Chapter II: Cambridge Books, 1521-1750 153 (3)

2 Agreed at yͤ same time, yͭ Mͬ Edmund Jeffries have leave to print an Edition of Tully's works in 12ᵐͦ with the Brevier Letter: he paying 1ˡ. 10ˢ. yͤ sheet for 1000 Copies.

3 That Cornelius Crownfield have leave to send to Roterdam for 300ˡ weight of yͤ double Pica letter in order to yͤ Printing of Virgil, Horace, &c in yͤ manner above mentioned.

The next extract shows the executive arrangements made by the Curators; clearly the whole body (including the Heads of Houses and Professors) was too large to handle the details of administration and committees of delegates were appointed to take monthly tours of duty.

Provision was also made for the reading of proofs by competent scholars to be nominated by the editor and approved by the delegates.

Octob. 17. 98.

Present Dͬ James Vicechancellour, Dͬ Covell,
Dͬ Blithe, Dͬ Roderick, Dͬ Smoult, Dͬ Perkins,
Mͬ Barnet, Mͬ Laughton, Mͬ Leng, Mͬ Beaumont,
Mͬ Pearse, Mͬ Wollaston, Mͬ Talbot, Mͬ Bennett.

1 Agreed yͭ all resolves made at any meeting of yͤ Curatours for the press be entered in yͤ Register for yͤ Press.

2 That yͤ Major part of yͤ Curatours present at any meeting shall determine who shall write yͤ resolves then made into yͤ said Register.

3 That all graces granted by yͤ Senate relating to yͤ Press be entered into yͤ said Register.

4 That there shall be a general meeting of yͤ Curatours upon yͤ first Wednesday in every month.

5 That yͤ general monthly meeting shall determine, wͭ persons shall be delegates for yͤ said Month.

6 That the sͩ delegates appointed by them shall meet weekly on Wednesdays at 2 of yͤ clock in yͤ afternoon.

7 That every Editour shall appoint his own inferiour Correctour to attend yͤ press.

8 That no Editour shall have power to appoint any inferiour Correctour to attend yͤ Press, but such as shall be approved by the delegates, & yͭ yͤ allowance for yͤ Correctours labour be set by yͤ delegates.

The delegates for this month are Mͬ Vice-Chancellour Mͬ Peirse, Mͬ Leng, Mͬ Talbot, Mͬ Bennett.

Wednesday Octob. 26. 1698

1 Ordered, yͭ Mͬ Cornelius Crownfield do go to London to procure an Alphabet of Box flourish't Letters, and to retain Workmen for the Press, and to take care for yͤ Carriage of Mͬ Tonson's Paper: and to hasten yͤ return of yͤ double Pica Letter from Holland.

2 Upon yͤ proposall of Mͬ Talbot of Dˢ Penny[79] to be his correctour for yͤ edition of Horace with yͤ approbation of yͤ delegates; agreed, yͭ the said Dˢ Penny be spoken to to undertake yͤ said office of Correctour.

January yͤ 4ᵗʰ 1698/9.

At a meeting of Eight of yͤ Curators--

Ordered that Mͬ Talbot have full power to treat about & procure a Rolling press fit for yͤ service of yͤ Printing house the charges thereof to be defrayed out of such money as he shall receive upon subscriptions to yͤ press at London.

Agreed also that 4 pence [p_] week for copy money be allowed to yͤ workmen at yͤ Press and half a crown [p_] Quarter for cleaning yͤ Press[80].

The three following entries show that in their first few years of office, at any rate, the Curators approached their duties in a business-like way:

March 4 1698

1 Orderd, that a particular account of each Body of Letter, & of all Tooles & Moveables belonging to yͤ New Printing House be taken in writing in yͤ presence of the Delegates for yͤ weekly meetings of this Month, and yͭ it be entered into yͤ Journal Book by yͤ person appointed to keep that Book: and yͭ yͤ said account be sign'd by yͤ Delegates, & Mr Crownfield yͤ Printer....

3 Order'd, That all Combinations, Verses, and other exercises upon Public Occasions be printed only at yͤ University's New Printing House.

May 3ͬͩ 1699

Ordered--that 400 lbs weight of Paragon Greek Letter be sent for to the Widow Voskins in Holland.

* * * * *

At a general meeting of the Curators June 7ᵗʰ 1699

Order'd that Dͬ Green & Dͬ Oxenden or either of them do examine Dͬ Bentley's account in relation to our Press, and upon his delivery of the Vouchers relating to it, and all other things in his hands belonging to the University Press; give him a full discharg; and likewise take a discharg of him for the Summ of four hundred and thirty three pounds received by him of the University.

1 At a General Meeting of the Curatͬˢ Septebͬ yͤ 6ᵗʰ 1699 'twas then agreed yͭ Mr Crownfield be order'd to buy twelve Gallons of Linseed Oyle and a rowl of Parchment.

2 Order'd yͭ yͤ Sashes be renew'd.

3 Order'd yͭ twenty shillings per annū be allowed to Printers for their weigh-goes.

This last entry refers to the printers' annual holiday of which Randall Holme, writing in 1688, says

It is customary for all journeymen to make every year, new paper windows about _Bartholomew-tide_, at which time the master printer makes them a feast called a _waygoose_ to which is invited the corrector, founder, smith, ink-maker, etc., who all open their purses and give to the workmen to spend in the tavern or ale-house after the feast. From which time they begin to work by candle light[81].

By 1701 Bentley's activities had begun to bear fruit.

Already (says Monk) some handsome editions of Latin Classics had been printed.... Terence had been edited by Leng, of Catharine Hall, afterwards Bishop of Norwich; Horace by Talbot, the Hebrew Professor; Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius by the Hon. Arthur Annesley, Representative for the University; and Virgil by J. Laughton of Trinity.

