A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 Part 7

He had himself collected materials for a chronicle of his adopted country, which he amused himself with in his spare time. But he did not live to print it, his death taking place late in the year 1573. His will was short, and mentioned none of his children by name. His property in St. Paul's Churchyard, which included the Chapel or Charnel House on the north side, which he had purchased of King Henry VIII., he left to his wife, and the witnesses to his will were George Bishop, Raphael Holinshed, John Hunn, and John Shepparde.[6] His wife, Joan Wolfe, only survived him a few months, her will, which is also preserved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury,[7] being proved on the 20th July 1574.

In it occurs the following pa.s.sage:

'I will that Raph.e.l.l Hollingshed shall have and enjoye all such benefit, proffit, and commoditie as was promised unto him by my said late husbande Reginald Wolfe, for or concerning the translating and prynting of a certain crownacle which my said husband before his decease did prepare and intende to have prynted.'

She further mentioned in her will a son Robert, a son Henry, and a daughter Mary, the wife of John Harrison, citizen and stationer, as well as Luke Harrison, a citizen and stationer, while among the witnesses to it was Gabriel Cawood, the son of John Cawood, who lived hard by at the sign of the Holy Ghost, next to 'Powles Gate.'

From a doc.u.ment in the Heralds' College (W. Grafton, vi., A. B. C., Lond.), it appears that John Cawood, who began to print about the same time as Day, came from a Yorks.h.i.+re family of good standing. He was apprenticed to John Reynes, a bookseller and bookbinder, who at that time, about 1542, worked at the George Inn in this locality. Cawood greatly respected his master, and in aftertimes, when he had become a prosperous man, placed a window in Stationers' Hall to the memory of John Reynes. Reynes died in 1543, but there is no mention of Cawood in his will, perhaps because Cawood was no longer in his service; but in that of his widow, Lucy Reynes, there was a legacy to John Cawood's daughter.

Cawood began to print in the year 1546, the first specimen of his press work being a little octavo, ent.i.tled _The Decree for Tythes to be payed in the Citye of London_.

With few exceptions the printers of this period easily enough conformed to the religious factions of the day. Thus Cawood prints Protestant books under Edward VI., Catholic books under Mary, and again Protestant books under Elizabeth. Upon the accession of Mary he was appointed royal printer in the place of Grafton, who had dared to print the proclamation of Lady Jane Grey (Rymer's _Fdera_, vol. xv., p. 125).

He also received the reversion of Wolfe's patent for printing Latin, Greek, and Hebrew books, as well as all statute books, acts, proclamations, and other official doc.u.ments, with a salary of 6, 13s.

4d. The British Museum possesses a volume (505. g. 14) containing the statutes of the reign of Queen Mary, printed in small folio by Cawood.

From these it will be seen that he used some very artistic woodcut borders for his t.i.tle-pages, notably one with baccha.n.a.lian figures in the lower panel signed 'A. S.' in monogram, evidently the same artist that cut the woodcut initials seen in these and other books printed by this printer, and who is believed to have been Anton Sylvius, an Antwerp engraver. Cawood was one of the first wardens of the Stationers' Company in 1554, and again served from 1555-7, and continued to take great interest in its welfare throughout his life. In 1557, Cawood, in company with John Waley and Richard Tottell, published the Works of Sir Thomas More in a large and handsome folio. The editor was William Rastell, Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, son of John Rastell the printer, and nephew of the great chancellor.

The book was printed at the Hand and Star in Fleet Street by Tottell, but the woodcut initials were certainly supplied by Cawood, and perhaps some of the type. On the accession of Elizabeth, he again received a patent as royal printer, but jointly with Richard Jugge, whose name is always found first. Nevertheless, Cawood printed at least two editions of the Bible in quarto, with his name alone on the t.i.tle-page. They were very poor productions, the text being printed in the diminutive semi-gothic type that had done duty since the days of Caxton, and the woodcut borders being made up of odds and ends that happened to be handy. His rapidly increasing business had already compelled him to lease from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's a vault under the churchyard, and two sheds adjoining the church, and in addition to this he now took a room at Stationers' Hall at a rental of 20s. per year.

