“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.