Nor was it only in Holland that search was made for beautiful types. In 1700 Matthew Prior was sent, on behalf of the university, to procure Greek type (the famous _Grecs du Roi_) from the Paris press. The negotiations, however, fell through owing to the demand of the French that on the title-page of any book for which their type was used there should be added after the words _typis Academicis_, a full acknowledgment in the form _Caracteribus Græcis e typographeo regio Parisiensi_. Correspondence passed between Prior, the Earl of Manchester, the Chancellor, and the Abbé Bynon, but the university refused to comply with this condition[82].

Of the books printed about this time we may note first the works edited by Bentley himself.

The title-page of the famous edition of Horace (1711) is reproduced here and a full account both of its compilation and of its reception may be read in Monk's _Life_:

This publication had been long and anxiously expected; and its appearance excited much sensation and surprise. There were found between seven and eight hundred alterations of the common readings of Horace; all of which, contrary to the general practice of classical editors, were introduced into the text.... This book was, it must be confessed, unlike any edition of a Latin author ever before given to the world.

Especially characteristic of the atmosphere in which Bentley lived and worked is "the important affair of the dedication." Having discovered that the Earl of Oxford was "anxious that the world should know, that his ancestors were related to the Veres and Mortimers of former centuries, and that his family estate in Herefordshire had been in possession of the Harleys since the reign of Edward the First," Bentley took particular pains that these glories should be "fully and accurately displayed." "Good taste" comments Monk "had not yet abolished the fashion, which demanded from every dedicator, whether classical or vernacular, the most unsparing praise that language could supply."

Bentley's edition of Terence (1726) was designed, characteristically, to supplant and extinguish that of Francis Hare, Dean of Worcester. The text was corrected "in not less than a thousand places" and in every line the first accented syllable of every _dipodia_ was marked with an acute accent--"a laborious task, which must have vastly increased the trouble of correcting the press." Included in the first half of the volume were a _Schediasma_ or dissertation upon the metres of Terence and Bentley's _Commencement Oration_ of 1725, on the occasion of the creation of seven Doctors of Divinity. The second half of the book consisted of an edition of Phaedrus and Publius Syrus, the Phaedrus being undertaken to anticipate an edition projected by Hare containing emendations "of the most daring class."

_A Sermon upon Popery_, preached by Bentley before the university on 5 November, 1715, and printed in the same year, is of interest not only as an expression of the vigorous No-Popery spirit of 1715, but as supplying material and phraseology for the sermon recited by Corporal Trim in the second book of _Tristram Shandy_.

It was Bentley, too, who arranged for the publication of a second edition of Newton's _Principia_ in 1713. "The first impression being entirely exhausted," says Monk, "the lovers of philosophy were, in a manner, debarred access to the fountain of truth" and Bentley engaged Roger Cotes to supervise the new edition.

Into the history of Bentley's many controversies it is fortunately unnecessary to enter, but one of his pamphlets, which brought the university printer into the Vice-Chancellor's court on a charge of libel, must be mentioned.

In 1721 there appeared a pamphlet, written by Conyers Middleton, but published anonymously in London, entitled _Remarks, Paragraph by Paragraph, upon the Proposals lately publish'd by Richard Bentley, for a New Edition of the Greek Testament and Latin Version_, and full of "sheer personal malice." Bentley's proposals were described as "low and paltry higgling to squeeze our money from us," reminiscent of "those mendicants in the streets, who beg our charity with an _half sheet of proposals_ pinned upon their breasts."

Bentley's reply was prompt and vigorous; he chose to assume that the author of the pamphlet was Dr John Colbatch, the Casuistical Professor[83], and answered him in what Monk describes as the vocabulary of Billingsgate. "Cabbage-head," "Maggot," "Gnawing-rat," "Mountebank" were some of the terms used. "He never," wrote Bentley, "broaches a piece of mere knavery, without a preface about his conscience; nor ever offers to us downright nonsense, without eyes, muscles, and shoulders wrought up into the most solemn posture of gravity."

This was too much, even for academic controversy of the eighteenth century; Colbatch, having first disavowed the authorship of the _Remarks_, appealed to the Heads of Colleges. This body declared the book to be "a most virulent and scandalous libel" and Crownfield was prosecuted in the Vice-Chancellor's Court for having sold it. Dr Crosse, the Vice-Chancellor, was a "quiet and timid man" and after hazarding a judgment in Crownfield's favour, adjourned the case. In the next year Bentley was cited to appear in the Vice-Chancellor's Court to give evidence concerning the libel. "There was no difficulty," says Monk, "in obtaining the citation, but a great one in getting it served upon the Master: the Esquire-beadles ... were all as averse to such perilous service, as the mice in the fable were to undertake the office of belling the cat." One of the beadles, however, was bribed with a double fee, and Bentley offered no resistance. Instead, he contrived, by an exchange with a brother-chaplain, to be on duty at St James's during the month in which the Court was to assemble and eventually the proceedings against him were abandoned.

The most ambitious work which the University Press undertook about this time was an edition of the Suidas Lexicon in three volumes folio. For this enterprise Bentley was chiefly responsible. Ludolf Kuster, a professor from Berlin, had collated three of the Suidas manuscripts at Paris and was invited by Bentley to take up his residence at Cambridge and to publish his edition of the lexicon at the Press. Accordingly on 4 October, 1701, the university made an agreement with John Owen, an Oxford stationer, by which Owen undertook to purchase an edition of 1500 copies (150 on large paper) of Suidas in three volumes at the price of £1 10_s_ 6_d_ per sheet[84].

