“The death of Mr. Thomas James of Bartholomew Close, Letter Founder, having been industriously published in the Newspapers, without the least mention of any person to succeed in his business, it is become necessary for the widow James to give as public notice that she carries on the business of letter founding, to as great exactness as formerly, by her son John James, who had managed it during his father’s long illness; the letter this advertisement is printed on being his performance.[416] And he casts all other sorts from the largest to the smallest size. Also the Saxon, Greek, Hebrew, and all the Oriental types, of various sizes.” {221} Although the above seems to indicate that John James was a practical letter-cutter, he does not appear to have contributed much to the increase of his foundry by his own handiwork. In 1739 he purchased, jointly with William Caslon, the foundry of Robert Mitchell, and took a half of the matrices.[417] A year later he bought Ilive’s foundry. Of this purchase Rowe Mores mentions that the two founts of Nonpareil Greek, though duly paid for, never came to James’s hands. The remaining matrices, consisting of Roman and Italics and a few sundries, were transferred to Bartholomew Close, where they lay, apparently unused, in the boxes distinguished by the name of Jugge. A far more important purchase was made some eighteen years later, when Grover’s foundry, after having lain idle for thirty years in the possession of his family, was finally sold to James by Mr. Nutt in 1758. By this purchase James became possessed of a stock of matrices, the number of which nearly doubled his own foundry, and which included many of the most interesting relics of the art.[418] At the same time, he combined in one no fewer than nine of the old English foundries, and remained, with Caslon and Baskerville, as one of only three representatives of the trade in the country.[419] The following table will present in a clear form the gradual absorption of all the old foundries into that of James:―