“By the recommendation, therefore, of several of the most respectable Printers of the Metropolis, Doctor Fry, the proprietor, commenced his imitation of the Chiswell Street Foundery, which he successfully finished throughout all it’s various sizes, at a vast expense, and with very satisfactory encouragement, during the completion of it. At which period a rude, pernicious, and most unclassical innovating System was commenced, which, in a short time was followed by the most injurious and desolating ravages on the property of every Letter Founder and Printer in the kingdom, by the introduction of fancy letters of various anomalous forms, with names as appropriate—disgraceful in a Profession, once held so _Sacred_, as to have it’s operations confined to consecrated Buildings, and those of the highest class. “The Baskerville and Caslon imitations, all completed with Accents, Fractions, &c., were, in consequence of this revolution, laid by for ever; and many thousand pounds weight of new letter in Founts, estimated on the average at selling prices, at 2_s._ 6_d._ per pound, were taken from the shelves, and carried to the melting-pot to be recast into Types, no doubt, in many instances, more beautiful; but no instance has occurred to the attentive observation of the Proprietor of this Foundery, where any Founts of book letter on the present system, have been found equal in service, or {311} really so agreeable to the reader, as the true _Caslon_-shaped Elzevir Types; and this is the undisguised sentiment of many judicious Printers. “When that eminent Printer, the late William Bowyer, gave instructions to Joseph Jackson to cut his beautiful Pica Greek, he used to say “Those in common use were no more Greek than they were English.” Were he now living, it is likely he would not have any reason to alter that opinion. “The Greeks of this Foundery were many of them made in Type Street, copied from those of the celebrated Foulis of Glasgow; and there are two, a Pica, and a Long Primer, on the Porsonian plan. The Codex Alexandrinus was purchased at James’ Sale in 1782.[638] “The Hebrews were also chiefly cut by Dr. Fry, subject to the direction and approbation of the most learned Hebraists. “The two Arabics,[639] Great Primer and English, were cut from the original drawings of, and under the personal direction of Dr. Wilkins, Oriental Librarian to the East India Company; and have no rival either in beauty or correctness. “The Syriac[640] has been made within the last two years, with all it’s vowel points, reduced to an English body, from the Double Pica of the eminent Assemann’s edition of Ludolph’s Testament.