Part 3

Finally, after many delays caused by the desire of Baskerville to have the book perfect, the Virgil went to press in 1757, after seven years of careful, patient, persistent work upon it. It was a surprise to the literary world. It was the first fine book printed in England,--the first of those magnificent editions which, as Macaulay said, “went forth to astonish all the librarians of Europe.”[24] Every part of the volume was in harmony with every other part. There was no disproportion. The book has been well said to be a landmark in the history of typography. In looking at it to-day we wonder how it was done when it was done. It seems as though the Birmingham artist had come before his time.

The list of subscribers printed in the book comprises 513 names, and it is a wonderful list. Scholars and libraries throughout the country are upon it. There is one subscriber from Copenhagen, another from Berlin, and another from the Island of Barbadoes. Dr. Samuel Johnson ordered one copy for his old Oxford College. It is interesting for us to see that the Public Library, Philadelphia, subscribed for a copy, and that “The Library Company at Charles-Town, South Carolina,” and “Mr. Isaac Mazyck of Charles-Town in South Carolina,” took each a copy, while Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia subscribed for six. The conservatism of the English bookseller, however, was such that no bookseller subscribed for more than one copy except Dodsley, who was concerned in the making of the book, and took twenty copies.

This first issue of Virgil was in royal quarto, and it was the first book printed on wove paper; that is, as I understand it, on paper laid on flannel or flats, and showing no marks of wires. The critical Harwood pronounced it “the best printed book that the typographical art ever produced.”[25] Dibdin said of it: “I have always considered this beautiful production as one of the most finished specimens of typography. It was the earliest publication of Baskerville, and all the care and attention of that ingenious printer were devoted to render it unrivalled. He secured his reputation by it, and though it has a few typographical errors, yet it is esteemed by all collectors.”

The original issue is distinguished from the subsequent issues of 1757 by the fact that in the original the supplementary names in the list of subscribers numbered four only, while in the re-impressions they numbered twenty-four. In the original the titles on pages 342 and 372 are “Liber Decimus Aeneidos, Liber Undecimus Aeneidos.” In the re-impressions they are uniform with the other titles, “Aeneidos, Liber Decimus; Aeneidos, Liber Undecimus.” It may also be noticed that on the running-title of page 33, in the original edition, there is a space between the I and R in VIRGILII.

Encouraged by the success of his Virgil, Baskerville sought another book of importance to print with his types. Tonson, the London bookseller, had the copyright of Milton, and he finally employed Baskerville to print an edition. This was issued in 1758, and is of signal merit and beauty. Reed says that “as a work of fine printing it equals, if it does not excel, the Virgil.” It is worthy of note that the very high gloss on the paper which characterized most of Baskerville’s later work is not found either in the Virgil of 1757, or the Milton of 1758. In the list of subscribers for Milton we again find Baskerville’s friend, “Benjamin Franklin, Esquire, Philadelphia;” and also “Isaac Norris, Esq., Speaker of the Assembly of Pennsylvania.” There are subscribers from Leipsic, Dublin, Berlin, etc., and it is interesting to note that the British bookseller subscribed for 159 copies out of 1113, the total list of subscribers. The first edition of this book was 1500 copies, the second 700 on large paper, and it was reprinted three times in the next two years.

Hansard says: “This work will, in my opinion, bear a comparison, even to its advantage, with those subsequently executed by the first typographer of our age.... There is a clearness, a soberness, a softness, and at the same time a spirit, altogether harmonizing in Baskerville’s book, that neither of the others, with which I am comparing it, can, I think, fairly claim.”[26] Dibdin says: “These lovely impressions of Baskerville appeared twice in octavo, 1758 and 1760--and once in 4to. 1759. But the octavos have a quarto aspect. I find that a delicious copy bound in the morocco of the day, is priced at £3.10. I know of no _parlour-reading_ like that of Milton in one of the editions of Baskerville.”[27]

