CHAPTER VII.

THE STAR CHAMBER FOUNDERS, AND THE LONDON POLYGLOT.

Prior to 1637, letter-founding is not specifically mentioned as a distinct industry in any of the Public Documents. We are not on that account however, (as we have endeavoured to point out), to assume either that the restrictive provisions of previous enactments which regulated printing did not apply to letter-founding, or that, as a trade, it had no separate existence before that date. The divorce of letter-founding from printing was in all probability a long and gradual process; and although it would be difficult to fix any precise date to the completion of that process, we may yet infer from the fact that the Decree of 1586 (which includes by name almost every other branch of industry connected with printing) makes no mention of letter-founding, while the Decree of 1637 particularly names it, that between these two dates printers ceased generally to be their own letter-founders.

As we have elsewhere noticed, the Stationers’ Company as early as 1597 took cognisance of letter-founding as a distinct trade, when it called upon Benjamin Sympson to enter into a bond of £40 not to cast any letters or characters, or to deliver them, without previous notice to the master and wardens. And that there was a certain body of men known in the trade as “founders” owning the authority of the Stationers’ Company in 1622, is evident {165} from the fact that in that year the Court called upon “the founders” to give bond to the Company not to deliver any fount of new letters without notice.

It would be erroneous, therefore, to imagine that the Star Chamber Decree of 1637 in any sense created letter-founding as a distinct trade. Its purpose, as in the case of printing, was to restrict the number of those engaged in it, which had probably grown excessive under the milder regime of the Decree of 1586.

In the curious little tract, to which allusion has already been made, entitled _The London Printer, his Lamentation_,[297] the author, writing in 1660, after highly commending the Decree of Elizabeth (23 June, 1586), limiting the number of printers, says that about 1637, notwithstanding the above Decree, “printing and printers were grown to monstrous excess and exorbitant riot,” and that the law was infringed at all points. In this “monstrous excess and exorbitant riot,” it is highly probable that the letter-founders of the day figured. And it seems equally probable that John Grismand, Thomas Wright, Arthur Nicholls (or Nichols[298]) and Alexander Fifield, who were appointed by the Decree of 1637 as the four authorised founders, had already been founding types for several years, with or without the sanction of the authorities.

In the Registers of the Stationers’ Company, the names both of John Grismand and Thomas Wright occur as publishers of certain works, the former in 1635, the latter in 1638; from which it would appear that both before and after 1637 they may have combined the trade of bookseller and printer with that of letter-founder.[299]

And in another curious document, preserved among the Bagford collections, and entitled _The Brotherly Meeting of the Masters and Workmen Printers, began November 5, 1621; the first Sermon being on November 5, 1628_, {166} _and hath been continued by the Stewards, whose names follow in this Catalogue to this present third of May 1681_,[300] the names of Thomas Wright, Arthur Nichols, and Alexander Fifield all appear as having served their Stewardship, although unfortunately the list does not assign dates to the respective terms of service.[301]

In the lists of the Stationers’ Company, however, we find that the four founders took up their freedom in the following order: John Grisman (_sic_), December 2, 1616; Thomas Wright, May 7, 1627; Arthur Nicholls, December 3, 1632; and Alexander Fifield, July 20, 1635.[302]

Respecting Wright and Fifield, after their nomination as Star Chamber founders history records nothing. It is probable that they continued to combine the callings of printer and founder, as John Grismand certainly appears to have done, for we find him named in a State Paper in 1649 as having on the 19th October of that year entered into a bond of £300, and given two sureties, not to print any seditious work.[303]

Of Arthur Nicholls there remains a record of a more ample and satisfactory nature, which we are glad to lay before the reader (as we believe) for the first time, being undoubtedly one of the most valuable and interesting memorials of early English letter-founding which we possess.

