The concluding items of the Catalogue are “about 60 or 70 moulds, from 5-line Pica down to Nonpareil, some two, some three or more of a sort which {230} will be lotted according to their bodies; also a parcel of iron ladles; a vice, 33 lbs. weight, several gauges, dividers, blocks, setting-up sticks, dressing sticks, etc.,”—a meagre list, which, if it represents the working plant of the foundry, points to a rough and ready practice of the art which, even in Moxon’s time, would have been considered primitive.
A word must be added respecting the Catalogue. Whether it was taken precisely as Mr. Mores left it, or whether Mr. Paterson, the auctioneer (whose “talent at Cataloguing” Nichols, in his Anecdotes, approvingly mentions),[445] completed it, we cannot say. It is as precise, perhaps, as any catalogue of so confused a collection could be. An opening was, however, left for a good deal of misapprehension, by the fact that the nests of drawers in which the matrices were stored, instead of bearing distinguishing numbers, bore the names of famous old printers, which duly figured in the Catalogue.[446] Misled by this circumstance, it seems more than likely that Paterson may have enhanced the importance of his lots by dwelling on the fact that one fount was “De Worde’s”, another “Cawood’s,” another “Pynson’s,” and so on. The absurdity of this delusion becomes very apparent when we see the Alexandrian Greek some years later puffed by its purchasers as the veritable production of De Worde (who lived a century before the Alexandrian MS. came to this country), and find Hansard, in 1825, ascribing seven founts of Hebrew and a Pearl Greek to Bynneman.
What was the result of the sale financially we cannot ascertain. Of the fate of its various lots we know very little either, except that Dr. Fry secured most of the curious and “learned” matrices. How far the other foundries of the day, at home and abroad, enriched themselves, or how much of the collection fell into the hands of the coppersmiths, are problems not likely to find solution.
With the sale, however, disappeared the last of the old English foundries, and closed a chapter of English typography, which, though not the most glorious, is certainly not the least instructive through which it has passed.
The only specimen of this foundry is that appended to the Catalogue of the sale:—
- A CATALOGUE and Specimen of the large and extensive Printing-Type-Foundery of the late ingenious Mr. John James, Letter-founder, formerly of Bartholomew Close, London, deceased; including several other Founderies, English and Foreign. Improved {231} by the late Reverend (sic) and Learned Edward Rowe Mores, deceased. Comprehending a great variety of punches and matrices of the Hebrew, Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, Æthiopic, Alexandrian, Greek, Roman, Italic, Saxon, Old English, Hibernian, Script, Secretary, Court-Hand, Mathematical, Musical, and other characters, Flowers and Ornaments: which will be sold by Auction by Mr. Paterson at his Great Room (No. 6) King Street, Covent Garden, London, on Wednesday, 5th June, 1782, and the Three following days. To begin exactly at 12 o’clock. To be viewed on Wednesday, May 29th, and to the Time of Sale. Catalogues, with Specimen of the Types, may be had at the Place of Sale. (Price One Shilling.) 8vo. (Lond. Inst.)