The folio edition of the Bible, printed at Cambridge under the patronage of the university, was really Baskerville’s _magnum opus_. It was the most ambitious of his undertakings, and I think one of the most artistic of his productions, but it was a financial failure. In his proposal for it he said: “The great expence, with which this Work will necessarily be attended, renders it not only imprudent, but absolutely impossible for the Editor to venture on it, without the assistance of a Subscription. And he is encouraged to hope, as he has already received the public approbation of his Labours, that they will continue to favour his ambition, and to enable him to make this one Work as correct, elegant, and perfect as the Importance of it demands. To this end he is determined to spare no Expence, no Care, nor Attention. He builds his Reputation upon the happy Execution of the Undertaking; and begs it may not be imputed to him as a boast, that he hopes to give his country a more correct and beautiful Edition of the Sacred Writings, than has hitherto appeared.”

A specimen of this Bible was printed before the end of 1759, and was followed by another specimen dated January 1, 1760. The price was four guineas, in sheets, and the Bible was to be published in three years. Some copies are said to have been printed with a border, but I do not think this was so. In his specimen title-page of 1760 there is a border, and he said it was his ambition to print with such a border, which would appear “more agreeable” to every eye than the coarse red lines commonly used. I think that, finally, Baskerville concluded wisely to print the book with plain margins, and did so. At any rate, so far as is known, no copy was ever printed with a border. The proposal for the subscription stipulated that two guineas should be paid at the time of subscription, but in a subsequent notice in 1761 it was announced that no money would be required until the volume was delivered. In spite of all this, the number of subscribers was only 264, and Baskerville was forced to borrow money to proceed with the book. In 1762 he said the work “is pretty far advanced at Cambridge, which will cost me near £2000, all hired at five per cent.” The book was ultimately published in 1763. A few more names came in and a new list of subscribers was printed, but he could not sell half the edition of 1250 copies, and in 1768 he sold the remaining copies, 556, at 36 shillings, to R. Baldwin, a bookseller in London, and even then he had to bring a suit against Baldwin to get his pay. The expense of this edition was doubtless increased by the fact that he was required to print it at Cambridge, and to send his press and workmen there for that purpose. The book itself is one of the most remarkable that Baskerville printed. Dibdin calls it “one of the most beautiful printed books in the world,” and says its title-page, “as a piece of printing, is unrivalled, having all the power and brilliancy of copperplate.” Cotton, in his “Editions of the Bible,” says that the beauty of this book has caused it to find its way into almost every public library where fine and curious books are appreciated; Lowndes also pronounces it one of the most beautiful books ever printed.

In the meantime Baskerville was pushing forward the printing of a Prayer Book, “as perfect as I can make it.” He said that he would make a size “calculated for people who begin to want spectacles, but are ashamed to use them in Church.” Perhaps this was the reason for the old Oxfordshire Squire refusing to use a Prayer Book which was not a Baskerville.

Baskerville obtained leave from the University of Cambridge to print the Bible in royal folio, and two editions of the Book of Common Prayer. But that learned body appear to have had a stronger inclination for making their privilege conducive to their worldly gain than for earning fame by the encouragement of printing. The university exacted from Mr. Baskerville £20 per thousand for the octavo, and £12.10 per thousand for the duodecimo editions of the Prayer Book; and the Stationers’ Company, which had a monopoly of printing, with like liberality took £32 for their permission to print one edition of the Psalms in metre, which was necessary to make the Prayer Book complete.

In a letter in 1757 Baskerville says: “I have pursued the scheme of printing and letter founding for seven years, with the most intense application to the great prejudice of my eyes by the daily use of microscopes, and at the expense of about a thousand pounds, which really makes me short of money.”