It appears that Nicholls, at the time of his nomination as Star Chamber founder in 1637, was also a candidate for the vacant place of printer at Oxford, at that time at the disposal of Archbishop Laud, who, as we have seen in the {167} preceding chapter, had been reserving it for a printer well versed in the Greek language. Nicholls, being unsuccessful in this matter, and driven by his straitened circumstances to seek some addition to his slender pittance as letter-founder thereupon made application to Laud to be admitted as a licensed master-printer in London, that so he might make use of his own type. His letter and the “Cause of Complaint” annexed are preserved among the State Papers,[304] and are so important that we make no apology for quoting them _in extenso_:

“_To the Right Reverend Father in God_, WILLIAM, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, _his Grace, Primate and Metropolitane of all England_.

“The humble peticion of Arthur Nicholls. Showeth unto your grace:

“That the said peticioner hath spent much tyme and paines in cuttinge and foundinge of letters for divers of the printers in London, and at this tyme hath greate store of letters ready cast lying upon his hands, they refusing to take them from him att any rate.

“Besides this his imployment of founding letters is of soe small gaine that alone it will not mainteyne him and his familie but that of necessitie hee must betake himself to some other course whereby to be freed from extreame povertie, and utterly to quitt himself of that, unless your Grace be pleased out of your wonted goodness to comiserate his case.

“May it therefore please your Grace, since you have otherwise determined to dispose of the printers place att Oxford, to give him leave, for the better encouragement of that course wherein he hath so long exercised himself, to bee a printer here in London, That soe he may make use of his owne letters for the elegant performance whereof hee doth promise to use his best care and industry And ever to pray for your Grace’s honour and happinesse.”

The “Cause of Complaint” gives a lively picture of the tribulations of letter-founders at that time:

“_The Cause of Complaint of_ ARTHUR NICHOLLS” (endorsed “_Mr. Nicholls his reasons to be made printer_.”)

“The Complainant being the cutter and founder of Letters for Printers is 3 quarter of a yeares time cuttinge the Punches and Matrices belonginge to the castinge of one sorte of letters, which are some 200 of a sorte, after which they are 6 weekes a castinge, that done some 2 monthes tyme is required for triall of every sorte, and then the Printers pay him what they themselves list; thus he is necessitated to lay out much money and forebeare a long tyme to little or noe benefitt.

“Likewise for the Greeke the Printers came unto him promisinge him the doinge of all the common worke, which drewe him to doe 400 Mattrices and Punches for 80 _l._ which weare truly worth 150 _l._:

“Further they caused him to spend 5 weekes tyme in cutting the letters for the small Bible, it beinge finished was approved for the best in England, notwithstandinge they put him off aboute it from tyme to tyme for 15 weekes till (as they pretended) Mr. Patricke Yonge came out of the contry. {168}

“All which tyme he kept his servants standinge still, in regard whereof he refused to doe it, except he might doe the common worke likewise, when for feare of the displeasure of my lord his Grace, they came to him agayne but told him that if they should lett him have worke enough, he would growe to ritch.

“Albeit, of soe small benifitt hath his Art bine, that for 4 yeares worke and practice he hath not taken above 48 _l._, and had it not bine for other imploymente he might have perrisht.

“He seeinge himself soe slightly regarded by them, was the rather annimated to sell off the proffitablest of his worke thinking to take some other businesse in hand, whereby to free himselfe from want, being not able to subsist by workinge only for 2 or 3.

“Notwithstandinge his longe tyme spent in that Art, wherein he hath brought up his sonne to bee soe expert and able that if it please God to call him, the other is able exactly to performe anythinge touchinge the same.

“Wherefore he requesteth my lorde Grace not to confine him to these miserable uncertainties, but promiseth if he will bee pleased to grant his peticion, he shall see more done in one yeare than was ever done in England for all kindes of languages which he is assured will bee for the good of the commonwealth in general and his Graces particular content.”

