Amongst those who ably assisted Walton in his labours was Dr. Edmund Castell, who prepared a _Heptaglott Lexicon_ for the better study of the various languages used in the Polyglott. This work received the support of all the learned men of the time, but the undertaking was the ruin of its author, and a great part of the impression perished in the destruction of Roycroft's premises in the Great Fire of 1666. The Restoration brought with it little change in the conditions under which printing was carried on in England, or in the lot of the printers themselves. There is still preserved in the Public Record Office a document which throws considerable light on this matter, and is believed to have been drawn up either in 1660 or in 1661. This is a petition signed by eleven of the leading London printers, for the incorporation of the printers into a body distinct from the Company of Stationers, and appended to it are the 'reasons' for the proposed change, which occupy four or five closely written folio sheets. The men who put forward this petition were:-- RICHARD HODGKINSON, JOHN GRISMOND, ROBERT IBBOTSON, THOMAS MABB, DA[NIEL?] MAXWELL, THOMAS ROYCROFT, WILLIAM GODBID, JO[HN] STREATOR, JAMES COTTREL, JOHN HAYES, and JOHN BRUDENELL; and it was undoubtedly this band of men, some of them the biggest men in the trade, who formed the 'Companie of Printers,' for whom in 1663 a pamphlet was issued, entitled _A Brief Discourse concerning Printers and Printing_. For the printed pamphlet embodies the same views put forward in the petition, only backed up with fresh evidence and terse arguments. The claim of the printers amounted to this, that the Company of Stationers had become mainly a Company of Booksellers, that in order to cheapen printing they had admitted a great many more printers than were necessary, and from this cause arose the great quantity of 'scandalous and seditious' books that were constantly being published. They go on to say that the condition of the great body of printers was deplorable, 'they can hardly subsist in credit to maintain their families ... When an ancient printer died, and his copies were exposed to sale, few or none of the young ones were of ability to deal for them, nor indeed for any other, so that the Booksellers have engross'd almost all.' The petitioners show also that the Company of Stationers was grown so large that none could be Master or Warden until he was well advanced in life, and therefore unable to keep a vigilant eye on the trade, while a printer did not become Master once in ten or twenty years. They argue that the best expedient for checking these disorders and ensuring lawful printing, would be to incorporate the printers into a distinct body, and they advocate the registration of presses, the right of search, and the enforcement of sureties. Finally, they claim that this plan would also do much to improve printing as an art, as under the existing conditions