UTENSILS FOR PRINTING.

Dr. Fell supplemented this gift by a further signal service, which is thus recorded by Bagford:—

“The good Bishop provided from Holland the choicest Puncheons,[263] Matrices, etc., with all manner of Types that could be had, as also a Letter Founder, a Dutchman by Birth, who had Served the States in the same quality at Batavia, in the East Indies. He was an excellent workman, and succeeded by his son, who has been since succeeded by Mr. Andrews.”[264]

The Dutchman here spoken of was Walpergen, who, as will be seen later on, preceded Sylvester Andrews as typefounder in Oxford.

Fell was a zealous defender of the privileges enjoyed by his University, and in 1679 drew up a report setting forth its claims in the matter of printing.[265] In this report he mentions that, in the year 1672, several members of the University, himself included, taking into consideration the “low estate of the manufacture of printing” in the kingdom, and particularly in the University, “took upon themselves the charges of the press in the said University, and at the expence of above four thousand pounds furnisht from Germany, France and Holland, an Imprimery, with all the necessaries thereof, and pursued the undertaking so vigorously, as in the short compass of time which hath since intervened, to have printed many considerable books in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, as well as in English; both for their matter and elegance of paper and letter, very satisfactory to the learned abroad and at home.”

It is probable that the transaction here recorded constituted a portion of what became known as Dr. Fell’s gift to the University; a series of benefactions which doubtless extended over several years—from 1667 to 1672—and included, when complete, the whole of the types and implements named in the above Inventory. Mores, who is responsible for the date, 1667, leads us to suppose {150} that the gift was completed in that year; but he gives no authority; and the absence of any second inventory of the acquisitions made in 1672, points strongly to the conclusion that the two transactions were part of the same gift.

In 1675 Dr. Fell was created Bishop of Oxford, and continued his active services to the cause of learning until the time of his death in 1686, having, as Anthony à Wood remarks, “advanced the learned press, and improved the manufacture of printing in Oxford in such manner as it had been designed before by that public spirited person, Dr. Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.”[266]

In 1677 the University press was further enriched by another important gift of type and matrices, presented by Mr. Francis Junius.

This learned scholar, whom Rowe Mores styles the restorer—if not more than the restorer—of the knowledge of the Septentrional languages in England, was a German, the son of Francis Junius, the theologist, of Heidelberg. He resided for some time in England as librarian to the Earl of Arundel, during which time he zealously prosecuted his philological studies. In 1654, being then at Amsterdam, he furnished himself with a set of Saxon punches and matrices, respecting which he wrote as follows to Selden in that year[267]:—“In the meanwhile have I here Anglo-Saxonic types (I know not whether you call them puncheons) a cutting, and I hope they will be matriculated and cast within the space of seven or eight weeks at the furthest. As soon as they come I will send you some little specimen of them to the end I might know how they will be liked in England.” In addition to this Saxon, Junius also obtained founts of Gothic, Runic, Danish, Icelandic, Greek, Roman, Italic, and a pretty Black, all cast on Pica body. These he brought over with him to this country. Of the Gothic, Runic, Saxon, and Greek he certainly brought punches and matrices as well as types, as these are to this day preserved at Oxford, and there is reason to suppose all his founts were similarly complete.[268]