Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/385

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376

HISTORY OF PRINTING.

saide compaaie, or the more parte of them into their said hall, and there take order for the defacing, burning, breaking, and destroying of all the saide letters, presses, and other printing instruments aforesaide; and thereupon shall cause all suche printing presses, or other printing instruments, to be defaced, melted, sawed in peeces, broken, or battered, at the smythes forge, or otherwise to be made unserviceable ; and the stuff of the same so defaced, shall redylyver to the owners thereof agayne, within three moneths next after the taking, or seazing thereof, as aforesayde.

8. Item, That for the arovding of the exces- sive number of printers witnin this realme, it shall not be lawfull for any person or persons, being free of the companie of stacioneis, on using the trade ormysterie of printing, bookeselling,or booke-bynding, to have, take, and keepe hereaJter, at one tyme, any greater number of apprentizes, than shall be hereafter expressed ; that is to say, every person that hath been or shall be master, or upper wardein of the companie, whereof he is free, to keepe three apprentizes at one tyme, and not above ; and every person that is, or shall be under wardein, or of tlie liverie of the companie whereof he is free, to keep two apprentizes, and not above; and every person that is, or shall be of the yeomanrie of the companie, whereof he is, or shall be free, to keep one apprentize (if he him- self be not a journeyman) and not above. Pro- vided allwayes, that this ordinaunce shall not extend to the queen's majesties printer for the

re being, for the service of her majestic, and realme, but that he be at libertie to keepe and have apprentizes, to the number of sixe at any one tyme.

9. Item, That none of the printers in Cam- bridge, or Oxford, for the tyme being, shall be suffered to have any more apprentizes, than one at one tyme at the moste. But it is, and shall be lawfull, to, and for the saide printers, and either of them, and their successors, to have, and use the help of anye journeyman, being freemen of the cittie of Liondon, without contra- diction ; any lawe, statute, or commaundement, contrarie to the meaning and due execution of those ordinaunces, or any of them, in any wise notwithstanding.

On the 23rd of June, 1586, the lords of the star chamber affirmed and confirmed their former laws, empowering them to search into book- binders' shops, as well as printing offices, for unlawAil and heretical books, and imprison the offenders.

Many of the richer printers, who had licenses from the queen, granting them a propriety in the printing some copies, exclusively to all others, yielded divers of these copies to the company of stationers, for the benefit and relief of the poorer members thereof. A list of these books may be aeen in Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin's Typoi/ra- pkieal Antiquitia.

1683. i>ied,FREDERic Morel, (Champenois) was born about 1523, and denominated rancien, to distinguish him from his son of the same

name, was well skilled in the learned languages, having been a diligent hearer of Tusanus ; the revision and impression of whose Greek Lexicon he superintended, as corrector of the press of Charlotte Guillard. As a typographer, he began to be conspicuous in the year 15.^7, having be- come the son-in-law of Michael Vascosan ; and f>rinted various works, first in conjunction with lim, and afterwards distinctly. He continued to increase in celebrity ; giving to the public at his own charge, and occasionally at that of other Hhrairet, various works of importance. In 1571 , he received a royal diploma, constituting him king's printer in ordinary for the learned lan- guages; an honour which he afterwards held in conjunction with Vascosan his father-in-law ; as appears from the letters patent cited by Mait- taire. Yet the latter says he very seldom us»l the insigne which was common to the impre$- soret regit, but generally in the beginning of his books his own mark, the Mulberry Tree ; and at the end, the " Scutum," or arms of France, with the words Pietate ^ Justitia, and symbolical figures of those virtues. In 1 578, he subscribes, in vico Jacohteo ad insigne Fontis, at first with- out, afterwards with the figure of a Fountain ; but in 1580, in his very elegant impression of the Batrachomyomaehia, he marks the title with the " insigne regium," and its usual motto, sub- scribing amid Federicum Morellwm Typogra- phum Regtum, via Jac, ad insigne fontu. Da Verdier says, that Frederic Morel had the ofiice of" Interprele du Roy pourles langues Grecque & Iiatin, and enumerates some ti-anslations by him. The mark which he adopted was the Mulberry Tree, in allusion to his own name. Sometimes his books, like many of Vascosan's, are found without any device ; but where the " Morus" occurs he used this motto, generally winding round the trunk aud through the branches

Jlav livSpov ayaOiv Kopiroiic KaX.oi( xouT.

Occasionally he appears to have varied his mot- tos. Two years before his death, Maittaire says he relinquished the office uf king's printer in favour 01 his son uf the same name ; yet believes he continued in the practice of the art, till the time of his decease.

William Morel,* was an elder brother of the above, and born at Tailleul, in Normandy. After having matured his acqtiaintance with the Greek language, by performing for some time the office of corrector of the press of Joannes Lodoicus, he established himself about the year 1549, at Paris; and exercised the art with the highest reputation for fifteen years. Maittaire gives at length his Index Librorum, which (he says) were multi j- elegantes. Morel was him- self a person of great erudition ; which he evinced by several valuable works of his own. He appears afterwards to have been associated with Adrianus Tumebus,'at whose special re-

  • The Editor has to apologise for U>e aaOen of William

Moiel being inserted here, hk at the proper time, (U64) the cop7 was mislaid.

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