But it is evident by the specimen published four years later, in 1798, that if he ever was possessed of the matrices of these founts, he entirely discarded them, in conformity with the passing fashion, in favour of others more closely resembling the beautiful faces of Jackson and Figgins. His specimen of 1798 is indeed one of the most elegant of which that famous decade can boast. For {293} lightness, grace, and uniformity, the series of Romans and Italics which are exhibited excels that of almost all his competitors. The book, which contains not a single fount which had previously appeared in Cottrell’s book, consists of forty-eight leaves, of which thirty are devoted to Roman and Italic, and the remainder to Titlings, Shaded letters, and Flowers, with one fount of Double-Pica Script. A postscript to the specimen states that four more founts were nearly ready, completing the series, the preparation of which had evidently been the labour of many years.[600] It is therefore the more to be regretted, that Thorne, in common with all his contemporaries, was compelled almost immediately, by the sudden change of public taste in favour of the new style of Roman, to abandon the further prosecution of this excellent series, and devote himself to the production of founts according to “modern” fashion. In 1801 a revised price list was issued announcing a rise in the price of type owing to the advanced cost of raw material and journeymen’s wages[601]; and in 1803 appeared the specimen of the new Roman series, representing the product of five years’ incessant toil and sacrifice. It cannot be said that this specimen of “Improved Types”[602]—one of the first completed in the trade—bears any comparison with the artistic elegance of its predecessor. It exhibits the new Roman and Italic in ten, seven, and five-line Pica, Canon, two-line Great Primer (two faces), two-line English (two faces), Double Pica (two faces), Great Primer (two faces), English, Pica, Long Primer (two faces), Bourgeois, Brevier, and Minion. Ornamenteds—two-line Pica (two faces), two-line Small Pica (two faces). Shadeds—two-line Small Pica (two faces), two-line Nonpareil (three faces). Script—Double Pica. Thorne, indeed, having once abandoned the old style for the new, appears in the van of the innovating fashion. Not sharing in the regret expressed by his brethren in the art at the new departure, he still further advanced upon it by the production of some exceedingly thick and fat (and we may add unsightly) jobbing letters, which, though subsequently followed and even exceeded by others, were at the time unique for boldness and deformity. {294} In Oriental and “learned” letters he appears to have achieved nothing; as not a single fount, not even Cottrell’s Domesday, appears in this specimen, or in the subsequent inventory of the Foundry.