The life of William Blades was an uneventful one so far as the production of incidents that make a memoir interesting, but it was none the less a full life and one that may with advantage be taken as an example. In passing judgment upon his literary work it is necessary to bear in mind that he was a hard-worked business man, and that the work which has made his name renowned was undertaken in his hours of relaxation. Another remarkable feature of his literary work is to be found in its complete unity. Mr. Blades only dealt with those subjects respecting which he had a perfect and practical knowledge. He was born at Clapham on December 5th, 1824, and after a comparatively short attendance at the Clapham Grammar School he, at the age of sixteen, entered the office of his father, Joseph Blades, a well-known printer of Abchurch Lane. Although he thus early learnt the trade of printing, he did not commence to teach others through the press until he had reached the age of thirty-four. In 1858 he contributed some introductory remarks and notes to a reprint of Caxton’s edition of The Governayle of Helthe, which was printed in imitation Caxton’s type. At this time he was in the midst of his researches on the life and labours of Caxton, which were soon to result in the production of his monumental work The Life and Typography of William Caxton, the first volume of which appeared in 1861 and the second in 1863. This work exhibits an early instance of the new scientific method in literary research, and it marks an epoch in English bibliography. It is sufficiently strange that it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that an accurate record of the life and press of England’s first printer was produced. In taking credit to the country for Blades’s laborious work it should not be forgotten that no bibliographer has yet arisen to follow his brilliant example. Will no one arise with the necessary technical knowledge and a painstaking devotion to his subject to do for Wynkyn de Worde and for Pynson what Blades did for Caxton?

The value of the work of Ames and Herbert need not be minimised, but too much has been discovered since their time to allow us to remain content with the researches of a former generation. It is to be hoped that the discredit of lacking a full and accurate account of the whole of our early printed literature will not continue much longer. Blades has set us a bright example, and his successor cannot do better than follow in his steps. Blades was ever active, and he has left a large number of fugitive pieces, a selection from which is now presented to the public in this volume. His contributions to our knowledge of bibliography range themselves under the following headings: I. Caxton; II. Invention of Printing; III. Types; IV. Miscellaneous, such as Signatures, Books in Chains, Numismata Typographica, etc. A few remarks may be made here upon his works on these several subjects.

I. Caxton.

The study of Caxton’s press was the chief work of Blades’s life and that by which he gained distinction. Allusion has already been made to The Life and Typography of William Caxton, 1861-63, and it may be noted here that in 1865 he published “A Catalogue of Books printed by or ascribed to the press of Caxton, in which is included the press mark of every copy contained in the British Museum.” In 1869 he printed fifty copies of a fac-simile of a small tract from Caxton’s press, Ars Moriendi, which had shortly before been found in the Bodleian Library. In 1870 appeared the useful little handbook entitled How to tell a Caxton, with some hints where the same may be found.

Blades was the moving spirit in the management of the very successful Caxton Exhibition of 1877. As Mr. Talbot Reed writes, “It was due to him that the solecism of celebrating the Fourth Centenary of the Introduction of Printing into England three years before its time was avoided. When the true anniversary came Mr. Blades threw himself heart and soul into the movement. What was his part in the success of the celebration is already on record. He suggested both the form the festival should take and the methods by which it might be carried out. He undertook the collection and arrangement of the unique display of Caxtons and early English printed books which were brought together—perhaps the most complete collection ever seen at one time. He organised and superintended the arrangement of the large miscellaneous collection of books, specimens, autographs, portraits, medals, and curiosities, to which he himself contributed the lion share.”⁠[1] He wrote the Preface to the first section of the Catalogue devoted to “William Caxton and the development of the art of Printing in England and Scotland.”

The Life and Typography was an expensive book, and in the year of the Caxton Exhibition Mr. Blades did the bibliographer who was unable to purchase this work a great service by producing a condensed edition in one octavo volume, entitled The Biography and Typography of William Caxton, which forms a most useful guide to the student of the history of Printing in England. A second edition of this work was issued in 1882. No one who has consulted these important works can doubt the immense labour which the author devoted to his task, but it may be mentioned in passing that Mr. Blades is said to have inspected four hundred and fifty Caxtons during the course of his researches.

