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HISTORY OF PRINTING.
the habit of writing very neatly with his left. Though more than eight of his latter years were embittered by repeated attacks of paralysis, which deprived him of the use of his right side, and confined him wholly to his bedchamber, he bore his sufferings with that manly fortitude, and that patient resignation to the Divine will, which his constant study of the holy scriptures had enabled him to sustain. He died at Peckham, aged nearly eighty-two years.
1836, Feb. 15. IHed, George Thompson, many years a printer and publisher of ballads and cheap pictures, in Long-lane, West Smith- field, by which he accumulated £70,000. He died at Islington, aged sixty-eight years.
1827, April 2. Colonel Fitzhardino Ber- KELY, (now lord Segrare) obtained a verdict, with £60 damages, against colonel W. Blenner- hasset Faiman, proprietor of the Palladium London newspaper, for a libel which had appear- ed in that paper in July, 1826.* The lora chief justice remarked on the trial, " that in the present state of the press, we were living tn the greatat tUUe of tyranny under the tun."
\826. There are no books in existence by which it can be ascertained what number of works were entered at stationen' ball before 1709, in which year there were eighty-seven. In the next three years the number was about one hundred; but from that period down to 1766, the average yearly number was not fifty. The number went slowly increasing, and at the com- mencement of the present century the amount was three hundred yearly ; in 1814, the amount was five hundred and forty-one; in 1815, the number was one thousand two hundred and forty-four. From that period to 1826, the average number was about one thousand. The lowest number ever entered was about seventeen, (in 1732 and 1734) and the highest in 1822.t
1826, June 13. Died, the rev. William Davy, curate of Lustleigb, Devonshire, who received the first rudiments of his education at Exeter free grammar school, and on returning from Baliol college, Oxford, obtained priest's orders. In his examination for this sacred office, he cor- rected one of the highest dignitaries of the church on some theological point, and received great encomiums for his biblical knowledge. This gentleman was the editor, printer, and pub- lisher of a compilation, intitled: A Syilem of Divinity, in a Course of Sermons on the First Institutions of Religion — on some of the most important Articles of the Christian Jleligion in connexion — and on the several Virtues and Vices of Mankind ; with occasional discourses. Being a compilation from the best sentiments of the polite writers and eminent sound divines, both ancient and modern, on the same subjects, properly connected, with improvements; par-
- Cettaioly It ts an nngeneroiu thing to pablish that to
all wbich we dare not own to any. It is a serpent, that bites a man by the heel, and then elides into a bole. A libel is JUiiupopuUi having no ceitun father, it is not to inherit belief.— Owm Feltham.
t Music fonns an item for some years in this amoont.
ticularlv adapted for the use of chie& oi fami- lies ana students in divinity, for churches, and for the benefit of mankind in general, 26 vols. 8vo. 1796-1807. The history of this volumi- nous work affords an example of persevetance that can scarcely be paralleled in the annals of literature, though so fertile in curiosities. Mr. Davy having completed his collection, at fiist issued prop<Ka]s for publishing it by subscrip- tion ; but as he was poor, his income during hit curacy at LusUeigh being only £30 a-year, his theological labours obtained no patronage, and he resolved to print it himself, that is, with hit own hands. With a press, which he made for himself, and as many worn and cast-off types, purchased from a country printing-office, as suf- ficed to set up two pages, he fell to work in 1795, performing, with the assistance of his female domestic, every operation, and working off page by page, he struck off forty copies of the firet three hundred pages; twenty-six of which he distributed among the universities, the bishops, the royal society, and the reviews, hoping, no doubt, to receive from some of those quarten, that encouragement to which he thought himself entitled. Disappointed in this expectation, he resolved to spare himself the expense of paper in future ; and as he had reserved only fourteen copies of the forty with which he commenced, three of which he mentions as being imperfect, he continued to print that number, and at the end of twelve years of unremitting toil, finished the whole twenty-six volumes. Disdaining any assistance, he then put them in boards with his own hands, and made a journey to London for the express purpose of depositing a copy in each of the most eminent public libraries in the metropolis, and in the universitv libraries *t Oxford and Cambridge, in the library of the cathedral church, Exeter, &c. &c.
With all the literary and typographical laboon of Mr. Davy, little else but praise was gained; but a mind so organized for action as his, could not rest in inactivity ; and though well up to bis eightieth year, his vigour of intellect remained unimpaired ; and conceiving more might yet be culled to add to the latter volume, in 1825 he had increased it so considerably, that on bit determination to send it forth to the world, he found it sufficient to fill two octavo volmnes. Being then in his eighty-second year, he resigned his task of printing into other hands, and a neat edition was printed, which procured for the author the living of WinUeigh. But this reward, though highly gratifying to his feelings, came too late to add to his comforts. After saying so much of his literary labours, it would scarcely be sujpposed that any other pursuit bad ever occupied his attention. He excelled in gardening, and constructed some clocks, and various other pieces of mechanism ; his parson- age contained many specimens of mechanical genius; and his garden, formed among the rocks, was extremely curious. He made a handsome present of communion plate to the church of Lustleigh, a flagon and two patens.
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