Whether Nicholls’ application was successful or otherwise, is not known. In the disastrous times which immediately followed the four Star Chamber founders are lost sight of. It is scarcely likely, judging from the dismal account given above of the trade in times of peace, that they were able, any of them, to keep a business together in times of civil war. Nor is there any certainty that when, in 1649, the Commonwealth re-enacted the main provisions of the Star Chamber Decree, that the four founders then appointed were the same who had been licensed in 1637. Mores, however, leads us to suppose that they were, and for the purpose of enumerating the Oriental and learned matrices which about the year 1657 were in use in the country, treats their four foundries as one. There is, however, no reason for supposing that they worked in partnership, or that their business was in any way connected. But in one great undertaking they were associated; and the London _Polyglot_ of 1657 has generally been regarded as the product of the types of some, if not all, of their number.

“By these or some of them,” observes Mores, “we may suppose to have been cut the letter used in _The English Polyglott_: but as we cannot assign to any of them their particular performances we shall till we are better able to ascertain them, call their labours by the name of the POLYGLOTT FOUNDERY, which, as nearly as that work and the _Heptaglott_ which accompanies it instructs us, is described at the bottom of the page.[305] But it is not to be doubted, considering the elegance and simplicity of the assortment which we see, that the foundery {169} was as completely furnished with that which we see not, and which, for that reason we cannot mention.”[306]

* * * * *

The _London Polyglot_ ranks deservedly as one of the most conspicuous landmarks of English typography. Great works had gone before it, and greater followed. But in few of these has the learning of the scholar, the enterprise of the publisher, the industry of the editor, the ability of the printer, and the skill of the letter-founder been combined to so extraordinary a degree as in the production of this _magnum opus_ of the Commonwealth press.

A brief sketch of the typographical history of this famous work may be interesting, and not out of place here.

The _London Polyglot_ was the fourth great Bible of the kind which had been given to the world.[307]

In 1517[308] the _Complutensian Polyglot_ had been printed at Alcala, at the charges of Cardinal Ximenes, in six volumes, containing the Sacred Text, in Hebrew, Latin, Greek and Chaldean, including an “Apparatus” consisting of a Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, etc. This work will always be famous, if for no other reason, for the grand, bold Greek type in which the Septuagint and New Testament are printed.

In 1572 the _Antwerp Polyglot_ of Arias Montanus was printed, in eight magnificent volumes, by Christopher Plantin. It comprises the whole of the Complutensian texts, with the addition of the Syriac, and an Apparatus containing Lexicons and Grammars of Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Greek.

In 1645 the _Paris Polyglot_, edited by Le Jay and others, was published in ten sumptuous volumes. It comprises the whole of the texts of the _Antwerp Polyglot_, with the addition of Arabic and Samaritan. Owing to the abrupt completion of this work, no Apparatus was included of any description. This work was seventeen years in the press.

The _London Polyglot_, as we shall observe, added to the languages used in the _Paris Polyglot_, the Persian and Ethiopic, with an Appendix containing additional Targums, also a complete “Apparatus” and Prolegomena, with alphabetical tables of the various languages employed, and others besides. {170}

The following table will show clearly the gradual advances made by the four great _Polyglots_ in respect of the versions they comprise[309]:―