The exact relation of Owen to Cambridge is not quite clear. Evidently, he was a protegé of Bentley and though there is no record of his official appointment as a Cambridge printer, several books bear his imprint as _Typographus_, including Cellarius, _Geographia_ 1703; Ockley, _Introductio_ 1706; Caesar, 1706; Minucius Felix, 1707; Sallust, 1710[85]. The word _typographus_, as Bowes pointed out, is used rather loosely and Owen seems only to have been the publisher of the books quoted; on the other hand, there are among Crownfield's vouchers for 1705 the following:

June 23. 1705

Then received of Mr Corn. Crownfield (for the use of Mr Davies, and for correcting Caesars Commentary) the summe of thirty seven shillings and four pence, being for 28 sheets at 16_d_ the sheet from A to Ee, inclusive by me

£ _s_ _d_ JOHN OWEN
01 17 4

Compos'd in Caesar's Commentary's the sheets Ccc, Ddd, Eee, Fff at 8_s_ the sheet--_l_1 12_s_ 0_d_

Sept. 17. 1705

Receiv'd by JOHN OWEN

These receipts appear to show that Owen actually was at work as a compositor upon Davies's edition of Caesar which appeared with the imprint _Impensis Joannis Oweni, Typographi_[86].

From passages in Bentley's correspondence it also appears that Owen travelled in Holland on Bentley's behalf in 1706[87].

But long before this Owen had found himself unable, "through great poverty and being imprisoned on the amount of debts contracted," to carry out the Suidas agreement, and on 8 May, 1703, a new contract was made with Sir Theodore Janssen, who had already supplied Owen with large quantities of paper, for the completion of the work at the joint expense of the university and of Janssen himself, the editor's fee being fixed at £200[88].

As has been noted above, however, the Press continued to print certain other books for Owen. Thus Janssen writes to Crownfield on 19 October, 1704:

I have sent you to-day 150 Reams of fine genoa paper which is to be for yͤ use of Mͬ Jͦⁿ Owen when he hath signed an agreement such as Dͬ Bentley doth require ...[89].

In later years Owen seems to have laid his misfortunes at Bentley's door, since, in a dedication written by him to "Elias Abenaker of London, Gent." and prefixed to Ockley's translation of Modena, _History of the present Jews_ (ed. 1711), he writes:

I ... want Words to tell the World how much I am your Debtor, how often you have rescued me and my whole Family from the Jaws of Destruction; what noble Assistances you have supplied me with, to raise my Fortune in the World, and put my Affairs into a prosperous and flourishing Condition, had not a Person of an high Character, and a pretending Encourager of Arts and Sciences, and Printing in particular, (by the Encouragement of whose specious Promises I was induced to leave Oxford) been as Sedulous and Industrious to ruine and destroy me, by such Injustice and Cruelties, which if I should particularize, would gain Credit with few but those of the University of Cambridge, where the Fact is notoriously known[90].

In the meantime Kuster's edition of Suidas had duly appeared in 1705:

Kuster (writes Monk) having now, by means of his [Bentley's] patronage, completed the three noble volumes of his Suidas, their appearance raised the fame of the editor, while it excited public admiration at the spirit and liberality of the University of Cambridge in undertaking so magnificent a publication.

Correspondence between Janssen and Crownfield throws some interesting side-lights on business details--the fixing of the price and the choice of selling agents[91]:

Now that yͤ hurry of treating her Majᵗʸ is over[92] (writes Janssen) I hope yͤ University will come speedily to a resolution at what rate to sell Suidas, I would not have them to think of too high a price and I believe 3£ will be rather too much hoever I leave it to them but I hope they will not exceed 3£ which is 20_s_ a volume.

Dͬ Bentley had told me you would write to some booksellers in Hollͩ. Since we refused Mͬ Mortier's offers it might perhaps be of service but I think we could not pitch on a fitter person for disposing of a good quantity of Suidas beyond sea.

Bentley's financial negotiations with the Dutch booksellers were apparently not successful, since copies of the _Lexicon_ were disposed of to foreign booksellers by the method of exchange:

Feby 1ᵗʰ 1705/6. Agreed then also yͭ foreign booksellers be treated with for an exchange of an hundred[93] Suidas's, for a number of bookes wͨͪ shall be esteem'd of equal value, & yͭ Catalogues of proper bookes wᵗʰ their respective prises, be procur'd from them to be approv'd of by yͤ University.

The succession of troubles encountered by the university both in the production and distribution of this book illustrates the difficulties of the Curators in attempting to grapple with the details of stock-keeping and accountancy. By 1732 "part of yͤ impression was in yͤ University warehouse and yͤ rest was got into Mͬ Innys's[94] hands in London, but in such manner, yͭ neither had a perfect book."

After some two or three years of negotiation for the mutual purchase of sheets at ½_d_ a piece, the university, having bought the whole of Innys's stock for £400, acquired 410 complete sets of the work and appointed a Syndicate to dispose of them. The Syndics, however, found remaindering difficult:

It were well (says the writer of a memorandum of 1749) if we could get some one to take them all off our hands at almost any rate. I have tried Knapton and Whiston in vain. They durst not venture on the whole: but advise to advertize them at 30ˢ a Book, and let yͤ Booksellers have them at 25ˢ....

I have hopes yͭ Vailliant may take them all at 25ˢ a book, especially if he be allowed time for payment of the money, & yͤ University would take some of it in books, which we really want for yͤ Rustat Library[95].

Eventually, in 1752, 75 sets were disposed of to T. Merrill (a Cambridge bookseller) at one guinea each and the rest seem to have been exchanged[96]. So ended the most ambitious of the early publishing enterprises of the university.

Amongst the other books printed during this period, editions of the classics are prominent. The titles of these will be found in Appendix II and Davies's editions of Cicero, Barnes's Anacreon (1705) and Homer (1711), Taylor's Lysias (1740) may be specially noted. The edition of the _Medea_ and _Phoenissae_ of Euripides by W. Piers (1703) contains, in its preface, an interesting tribute to the renovation of Cambridge typography:

Si _Typorum elegantiam_ mireris, gratias merito ingentes habeto _Illustrissimo Principi_ Carolo _Duci_ Somersetensium _munificentissimo nostrae Academiae Cancellario_, cui Cordi est _nostrum_ imo _suum_ denuò revixisse _Typographéum_.