In 1759 Baskerville was ready to begin the Prayer Book printing at Cambridge. He writes to the Vice-Chancellor of the University, saying he was taking great pains in order to produce a striking title-page and also a specimen of the Bible which he hoped would be ready in about six weeks. He adds that “the importance of the work demands all my attention, not only for my own reputation, but also to convince the world that the University in the honour done me have not entirely misplaced their favours.” In this letter he asks the Chancellor if he could make “an interest to a few gentlemen, to whom the work would not be disagreeable, to survey the sheets after my people have corrected them as accurately as they are able, that I might, if possible, be free from every error of the press, for which I would gladly make suitable acknowledgments.” I suppose he means payment.

He says he procured “a sealed copy of the Common Prayer with much trouble and expense from the Cathedral of Litchfield, but found it the most inaccurate and ill printed work I ever saw, and returned it with thanks.” All Baskerville’s Prayer Books are said by Dibdin to have been lovely specimens of press-work. All the copies that remained when he died, together with a considerable number of the Horace of 1762, were purchased of his widow by Mr. Smart, the bookseller at Worcester, for £100. But in a few years after that, not a copy remained unsold.[28] Smart built a house and called it “Baskerville House.”

Dibdin says that “the prayer books of Baskerville are probably more frequently seen within the pews of a church than any other, at least they were so within these dozen years past; they are of two forms or sizes, royal octavo and crown octavo. The crown octavo impression, which is the rarer of the two, is executed in a small character, in double columns, upon thin paper, but of a close and durable texture. I do not remember to have seen more than one copy of the royal octavo in an _uncut_ state, and of the crown octavo not a single copy, so popular were these impressions upon a first appearance.”

The Addison was issued in 1761, and is a wonderful specimen of the art of Baskerville. Speaking of this book, Dibdin almost goes into ecstasies. He says: “He who hath the _Baskerville_ edition, 1760, 4to, 4 vols., hath a good and even a glorious performance. It is pleasant (and of course profitable) to turn over the pages of these lovely tomes, at one’s Tusculum [villa], on a day of oppression from heat, or of confinement from rain--and if the copy be in goodly calf, full charged, gilt binding--with marble edges to the leaves--such as Posthumus discards, but which Atticus dearly doats on--why, so much the better: so therefore hasten, gallant young Bibliomaniac, with six sovereigns and six shillings to boot, to make yourself _master_ of such a copy.”[29] Dibdin was a true bibliophile.

“Aesop’s Fables” were printed for Dodsley, who appears to have prepared them, perhaps in collaboration with Shenstone. This edition was ultimately published on February 9, 1761, and is a very beautiful little production. The book is much marred by the cuts which Dodsley insisted on putting in. However, it sold very well, and there was talk of second and third editions. Speaking of it Warren says: “That book of Baskerville’s is the most charming thing that I have ever touched.”

Dodsley found Baskerville too expensive. He maintained the warmest interest in Baskerville’s work, but found his charges excessive for ordinary purposes of trade. He never allowed him to print anything for him except his “Selected Fables,” and he fussed very much about these. He went to Baskerville’s house, where he stayed while the last sheets of the “Fables” were passing through the press, and then he printed a London edition in a cheaper form. He complained that he should lose £30 by Baskerville’s impression, and that he should not be more than £10 gainer on the whole, taking the Birmingham and London editions together. In 1758 Rev. John Huckell’s poem “Avon” was printed by Baskerville and sold by Dodsley, but at the printer’s expense and risk. By the persuasion of Shenstone he was induced to permit Baskerville to print another edition of the “Fables” in 1764.[30] The truth was that Baskerville did not print commercially, while Dodsley published commercially.

The prices charged by Baskerville were very high for the times. He wrote to a man who inquired about prices: “My price for printing your friend’s poem is Two Guineas a sheet without pressing, and Two pounds Seven to be pressed as other books which I have printed are pressed.” At this price the printing of the poem would have cost twenty guineas. It is needless to say that Baskerville did not print it. It appears that the expense of printing a sheet at a common press was 18 shillings, and the expense at Baskerville’s Press about £3.10. This is quite sufficient to explain the disinclination of booksellers to give orders to Baskerville for printing.

