Thy mater endormed, for lacke of thy presence

But nowe arte losed, go shewe forth thy sentence.”

ROBERT COPLAND.
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ROBERT COPLAND.

The three Marks of Copland make allusion to the roses which appeared as a sign to his shop. The most elaborate design is an upright parallelogram within which appears a flourishing tree springing out of the earth, and supporting a shield suspended from its branches by a belt and surrounded by a wreath of roses; on the left-hand side is a hind regardant collared with a ducal coronet standing as a supporter, and on the right is a hart in a similar position and with the same decorations; there are four scrolls surrounding the centre-piece, on the top one is “Melius est,” on the right-hand one “nomen bonum,” on the bottom one “q diuitie,” and on the left-hand one “multe. Prou. xxii,” i.e. “A good name is better than much riches.” The second device, of which we also give an example, is self-explanatory, and is perhaps the more original. It has also an additional interest from the fact that it was used by William Copland, 1549–1561, who was probably a son of Robert, and who simply altered the mark to the extent of substituting his own Christian name for that of Robert in the scroll at the bottom of the device. Over sixty books by this printer are described by bibliographers, and many of them are in the British Museum. Robert Wyer, whose shop was at the sign of St. John the Evangelist, in St. Martin’s parish, in the rents of the Bishop of Norwich, near Charing Cross, was another printer whose works were more remarkable for their number than for their typographic excellence. His earliest dated work is the “Expositiones Terminarum Legum Anglorum,” 1527, and his latest “A Dyalogue Defensyue for Women,” 1542, but as to nearly sixty others of his works no date is attached, he may have commenced earlier than the first date and continued after the second. The marks of Wyer consisted of two or three representations of St. John the Divine writing, attended by an eagle holding the inkhorn; he is seated on a rock in the middle of the sea intended to represent the Isle of Patmos. Laurens, or Lawrence, Andrewe, by Ames stated to be a native of Calais, printed a few books during the third decade of the sixteenth century, and resided near the eastern end of Fleet Street at the sign of the Golden Cross. His Mark consisted of a shield which is contained within a very rudely cut parallelogram; the escutcheon is supported by a wreath beneath an ornamental arch, and between two curved pillars designed in the early Italian style, with a background formed of coarse horizontal lines. Three of his books are in the British Museum. The Museum possesses only one book with the imprint of Andrew Hester, who was a bookseller of the “White Horse,” St. Paul’s Church Yard, and this is an edition of Coverdale’s Bible, “newly oversene and correcte,” which appears to have been printed for him by Froschover, of Zurich, 1550. Among English Marks of the period, Hester’s possesses the merit of being original.

ROBERT WYER.ANDREW HESTER.
THOMAS BERTHELET.
JOHN BYDDELL.

One of the most prolific of the printers of the first half of the sixteenth century was Thomas Berthelet, who succeeded Pynson in the office of King’s Printer, at a salary of £4 yearly, and who (or his immediate successors, for he died at the end of 1555) issued books from 1528 to 1568, of which nearly 150 are known to bibliographers, sixty being in the British Museum. His shop was at the sign of the “Lucretia Romana,” a charming engraving—the most carefully executed of its kind used in this country up to that time—of which, with his own name on a scroll, he used as a Mark. Several of his books were printed in Paris. He issued a large number of works in classical literature, and among the more notable of his publications were Chaloner’s translation of Erasmus’s “Praise of Folly,” 1549, Gower’s “De Confessione Amantis,” and the “Institution of a Christen Man,” with a woodcut border to the title by Holbein. John Byddell, otherwise Salisbury, 1533–44, was another printer whose Mark was derived from the sign of the shop in which he carried on business, namely, “Our Lady of Pity,” next Fleet Bridge, but he afterwards removed to the Sun near the Conduit, which was probably the old residence of Wynkyn de Worde, for whom he was an executor. The Lady of Pity is personified as an angel with outstretched wings, holding two elegant horns or torches, the left of which is pouring out a kind of stream terminating in drops, and is marked on the side with the word “Gratia”; that on the right contains fire and is lettered “Charitas”: the lower ends of these horns are rested by the angel upon two rude heater shields, on the left of which is inscribed “Johan Byddell, Printer,” and on the other is a mark which includes the printer’s initials; round the head of the figure are the words, “Virtus beatos efficit.” This is merely a copy of one of the Marks used by J. Sacon, a Lyonese printer, 1498–1522. Byddell’s books were distinctly in keeping with the seriousness of his sign, and among others we find such titles as “News out of Hell,” 1536, “Olde God and the Newe,” 1534, “Common Places of Scripture,” 1538, etc., besides two “Primers.” Thomas Vautrollier, who printed books at Edinburgh and London from about 1566 to 1605, had four Marks, in all of which an anchor is suspended from the clouds, and two leafy boughs twined, with the motto “Anchora Spei,” and with a framework which is identical with that of Guarinus, of Basle. Vautrollier was a native of France; nearly all his books were in Latin. In 1584 he printed an edition of Giordano Bruno’s “Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante,” with a dedication to Sir Philip Sidney, and for which he had to flee the country, for the imprint, “Stampato in Parigi,” was an obvious and unsuccessful attempt to hoodwink the authorities. In the following year he printed at Edinburgh “A Declaration of the Kings Majesties intention and meaning toward the lait Actis of Parliament.” J. Norton, 1593–1610, also used the same Mark.