Some of Caxton’s types are so riotous and unruly that Mr. Whittaker found it impossible to carry on his design without having at least twenty of such irregular letters engraved. The process of executing the text with such tools shall be related in Mr. Whittaker’s own words:—‘A tracing being taken with the greatest precision from the original leaf, on white tracing paper, it is then laid on the leaf (first prepared to match the book it is intended for) with a piece of blacked paper between the two. Then by a point passing round the sides of each letter, a true impression is given from the black paper on the leaf beneath. The types are next stamped on singly, being charged with old printing ink prepared in colour exactly to match each distinct book. The type being then set on the marks made by tracing, in all the rude manner and at the same unequal distances observable in the original, they will bear the strictest scrutiny and comparison with their prototype; it being impossible to make a facsimile of Caxton’s printing in any other way, as his letters are generally set up irregularly and at unequal distances, leaning various ways,’” etc.
19. MINOR FOUNDERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[720] Printers’ Grammar, p. 31.