In conjunction with Jugge he printed many editions of the _Book of Common Prayer_ in all sizes. He also reprinted in 1570 Barclay's _s.h.i.+p of Fools_ with the original ill.u.s.trations. Cawood was three times Master of the Company of Stationers, in 1561, 1562, and 1566. In 1564 he was appointed by Elizabeth Toye, the widow of Robert Toye, one of the overseers to her will, and his partner Jugge was one of the witnesses to the doc.u.ment (P. C. C, 25 Morrison). His death took place in 1572, and from his epitaph it appeared that he was three times married, and by his first wife, Joan, had three sons and four daughters. His eldest son, John, was bachelor of laws and fellow of New College, Oxford, and died in 1570; Gabriel, the second son, succeeded to his father's business, and the third son died young. His eldest daughter, Mary, married George Bishop, one of the deputies to Christopher Barker; a second, Isabel, married Thomas Woodc.o.c.k, a stationer; Susannah was the wife of Robert Bullock, and Barbara married Mark Norton.

Richard Jugge was another of those who owed much to the patronage and encouragement of Archbishop Parker. He is believed to have been born at Waterbeach in Cambridges.h.i.+re, and was educated, first at Eton, and afterwards at Cambridge. He set up at the sign of The Bible in 1548, and used as his device a pelican plucking at her breast to feed her young who are clamouring around her. In 1550 he obtained a licence to print the New Testament, and in 1556 books of Common Law. Under Elizabeth in 1560 he was made senior Queen's Printer. When the new edition of the Bible was about to be issued in 1569, Archbishop Parker wrote to Cecil, asking that Jugge might be entrusted with the printing, as there were few men who could do it better. In this way he became the printer of the first edition of the 'Bishops' Bible,' a second edition coming from his press the year following. In this work he used several large decorative initial letters, with the arms of the several patrons of the work, as well as a finely designed engraved t.i.tle-page, with a portrait of the Queen, and other portraits of Burleigh and Leicester. In his edition of the New Testament were numerous large cuts, evidently of foreign workmans.h.i.+p, some of them signed with the initials 'E. B.' Richard Jugge died in 1577.

Another of Day's contemporaries, whose name is remembered by all students of English literature, was Richard Tottell, who lived at the Hand and Star in Fleet Street, and printed there the collection of poetry known as Tottell's Miscellany.

There is reason to believe that Richard Tottell was the third son of Henry Tottell, a famous citizen of Exeter. The name was spelt in a great variety of ways, such as Tothill, Tuthill, Tottle, Tathyll, and Tottell.

Richard Tottell at the time of his death held lands in Devon, and some of the same lands that belonged to the Tothill family of Exeter.

Moreover, his coat of arms was the same as theirs. But before 1552 he was in London, for in that year he received a patent for the printing of law books, and was generally known as Richard Tottell of London, gentleman. He appears to have married Joan, a sister of Richard Grafton, and in this way became possessed of considerable land in the county of Bucks. From this we may a.s.sume that he had business relations with Richard Grafton, and it becomes only natural that he should have printed various editions of Grafton's _Chronicle_, and come into possession of some of his finest woodcut borders.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 23.--Richard Tottell's Device.]

It was in June 1557 that he printed his 'Miscellany,' an unpretentious quarto, with the t.i.tle: _Songes and Sonnettes, written by the Ryght Honorable Lorde Henry Hawarde, late Earl of Surrey and other_. Before the 31st July a second edition became necessary, and several new poems were added. The third edition appeared in 1559, the fourth in 1565, and before the end of the sixteenth century, four more editions were called for. Another of Tottell's works was Gerard Legh's _Accedens of Armory_, an octavo, printed throughout in italic type, with a curiously engraved t.i.tle-page, besides numerous ill.u.s.trations of coats of arms, and several full-page ill.u.s.trations. It was printed in 1562, and again in 1576 and 1591.

The best of Tottell's work as a printer is to be found in the law-books, for which he was a patentee. In these he used several handsome borders to t.i.tle-pages, one of an architectural character with his initials R.

T. at the two lower corners, another, evidently Grafton's, with a view of the King and Parliament in the top panel, and Grafton's punning device in the centre of the bottom panel.

In 1573 Richard Tottell tried to establish a paper mill in England. He wrote to Cecil, pointing out that nearly all paper came from France, and undertaking to establish a mill in England if the Government would give him the necessary land and the sole privilege of making paper for thirty years (Arber, i. 242). But as nothing was ever done in the matter, the Government evidently did not entertain the proposal. Tottell was Master of the Company of Stationers in 1579 and 1584. During the latter part of his life he withdrew from business, and lived at Wiston, in Pembrokes.h.i.+re, where he died in 1593. He left several children, of whom the eldest, William Tottell, succeeded to his estates.

