A History of the Old English Letter Foundries: with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography.Reed, Talbot Baines
History
A History of the Old English Letter Foundries: with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography.
Reed, Talbot Baines
Printing -- England -- History; Type and type-founding -- England -- History
THE “ANONYMOUS” FOUNDRY.
Over and above the foundries described by Mores as having been absorbed
by that of Thomas and John James, there remained in his possession a
certain number of matrices—some of them of some importance—of whose
former owners he was unable to give us an account. “These may be
considered as a distinct foundery,” he says, “and distinguished by the
title of ‘anonymous,’ for we know not whence they came. Our account of
Mr James’s purchases is accurate, and these are not included amongst
them, but at the end of our scrutiny remained unclaimed. Let them be
called ‘The Anonymous Foundry’.” {207} We do not presume to step in
where Rowe Mores fears to tread, and therefore leave the matrices, of
which the following is his list, still unappropriated:―
“THE ANONYMOUS FOUNDERY, _absq. dat._
ORIENTALS.
_Arabic._―
Double Pica.
_Æthiopic._―
English.
OCCIDENTALS.
_Greek._―
Great Primer.
_Roman and Italic._―
Great Primer.
English.
Long Primer.
Brevier.
2-line Double Pica full face capitals.
2-line Great Primer full face capitals.
2-line English full face capitals.
2-line Pica full face capitals.
Small Pica.
Bourgeois.
Nonpareil.
Pearl.
SEPTENTRIONALS.
_Gothic._―
Pica.
_Anglo-Norman._―
Pica.
_English._―
English.
Pica.
Long Primer.
Small Pica.
(“of all of which a more full account will be given in the ensuing
catalogue.”)
OXFORD FOUNDERS.
PETER WALPERGEN, or Walberger, as we have stated in our account of the
Oxford Foundry, was doubtless the individual alluded to by Bagford
when, in recounting Fell’s services to Oxford, he says: “The good
Bishop provided from Holland . . . a Letter Founder, a Dutchman by
birth, who had served the States in the same quality at Batavia in the
East Indies.”[393] Bagford, it is true, does not name this founder, but
as there exists in the Bodleian Library a copy of a Portuguese version
of _Æsop’s Fables_, edited by Jo. Ferreira d’Almeida, and printed at
Batavia by Pedro Walberger in 1672,[394] we have no hesitation in
identifying our founder with this Dutch typographer, and in fixing his
settlement at Oxford somewhere about the above date, which, it will
be remembered, was the year in which Fell and others took upon them
the charge of the University Press, and furnished from abroad all the
necessaries for its use and advancement.
That he was well known at Oxford in 1683 is also apparent from a
casual reference to “Mr. Walberger of Oxford” in Moxon’s _Mechanick
Exercises_,[395] where the writer dwells with some minuteness on a
peculiar and elaborate tool, called the “Joynt-Flat-Gauge,” contrived
by this founder for polishing the faces of his punches after hardening
them, and before striking them into the copper. {208}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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