Mathematics is represented primarily by the second edition of Newton's _Principia_ (1713), by Le Clerc's _Physica_ (1700 etc.), by Robert Green's _Principles of Natural Philosophy_ (1712--an anti-Newtonian treatise) and by the _Praelectiones_ (1707 and 1710) and other works of W. Whiston; biography by Knight's _Life of Erasmus_ (1726); Oriental studies by Ockley's _Introductio ad Linguas Orientales_ (1706) and Lyons's _Hebrew Grammar_ (1735).

A work of more general interest is the first edition of Sir Thomas Browne's _Christian Morals_, published from the MS of the Author by John Jeffery and printed by Crownfield in 1716.

(Among the items may be noted one of Sir Isaac Newton's works and the Vice-Chancellor's order putting Sturbridge Fair out of bounds)

These, of course, are only a few titles selected from the bibliography of the period.

Between 1725 and 1738/9 there are no entries in the Curators' minute-book; the driving power of Bentley's energy and enthusiasm was flagging and the Press had become a source of pecuniary loss to the university. The agreements of 1706 and 1727 with the Stationers, by which the university surrendered the right of printing a large number of school books in return for money payments, no doubt represent an attempt to meet this difficulty[97].

Similarly in December, 1730, it was resolved to lease the university's right of printing bibles and prayer-books to "Mr James & Company" for the sum of £100 per annum, an additional £5 per annum to be paid during the lifetime of Jonathan Pindar, whose formal resignation had been arranged by a grace of 28 August[98].

This arose out of an application which has a special interest in the history of printing.

About the beginning of 1730 William Fenner, a London stationer,

did bring up from Edinburgh a Scotsman named Wᵐ Ged; who had or pretended to have found out the Art of casting, upon Plates, whole Pages of Letters ... wͨͪ 'twas thought would be of great advantage to the publick, as well as to the proprietors of the Invention.

This invention came to the notice of a type-founder named Thomas James who was so much struck by its possibilities that he was

of opinion that the Design of printing by such plates would in short time be brought to such perfection as would greatly injure if not wholly ruine the business of letter-founding, by wͨͪ he then made shift to support a large family.

Accordingly a partnership was formed between Ged, Fenner, and Thomas James. The design, it was alleged, "had at that time all imaginable appearance of Success"; Thomas James, being unable to get any help from his father ("a Clergyman then living upwͩˢ of 85 years of age, who had, upon a small Endowmͭ in Hampshire, brought up a numerous family"), applied to his brother John, an architect at Greenwich, for financial assistance. John James came into the partnership, paying an entrance fee of £100, and, as the invention of stereotype plates was likely to be used with most advantage for the printing of bibles and prayer-books, undertook to apply for a licence to the University of Cambridge--"the only one at that time unemploied."[99]

This application was successful and the lease was granted to Fenner on 23 April, 1731; Fenner's name was used as that of the only member of the partnership who was a stationer, and John James gave a bond for £100.

The plates were at first made in London, at a house in Bartholomew Close, but in the summer of 1732 a house was hired in Cambridge and all the materials and implements moved thither. "For yͤ better prosecuting the Affair," a certain James Watson was sent to Holland "as well as to hire Men, as to buy Presses" and several Dutchmen were employed in printing the nonpareil bible and the small book of common prayer by the new process.

But the business did not prosper. Ged quarrelled with Fenner and "left the whole business at a stand, Secreting or taking with him several Tools and other things to which he had no Right"[100]; Baskett, the king's printer, filed a Bill in Chancery against Fenner for printing bibles; the injunction was subsequently withdrawn, but meanwhile John James was losing confidence in the scheme and growing anxious about his money; he urged Fenner to "go on with the Cambridge Patent Work in common Type Way by the Assistance of Mr Watson, _and have nothing farther to do in the Plate Way_." "As far as I can learn," wrote James in another letter (28 Nov. 1732), "the Booksellers all agree that the Prayer-Book that is done will by no means pass. So that to proceed farther in this Way will but run us more and more out of Pocket." Finally, Fenner died in debt in 1734; four specimens of his work in Cambridge have survived: an octavo Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Johnson's _Letter to Mr Chandler_, John Colbatch's _Examination of the marriage treaty of Charles II_, and _A Collection of Poems_, by the Author of _A Poem on the Cambridge Ladies_.

His widow, Mary Fenner, carried on such business as was left and a bitter controversy, recalling the days of Thomas Buck, arose between her and her deceased husband's partners. The brothers James declared that they were £1000 out of pocket and had received not a penny in return; that Fenner had taken a grossly unfair advantage of the lease being in his name. Mrs Fenner, in reply, maintained that her husband had borne the brunt of many business difficulties alone and that his appeals to his partners for help and co-operation had been neglected.

In their complaints to the Vice-Chancellor Thomas and John James did not mince their words:

I humbly request (writes Thomas) that my Brother and I may be heard; that so the Scene of Iniquity carried on by Mr Fenner and now prosecuted by his Widow may be laid open ... for I do not find the change of Mrs Fenner's Religion has made any alteration in her morals.

As to what Fenner's wife (writes John) (who I fear is of as bad a principle as he was) may alledge, I can only say, she has no other cause of complaint, than that I refused to throw away all I had in yͤ world, for the Knave her husband to make Ducks and Drakes with.

The details of the controversy need not be examined here[101], but one short letter from Mrs Fenner to the Vice-Chancellor is worth preserving:

London 19 Jun. 1735
Honͬͩ
Sͬ

these wates on you to beg the favour you will be so good as to stay three weeaks & then will wate on you, in that time will Do my indaver to See Mͬ James & if it is possable to bringe him to Some agreament I Rely upon your Goodness till that time & then Shall have an oppertuneyty to inform your worship of my case & will do wat is in my power to make you eassey as to the Deate is oing to the university

I am Sͬ your
Dutyful Sarvant
Mary Fenner

Only one book bearing the imprint of Mary Fenner (the sixth edition of Bentley's _Boyle Lectures_, 1735) has been preserved and her association with the university came to an end in 1738. In that year she relinquished her lease and John James agreed to pay £150 in settlement of the university's claim upon the ill-fated partnership.