In the precincts of the Blackfriars, Thomas Vautrollier, a foreigner, was at work as a printer in 1566, having been admitted a 'brother' of the Company of Stationers on the 2nd October 1564. He soon afterwards received a patent for the printing of certain Latin books, and Christopher Barker, in a report to Lord Burghley in 1582, says:--

'He has the printing of Tullie, Ovid, and diverse other great workes in Latin. He doth yet, neither great good nor great harme withall.... He hath other small thinges wherewith he keepeth his presses on work, and also worketh for bookesellers of the Companye, who kepe no presses.'

In 1580, on the invitation of the General a.s.sembly, Vautrollier visited Scotland, taking with him a stock of books, but no press, and in 1584 he again went north, and set up a press at Edinburgh, still keeping on his business in London. The venture does not seem to have turned out a success, for Vautrollier returned to London in 1586, taking with him a MS. of John Knox's _History of the Reformation_, but the work was seized while it was in the press (_Works of John Knox_, vol. i. p. 32).

As a printer Vautrollier ranks far above most of the men around him, both for the beauty of his types and the excellence of his presswork.

The bulk of his books were printed in Roman and Italic, of which he had several well-cut founts. He had also some good initials, ornaments, and borders. In the folio edition of Plutarch's _Lives_, which he printed in 1579, each life is preceded by a medallion portrait, enclosed in a frame of geometrical pattern; some of these, notably the first, and also those shown on a white background, are very effective. His device was an anchor held by a hand issuing from clouds, with two sprigs of laurel, and the motto 'Anchora Spei,' the whole enclosed in an oval frame.

Vautrollier was succeeded in business by his son-in-law, Richard Field, another case of the apprentice marrying his master's daughter. Field was a native of Stratford-on-Avon, and therefore a fellow-townsman of Shakespeare's, whose first poem, _Venus and Adonis_, he printed for Harrison in 1593. But we have no knowledge of any intercourse between them.

Field succeeded to the stock of his predecessor, and his work is free from the haste and slovenly appearance so general at that time. Another work from his press was Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesy_, 1589, 4to.

The first edition, of which there is a copy in the British Museum, had no author's name, but was dedicated by the printer to Lord Burghley. In the second book, four pages were suppressed. They are inserted in the copy under notice, but are not paged. This edition also contained as a frontispiece a portrait of the Queen. Another notable work of Field's was Sir John Harington's translation of _Orlando Furioso_ (1591, fol.).

This book had an elaborate frontispiece, with a portrait of the translator, and thirty-six engraved ill.u.s.trations, that make up in vigour of treatment, and breadth of imagination, for shortcomings in the matter of draughtsmans.h.i.+p. The text was printed in double columns, and each verse of the Argument was enclosed in a border of printers'

ornaments. A second edition, alike in almost every respect, pa.s.sed through the same press in 1607. In 1594 Field printed a second edition of _Venus and Adonis_, and the first edition of _Lucrece_. His later work included David Hume's _Daphne-Amaryllis_, 1605, 4to; Chapman's translation of the _Odyssey_ (1614, folio); and an edition of _Virgil_ in quarto in 1620.

Foremost among the later men of this century stands Christopher Barker, the Queen's printer, who was born about 1529, and is said to have been grand-nephew to Sir Christopher Barker, Garter King-at-Arms. Originally a member of the Drapers' Company, he began to publish books in 1569 (Arber, i. p. 398), and to print in 1576, and purchased from Sir Thomas Wilkes his patent to print the Old and New Testament in English. Barker issued in 1578 a circular offering his large Bible to the London Companies at the rate of 24s. each bound, and 20s. unbound, the clerks of the various Companies to receive 4d. apiece for every Bible sold, and the hall of each Company that took 40 worth to receive a presentation copy (Lemon's _Catal. of Broadsides_).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 24.--Christopher Barker's Device.]