It was in connection with Mr. Blades’s work on Caxton that the writer of this notice had the privilege of first making his acquaintance. In the year 1868 it occurred to me that it would be possible by means of a society to reproduce in fac-simile the whole of Caxton’s works, as a monument to the memory of our first printer. Before proceeding in the matter I sought an interview with Mr. Blades. He invited me to his house near the Crystal Palace to talk the matter over, and he naturally showed the greatest interest in the scheme. Although he was not very sanguine of success, he entered pretty fully into calculations, and the result of our consultation was that the cost of reproducing the whole of the works would be £20,000, a sum which might be met by the subscriptions of five hundred members at two guineas a year for twenty years. I received many promises of support, but eventually the scheme was abandoned as too risky an undertaking, more especially as the great object to be attained was completeness, and there was no possibility of guaranteeing the interest of five hundred subscribers in the work for so long a period as twenty years. This may appear a mad scheme to many, and I hope I shall be excused for introducing a mention of it here, on the ground that Mr. Blades’s consideration of the proposal evinced his judgment, patience, and kindliness of character, and so helps to show my readers what manner of man he really was.

II. Invention of Printing.

The burning question as to which country—Germany or Holland—the invention of printing by movable types is due, was one which always interested Blades, and in 1876 he published at his own cost a translation of Dr. Van der Linde’s Haarlem Legend by Mr. Hessels. In the previous year, before Dr. Van der Linde’s essay appeared in an English version, Mr. Blades set forth his view of the question in an article in Berjeau’s Book-worm, which is printed in this volume. He here suggested the possibility of an independent invention in the two countries, and remarked that if Coster never lived yet Costeriana certainly exist. He further showed that the Caxton printing pedigree must be traced to a Dutch rather than to a German source.

In 1887 he returned to the subject in a paper read before the Meeting of the Library Association at Birmingham, and in 1888 he contributed to the Book-worm a clear statement of the very complicated question under the title of De Ortu Typographiæ, which was placed before readers in its two aspects of Coster v. Gutenberg and Gutenberg v. Coster. Between the dates 1871 and 1887 a great change had occurred in the field of the controversy. When Mr. Hessels translated Dr. Van der Linde’s Haarlem Legend he was at one with the author, but when he came in 1879 to criticise Van der Linde’s Gutenberg he found strong reasons for doubting that author’s conclusions, and his doubts were expressed in a remarkable book published in 1882 and entitled Gutenberg: was he the Inventor of Printing? Mr. Hessels continued his destructive criticism on Van der Linde’s great work on the Invention of Printing in the Academy, and his articles were reprinted in December 1887 under the uncompromising title of Haarlem the Birth-place of Printing, not Mentz. Unfortunately this controversy has been carried on with considerable heat on both sides, and Mr. Blades endeavoured in his articles to place the matter before his readers in a clear and practical way, and he succeeded in giving a satisfactory statement of the present condition of the controversy. He again returned to this matter in his posthumous work entitled The Pentateuch of Printing, and here he gives his judgment as follows: “Thus we float along the stream of gradual development, until we reach movable types properly termed Typography. This was never an invention pure and simple which suddenly enlightened the mind of Gutenberg (as stated by Van der Linde and echoed by Theo. de Vinne), but an end successfully accomplished after numerous efforts and gradual advances.”

III. Types.

Mr. Blades’s researches on the varieties of types used by Caxton and other early printers led him to investigate the history of specimen books, and he collected much interesting information respecting these.

In 1881 he contributed to the Antiquary⁠[2] an article on “The First Printing-Press at Oxford,” in which he refers to the much-disputed-over Expositio of 1468, a date which he supposes to be a misprint for 1478. This Oxford press appears to have existed for eight years (from 1478 to 1486), during which period sixteen books that have come down to us were produced. Blades divided these eight years into three sections:—

1. 1478-1479: three books printed by one unknown printer, probably Theodoric Rood.

2. 1480-1483: seven books printed by Theodoric Rood.

3. 1483-1486: six books printed by Rood and Thomas Hunte.

S. W. Singer published a pamphlet in 1812 in which he supported the opinion that the date 1468 was the correct one, but as early as 1735 Conyers Middleton made the very probable suggestion that in printing an X had been accidentally dropped out.

In 1860 Mr. Blades printed a pamphlet entitled Some Account of the Typography of St. Albans in the Fifteenth Century (1480-1486), which however went no further than half a dozen proofs. This contains a collation and description of the type of each of the books printed by the printer of St. Albans. Mr. Blades writes: “Seven different works printed at St. Albans about the close of the fifteenth century have descended to modern times. From the colophons of these we learn that the Press there produced two Works in 1480, two in 1481, one in 1486, and two without dates, one of which, however, must have been printed after 1483, which was the year of its compilation. From this it seems very probable that several works may have been printed at St. Albans between 1480 and 1486, of which not a single copy is now preserved. The fact that these seven Books present us with four different Founts of Type leads to the same conclusion, which also receives some confirmation from the colophon to the Essay on Rhetoric by Laurentius de Saona. Laurentius wrote his work in the University of Cambridge in 1478, and the fame of the St. Albans Press would seem to have reached there so early as 1480, as in that year his compilation was printed at St. Albans. But who was the St. Albans Printer? Not one of his productions affords the slightest information. That he must have been connected with the Abbey, or protected by the Abbot there, seems almost certain, as the undertaking otherwise would have been too perilous.”