+──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ │COMPLUTUM, 1520.│ ANTWERP, 1572. │ PARIS, 1645. │ LONDON, 1657. │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 1│Old Test., │Old Test., │Old Test., _Heb._│Old Test., _Heb._ │ │ │ _Heb._ │ _Heb._ │ │ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 2│Vulgate, _Lat._ │Vulgate, _Lat._ │Vulgate, _Lat._ │Vulgate, _Lat._ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 3│Septuagint, │Septuag. _Gr._ │Septuag., _Gr._ │Septuag., _Gr._ │ │ │ _Gr._ _Lat._ │ _Lat._ │ _Lat._ │ _Lat._ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 4│Pentat., │Old Test., │Old Test., │Old Test., _Chal._ │ │ │ _Chal._ _Lat._ │ _Chal._ _Lat._ │ _Chal._ _Lat._ │ _Lat._ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 5│New Test., │New Test., _Gr._│New Test., _Gr._ │New Test., _Gr._ │ │ │ _Gr._ _Lat._ │ _Lat._ │ _Lat._ │ _Lat._ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 6│ ..... │New Test., │New Test., │New Test., _Syriac_ │ │ │ │ _Syriac_, │ _Syriac_, │ │ │ │ │ _Heb._ _Lat._ │ _Heb._ _Lat._ │ │ +──+────────────────+ │ │ │ │ 7│ ..... │ ..... │Old Test., │Old Test., _Syriac_ │ │ │ │ │ _Syriac_ _Lat._ │ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 8│ ..... │ ..... │Bible, _Arab._ │Bible, _Arab._ │ │ │ │ │ _Lat._ │ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │ 9│ ..... │ ..... │Pentat., _Samar._│Pentat., _Samar._ │ │ │ │ │ _Lat._ │ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │10│ ..... │ ..... │ ..... │Pentat. Gospels, │ │ │ │ │ │ _Per._ _Lat._ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │11│ ..... │ ..... │ ..... │Ps., Cant. New Test.,│ │ │ │ │ │ _Eth._ _Lat._ │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │12│ ..... │ ..... │ ..... │Add. Targums │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+ │13│ Apparatus │ Apparatus │ ..... │Apparatus, Proleg., │ │ │ │ │ │ etc. │ +──+────────────────+────────────────+─────────────────+─────────────────────+

The first announcement of the _London Polyglot_ was made in 1652, when Dr. Walton published _A Brief Description of an Edition of the Bible in the Original Hebrew, Samaritan, and Greek, with the most ancient Translations of the Jewish and Christian Churches, viz. the Sept. Greek, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, etc., and the Latin versions of them all; a new Apparatus, etc._[310] {171} This Description, which set forth the various improvements in the proposed _Polyglot_ on its predecessors, was accompanied by a specimen-sheet[311] containing the first twelve verses of the first chapter of Genesis in the following order: On one side, Hebrew with interlinear Latin translation, Latin (Vulgate), Greek (Septuagint) with Latin, Chaldean paraphrase with Latin, Hebrew-Samaritan, Samaritan. On the other side, Syriac with Latin, Arabic with Latin, Latin translation of the Samaritan, Persian with Latin. The imprint to this highly interesting specimen (a copy of which is said to be in the Library of Sydney College, Cambridge) was: _Londini, Typis Jacobi Flesher_; from which it appears that James Flesher was the first possessor of some of the types cast by the polyglot founders, and subsequently used by Roycroft in this great work.[312]

Flesher’s _Specimen_, which we have unfortunately not been able to discover, met with many critics. Amongst others was Dr. Boate, the Dutch scholar (who had already found fault with the Hebrew character used in the Paris _Polyglot_, which he described as “a very scurvy one, and such as will greatly disgrace the work”), was very disparaging to the new undertaking. It was probably in deference to this critic that Dr. Walton added the following MS. note to the copy of the specimen now at Sydney College, Cambridge: “Typos Hebr. et Syr. cum punctis meliores, parabimus, etc.”

The time occupied in securing the co-operation and assistance of the learned men of the day, in getting subscribers,[313] in arranging copy, and finally in {172} providing the necessary types, delayed the commencement of the undertaking till September 1653. Writing to Usher on July the 18th of that year, Dr. Walton thus notes the near completion of the preliminary arrangements: “I hope we shall shortly begin the work; yet I doubt the _founders_ will make us stay a week longer than we expected. . . . We have resolved to have a better paper than that of 11_s._ a ream, viz., of 15_s._ a ream.”[314]

Towards the end of September 1653, the impression of the first volume was begun at the press of Thomas Roycroft, in Bartholomew Close, whose name will always be honourably associated with this famous work.

Very little is known of the actual manual labour employed in the production, beyond the fact that two presses only were said to have been kept at work, and that the types were supplied by more than one of the four authorised founders.