The reasons why Baskerville’s printing was a financial failure are obvious to us, although they were not to him. In the first place, he did something new, and that is always a great shock to the British public. He produced type different from any which had been used, and better, but the man whose office was stuffed with Caslon type and Dutch type did not think so. He was not likely to throw away type which printed his books well enough for sale, and buy new type which this gentleman from Birmingham had cut. He said: “Let him cut type, and get a new ink and a new kind of paper and print in a new way. The old type, the old ink, the old paper, and the old way are good enough for me.” Baskerville was artistic, the English public was not. In the second place Baskerville’s books were so expensively produced that the man who bought one of them as a specimen of Baskerville’s work did not wish to buy another. It was the same thing that happens with every printer who does artistic work,--each production of his press exhausts his clientage more or less. And lastly, his books were reprints, and they were brought out at a time when the press was overloaded with productions of very brilliant men. Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary, in two volumes, was issued in 1755. Oliver Goldsmith, Pope, Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Akenside, Colley Cibber, Gray, Dr. Young, Burke, and a host of others were then producing books for the printer.

Baskerville cut a fount of Greek type for the University of Oxford, and cast 300 weight of type at two hundred guineas for the whole. He delivered the types in March, 1761, and was paid the two hundred guineas. His connection with the types ceased here. He did not print the editions of the Greek Testament which appeared at Oxford in 1763. He never visited Oxford, and there is nothing to show that he was ever consulted about the types after they had been delivered. They were said to be “not good ones.” William Bowyer, the printer, said that there were two or three quarto editions on foot, “one at Oxford, far advanced on new types by Baskerville--by the way, not good ones.” Reed says that “the appearance of the book justified to some extent the criticism.” Regular as the Greek type is, it is stiff and cramped, and, as Dibdin says, “like no Greek characters I have ever seen.” At another time Dibdin calls the letters large and distinct. The type was certainly more English than the Greek types then in use, and was the precursor of numerous types cut in England during the next century. To the student of to-day Baskerville’s Greek type is far easier to read than any of its contemporaries. The letters are far from being execrable, as Mores called them. They are in effect cursive, well formed, and probably modelled, like those invented by Aldus, upon some calligraphy of the day. At the time they were condemned as hybrid, and were used for no other books. The story is very plain. Oxford wanted a better Greek type than then existed, and employed Baskerville to cut it. He did so, and produced a type infinitely better than any in existence. Therefore the English printers, of whom Bowyer was one, rejected it. The old type was good enough for them. But Baskerville’s type held the field and gave us a finer Greek type than we had before.

Dibdin wrote the following appreciative and discriminating notice of Baskerville: “With the business of a japanner he united that of a printer, to which latter he was led from a pure love of letters, and an ambition to distinguish himself in an art, which he justly thought superior to every other, and which has perpetuated his name, while the perishable materials of his _japan ware_ have mouldered into dust. It is said he was fastidiously nice in his attempts at a _perfect letter_, that he did not attain the ‘eureka’ till he had expended nearly £800 of his fortune. Finally when tired of printing, he tried every expedient to dispose of his printing materials, but the caprice or inattention of our booksellers induced them coldly to reject every overture on the subject. Four years after the death of Baskerville, in 1775, these types were purchased by a literary society at Paris, for £3700.[31]

