A History of the Old English Letter Foundries / with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography.

by Talbot Baines Reed

[Μ] 64. Pica Etruscan, cut by Caslon, 1738. (From the original matrices.)

[Μ] 66. Pica Ethiopic, cut by Caslon. (From the original matrices.)

All of these, with exception of the Etruscan and an Ethiopic cut still later, were completed before 1734, in which year the first Specimen of his foundry appeared.

This famous broadside, of which very few copies are now extant, dates from Chiswell Street, to which address Mr. Caslon had transferred the Helmet Row Foundry (after an intermediate sojourn in Ironmonger Row), about the year 1734.

• The sheet is ar­ranged in four col­umns, and dis­plays al­to­geth­er thir­ty-eight founts, namely:
  • Titlings.—
    • 5-line Pica, 4-line Pica, 2-line Great Primer, 2-line English, 2-line Pica, 2-line Long Primer, 2-line Brevier.
  • Roman and Italic.—
    • French Canon, 2-line Great Primer, 2-line English, Double Pica, Great Primer, English, Pica, Small Pica (2), Long Primer (2), Brevier, Nonpareil, and Pearl.
  • Saxon.—
    • Pica and Long Primer.
  • Black.—
    • Pica and Brevier.
  • Gothic, Coptic, Armenian, Samaritan.—
    • Pica of each.
  • Syriac and Arabic.—
    • English of each.
  • Hebrew.—
    • English, English with points, Brevier.
  • Greek.—
    • English, Pica, Long Primer, Brevier.
  • Flowers.—
    • Seven designs.

Of these, all, with three exceptions, are Caslon’s own handiwork, and represent the untiring industry of fourteen years. Of the excellence of the performance it is sufficient to say that the Specimen placed Caslon absolutely without rival at the head of his profession; “and,” as Nichols says, “for clearness and uniformity, for the use of the reader and student, it is doubtful whether it has been exceeded by any subsequent production.”

The three founts referred to as not the product of Caslon’s hand, were the Canon Roman, from Andrews’ foundry, formerly Moxon’s, and exhibited in the {241} Mechanick Exercises[471]; the English Syriac, which is from the matrices of the Polyglot[472]; and the Pica Samaritan, which was cut by a Dutchman named Dummers.

Fame appears to have followed rapidly on the appearance of this Specimen. The sheet was included as an inset plate in the second edition of Ephraim Chambers’ Cyclopædia in 1738,[473] with the following flattering notice:—“The above were all cast in the foundery of Mr. W. Caslon, a person who, though not bred to the art of letter-founding, has, by dint of genius, arrived at an excellency in it unknown hitherto in England, and which even surpasses anything of the kind done in Holland or elsewhere.”