Chevillier[315] speaks somewhat contemptuously of the typographical execution (fabrique de l’Imprimerie) of the London as compared with that of the Paris _Polyglot_. And if, as Le Long points out, “he means by that term the beauty of the paper and the magnificence of the types, it must be admitted that the Paris edition is superior; but if he means the arrangement of the texts and versions, and the general disposition of the entire work, then it is much inferior; for Walton has mapped out his work so precisely that at a single opening of the book you see the texts and versions all at a glance; thus giving a great facility for comparison, wherein the chief usefulness of compilations of this sort consist.”[316]

Not the least noticeable feature about the work is the fact that from the time of its first going to press to its completion, the printing barely occupied four years. The first volume was completed at the beginning of September 1654. A month later, from the same press was published Dr. Walton’s _Introductio ad Lectionem Linguarum Orientalium_ for the use of subscribers.[317] In 1655 the second volume of the Bible was finished; in 1656 the third, and about {173} the close of 1657 the remaining three.[318] “And thus,” says a contemporary,[319] “in about four years was finished the English Polyglot Bible,[320] the glory of that age, and of the English Church and Nation; a work vastly exceeding all former attempts of the kind, and that came so near perfection as to discourage all future ones.”

Apart altogether from the literary and scholastic value of the Bible, the amount of labour and industry represented in its mere typographical execution is astonishing. Each double page presents, when open, some ten or more versions of the same passage divided into parallel columns of varying width, but so set that each comprehends exactly the same amount of text as the other. The regularity displayed in the general arrangement, in the references and interpolations, in the interlineations, and all the details of the composition and impression, are worthy of the undertaking and a lasting glory to the typography of the seventeenth century.[321]

With regard to the types, which concern us most, the following is the list of the characters employed, as extracted by Rowe Mores:―

ORIENTALS.― _Hebrew_: Two-line English, Double Pica, English. _Samaritan_ (with the English face): English.* _Syriac_: Double Pica, Great Primer.* _Arabic_: Double Pica, Great Primer.

MERIDIONAL.― _Ethiopic_: English or Pica.*

OCCIDENTALS.― _Greek_: Great Primer and Small Pica. _Roman and Italic_: Two-line English, Double Pica [Day’s],[322] Great Primer, English, Pica, Long Primer, Brevier, five-line Pica, two-line Great Primer, Small Pica.

SEPTENTRIONAL.― _English_ (Black): Pica.

* Of the founts marked thus (*) in the present and following summarised lists of the contents of the English foundries, the matrices or punches, and in some cases both matrices and punches, still exist.

{174}

The matrices of three of these founts, the Samaritan, the Ethiopic, and the Syriac, have survived to the present day, and in the course of this work we shall have occasion to trace their descent from the original makers to the present owners. Meanwhile, it is with great satisfaction that we are able here to show a specimen of types actually cast from these venerable relics as they now exist.[323] Of the Arabic fount, some of the punches and matrices also exist, but in too incomplete and dilapidated a state to allow of their being used.

Of the Orientals, the Hebrew is, perhaps, the least good. The Syriac and Arabic are fine bold characters. The Greek is neat, though somewhat insignificant. The Ethiopic[324] and Samaritan[325] are both good and elegant faces. The Italic is particularly neat. As might be expected from founts procured from various foundries in that day, there is a certain absence of uniformity in the {175} bodies on which the different founts are cast. This only makes the more remarkable the accuracy and precision with which the columns are arranged. In most copies the columns are divided by red lines, ruled by hand—in itself an enormous task.

Nine languages are used in the _Polyglot_, but no single book is printed in so many. The following is the arrangement of texts according to volumes:

VOL. 1.—_Prolegomena._

_Pentateuch._ Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic and Samaritan.

VOL. 2.—_Joshua to Esther._ Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic.

VOL. 3.—_Job to Malachi._ Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and _Psalms_ also in Ethiopic.

VOL. 4.—_Apocrypha._ Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic (some of the books, however, have not the Arabic. _Tobit_ is in a two-fold Hebrew). An appendix to this volume contains two Chaldee Targums and a Persic _Pentateuch_.

VOL. 5.—_New Testament_, _Gospels_ in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic and Persian; other books, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic.