An interesting article appeared in 1878 in Macmillan’s Magazine on the Plantin Museum at Antwerp, which was translated into French. Mr. Blades made his first visit before the old printing-office was purchased in 1875 by Town Council for £48,000. This will seem a large sum to those who have not the privilege of knowing this interesting relic of the past, with its many and varied treasures. Mr. Blades describes (1) the Mansion; (2) the paintings and engravings—18 oils by Rubens; (3) the Library; (4) the Archives; and (5) the Printing Offices. Among the collections are fine specimens of Sevres, Chinese, and Japanese porcelain. “Some years ago a well-known amateur, distracted by the beauty of six cups and saucers in porcelaine verte de chine, offered Mr. Moretus 15,000 francs for the set, but in vain, and these cups, which £50 each would not buy, still grace the Plantin Museum.” In conclusion, we are told of some of the most precious of the stores in this wonderful place: “But what have we here in all these curiously carved old cabinets, a single one of which would render a Soho dealer famous? Shelves upon shelves of wood-cuts, over 15,000, illustrating three centuries of the engraver’s art. All sizes of floriated initials, ‘blooming capitals’ as the Dutch called them; an infinity of head- and tail-pieces, vignettes, printers’ marks, and what the French style culs de lampes. One magnificent set of large illuminated initials, probably designed for a great Missal, is quite fresh from the hand of the engraver, having never been used; while numerous designs, although beautifully drawn upon the wood, have still to wait for the skilled hand of the engraver. Not wood-cuts only, but about 8000 copperplates are also carefully preserved, including many splendid title-pages and other illustrations used in bygone ages. In a specially designed and beautifully carved closet are kept all the punches, matrices, and moulds which performed no small part in enhancing the fame of the ‘Plantin Press.’ Probably nothing like it can be seen in Europe, the major part having come from the graceful hands of Guillaume le Bé and Claude Garamond. Close by, packed up in papers ready for immediate use, are a ton or two of types of all sizes, brand-new, covered with a hundred years of dust.”

It is remarkable that a great house should have lasted for so many years, and have remained in the possession of a single family. “One of Plantin’s two daughters married John Moretus, the chief associate of her father in his typographical labours, to whom he bequeathed the mansion and the business. From him through seven generations of printers it has descended unchanged to Edward Joseph Moretus, the last of his race, who has lately transferred it to the safe custody of the city of Antwerp.”

In 1875 Mr. Blades contributed to the Printers’ Register a useful account of “Some early Type Specimen Books of England, Holland, France, Italy, and Germany,” which was reprinted as a pamphlet. “The first positive notice we have of type-founding in England is the fount of Saxon cut by John Day for Archbishop Parker and used in 1567. The next is found in a Decree of the Star Chamber in 1637, restricting the foundries in England to four, and further restricting each master-founder to two apprentices and one boy ‘to pull off the knots of metal hanging at the end of the letters when they are first cast, and no more.’ The first dated type specimen is a sheet of Moxon’s, who was the earliest English writer on the practice of type-founding and printing. His sheet is headed thus:—

Proves of several sorts of Letters cast by Joseph Moxon, Westminster. Printed by Joseph Moxon in Russel Street at the sign of the Atlas, 1669.

“English type-founding was in a very depressed state until an accidental circumstance induced the first Mr. Caslon to try his hand at punch-cutting. This was in 1720 upon a fount of Arabic for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and his complete success in this determined his future life. He started an infant foundry, cutting his punches with his own hand, and in 1734 published the following as a Large Post Broadside:—

A specimen by William Caslon, Letter Founder, in Chiswell Street, London.

This sheet is very interesting, as showing from what a small commencement this celebrated Foundry took its rise.”

Mr. Blades proceeds to give an account of American Specimen Books, and then describes specimens published in various parts of the Continent. The earliest book with a date which he found has this title:—

Typorum et Characterum Officinæ Chalcographicæ Georgii Leopoldi Fuhrmanni ... designatio. Nurimbergæ, 1616. 4to.

