Unfortunately for the cause of learning at Oxford, as elsewhere, the political troubles of the following years abruptly terminated Laud’s services in that {146} direction, and suspended for a time all further progress in the development of the press.[258] A revival took place during the Commonwealth, on the appointment, in 1658, of Dr. Samuel Clarke, the learned Orientalist (who a short time previously had assisted in the correction of Walton’s _Polyglot_), as Archi-Typographus. This responsible functionary was “a person,” so the University Statute ordained, “set over the printers, who shall be well skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues, and in philological studies, . . whose office is to supervise and look after the business of Printing, and to provide at the University expence, all paper, presses, types, etc., to prescribe the module of the letter, the quality of the paper, and the size of the margins, when any book is printed at the cost of the University, and also to correct the errors of the press.”[259] This office was, by the same Statute, annexed to that of superior law bedel, as having less business than the rest. After the Restoration, printing at Oxford made still greater advances, chiefly through the instrumentality and munificence of Dr. John Fell. This eminent scholar and theologian was born in the year 1625. He entered as a student of Christ Church at the age of eleven, and in 1643 bore arms in the civil wars for the king in the garrison of Oxford. At the Restoration he received ecclesiastical promotion, and in 1666 became Vice-Chancellor of the University.[260] In this capacity he exerted himself strenuously to continue the work begun by Laud for the advancement of learning and encouragement of printing at the University;[261] and about 1667 presented a complete typefoundry, consisting of the punches and matrices of twenty founts of Roman, Italic, Orientals, Saxons, Black and other letter, besides moulds and all the apparatus and utensils necessary for a complete printing office. [Illustration: 34, 35, _Hebrew._; 36, _Coptic._; 37, _Arabic._; 38, _Syriac._ 34 to 38. Oriental Founts presented to the Oxford Press by Dr. Fell in 1667. (From the original matrices.)] The extent of this noble gift, the importance of which can only be estimated {148} by recalling the low condition of letter-founding in England at the time, will best appear by the following Inventory, published by the University in 1695: _An Account of the Matrices, Puncheons, etc., given by Bishop Fell to the University of Oxford_[262]:― 34 BOXES OF MATRICES.