VOL. 6.—_Various readings._

It will thus be seen that the Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic texts run throughout the work. The Chaldean text and Targums are all given in Hebrew type. The Hebrew text is printed throughout masoretically.

In addition to the above fundamental characters used, the Prolegomena show the following Alphabets cut in wood, viz.:—Rabbinical Hebrew, Syriac duplices, Nestorian and Estrangelan, Armenian, Coptic, Illyrian, both Cyrillian and Hieronymian, Iberian, Gothic, Chinese, and the character of the Codex Alexandrinus. These are, for the most part, rudely cut, and valuable only as curiosities.

From our point of view, the chief glory of the English _Polyglot_ is that it is wholly the impression of English type. It marks an epoch in the history of our national letter-founding, as, before it appeared, no work of importance had been printed in any of the learned characters except Latin and Greek. The Hebrew, Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic were probably cut expressly for the work, under the supervision of its learned editors, and became thus the models or prototypes of the numerous Oriental founts which during the eighteenth century figured so largely in the works of English scholarship.

The original preface to the _Polyglot_ contained an honourable reference to Cromwell, who had, from the first, encouraged the undertaking and materially assisted it by remitting the tax on the paper imported from abroad for the use of the work. But the Protector’s death took place in the year after the publication; and the Restoration, which followed two years later, was made the occasion for a somewhat ignoble act of time-service on the part of Walton, who cancelled {176} the last three leaves of the preface, and added a Dedication to Charles II, in which, among other attacks on the memory of his former patron, he referred to Cromwell as “Draco ille magnus.”[326] The particular typographical interest of this Royal Dedication is that it is printed in the handsome Double Pica Roman and Italic used by Day in the _Ælfredi_ of 1574, and subsequently by Barker and Lucas in Young’s _Catena on Job_, in 1637, and in other works. The somewhat worn condition of the types leads Dibdin to condemn the founts as inferior[327]; but in point of elegance and grandeur this venerable letter remained still one of the best of which our national typography could boast.

In recognition of his services, Charles made Walton his chaplain-in-ordinary, and created him subsequently Bishop of Chester. Nor was he the only worker to whom the completion of this great enterprise brought honour. Roycroft, after what may be considered a feat of rapid and skilful typography, was permitted to take the title _Orientalium Typographus Regius_.[328]

The value of the English _Polyglot_ was vastly enhanced by the addition to it of Dr. Edmund Castell’s Heptaglot _Lexicon_,[329] which, after seventeen years of incessant labour, commencing with the first announcement of the Polyglot, was printed, at Roycroft’s press, in 1669, in two volumes, uniform in size and style with the _Bible_, of which henceforth it formed a necessary complement.

Respecting this famous work, there is little to add from a typographical point of view to what has already been noted with regard to the _Polyglot_. The {177} same types are, with few exceptions, used in both. Mores considers, but wrongly, that the Amharic shown in Castell’s work is metal, and the same as that used in the _Oratio Dominica_ of 1713. This letter (which also appeared in the first edition of the _Oratio Dominica_ in 1700) belonged to Oxford University, who procured it in 1692, being the Ethiopic character with additions. But the few letters shown in the _Heptaglot_ are evidently engraved by hand, and not cast.

It is to be regretted that Castell’s work, which has been pronounced one of the greatest and most perfect works of the kind ever performed by human industry and learning, and which represented an amount of heroic perseverance in the midst of adverse circumstances scarcely credible, was almost the ruin of its author, both in constitution and fortune. It sold slowly, and at the time of his death upwards of 500 copies were left on hand. The encouragement he received both from royal and episcopal patronage was inadequate to cover the losses which the undertaking had involved, and he died in comparative obscurity in 1685.

Roycroft’s office appears to have suffered severely by the Fire of London in 1666, and a large number of copies of Castell’s _Lexicon_, then in course of printing, were destroyed. To the same disastrous event may also be attributed the disappearance of some of the founts of the _Polyglot_ founders, after the completion of the _Lexicon_. Mores, however, succeeds in tracing the most interesting of these; and the fact that all the matrices did not go down to posterity as a single property, is additional proof that they were not all the production of one artist. The Arabic, larger Syriac, and Samaritan passed into the foundry of the Grovers, and the Ethiopic into that of Robert Andrews, who, it seems probable, also inherited the Hebrew and Black. The smaller Syriac came into Mr. Caslon’s hands.