The chief cause of the failure of the Press to fulfil the high hopes of 1696 appears, in Monk's words,

to have been the want of a permanent committee of management, a measure which, however obvious, was not adopted till many years afterwards. In the meantime, the receipt and disbursement of large sums of money, as well as the necessary negotiations with persons of business, were entrusted to the individuals holding the annual office of Vice-Chancellor, who in many cases possessed no previous acquaintance with the concern; a system which inevitably led to injurious and almost ruinous consequences.

This state of affairs is reflected in the preamble of the grace of 1737:

Cum prelum typographicum in usum et commoditatem Academicam olim destinatum per quadraginta retro annos ita negligenter fuerit administratum, ut Academiam oneraverit sumptu ultra bis mille et trecentas libras....

A Syndicate was accordingly appointed with plenary powers over the Press for three years.

This Syndicate "took the State of the Press into Consideration" purchasing new types, presses and other materials; and "that they might be able to retain good Hands there, by securing them constant Employment, began to print an Impression of the Bible in 12ᵐͦ."

The further measures taken for the development of the bible trade will be recorded in the next chapter. Here it may be noted that one important modification of the Copyright Act, which had been finally passed in 1710, was made in 1739; in that year a new act repealed the clause which empowered the Vice-Chancellors of the two universities to set and reform the prices of books.

In 1712, 1735, and subsequent years clauses were also included in the acts imposing duties on paper by which, "for the Encouragement of Learning" the University Presses were allowed a "drawback" on paper used "in the printing any Bookes in the Latin Greek Orientall or Northern Languages."[102]

VI

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PRINTERS

Crownfield retired from the office of printer in 1740 and received a pension from the university until his death in 1743[103]. He was a bookseller as well as a printer and seems to have done some binding as well[104]. His bookselling business was carried on after his death by his son James, and a book of 1744 is described on the title-page as "printed for J. Crownfield."

His successor was Joseph Bentham, appointed first by the Curators as 'Inspector' on 28 March, 1740[105], and elected printer on 14 December of the same year.

Bentham was the son of Samuel Bentham, Vicar of Wichford, near Ely; one of his brothers was James Bentham the historian of Ely and another, Edward Bentham, of Oxford, author of _Funebres Orationes_ and other works.

Joseph Bentham was free of the Stationers' Company and Carter, the historian of Cambridge, refers to him as "allowed by all Judges to be as great a Proficient in the Mystery as any in _England_; which the _Cambridge_ Common Prayer Books and Bibles ... printed by him, will sufficiently evince."[106]

Before Bentham's appointment, steps had already been taken by the university to revive the business of printing and selling bibles. Thus, in December, 1740, the Curators agreed to print small bibles (9000) price 2_s_ and 1000 on large paper at 2_s_ 6_d_, and six months later 11,000 small nonpareil bibles and 1000 on large paper.

The services of Charles Bathurst, of London, were secured as agent and from 1738 to 1744 he was engaged in "buying, procuring, and expediting Paper, Types, Servants, and other necessaries."

Bathurst's memorandum of 1751, though an _ex parte_ statement, throws an interesting light on printing conditions at Cambridge:

The Insolvency (he writes) of the University's late Lessees for Bibles and the wishes and power of the King's Printer considered, it was then a prevailing opinion, that no advantage could well be made by printing Bibles and Com. Prayers: therefore the Syndics were very diffident and cautious in undertaking other Impressions[107].

However, having previously passed a resolution that Bentham was to sell no bibles without authority from one of themselves, the Syndics in March, 174¾, covenanted with Bathurst that he should be the sole selling agent for all books printed at Cambridge. Several editions of the bible and prayer-book were put in hand and subsequently reprinted, "but not near so fast as they were sold." Bathurst grew impatient: "If two presses will not do," he wrote to the Vice-Chancellor, "[I hope that] three shall [be] employ'd in it: for truly the jests People make here of the negligence of our Advantage and Honour are very irksome." The university, on the other hand, found itself unable to make the necessary outlay of money for paper. Bathurst had, according to his own account, spent considerable sums in the purchase of type and had made a six weeks' voyage to Holland in 1747 to procure a good stock of paper. One parcel was duly received by Bentham at Cambridge, but by the time that the second consignment arrived, a new Vice-Chancellor (Dr Parris, Master of Sidney Sussex College) had taken office and the paper was promptly returned.

I have returned your paper again (wrote the Vice-Chancellor) which yet I would not have done, if we had either wanted it, or had money left to have paid for it.... The Welsh Bible is paid for within a trifle: works of authors bring in but a trifle: our chief dependance must be on what our books in your hands produce.... I am reduced to yͤ necessity of either returning your paper, or, what is still worse, putting an intire stop to yͤ press[108].

A fresh arrangement was therefore proposed by which Bathurst should pay ready money for books printed and the university should not be required to advance money to carry on the business.

Another source of trouble both to the Press and to Bathurst during this period was a second attack made by Baskett, the king's printer, upon the rights of the university.

In 1741 the Syndics had printed for Bathurst an _Abridgement of the Laws of Excise_, and on its publication Baskett obtained an injunction to stop its sale. Litigation dragged on until 1758, when the Court of King's Bench decided in favour of the university, declaring that it was entrusted with "a concurrent Authority to print Acts of Parliament and Abridgements by letters patent of K. Hen. VIII and K. Charles I."

