246
HISTORY OF PRINTING.
FalU of PrineU, of the following, year, has " dwellynge witboute the Temple bamre of Lon- don," which place of his residence is conUnued, till 1502-3. In the ItnyUicym 4r FoUnm/nge
ofCritte, finished on the 27th of June in
the latter year, his honse is stated to be " in Flete-strete at the sygne of the George;" and the book to have been printed "at the com- maundement and instaunce of the ryght noble and excellent Prynces Margaret moder of our souerain lorde Kynge Henry the VII. and Countesse of Rychmount and Derby." But a still higher protection is to be found attached to a Salisbury Missal, printed in 1604, which has the words, " per Ricnardum Pynson hnius artis ingeniosissimum mandato et impensa serinissimi xpristianissimiq. et omnia rirtntura genere pre- diti regis Henrici septimi." The Pylgremage of Perfection, 1525, was "Imprinted at London in Fletestrete, besyde saynt Dunstan's Churche by — printer to the Kynges noble grace;" and in an edition of the Salisbury Missal, without date, are the expressions " In parochia Sancti Dun- stani (in fletestrete), iuxta ecclesiam commoran- tem." From these extracts, it is ascertained that Pynson lived in two, if not in three diffe- rent residences ; since, as the parish of St. Cle- ment reaches to the western side of Temple- Bar, he could not be dwelling near St Dunstan's church at the time when he was situated without the boundary. It is supposed that in 1608, wrhen William Faques eitlter died or resigned his office of king's printer, Pynson first properly assumed this title in his colophons; and that the royal patronage which he had previously received, must have been confined to certain books only. In December 1608, in the colophon to the Peregrinatio Httmani Generis, he styles himself, " Piynter vnto the Kyngis noble grace," and in Alexander Barclay's translation of Sal- lust's Chronicle, no date, there is added to the above, " with priuylege mto hym graunted by our sayd sourayne lorde the kynge."
About 1625, Robert Redman assumed and altered one of the best devices of Richard Pyn- son, and also interfered in one department of printing, (the law,) which the latter considered, uom the royal protection already mentioned, as being peculiarly his own. At Uie end of an edition of LytylUm Tenures newly and mooit truly correctyed and amended, October 12th, 1625, Pynson placed the affair before the public in a Latin letter, of which the following is a translation: — " Richard Pynson, the Royal Prin- ter, Salutation to the Reader. Behold I now give to thee. Candid Reader, a Lyttleton cor- rected (not deceitfully,) of the errors which oc- curred in him ; I have been careful that not jny printing only should be amended, but also that with a more elegant type it should go forth to the day: that which hath escaped from the hands of Robert Redman, but tnUy Rudeman, because he is the rudest out of a thousand men, is not easily understood. Truly I wonder now at last that he hath confessed it his own typo- graphy, unless it chanced, that even as the Devil
made a Cobbler a Mariner, he made him a Printer. Formerly this Scoundrel did profess himself a Bookseller, as well skilled as if he had started forth from Utopia; he knows well that he is free who pretendedi to books, although it he nothing more ; notwithstanding he is a Buf- foon who hath dared to engage in it, his reve- rend care for the Laws of England should knowingly and truly have imprinted them all. Whether the words which I give be profitable, or wheUier they be faithful he can tell, and do thou in reading Lvttleton excuse his caie and diligence in that place where thou dost see it. Farewell ;" Redman took but little notice of all this, but in April 1627, he removed into St. Clement's parish, to the sign of the George, the very house which Pynson nad quitted ; and in the same year, in an edition of Magna Charta, Pynson a^in attacked him in a similar manner. In 1532, Redman seemed to have occupied bis antagonist's residence next to St Dunstan's church, as his dire«tion expresses ; and Herbert supposes that Pynson thus efi°ected a reconcilia- tion with Redman, by retiring from business, and making over his whole stock to him. The last books printed by Pynson, are supposed to have been bishop Longland's Convocation Ser- nuni, and the Missal of the Holy Ghost, both in octavo, 1531 ; but in the date of the former, Herbert supposes that there is an error, and that MDXxxi has been placed for mdxxix. The colophons of some of Pynson's books shew that he was employed by some of considerable im- portance as well as the royal family, for in that to the Promptuarius Pueororum, 1499, he says, " Imprinted by the excellent Richard Pynson, at the charges of those virtuous men Frederick and Peter Egmont, after Easter," &c. In an edition of the Old Tenures, he mentions, that it was printed at " the instaunce of my maistres of the company of Stronde Inne with oute tempyU barre off London;" and in Tlie Myrrowrof Good Maners, no date, he says " whiche boke I haue pr3mtyd at the instance and request of the ryght noble Rychard Yerle of Kent" As in 1629, Thomas Berthelet bad a patent for the office of king's printer, and in a book of that year he assumed the title, it has thence been concluded that Pynson died about the same time ; but, if the above-mentioned books be re- ceived as evidence, this supposition is certainly erroneous. Lord Coleraine, in his manuscripts concerning Tottenham, preserved in the Bod- leian library at Oxford, states that in the 1 1th of Henry VIII., 1619, the manor-house of Tot- tenham with the adjoining fields, (then the pro- perty of sir William Compton), were leased for forty-one years to one Richard Pynson, gent., but whether this were the typographer is cer- tainly doubtful. Mr. Rowe Mores, in his very curious work on English Fottnders and Foun- deries, speaks well both of Pynson and his types. He states that in 1496, this printer was possessed of a double pica, and great and long primers, all clear and good, with a rude Eng. english, and english, and a long primer roman. In 1499, hA
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