In 1582 Barker sent to Lord Burghley an account of the various printing monopolies granted since the beginning of the reign, and expresses himself freely on them. He also attempted to suppress the printers in Cambridge University. In and after 1588 he carried on his business by deputies, George Bishop and Ralph Newbery, and in the following year, on the disgrace of Sir Thomas Wilkes, he obtained an exclusive patent for himself and his son to print all official doc.u.ments, as well as Bibles and Testaments. At one time Barker had no fewer than five presses, and between 1575 and 1585 he printed as many as thirty-eight editions of the Scriptures, an almost equal number being printed by his deputies before 1600. Christopher Barker died in 1599, and was succeeded in his post of royal printer by Robert Barker, his eldest son.

On the 23rd June 1586 was issued _The Newe Decrees of the Starre Chamber for orders in Printing_, which is reprinted in full in the second volume of Arber's _Transcripts_, pp. 807-812. It was the most important enactment concerning printing of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and formed the model upon which all subsequent 'whips and scorpions' for the printers were manufactured. Its chief clauses were these: It restricted all printing to London and the two Universities. The number of presses then in London was to be reduced to such proportions as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London should think sufficient. No books were to be printed without being licensed, and the wardens were given the right to search all premises on suspicion. The penalties were imprisonment and defacement of stock.

[Footnote 6: P. C. C., 1 Martyn.]

[Footnote 7: P. C. C., 32 Martyn.]

CHAPTER VI

PROVINCIAL PRESSES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY[8]

In the first half of the sixteenth century, before the incorporation of the Stationers' Company and the subsequent restriction of printing to London and the Universities, there were ten places in England where the art was carried on. Taking them chronologically, the earliest was the city of York. Mr. Davies, in his _Memoirs of the York Press_, claims that Frederick Freez, a book-printer, was at work there in 1497; but Mr.

Allnutt has clearly shown that there is no evidence in support of this, no specimen of his printing being in existence. The first printer in the city of York who can be traced with certainty was Hugo Goez, said to have been the son of Matthias van der Goez, an Antwerp printer. Two school-books, a _Donatus Minor_ and an _Accidence_, as well as the _Directorium Sacerdotum_, dated in the colophon February 18th, 1509, were printed by him, and it is believed that he was for a time in partners.h.i.+p in London with a bookseller named Henry Watson (E. G. Duff, _Early Printed Books_). Ames, in his _Typographical Antiquities_, mentions a broadside 'containing a wooden cut of a man on horseback with a spear in his right hand, and a s.h.i.+eld of the arms of France in his left. "Emprynted at Beverley in the Hyegate by me Hewe Goes," with his mark, or rebus, of a great H and a goose.' But this cannot now be traced.

Another printer in York, of whom it is possible to speak with certainty, was Ursyn Milner, who printed a _Festum visitationis Beate Marie Virginis_, without date, and a Latin syntax by Robert Whitinton, ent.i.tled _Editio de concinnitate grammatices et constructione noviter impressa_, with the date December 20th, 1516, and a woodcut that had belonged to Wynkyn de Worde.

The second Oxford press began about 1517. In that year there appeared, _Tractatus expositorius super libros posteriorum Aristotelis_, by Walter Burley, bearing the date December 4th, 1517, without printer's name, but ascribed from the appearance of the types to the press of John Scolar, whose name is found in some of the similar tracts that appeared the following year. These included _Questiones moralissime super libros ethicorum_, by John Dedicus, dated May 15, 1518. On June 5th was issued _Compendium questionum de luce et lumine_, on June 7th Walter Burley's _Tractatus perbrevis de materia et forma_, on June 27th Whitinton's _De Heteroc.l.i.tis nominibus_. The latest book, dated 5th February 1519, _Compotus manualis ad usum Oxoniensium_, bore the name of Charles Kyrfoth, but nothing further is known of any such printer.

No more is heard of a press at Oxford until nearly the close of the sixteenth century, a gap of nearly seventy years, and a strange and unaccountable interval. At any rate, the next Oxford printed book, so far as is at present known, was John Case's _Speculum Moralium quaestionum in universam ethicen Aristotelis_, with the colophon, 'Oxoniae ex officina typographica Josephi Barnesii Celeberrimae Academiae Oxoniensis Typographi. Anno 1585.'

Joseph Barnes, the printer, had been admitted a bookseller in 1573, and on August 15th, 1584, the University lent him 100 with which to start a press. During the time that he remained printer to the University, his press was actively employed, no less than three hundred books, many of them in Greek and Latin, being traced to it. In 1595 appeared the first Welsh book printed at the University, a translation into Welsh by Hugh Lewis of O. Wermueller's _Spiritual and Most Precious Pearl_, and in 1596 two founts of Hebrew letter were used by Barnes, but the stock of this letter was small.