Dyer says of Bentham that "he was not eager after money in the way of business, but rather ambitious of printing Works that would do him credit. He had a great taste for Gardening and a turn for humour. He was an amiable man, as all the Benthams were; and was the only Bentham of the family that was not in orders. There were six brothers, who all used to assemble at the Prebendal-house in Ely at Christmas."[109] Joseph was an alderman of Cambridge and lived in a house adjoining the Press in Silver Street, the whole group of buildings forming "a sort of Quadrangle or Square." This house had belonged to Matthew Stokes, Registrary from 1558 to 1591, and Cole refers to the arms ("carved very handsomely and very large") over the chimneypiece in the parlour[110].

Of the books printed by Bentham the most sumptuous is _The History of Ely Cathedral_ by his brother, James Bentham, a large volume illustrated with many engravings and published in 1765.

Other illustrated works of some interest are Zachary Grey's edition of Samuel Butler's _Hudibras_ (1774) with a "set of new cuts" by Hogarth and _Cantabrigia Depicta_ (1763)[111]. There may also be noted a Latin version of Pope's _Ode on St Cecilia's Day_ and a succession of Seatonian prize poems by Christopher Smart; a volume of _Odes_ (1756) by William Mason; Roger Long's _Astronomy_ (1744); Robert Masters's _History of the College of Corpus Christi_ (1752); a Latin version (anonymously published) of Gray's _Elegy_ by Christopher Anstey and W. H. Roberts, Provost of Eton: and many editions of the classics, including Squire's _Plutarch de Iside et Osiride_ (1744), Taylor's _Demosthenes_ (various years) and Richard Hurd's _Horace_ (1757).

In 1715, when James Gibbs presented his design for "the Publick Building at Cambridge," his plans included provision for the printing-house above the Registrary's office in the southern wing; and it has been therefore inferred that the printing-house in Silver Street was not adequate to the needs of the university[112]. Only a portion of Gibbs's scheme (the Senate House) was carried out and in 1762 the Syndics of the Press, seeking fresh accommodation, purchased a house, called _The White Lion_, which probably stood on the south side of Silver Street, facing the old Press. This was the first step taken in the acquisition of the present site.

* * * * *

Bentham continued in office until 1766 and well maintained the typographical reputation of the Press, but a more famous name is that of John Baskerville. Originally a writing-master at Birmingham where, from 1733 to 1737, he was teaching at a school in the Bull Ring, he afterwards took up, with great success, the trade of japanning and in 1750 began his experiments in type-founding. He set his mind to the improvement of type, press, paper, and method of printing:

It is not my desire (he wrote in the preface to his _Milton_, 1757) to print many books, but such only as are books of Consequence, and which the public may be pleased to see in an elegant dress, and to purchase at such a price as will repay the extraordinary care and expense that must necessarily be bestowed upon them.... If this performance shall appear to persons of judgment and penetration in the Paper, Letter, Ink, and Workmanship to excel; I hope their approbation may contribute to procure for me what would indeed be the extent of my Ambition, a power to print an Octavo Common-Prayer Book, and a Folio Bible.

This ambition was fulfilled by Baskerville's getting into touch with the university. In 1757 he sent a specimen of type to a friend at Cambridge, explaining that

the size is calculated for people who begin to want Spectacles but are ashamed to use them at Church.... If I find favour with the University, & they give me a Grant to print an Edition of a prayer book according to the specimen I would ... send to Cambridge two presses, Workmen & all other requisites, but should be glad to take the chance of the Edition to my self, & make the University such Considerations as they should think fit to prescribe.... My highest Ambition is to print a folio Bible, with the same letter of the inclosed Specimen.

The application was successful and on 15 December, 1758, an agreement was made with the university by which Baskerville was to have leave to print a folio bible and two octavo common-prayer books, and on the following day Baskerville was duly elected to be "one of the Stationers & Printers" of the university for ten years, securities for £500 each being given by Baskerville himself and by John Eaves, a toymaker of Birmingham.

The conditions imposed upon the new printer were strict: he was to print in Cambridge only such books as the Syndics gave him leave to print; on the title-page of no other book was he to describe himself as Printer to the University; inspectors appointed by the Syndics were to have free access to his printing-office; and Baskerville was to pay the university £20 for every 1000 of the 8vo common-prayer. On 31 May, 1759, Baskerville wrote from Birmingham to the Vice-Chancellor:

Sir,

I have at last sent everything requisite to begin the Prayer Book at Cambridge. The Bearer Mͬ Tho. Warren is my Deputy in conducting the whole. I have ordered him to inform you of every step he takes, and to desire you would appoint a person to tell out the number of sheets before they go to press and again before they are packed up for Birmingham. Mͬ Bentham will inform you how many sheets per 1000 are allowed for wast. I have attempted several ornaments, but none of them please me so well as the specimen; which I hope will be approved by you and the Gentlemen of the Syndick. I propose printing off 2000 the first impression, but only 1000 of the State holidays &c which the patentee has left out. The paper is very good and stands me in 27 or 28 shillings the Ream.

I am taking great pains, in order to produce a striking title-page & specimen of the Bible which I hope will be ready in about six weeks. The importance of the work demands all my attention; not only for my own (eternal) reputation; but (I hope) also to convince the world, that the University in the honour done me has not intirely misplaced their Favours.

You will please to accept & give my most respectful duty to the University, particularly to the Gentlemen of the Syndick. I should be very happy if I could make an Interest to a few Gentⁿ. to whom the work would not be disagreeable, to survey the sheets, after my people had corrected them as accurately as they are able, that I might, if possible, be free from every error of the press; for which I would gladly make suitable acknowledgements. I procured a sealed copy of the Common prayer with much trouble and expense from the Cathedral of Litchfield, but found it the most inaccurate and ill printed book I ever saw: so that I returned it with thanks[113].

