A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 Part 9

In 1568 there was danger of plague in Edinburgh, and Lekpreuik printed a small octavo of twenty-four leaves, in Roman type, with the t.i.tle, _Ane breve description of the Pest, Quhair in the Cavsis signes and sum speciall preservatiovn and cvre thairof ar contenit. Set furth be Maister Gilbert Skeyne, Doctoure in Medicine_.

In 1570 he printed for Henry Charteris a quarto edition of the _Actis and Deides of Sir William Wallace_, and in 1571 _The Actis and Lyfe of Robert Bruce_. This was printed early in the year, as on the 14th April Secretary Maitland made a raid upon Lekpreuik's premises, under the belief that he was the printer of Buchanan's _Chameleon_. The printer, however, had received timely warning and retired to Stirling, where, before the 6th of August, he printed Buchanan's _Admonition_, and also a letter from John Knox 'To his loving Brethren.' His sojourn there was very short, as on the 4th September Stirling was attacked and Lekpreuik thereupon withdrew to St. Andrews, where his press was active throughout the year 1572 and part of 1573. In the month of April 1573 Lekpreuik returned to Edinburgh and printed Sir William Drury's _Regulations_ for the army under his command. But in January 1573-74 he was thrown into prison and his press and property confiscated. How long he remained a prisoner is not clear, but in all probability until after the execution of the Regent Morton in 1581. In that year he printed the following books--Patrick Adamson's _Catechismus Latino Carmine Redditus et in libros quatuor digestus_, a small octavo of forty leaves, printed in Roman type; Fowler's _Answer to John Hamilton_, a quarto of twenty-eight leaves; and a _Declaration_ without place or printer's name, but attributed to his press: after this nothing more is heard of him.

Contemporary with Lekpreuik was Thomas Ba.s.sandyne, who is believed to have worked both in Paris and Leyden before setting up as a printer in Edinburgh.

His first appearance, in 1568, was not a very creditable one. An order of the General a.s.sembly, on the 1st July of that year, directs Ba.s.sandyne to call in a book ent.i.tled _The Fall of the Roman Kirk_, in which the king was called 'supreme head of the Primitive Church,' and also orders him to delete an obscene song called _Welcome Fortune_ which he had printed at the end of a psalm-book. The a.s.sembly appointed Mr.

Alexander Arbuthnot to revise these things.

In 1574 Ba.s.sandyne printed a quarto edition of Sir David Lindsay's _Works_, of which he had 510 copies in stock at the time of his death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 29.--Device of Alexander Arbuthnot.]

On the 7th March 1574-75, in partners.h.i.+p with Alexander Arbuthnot (who was not the same as the Alexander Arbuthnot who had been appointed to exercise a supervision of Ba.s.sandyne's books in 1568), Ba.s.sandyne laid proposals before the General a.s.sembly for printing an edition of the Bible, the first ever printed in Scotland. The General a.s.sembly gave him hearty support, and required every parish to provide itself with one of the new Bibles as soon as they were printed. On the other hand, the printers were to deliver a certain number of copies before the last of March 1576, and the cost of it was to be 5. The terms of this agreement were not carried out by the printers. The New Testament only was completed and issued in 1576, with the name of Thomas Ba.s.sandyne as the printer. The whole Bible was not finished until the close of the year 1579, and Ba.s.sandyne did not live to see its completion, his death taking place on the 18th October 1577.

Like most of his predecessors, Ba.s.sandyne was a bookseller; and on pp.

292-304 of their work _Annals of Scottish Printing_, Messrs. d.i.c.kson and Edmond have printed the Inventory of the goods he possessed, including the whole of his stock of books, which is of the greatest interest and value. Unfortunately such inventories are not to be met with in the case of English printers.

Ba.s.sandyne used as his device a modification of the serpent and anchor mark of John Crespin of Geneva.

Arbuthnot was now left to carry on the business alone, and was made King's printer in 1579. But he was a slow, slovenly, and ignorant workman, and the General a.s.sembly were so disgusted with the delivery of the Bible and the wretched appearance of his work, that, on the 13th February 1579-80, they decided to accept the offer of Thomas Vautrollier, a London printer, to establish a press in Edinburgh.

Arbuthnot died on September 1st, 1585. His device was a copy of that of Richard Jugge of London, and is believed to have been the work of a Flemish artist, a.s.suerus vol Londersel.

Another printer in Edinburgh between 1574-80 was John Ross. He worked chiefly for Henry Charteris, for whom he printed the _Catechisme_ in 1574, and a metrical version of the Psalms in 1578. For the same bookseller he also printed a poem, _The seuin Seages, Translat.i.t out of prois in Scottis meter be Johne Rolland in Dalkeith_, a quarto, now so rare that only one copy is now known, that in the Britwell Library.

