JAMES GROVER, circ. 1675. THOMAS GROVER, his son.[371]

This foundry, which, according to Rowe Mores, was supposed to include founts formerly belonging to Wynkyn de Worde, was the most extensive, and in many respects the most interesting of the later seventeenth century foundries. It seems probable that James and Thomas Grover began business in partnership, about the year 1674, in succession to one of the “Polyglot” founders, whose matrices they appear to have acquired. Their foundry was situated in Angel Alley, Aldersgate Street; and, about 1700, at which date Rowe Mores fixes his summary, was evidently of considerable extent.

Although many of the founts are of little importance, it is worthy of note that among the Roman and Italic matrices is included, for the first time, a Diamond; and that a Pica and Long Primer are distinguished as “King’s House” founts, and were probably reserved for the service of the Royal press at Blackfriars. The large-face Double Pica Roman and Italic, there is reason to suppose, is the famous fount cut by John Day about 1572, which had subsequently been in the possession of one of the Polyglot founders.[372] In Scriptorials, Cursives and other fancy letters, as well as in peculiar and mathematical sorts, the foundry was unusually rich. The Great Primer and 2-line Great Primer Black matrices are those reputed to have belonged to De Worde; and from these {198} founts, says Mores, were taken the two specimens shown on page 343 of Palmer’s General History of Printing.[373]

Among the “learned” founts, the English Samaritan matrices were those from which had been cast the type for Walton’s Polyglot, in 1657, as were also those of the larger Syriac; while the Double Pica large and small faced Greek claim a still earlier origin, being the founts in which was printed Patrick Young’s Catena on Job, in 1637, the matrices having been procured from the proceeds of the fine on the King’s printers for their scandalous errors in the printing of the “Wicked” Bible, as detailed in a former chapter.[374] The smaller face, as we have noticed, bears the strongest resemblance to the Greek of the Eton Chrysostom. Mores states that the Great Primer Arabic of the Polyglot was in this foundry, but omits to include the matrices in his summary.[375]

The following is the full list of the matrices in the foundry, circ. 1700, as given by Mores:—

Respecting one of the founts in this foundry a special interest exists, which calls for particular reference here. Among the “Meridionals” in the list is included a “Coptic (the new hand) 81 matrices,” an entry which Mores considers {200} to be “a mistake of the cataloguers, who had fallen upon something they did not understand—we suppose the Alexandrian fount, which from the semblance they took to be Coptic. The number 81 was made up with something else which they were strangers to, and so are we.”[376] Later on, in noting the various founts missing in the collection of John James, he again refers to this “New Coptic,” adding, “it certainly was the Alexandrian which they called New Coptic”;[377] and a specimen of this Alexandrian Greek duly appears in the catalogue of James’s foundry, prepared by Mores in 1778. This fount, which we are thus enabled to trace back with tolerable certainty to an earlier date than 1700, is interesting as being the first attempt at facsimile reproduction by means of type. The history of its origin is vague, but there seems reason to believe that it may have been in existence at least half a century before coming into the hands of the Grovers.

[Μ] 50. Alexandrian Greek in Grover’s Foundry, ante, 1700. (From the Catalogue of James’s Foundry, 1782, p. 10.)

In the year 1628 Cyrillus Lucaris, a native of Crete and Patriarch of Constantinople, sent to King Charles I, by the hand of Sir Thomas Rowe,[378] English ambassador to the Grand Seignor, a manuscript of the Bible in four volumes, written in Greek uncial or capital letters, without accents or marks of aspiration, and supposed to be the work of Thecla, a noble Egyptian lady who lived in the {201} sixth century. This precious work was received by Charles I and deposited in the Royal Library of St. James, of which at that time Patrick Young was the Keeper.