Evidently neither the university nor Bentham was willing to give Baskerville a free hand. Bentham was naturally jealous of his own position and the Syndics' previous experience of leases granted to outside printers had been unfortunate. Reed's criticism is therefore a little too harsh: "This learned body," he writes, "appear to have been influenced in the transaction more by a wish to fill their own coffers than by a desire to promote the interests of the Art; and the heavy premiums exacted from Baskerville for the privilege thus accorded effectually deprived him of any advantage whatever in the undertaking."[114]

By a further agreement of 3 July, 1761, Baskerville undertook to pay £12 10_s_ 0_d_ per 1000 for the 4000 copies to be printed of the 12 mo Common Prayer and in a letter of 2 November, 1762, he wrote in a dismal strain to Horace Walpole:

The University of Cambridge have given me a Grant to print there 8vo. & 12mo. Common prayer Books; but under such Shackles as greatly hurt me. I pay them for the former twenty, & for the latter twelve pound ten shillings the thousand, & to the Stationers Company thirty two pound for their permission to print one Edition of the Psalms in Metre to the small prayer book: add to this the great Expence of double and treble Carriage, & the inconvenience of a Printing House an hundred Miles off. All this Summer I have had nothing to print at Home. My folio Bible is pretty far advanced at Cambridge, which will cost me near £2000 all hired at 5 p Cent. If this does not sell, I shall be obliged to sacrifice a small Patrimony which brings me in [£74] a Year to this Business of printing; which I am heartily tired of & repent I ever attempted. It is surely a particular hardship that I should not get Bread in my own Country (and it is too late to go abroad) after having acquired the Reputation of excelling in the most useful Art known to Mankind; while every one who excels as a Player, Fidler, Dancer &c not only lives in Affluence but has it [in] their power to save a Fortune.

However, four prayer-books (two with long lines and two in double column) were produced by Baskerville in 1760 and of these two were reprinted in the following year; the folio bible appeared in 1763.

In spite of their failure from the commercial point of view, Baskerville's prayer-books and bible were recognised as something finer than, or at any rate as something different in kind from, what had been produced before. Dibdin called the bible "one of the most beautifully printed books in the world" and called special attention to the title-page as having "all the power and brilliancy of copper-plate." The contrast, too, between the dignified design of Baskerville's title-pages and the conventionally crowded title-page of the period has also been duly emphasised[115].

On the other hand, Baskerville's type has been criticised as being modelled too closely upon his own mastery of penmanship--the upstrokes very thin, the downstrokes very thick, the serifs very fine[116]. Controversy apart, Baskerville's is without doubt the most distinguished typographical work associated with the University Press in the eighteenth century.

Depressed by the financial failure of his bible, Baskerville printed no more in Cambridge after 1763[117]; when he died twelve years later, a French society bought his types and used them for an edition of Voltaire and other works.

* * * * *

Bentham continued to hold the office of printer until 1766. On 13 December of that year he resigned and John Archdeacon, an Irishman, was elected in his place, his salary being fixed two years later at £140 a year. Archdeacon had been appointed Inspector of the Press two months before, and, as appears from certain passages in Nichols's _Literary Anecdotes_[118], had been associated with a scheme by which Bowyer had contemplated taking over the management of the University Press:

In consequence (writes Nichols) of overtures from a few respectable friends at Cambridge, Mͬ Bowyer had some inclination, towards the latter end of 1765, to have undertaken the management of the University Press, by purchasing a lease and their exclusive privileges, by which for several years they had cleared a considerable sum. To accomplish this he took a journey to Cambridge; and afterwards sent the Compiler of these Anecdotes to negotiate with the Vice-Chancellor. The treaty was fruitless; but he did not much regret the disappointment.

Evidently it was intended that Archdeacon should be the printer under Bowyer's management, since Nichols wrote to Bowyer in September, 1765:

I write to you now from the house of Mͬ Labutte[119], with whom I have dined, and who has most obligingly shewn me all in his power. Mͬ Archdeacon is not at home. I have opened to Mͬ Labutte my plan, who is of opinion something may be done. I have talked also with a _Compositor_, who is sensible, and who now works in the house. _Six hundred_ a year I believe may carry it. They _talk_ of _ten_ having been _offered_. For 7 years last past the University have _cleared one-thousand-three-hundred pounds_ annually; besides farming the _Almanack_ (200 l. more). This might at least be _doubled by opening the trade_ in new channels. If any bookseller of reputation would enter into a scheme with you, _an immense fortune would certainly be raised_....

and Bowyer, in his reply, wrote:

Mͬ Archdeacon, as you observe, must be a leading person, and there is some delicacy necessary to be shewn to him.

This proposal, however, came to nothing, and no university documents relating to it have been preserved.

From the business point of view, the printing and selling of bibles and prayer-books no doubt continued to be the most important branch of Archdeacon's activities. In a collection of agents' accounts for the years 1766 and 1767 the well-known names of Edward Dilly, John Rivington, James Waugh, T. and J. Merrill appear. One of these accounts, made out in Archdeacon's own hand[120], is reproduced here as showing the numbers and prices of bibles supplied to Rivington during the period of six months and also the way in which the accounts were examined and approved by the Syndics of the Press.

In the year following that of Archdeacon's appointment a contract, similar to those of 1706 and 1727, was made with the Stationers' Company by which the Stationers, in return for an annual payment of £500, were granted the right of printing a large number of books (including school editions of classical authors, Lily's Grammar, Almanacks, Gradus ad Parnassum, Horn Book prints and Psalters) for the term of 21 years[121].

Later, in 1775, an Act of Parliament secured to the universities the perpetual copyright of all schoolbooks bequeathed to them; but in the same year it was ruled in the Court of Common Pleas that the right of printing almanacks was a common law right over which the Crown had no control, and the Stationers' Company thereupon discontinued their payments to the universities.