“In 1743 the Haarlem firm of Isaac and John Enschedé originated the plan of presenting their patrons with a well-bound and well-printed volume, in which their types were advantageously displayed.” In 1870 Mr. Blades communicated to Berjeau’s Book-worm an interesting article on this Type Foundry. He writes: “The elegant volume which has suggested these remarks is a newly published Specimen Book of all the old types anterior to the year 1800 now in the Enschedé Foundry, or which is the same thing, now extant in Holland. Great pains have been taken to show them off to advantage by excellent press-work; while to add additional interest to the volume, the engraved title-pages which ornamented the early specimen books of the same firm more than a century ago, are here reproduced from the original plates.”

Mr. Blades contributed to Berjeau’s Book-worm in 1869 a short article on some Early Greek Types belonging to the Royal Printing Office, Paris, which the University of Cambridge wished to purchase in the year 1700. This article is printed in the present volume.

IV. Miscellaneous.

A short notice of some of Mr. Blades’s numerous contributions to Bibliography which do not range themselves under the previous divisions must be given under the somewhat unscientific heading of Miscellaneous.

When I started the Bibliographer in 1882, I naturally asked Mr. Blades to let me have an article for the opening number, and he was good enough to send a curious little query, “Who was Bercula?” The name of Thomas Bercula appears as the printer of Vulgaria Whitintoni, 1520 and 1525, and Mr. Blades asks if he was a sleeping partner with Pynson, as his name is not otherwise known. Shortly after the appearance of the number of the Bibliographer I met the late Mr. Henry Stevens, who said he could answer the question and would send me a note for a coming number. Mr. Stevens, however, on account of his full employment and also from ill-health, was unable to fulfil his promise. His solution of the difficulty therefore did not appear until after his lamented death, when his son sent his note to the Athenæum (May 8th, 1886). Mr. Stevens suggested that Thomas Bercula stood for Thomas Berthelet, the English diminutive being represented by the Latin cula.

The article on “The First Printing-Press in England as pictorially presented,” which Mr. Blades contributed to Berjeau’s Book-worm in 1869, and which is reprinted in the present volume, contains an interesting account of the technical errors and anachronisms which artists have introduced into their representations of Caxton’s first printing-press.

In 1883-85 Mr. Blades defended in the Printers’ Register the claims of John Nicholson to the honour of being the original inventor of the Steam Press. His advocacy of the unfortunate Englishman lost him the friendship of Herr Goebel of Stuttgart, who would not allow any of the glory of this great work to be taken away from Frederick Koenig. Blades puts the matter clearly in his Pentateuch of Printing (p. 86), where he shows that Nicholson took out a patent in 1790 “for printing by machinery, in which he specified those very principles of action which have been the basis of every successful printing machine since made.” At the beginning of the present century Koenig, a young German, came over to England, and was greatly assisted by Bensley the printer during the period of his attempt to construct a printing machine.

“From 1806, when he came to London, to 1811, Koenig made two complete machines (not including his first wooden trial), but both were unsuccessful because they were founded on the false principle of the old hand-presses, viz., impressions from a flat surface or platen. Disheartened by failure, and, as he himself confessed, at his wits’ end what to do next, an accidental occurrence put him on the right road. Bensley, his partner, by chance visited Nicholson to obtain from him some information concerning those patent laws with which a long and sad experience had rendered him familiar. He found him in a debtors’ gaol, and then he heard for the first time of Nicholson’s patents. Fluttered and anxious, Bensley took Koenig straight off to read the particulars.... He at once set about constructing a new machine, in which all his previous plans of impression were thrown aside, and ... Nicholson’s method of pressure by means of a cylinder beneath which the type ran was adopted.” Koenig himself acknowledged fifteen years later that he had read Nicholson’s patents, but with great contempt for their crudeness, and that he immediately forgot all about them. Herr Goebel, his biographer, believes this very improbable statement of Koenig’s.

Mr. Blades made an interesting collection of medals connected with printing, and in July 1867 he contributed to the Numismatic Chronicle an article on the subject entitled “Numismata Typographica.” In 1869 he printed twenty-five copies of “A List of Medals, Jettons, Tokens, etc., in connection with Printers and the art of Printing,” and in the following year he issued a privately printed pamphlet—“A List of Medals struck by order of the Corporation of London, with an appendix of other medals struck privately or for sale having reference to the same corporate body, or the members thereof.” In 1872 he compiled a “List of Medals connected with Printers and the art of Printing, exhibited at the opening of the New Library and Museum, Guildhall, London,” and in 1877 a list of the collection of medals shown at the Caxton Exhibition. In 1878 he commenced in the Printers’ Register a “Numismata Typographica,” which was reprinted as a volume in 1883 under the title of Numismata Typographica; or, the Medallic History of Printing; being an Account of the Medals, Jettons, and Tokens struck in commemoration of Printers and the art of Printing.