“Baskerville is said to have been small in stature, and fond of making the most of his figure by costly dress, and a stately deportment. He was cheerful and benevolent; at times extremely idle, but of an inventive turn, and prompt to patronize ingenuity in others; he retained the traces of a handsome man even during the last twenty-five years of his life; and his civility to strangers gained him the esteem of all who came to inspect his office. Although he printed a sumptuous English Bible and Greek Testament, he is supposed to have entertained an aversion to Christianity; and with this view he directed his remains to be interred in a mausoleum in his own grounds. The typography of Baskerville is eminently beautiful--his letters are in general of a slender and delicate form, calculated for an octavo or even quarto, but not sufficiently bold to fill the space of an imperial folio, as is evident from a view of his great Bible. He united in a singularly happy manner the elegance of Plantin with the clearness of the Elzevirs: his 4to and 12mo Virgil, and small Prayer-book, or 12mo Horace of 1762, sufficiently confirm the truth of this remark. He seems to have been extremely curious in the choice of his paper and ink: the former being in general the fruit of Dutch manufacture, and the latter partaking of a peculiarly soft lustre bordering on purple. In his _Italic letter_, whether capital or small, I think he stands unrivalled; such elegance, freedom, and perfect symmetry being in vain to be looked for among the specimens of Aldus and Colinaeus. In erudition, correctness, or in the multiplicity of valuable publications, he is not to be compared with Bowyer: there are some even who indiscriminately despise all his editions of the classics; but his 4to and 12mo editions of Virgil and Horace defend him from the severity of this censure. Upon the whole, Baskerville was a truly original artist; he struck out a new method of printing in this country, and may be considered as the founder of that luxuriant style of typography which at present so generally prevails; and which seems to have nearly attained perfection in the neatness of Whittingham, the elegance of Bulmer, and the splendor of Bensley.”[32]

The quarto editions by Baskerville of Virgil, Horace, Terence, Lucretius, Juvenal and Persius, and Catullus, etc., Sallust and Florus, in seven volumes, were valued in 1825 at £29.18.6. The Virgil had proof impressions of the plates of Hollar and Ponce; and the Horace contained the engravings of Pine, with a head of the poet from Worlidge’s “Gems.”

In the specimen of the folio Bible dated in 1760, Baskerville said: “Many gentlemen have wished to see a sett of the Classicks from the Louvre Edition in the Manner, Letter, and Paper, of the Virgil, already published, if they could be purchased at a moderate price; J. Baskerville therefore proposes to print the same, if he finds proper encouragement; and to proceed with the Poetical Classicks first; and as Juvenal and Persius in one volume is wanting to complete the Cambridge Sett, he intends publishing that first, at sixteen shillings in sheets.”

The first of these, Juvenal and Persius, appeared in 1761, but the publication of the others was delayed by the printing of Congreve, Addison, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Bible. In fact, nothing appears to have been done about the edition of the Classics until 1770, when there was issued an edition of Horace, with four plates by Gravelot inserted. I think it is the finest of all Baskerville’s books. It is certainly the most rare, and is the only volume issued by Baskerville which has plates. The others, Lucretius, Catullus with Tibullus and Propertius, and Terence, were issued in 1772, and Sallustius et Florus was issued in 1773. These, with the Virgil, are the Latin Classics in quarto printed by Baskerville. They are all wonderful books, clear and perfect. They were printed in Baskerville’s declining years, but they stamped him as the first printer of his time.

Catullus, Terence, and Horace were also issued in 1772, and Lucretius in 1773, in 12mo. A 12mo Horace was issued in 1762. It is said to be the most correct, and is thought by some to be the most beautiful, of all the books that Baskerville printed. With the exception of Sternhold and Hopkins’s Psalms in metre, and Tate and Brady’s Psalms, which were printed in the same year, this Horace was the first 12mo book that Baskerville printed. The text was chosen by a Scotchman by the name of John Livie, whom Baskerville employed to edit the book. He took as a basis for his work a little edition printed at Hamburg. Shenstone, who always wanted his finger in every pie, said of this book: “It is really a beauty, and upon the whole as good a text as any we have _yet_--but excuse my vanity, who think I could have rendered it better, if they had suffered me to have the _final_ determination of it.” In another letter he said: “There may be fifty or more preferable readings to what are received in this new Horace, yet you will find a better text there, upon the whole, than in any one edition extant. As to the beauty of type and press-work, it is too obvious to need vindication. The accuracy of the latter almost exceeds what was ever found in any other book.”