This essay on the forms of letters seems to have been sent out as the forerunner of a larger work on the theory and practice of mechanical arts. Under the general title of “Mechanick Exercises,” in 1677, he began the publication, in fourteen monthly numbers, of treatises on the trades of the smith, the joiner, the carpenter, and the turner. These constitute the first volume of the “Mechanick Exercises.” The book did not find as many buyers as had been expected. Moxon attributed its slow sale to political excitement, for the Oates plot put the buying and study of trade books away from the minds of readers. He had to wait until 1683 before he began the publication of the second volume, which consists of twenty-four numbers, and treats of the art of printing only. It is this second volume that is here reprinted, for the first volume is of slight interest to the printer or man of letters. Moxon’s book has the distinction of being not only the first, but the most complete of the few early manuals of typography. Fournier’s “Manuel Typographique” of 1764 is the only book that can be compared with it in minuteness of detail concerning type-making, but he treats of type-making only. Reed says: “Any one acquainted with the modern practice of punch-cutting cannot but be struck, on reading the directions laid down in the ‘Mechanick Exercises,’ with the slightness of the changes which the manual processes of that art have undergone during the last two centuries. Indeed, allowing for improvements in tools, and the greater variety of gauges, we might almost assert that the punch-cutter of Moxon’s day knew scarcely less than the punch-cutter of our day, with the accumulated experience of two hundred years, could teach him.... For almost a century it remained the only authority on the subject; subsequently it formed the basis of numerous other treatises both at home and abroad; and to this day it is quoted and referred to, not only by the antiquary, who desires to learn what the art once was, but by the practical printer, who may still on many subjects gather from it much advice and information as to what it should still be.”[5] During his business life, Moxon stood at the head of the trade in England. He was selected to cut a font of type for an edition of the New Testament in the Irish language, which font was afterward used for many other books. He cut also the characters designed by Bishop John Wilkins for his “Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language,” and many mathematical and astronomical symbols. Rowe Mores, who describes him as an excellent artist and an admirable mechanic, says that he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1678.[6] There is no known record of the date of his death. Mores gives the year 1683 as the date of his relinquishment of the business of type-making, but he was active as a writer and a publisher for some years after.