The University of Cambridge have given me a Grant to print there 8vo. & 12mo. Common prayer Books; but under such Shackles as greatly hurt me. I pay them for the former twenty, & for the latter twelve pound ten shillings the thousand, & to the Stationers Company thirty two pound for their permission to print one Edition of the Psalms in Metre to the small prayer book: add to this the great Expence of double and treble Carriage, & the inconvenience of a Printing House an hundred Miles off. All this Summer I have had nothing to print at Home. My folio Bible is pretty far advanced at Cambridge, which will cost me near £2000 all hired at 5 p Cent. If this does not sell, I shall be obliged to sacrifice a small Patrimony which brings me in [£74] a Year to this Business of printing; which I am heartily tired of & repent I ever attempted. It is surely a particular hardship that I should not get Bread in my own Country (and it is too late to go abroad) after having acquired the Reputation of excelling in the most useful Art known to Mankind; while every one who excels as a Player, Fidler, Dancer &c not only lives in Affluence but has it [in] their power to save a Fortune. [Illustration: A PAGE OF BASKERVILLE'S PRAYER-BOOK, 1762] However, four prayer-books (two with long lines and two in double column) were produced by Baskerville in 1760 and of these two were reprinted in the following year; the folio bible appeared in 1763. In spite of their failure from the commercial point of view, Baskerville's prayer-books and bible were recognised as something finer than, or at any rate as something different in kind from, what had been produced before. Dibdin called the bible "one of the most beautifully printed books in the world" and called special attention to the title-page as having "all the power and brilliancy of copper-plate." The contrast, too, between the dignified design of Baskerville's title-pages and the conventionally crowded title-page of the period has also been duly emphasised[115]. On the other hand, Baskerville's type has been criticised as being modelled too closely upon his own mastery of penmanship--the upstrokes very thin, the downstrokes very thick, the serifs very fine[116]. Controversy apart, Baskerville's is without doubt the most distinguished typographical work associated with the University Press in the eighteenth century. Depressed by the financial failure of his bible, Baskerville printed no more in Cambridge after 1763[117]; when he died twelve years later, a French society bought his types and used them for an edition of Voltaire and other works. * * * * *