He commenced a “Bibliotheca Typographica” in the Printer’s Register in 1875, but the completion of this list of publications in the English language treating of printers and printing was suspended, and the materials which he had collected were placed at the disposal of the compiler of the Bibliography of Printing, published by Messrs. Wyman.

Mr. Blades contributed to the Athenæum in January 1872 a valuable article on “Common Typographical Errors, with especial reference to the text of Shakespeare,” in which he pointed out the corruptions in the text that might be attributed to errors in composition. This was reprinted in his interesting volume entitled Shakspere and Typography; being an attempt to show Shakspere’s personal connection with, and technical knowledge of the art of Printing, which contains the ingenious and half-serious suggestion that Shakspere spent some time in a printer’s office.

The popular little work entitled The Enemies of Books, which first appeared in 1881, was very successful, having passed through five editions in all, and being honoured by translation into French. As this book forms one of the “Book-Lover’s Library,” it is not necessary to describe it further in this place.

Mr. Blades presented to the English reader in 1885 a very interesting volume: “An Account of the German Morality-Play, entitled Depositio Cornuti Typographici, as performed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with a rhythmical translation of the German version of 1648. By William Blades, Typographer.... To which is added a literal reprint of the unique original version, written partly in Plaat-Deutsch by Paul de Vise and printed in 1621.” In this work the author brought together much fresh matter, and illustrated his subject with great learning. He added a chapter in which it was shown that a survival of a similar practice, though in a greatly mutilated form, still exists in English printing offices.

In 1889 Mr. Blades sent three letters to the Athenæum⁠[3] on the subject of “Watermarks.” He pointed out that watermarks are but fallacious evidence as to the place and date of books, but he laid great stress on their importance as fixing their size notation. After explaining the make of hand-made paper and the position of the watermark, he enunciated the following three laws:—

Law 1. In any old book, if the chain-lines run down, and the watermark is found about the centre of the page, that must be folio.

Law 2. If the chain-lines are across, and the watermark is found in the middle of the back of a book, that book must be quarto.

Law 3. If the chain-lines are down, and the watermark is found at the top edge of a book, that book must be octavo.

Mr. Blades considered that in dealing with this very difficult question of size notation the year 1800 should be taken as the dividing line. Before that date the rules that he laid down were to be observed; but for the later period, when machine-made papers had become common, the bibliographer might adopt any system of nomenclature that he found most convenient.

Early in the year 1890 Mr. Blades commenced a series styled Bibliographical Miscellanies, which promised to be of great value and interest, but soon after No. 1 had been published the author was called away from this world. He left, however, some materials ready for the press, and Nos. 2 to 5 were published after his death. All these Miscellanies, which relate to the Signatures in Books and to Books in Chains, are reprinted in this volume, so that it is not necessary to do more than commend them to the reader as containing a large amount of useful information on two very interesting bibliographical points.

The ever-busy printer and author was taken all too soon from his labours on April 28th, 1890. Although he was not an old man, he had enjoyed a long life of work, and his jubilee as a printer was about to be celebrated when his last illness came rather suddenly upon him. He left ready for publication a popular work on the history of printing, to which he had given the fanciful title of The Pentateuch of Printing. This was published in 1891 under the editorial care of Mr. Talbot Reed, who added a memoir of the author and a full list of his published works as well as his contributions to periodicals.

Sufficient has been said of Mr. Blades’s literary work, but in conclusion a few words must be added as to the man himself. He was not one to put himself forward, and to appreciate his real worth it was necessary to know him in private life. Although his name at once took high rank, he can scarcely be said to have received sufficient honour during his lifetime for the important work which he did, and this may have been partly owing to his quiet and unobtrusive disposition. He was a student who did his work for the love of it, and not to be praised of men.

He took great interest in the Library Association of the United Kingdom, and was a constant attendant at the annual meetings. The writer of this notice well remembers his presence at the most delightful of these meetings, which was held at Cambridge, when that model bibliographer and distinguished man, the late Henry Bradshaw, proved himself a model President and Chairman as well. At this meeting, when the members visited the library of Corpus Christi College, he took up his parable and discoursed about the Caxtons. At the dinner which was given by the members to the President, Blades appeared in a new character, for he added to the harmony of the evening by standing up and singing with good effect the old song of “Down among the dead men.” In going over the work of this true student and enthusiastic lover of his profession, it is impossible not to feel the highest admiration for a man who did so much to foster the same tastes in those around him and to clear away difficulties in the path of those who were to follow him.

H. B. W.