The celebrated John Wilkes also carried on a private printing-office at his house in Great George Street, Westminster. Three specimens of its work have been identified: _An Essay on Woman_, 1763, 8vo, of which only twelve copies are said to have been printed[19]; a few copies of the third volume of the _North Briton_; and _Recherches sur l'Origine du Despotisme Orientale_, Ouvrage posthume de M. Boulanger, 1763, 12mo. A note in a copy of this volume states that it was printed by Thomas Farmer, who had also assisted Horace Walpole at the Strawberry Hill press. During the last four years of the century the Rev. John Fawcett, a Baptist minister of some repute, established a press in his house at Brearley Hall, near Halifax, which he afterwards removed to Ewood Hall. He used it chiefly for printing his own sermons and writings, among the most important issue's being _The Life of Oliver Heywood_, 1796, pp. 216; _Miscellanea Sacra_, 1797; _A Summary of the Evidences of Christianity_, 1797, pp. 100; _Constitution and Order of a Gospel Church_, 1797, pp. 58; _The History of John Wise_, 1798; Gouge's _Sure Way of Thriving_; Watson's _Treatise on Christian Contentment_; and Dr. Williams's _Christian Preacher_. Most of these were in duodecimo. The type used in this press was a very good one, and the press-work was done with care. Owing to his growing infirmities Fawcett was obliged to dispose of the press in 1800. There is reason to believe that the above list might be considerably increased. At Bishopstone, in Sussex, the Rev. James Hurdis printed several works at his own press, the most important being a series of lectures on poetry, printed in 1797, a quarto of three hundred and thirty pages, and a poem called _The Favorite Village_, in 1800, a quarto of two hundred and ten pages. To these must be added a press at Lustleigh, in Devon, made and worked by the Rev. William Davy, and at which was printed some thirty copies of his _System of Divinity_, 26 vols. 1795, 8vo, a copy of which remarkable work is now in the British Museum, and is considered one of its curiosities; a press at Glynde, in Sussex, the seat of Lord Hampden, from which at least one work can be traced; and a press at Madeley, in Shropshire, from which several religious tracts were printed in 1774 by the Rev. John Fletcher, and in 1792 a work entitled _Alexander's Feast_, by Dr. Beddoes. [Footnote 19: Chalmers' _Life of Wilkes_.] CHAPTER XI THE PRESENT CENTURY