In 1579 Ross printed _Ad virulentum Archbaldi Hamiltonii Apostatae dialogum, de confusione Calvinianae Sectae apud Scotos, impie conscriptum, orthodoxa responsio, Thoma Smetonio Scoto anctore_, a quarto, printed in Roman letter, and followed it up with two editions of Buchanan's _De Jure Regni apud Scotos dialogus_.

Ross used a device showing Truth with an open book in her right hand, a lighted candle in her left, surrounded with the motto 'Vincet tandem veritas.' This device was afterwards used by both Charteris and Waldegrave. Ross died in 1580, when his stock pa.s.sed into the hands of Henry Charteris, who began printing in the following year. As we have seen, he employed Scot, Lekpreuik, and Ross to print for him. Up to 1581 he confined himself to bookselling. His printing was confined to various editions of Sir David Lindsay's _Works_ and theological tracts. He used two devices, that of Ross, and another emblematical of Justice and Religion, with his initials. He died on the 9th August 1599.

In 1580, at the express invitation of the General a.s.sembly, Thomas Vautrollier visited Edinburgh, and set up as a bookseller, no doubt with the view of seeing what scope there was likely to be for a printer with a good stock of type. The Treasurer's accounts for this period show that he received royal patronage.

On his second visit, a year or two later, he went armed with a letter to George Buchanan from Daniel Rodgers, and set up a press in Edinburgh.

But in spite of the support of the a.s.sembly and the patronage that an introduction to Buchanan must have brought him, he evidently soon found there was not enough business in Edinburgh to support a printer, for he remained there little more than a year, when he again returned to London. During his short career as a printer in Edinburgh he printed at least eight books, of which the most important were Henry Balnave's _Confession of Faith_, 1584, 8vo, and King James's _Essayes of a Prentice in the Divine Art of Poesie_, 4to.

Scotland's next important printer was Robert Waldegrave, who, after his adventures as a secret printer in England, set up a press in Edinburgh in 1590, and continued printing there till the close of the century.

One of his first works was a quarto in Roman type ent.i.tled _The Confession of Faith, Subscribed by the Kingis Maiestie and his householde: Togither with the Copie of the Bande, maid touching the maintenaunce of the true Religion_. Among his other work, which was chiefly theological, may be mentioned King James's _Demonologie_, 1597, 4to, and the first edition of the _Basilikon Doron_, in quarto, of which it is said only seven copies were printed.

Contemporary with him was a Robert Smyth, who married the widow of Thomas Ba.s.sandyne, and who in 1599 received license to print the following books:--'The double and single catechism, the plane Donet, the haill four pairtes of grammar according to Sebastian, the Dialauges of Corderius, the celect and familiar Epistles of Cicero, the buik callit Sevin Seages, the Ballat buik, the Secund rudimentis of Dunbar, the Psalmes of Buchanan and Psalme buik.'

The only known copy of Smyth's edition of Holland's _Seven Sages_ is that in the British Museum.

The last of the Scottish printers of the sixteenth century was Robert Charteris, the son and successor of Henry Charteris, but he did not succeed to the business until 1599, and his work lies chiefly in the succeeding century.

It may safely be said that the earliest press in Ireland of which there is any authentic notice was that of Humphrey Powell, of which there is the following note in the _Act Books of the Privy Council_ (New Series, vol. iii. p. 84), under date 18th July 1550:--

'A warrant to ----, to deliver xxli unto Powell the printer, given him by the Kinges Majestie towarde his setting up in Ireland.'

Nothing is known of Humphrey Powell's work in England beyond several small theological works issued between 1548 and 1549 from a shop in Holborn above the Conduit.

On his arrival in Ireland he set up his press in Dublin, and printed there the Prayer Book of Edward VI. with the colophon:--

'Imprinted by Humphrey Powell, printer to the Kynges Maieste, in his Highnesse realme of Ireland dwellynge in the citie of Dublin in the great toure by the Crane c.u.m Privelegio ad imprimendum solum.

Anno Domini, M.D.L.I.'

Timperley, in his _Encyclopaedia_ (p. 314), says that Powell continued printing in Dublin for fifteen years, and removed to the southern side of the river to St. Nicholas Street.

In 1571 the first fount of Irish type was presented by Queen Elizabeth to John O'Kearney, treasurer of St. Patrick's, to print the _Catechism_ which appeared in that year from the press of John Franckton. (Reed, _Old English Letter Foundries_, pp. 75, 186-7.) It was not a Pure Irish character, but a hybrid fount consisting for the most part of Roman and Italic letters, with the seven distinctly Irish sorts added. A copy of the _Catechism_ is exhibited in the King's Library, British Museum, and in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is a copy of a broadside _Poem on the last Judgement_, sent over to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a specimen.

