The appearance of the work in question[555] justified, to some extent, the criticism. Regular as the Greek character is, it is stiff and cramped, and, as Dibdin says, “like no Greek characters I have ever seen.” Rowe Mores goes to the length of styling it “execrable”; and Bowyer appears to have had it specially in mind when he said to Jackson that the Greek letters commonly in use were no more like Greek than English. Be this as it may, Baskerville made no further excursions into the foreign and learned languages, and, fortunately (as we consider) for his reputation, confined his talents to the execution of the characters of his native tongue, a branch of the art in which he had no rival. The punches, matrices and some of the types of this interesting fount are still preserved at Oxford,[556] and are the only relics in this country of Baskerville’s letter-foundry. We are particularly glad, therefore, to be able to present here, in addition to the annexed facsimile from the _Specimen_ of 1768–70, a line printed from the actual type cast by Baskerville in 1761:― [Illustration] [Illustration: 71. Baskerville’s Greek. (From the Oxford _Specimen_ of 1768–70.)] {275} Among the other important works which, says Mr. Nichols, “Baskerville printed with more satisfaction to the literary world than emolument to himself,” his _Paradise Lost_, in 4to, printed in 1758,[557] is of signal merit and beauty. As a work of fine printing, it equals, if it does not excel, the _Virgil_. “The type”, observes Hansard (who speaks of it as a Pica instead of an English) “is manifestly an improvement on the ‘slender and delicate’ mentioned by Mr. Dibdin; I should think it, on the contrary, approaching to the _embonpoint_, and admirably calculated by extending the size (if in exact proportion), for works of the largest dimensions. The Italic possesses much room for admiration. . . . This work will, in my opinion, bear a comparison, even to its advantage, with those subsequently executed by the first typographer of our age. There is a clearness, a soberness, a softness, and at the same time a spirit, altogether harmonising, in Baskerville’s book, that neither of the others with which I am comparing it, can, I think, fairly claim.”[558] In his preface to the _Paradise Lost_, Baskerville gives an interesting account of his own labours and ambitions as a letter-founder. He says:― “Amongst the several mechanic Arts that have engaged my attention, there is no one which I have pursued with so much steadiness and pleasure as that of _Letter Founding_. Having been an early admirer of the beauty of Letters, I became insensibly desirous of contributing to the perfection of them. I formed to myself ideas of greater accuracy than had yet appeared, and have endeavoured to produce a _Sett_ of _Types_ according to what I conceived to be their true proportion.