“It is difficult,” observes Mr. Hansard, “to appreciate the obstacles which Mr. Caslon encountered at the commencement of his career. At present the theory and practice of letter-founding are not, as in his time, an ‘art and mystery,’ and efficient workmen in every branch are easily procured. He had not only to excel his competitors in his own particular branch of engraving the punches, which to him was probably the easiest part of his task, but to raise an establishment and cause his plans to be executed by ignorant and unpractised workmen. He had also to acquire for himself a knowledge of the practical and mechanical branches of the art, which require, indeed, little genius, but the most minute and painful attention to conduct successfully. The wishes and expectations of his patrons were fulfilled and exceeded by his decided superiority over his domestic rivals and Batavian competitors. The importation of foreign types ceased; his founts were, in fact, in such estimation as to be frequently, in their turn, exported to the Continent.”[463] In 1728 Mr. Caslon narrowly escaped committing an error which might seriously have affected his after career. The foundry of the Grovers being then in the market, he contracted for the purchase of it.[464] Fortunately for English typography, the business fell through, and Caslon was still left a free man to pursue his own method, unburdened by the incubus of a large and useless stock of matrices, which, had they been suffered to mingle with his own beautiful productions, would have degraded his foundry to a patchwork establishment little better than that of his competitors at home and abroad. As it was, he had the advantage of completing his specimens after his own plan, and impressing with the mark of his own genius every fount which bore his name. His fame in 1730 was such, that (as Ged, in his narrative of the invention of {238} Block-Printing, states) he had already eclipsed most of his competitors, and had introduced his founts into some of the chief printing houses of the metropolis, and even secured the custom of the King’s printers to the exclusion of all others.[465] Although Ged’s narrative goes to show that Caslon shared the scepticism of his contemporaries with regard to the utility of stereotyping, and was even ready to back his opinion with his money, it is satisfactory to observe that he was no party to the discreditable persecution to which that unfortunate inventor was subjected by other members of the craft. Indeed, the only successful experiment made by Ged appears to have been a cast from Caslon’s type. That the success of the new foundry was not achieved wholly without opposition is apparent from the following anecdote preserved by Mr. Nichols, and told in connection with the account of Bishop Hare’s _Hebrew Psalter_, published by Bowyer in 1733.[466]