This type was afterwards used to print William O'Donnell's, or Daniel's, Irish Testament in 1602.

[Footnote 10: For the material of this chapter I am chiefly indebted to the valuable work of Messrs. d.i.c.kson and Edmond, _Annals of Scottish Printing_.]

CHAPTER VII

THE STUART PERIOD

1603-1640

One of the first acts of King James on his accession to the English throne was to strengthen the hands of the already powerful Company of Stationers. Hitherto all Primers and Psalters had been the exclusive privilege of the successors of Day and Seres, while Almanacs and Prognostications, another large and profitable source of revenue, had been the property of James Roberts and Richard Watkins. But now, by the royal authority, these two valuable patents were turned over to the Stationers to form part of their English stock. At the same time, the privileges of Robert Barker, son and successor to Christopher Barker, and king's printer by reversion, were increased by grants for printing all statutes, hitherto the monopoly of other printers. On the other hand, Robert Barker did not retain the sole possession of the royal business as men like Berthelet and Pynson had been wont to do, but had joined with him in the patent John Norton, who had a special grant for printing all books in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and John Bill, who probably obtained his share by purchase. These three men were thus the chief printers during the early part of this reign.

Robert Barker had been made free of the Stationers' Company in 1589, when he joined his father's a.s.signs, George Bishop and Ralph Newbery, in the management of the business. He was admitted to the livery of the Company in 1592, and upon his father's death succeeded to the office of King's printer by reversion. In 1601-2 he was warden of the Company, and filled the office of Master in 1605. Some time before 1618 he sold his moiety of the business to Bonham Norton and John Bill, and this arrangement was confirmed by Royal Charter in 1627.

Upon the death of Bonham Norton, Barker's name again appears in the imprint of the firm, and he continued printing until about 1645. It is said by Ames (vol. ii. p. 1091), and has been repeated by all writers since his day, that Robert Barker was committed to the King's Bench Prison in 1635, and that he remained a prisoner there until his death in 1645. No confirmation of this can be found in the State Papers; indeed the fact that he accompanied Charles I. to Newcastle in 1636, and was printing in other parts of England until 1640, proves that he could not have been in prison the whole of the time from 1635 to 1645.

Robert Barker's work was almost entirely of an official character, the printing of the Scriptures, Book of Common Prayer, Statutes and Proclamations.

His work was very unequal, and his type, mostly of black letter, was not of the best.

His most important undertaking was the so-called 'authorised version' of the Bible in 1611. As a matter of fact it never was authorised in any official sense. The undertaking was proposed at a conference of divines, held at Hampton Court in 1604. The King manifested great interest in the scheme, but did not put his hand in his pocket towards the expenses, and the divines who undertook the translation obtained little except fame for their labours, while the whole cost of printing was borne by Robert Barker. Like all previous editions of the Scriptures in folio, this Bible of 1611 was printed in great primer black letter. It was preceded by an elaborately engraved t.i.tle-page, the work of C. Boel of Richmond, and had also an engraved map of Canaan, partly the work of John Speed.

The type and ornaments were the same as had been used to print the first edition of the 'Bishops' Bible,' the initial letter to the Psalms containing the arms of Whittingham and Cecil.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 30.--From the Bible of 1611.]

Barker also possessed the handsome pictorial initial letters which had been used by John Day, and many of the ornaments and initials previously in the office of Henry Bynneman.

John Norton was the son of Richard Norton, a yeoman of Billingsley, county Shrops.h.i.+re; he was nephew of William Norton, and cousin of Bonham Norton, and was thus connected by marriage with the sixteenth century bookseller, William Bonham. He was three times Master of the Stationers'

Company, in 1607, 1610, and 1612. On his death, in 1612, he left 1000 to the Company of Stationers, not as is generally stated as a legacy of his own, but rather as trustee of the bequest of his uncle, William Norton. The bulk of his property he left to his cousin, Bonham Norton (P. C. C. 5 Capell).

His press will always be remembered for the magnificent edition of the _Works of St. Chrysostom_, in eight folio volumes, printed at Eton in 1610, at the charge of Sir Henry Savile, the editor. The late T. B.

Reed, in his _History of the Old English Letter Foundries_ (p. 140), speaks of this edition as 'one of the most splendid examples of Greek printing in this country,' and further describes the types with which it was printed as 'a great primer body, very elegantly and regularly cast, with the usual numerous ligatures and abbreviations which characterised the Greek typography of that period' (p. 141).

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 31.--Dedication of Savile's _St. Chrysostom_. Eton, 1610.]