* * * * *

NICHOLAS NICHOLLS.—This founder was son of Arthur Nicholls, the Star Chamber founder, and, as appears by the mention of him in his father’s petition to Archbishop Laud, already quoted, was brought up to the Art, in which, as early as 1637, he was “so expert and able as to be able to perform anything touching the same.” During the Civil Wars he appears to have suffered in the royal cause, and, like many others, at the Restoration to have looked for substantial reward at the hands of the son of the Royal Martyr.

In 1665 he presented to the king a petition to be appointed His Majesty’s Letter Founder. The original document is in the Record Office,[330] and is as follows:― {178}

“To the KINGE’S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE. The humble peticion of Nicholas Nicholls. Most humbly sheweth

“That the petitioner in the worst of tymes was a constant and loyall sufferer for the causes of your Majestie and that of your Royall ffather of glorious memory, and thereby reduced to greate extreamities.

“Now soe it is, That the peticioner by Industrie hath attained to a considerable skill in the Art of cutting and casting all kinds of Letters and faire Characters (as by the annexed may appeare) And your Majestie beinge the great encourager of good Literature

“Your Majestie’s peticioner most humbly prays your Grace and ffavour to serve in the place of Letter Founder to your Majesties Presses That soe your Majesties presses may be supplyed with Characters in some measure worthy of your Royall Greatness. And the peticioner makes no question but he shall perform that service (with the blessing of God) to your Majestie’s full content and satisfaction.

“And the peticioner (as in duty bound) shall alwaies pray for your Majesties long and prosperous Reigne over us.”

Attached to the petition, in the centre of a folio sheet, is the tiny polyglot specimen, of which we here present our readers with an exact facsimile. English typography possesses few relics more interesting than this quaint little page—the earliest known type-founder’s specimen in the country.

The execution, particularly of the Roman fount, is very poor, and one wonders, in examining it and comparing it with the recently completed _Polyglot_, at the artist’s claim “to considerable skill in cutting and casting of faire characters.” It is possible, however, that the unusual minuteness of the type may have been held to be a merit compensating for defects in execution. And as none of the founts are known to have been used in any other work of the time, it may be presumed the letters were cut specially for this specimen. The Roman and Greek founts are Pearl in body, and the Orientals Nonpareil, and display the text “Vivas o rex in perpetuum” in Latin, Greek, Hebrew (with points), Syriac, Samaritan, Ethiopic and Arabic. This loyal aspiration, effusively dedicated as “the prayer of the devoted heart, and the specimen of the Art of the least of the subjects of the greatest of the Kings,” is surrounded by a neat flower-border (also Nonpareil in body), and printed somewhat roughly on coarse paper. Despite its defects, it appears to have found favour with the august personage to whom it was offered, as we find, on January 29th, 1667, a minute of a “Warrant for swearing Nicholas Nicholls, Letter Founder to His Majesty.”[331]

Of the subsequent operations of Nicholls we know very little.[332] He probably inherited his father’s foundry, and cast from his matrices. The NICHOLS whom {179} Mores mentions as having founded in 1690,[333] could hardly (if the date be correctly given) be the same man who was a practised letter-founder in 1637.

To this last-named founder no doubt belongs the fount of Great Primer Roman and Italic acquired by the Oxford University Press, which had the unenviable distinction of being designated in their Specimen of 1695, as “cut by Mr. Nichols—not good.”[334]

* * * * *

The following is the only specimen we have to note in this place:―

(1665). Specimen sheet of minute printing in several languages, addressed to the King by Nicholas Nicholls, Letter Founder. . . . . (_State Papers, Domestic_, 1665, vol. 142, No. 174.)

{180}