However, in 1781 a new almanack duty act granted to each university the sum of £500 per annum as compensation. At Cambridge this sum was placed at the disposal of the Syndics of the Press for the publication of works of learning by the following grace of 11 June, 1782:

Cum ad graves librorum imprimendorum sumptus sublevandos omnigenaeque adeo eruditionis studium promovendum, annuo quingentarum librarum reditu Academiam nuper auxerit munificentia publica; ne aut nostra negligentia deflorescat tantus publice habitus literis honos, aut in alios usus transferatur quod doctrinae amplificandae sacrum esse oporteat; placeat vobis ut Typographici Preli Curatores in hac etiam parte Syndici vestri constituantur, atque ut quingentae quotannis librae, si ipsis necessarium videatur, vel in novas veterum scriptorum editiones apparandas, vel in recentiorum opera divulganda insumendae iis hoc nomine e Communi Cista erogentur....

Since the abolition of the paper duty and the consequent loss to the university of the advantage of drawback, this grant constitutes the single subsidy which the Syndics of the Press receive from an outside source.

About this time the competency of the Syndics was called into question. It was alleged, for instance, that one Syndic did not know the difference between _collating_ and _collecting_ MSS; a more serious charge was that the warehouse in Silver Street, acquired in 1672, was damp and that great injury had been done to the stock of sheets kept there. In reply, Dr Plumptre asserted that the damage done amounted only to £20. Archdeacon remained in office till the year of his death, 1795; in 1793 John Burges was elected printer and acted in partnership with him for two years.

Of the books printed in the last thirty years of the eighteenth century one of the most ambitious was Thomas Kipling's facsimile edition, in two folio volumes, of the _Codex Bezae_ (1793), "the very crown of the Cambridge Press." Kipling was the leader of the prosecution of William Freind, author of _Peace and Union recommended to the associated bodies of Republicans and Anti-Republicans_ (2nd ed. 1793), and refused to allow Gilbert Wakefield's _Silva Critica_ to be printed at the Press on account of the author's unorthodoxy[122].

Gray's _Commemoration Ode_, set to music by Dr Randal, was printed in 1769[123]; Samuel Ogden's _Sermons on the Efficacy of Prayer and Intercession_ (Boswell's favourite reading during his tour to the Hebrides) were published in 1770 and were followed by other volumes of sermons in 1777; the Parker MSS were catalogued by James Nasmith and published in 1777, the Baker collection by Robert Masters in 1784; Thomas Martyn, Professor of Botany, published a _Catalogus Horti Botanici_ in 1771 and _Elements of Natural History_ in 1775; the second edition of John Wesley's _Duty and Advantage of early rising_ was printed in 1785 and the changing spirit of the age is reflected in a sermon of 1788 entitled _Slavery inconsistent with the Spirit of Christianity_ and a _Sermon on Duelling_, by Thomas Jones (1792).

The beginnings of the study of modern languages in Cambridge are seen in La Butte's _French Grammar_ (2nd ed. 1790) and in various editions of Tasso and other Italian authors by Agostino Isola, a teacher who, at different times, could reckon Thomas Gray, William Pitt, and William Wordsworth among his pupils[124].

_Ten Minutes' Advice to Freshmen_ by A Questionist, printed by Archdeacon for J. Deighton in 1785, deserves a few lines of quotation:

It is not reckoned fashionable to go to _St Mary's_ on a Sunday.--But I know no harm in going, nor that it is any reproach to a man's understanding to be seen publickly in the same place with the most dignified and respectable persons of the University.--To say nothing about the regularity of the thing, and its being approved of by people whose good opinion you may be desirous to obtain.

It is neither my business nor my inclination to prose to you upon the usefulness of Mathematical learning--it is sufficient that it has its uses....

Of the standard of mathematical printing at this period a circumstantial complaint is preserved by Nichols in a letter from William Ludlam, author of _Rudiments of Mathematics_ (2nd ed. 1787) and other works[125]:

For my own part, I am sometimes forced to make types, which are commonly brass, of which I here send you a specimen (± a ± b ± c). It is called plus-minus ±. I printed my first tracts at Cambridge when Archdeacon (not Bentham) was their printer. I was very sick of it; the University meanly provided with mathematical types insomuch that they used daggers turned sideways for _plus's_. They were sunk into arrant traders, even to printing hand-bills, quack-bills, &c., which they then for the first time permitted for Archdeacon's profit. As to tablework of which I had a deal, they knew nothing of it; and many a brass rule was I forced to make myself.... I complained of this to Mr Bowyer, and would have had him print my essay on Hadley's quadrant[126]; but he was too full of more important work. I remember I told him I had marked all Archdeacon's damaged letters; which were not a few, especially in the italic. To which the old gentleman replied 'I don't like you the better for that.'

One of the last books printed by the Archdeacon-Burges partnership was a translation of a Latin poem, _The Immortality of the Soul_, by Isaac Hawkins Browne who, "one of the first wits of this country," according to Johnson, "got into Parliament, and never opened his mouth."

John Burges continued as sole printer after the death of Archdeacon in 1795. Two large dictionaries were, amongst other works, printed during his term of office: Ladvocat's _Historical and Biographical Dictionary_ (1800-1801) and Hoogeveen's _Dictionarium Analogicum_ (1800); academical works of reference, such as _Cambridge University Calendar_ (1796) and the _Graduati Cantabrigienses_ (1800), also begin to appear; the _Calendar_, however, was not regularly printed at the Press until 1826, and it is only since 1914 that the Syndics have been responsible for its publication[127].

Finally, there may be noted Relhan's _Flora Cantabrigiensis_ (2nd ed. 1802) and Harraden's _Picturesque Views of Cambridge_ (1800) containing 24 views from original drawings by Richard Harraden, a London artist who came to Cambridge in 1798.

(From _Cantabrigia Depicta_, 1763)

VII

THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

The immediate official successor of Burges as university printer was John Deighton, elected on 28 April, 1802; he, however, held office only till 11 December of the same year and seems to have served the Press as publishing agent rather than as printer. Thus in 1803 he, with Francis Hodson of Cambridge and Richard Newcomb of Stamford, undertook to purchase the whole stock of royal octavo bibles belonging to the university (amounting to 5627 copies in all) for the sum of £2323 10_s_.