In 1528, John Scolar, no doubt the same with the Oxford printer, is found at Abingdon, where he printed a _Breviary_ for the use of the abbey there; only one copy has survived, and is now at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25.--Device of Joseph Barnes.]

The first Cambridge printer was John Siberch, whose history, like that of so many other early printers, is totally unknown. Nine specimens of his printing during the years 1521-22 are extant. The first is the _Oratio_ of Henry Bullock, a tract of eight quarto leaves, with a dedication dated February 13, 1521, and the date of the imprint February 1521, so that it probably appeared between the 13th and 28th of that month. The type used was a new fount of Roman. The book had no ornamentation of any kind, neither device nor initial letters. A facsimile of this book, with an introduction and bibliographical study of Siberch's productions, was issued by the late Henry Bradshaw in 1886.

The t.i.tle-page of the second book, _Cuiusdam fidelis Christiani epistola ad Christianos omnes_, by Augustine, shows the t.i.tle between two upright woodcuts, each containing scenes from the Last Judgment. The third book, an edition of Lucian, has a very ugly architectural border. The fifth book from Siberch's press, the _Libellus de Conscribendis epistolis, autore D. Erasmo_, printed between the 22nd and 31st of October 1521, contains the privilege which, it is believed, he obtained from Bishop Fisher.

In the far west of England a press was established in the monastery of Tavistock, in Devon, of which two curious examples are preserved. The first is _The Boke of Comfort, called in laten Boetius de Consolatione philosophie. Translated into English tonge ... Enprented in the exempt monastery of Tauestock in Denshyre, By me Dan Thomas Rycharde, monke of the sayde monastery, To the instant desyre of the ryght worshypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon. Anno d.' M.Dxxv._, 4to. The Bodleian Library at Oxford has two imperfect copies of this book, and a third, also imperfect, is in the library of Exeter College, Oxford. The latter college is also fortunate in possessing the only known copy of the second book, which has this t.i.tle:--

_Here foloweth the confirmation of the Charter perteynynge to all the tynners wythyn the Couty of devonshyre, with there Statutes also made at Crockeryntorre_.

_Imprented at Tavystoke ye xx day of August the yere of the reygne off our souerayne Lord Kyng Henry ye viii the xxvi yere_, i.e. 1534.

To this same year, 1534, belongs the first dated book of John Herford, the St. Albans printer. It seems probable that he was established there some years earlier, but this is the first certain date we have. In that year appeared a small quarto, with the t.i.tle, _Here begynnethe ye glorious lyfe and pa.s.sion of Seint Albon prothomartyr of Englande, and also the lyfe and pa.s.sion of Saint Amphabel, whiche conuerted saint Albon to the fayth of Christe_, of which John Lydgate was the author. It was printed at the request of Robert Catton, abbot of the monastery, and it would seem as if Herford's press was situated within the abbey precincts. The next book, _The confutacyon of the first parte of Frythes boke ... put forth by John Gwynneth clerk_, 1536, 8vo, was the work of one of the monks of the abbey, who in the previous year had signed a pet.i.tion to Sir Francis Brian on the state of the monastery (_Letters and Papers, Henry VIII._, vol. ix. p. 394). Another of the signatories to that pet.i.tion was Richard Stevenage, who was at that time chamberer of the abbey, and was created abbot on the deprivation of Robert Catton in 1538. Of the three books which Herford printed in that year, two were expressly printed for Richard Stevenage. These were _A G.o.dly disputation betweene Justus and Peccator and Senex and Juvenis_, and _An Epistle agaynste the enemies of poore people_, both octavos, of which no copies are now known. In some of Herford's books is a curious device with the letters R. S. intertwined on it, which undoubtedly stand for Richard Stevenage. His reign as abbot was a short one, for on 5th December 1539 he delivered the abbey over to Henry VIII's commissioners. Just before that event, on the 12th October, he wrote a letter to Cromwell in which the following pa.s.sage occurs:--

'Sent John Pryntare to London with Harry Pepwell, b.o.n.e.re and Tabbe, of Powlles churchyard stationers, to order him at your pleasure.