Next to Grafton, the most eminent of the English printer-publishers of the sixteenth century, was John Day, who has been called the English Plantin. He greatly improved the Greek and the italic types, and was the first to make use of Saxon characters. His most important publication was _The Acts and Monuments of the Church_, by John Fox, commonly called _Fox’s Book of Martyrs_, issued in 1563. This work exercised probably a larger influence than any English book of the century in completing the conversion of England from Romanism to Protestantism, an influence which continued through the following centuries. John Fox was a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and after the death of Queen Mary (during whose reign he had been an exile in Switzerland) he was made a prebendary in Salisbury. I do not find any record of his publishing arrangement with Day. The _Book of Martyrs_ came into immediate and continued demand and ought to have brought to its author large returns. His interest in the undertaking was, however, evidently in connection with the fight against Rome, and it is quite probable that he made his literary labour a contribution to the cause of the Reformation. The book, which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, was printed in excellent style, and the effectiveness of the long series of dramatic and tragic narratives was very much heightened by the graphic and well-executed illustrations. Its publication was evidently considered by the Protestant friends of Day to be the chief glory of his career. Over his tomb in the village of Bradley Parva, the following epitaph is inscribed: “Here lyes the Daye that darkness could not blinde, When Popish fogges had overcast the sonne; This Daye the cruel nighte did leave behinde, To view and shew what blodi actes were donne.”[65] The plan and compass of the present work will not permit any detailed account of the work of the English printers and publishers during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These centuries were periods of very great literary activity, and were rendered noteworthy by the production of some of the greatest works in the literature of the world. A list of authors which includes such names as those of Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson, and Bacon, gives an indication of the importance as a lasting property of the books of the Elizabethan writers. The literary productiveness of England came, however, in advance of any system of law for the protection of literary producers, and it is probable that neither the writers above specified, nor any of their contemporaries, secured compensation from the sales of their books.