Cambridge University Press

“ The stock-books kept at Cambridge show that the bulk of the editions were delivered to Parker's warehouse in London or to [138] Deighton's in Cambridge and the names of both firms frequently appear on title-pages. University publications, together with classical, mathematical, and theological text-books and treatises, predominate in the list and the names of such scholars as Blomfield, Babington, Colenso, Donaldson, Hare, Monk, Paley, Scholefield, Shilleto, Trench, and Whewell are to be found amongst the authors. ”

“ CHAPTER V THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, THE SENATE HOUSE, THE PITT PRESS, AND THE MUSEUMS In the early days when the University of Cambridge was still in an embryonic state, the various newly formed communities of academic learning had no corporate centre whatever. ”

“ Time has robbed me of the pleasure of offering him a work which owes much to his research.
Finally, it should be stated that the book attempts to trace the general history of Cambridge printing and not to enter into the finer points of bibliographical technique. Similarly, only the briefest sketch is given of the growth of Cambridge publishing in the last 50 years; to do more would be to cross the border-line between history and advertisement. In Appendix II I have carried on the work begun by Mr Jenkinson for another 100 years. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Authors, for the most part being Gentlemen of the University engaged with Pupils during Term-time, furnish their Copy in detail—loosely written—and frequent suspensions of MS, which necessarily occasions great delay and inconvenience.... The Gentlemen of the Press Syndicate must be aware (tho' a London Printer cannot, unless he witnessed the operation) that the Examination-Papers which of late years have abundantly increased, must from their nature have retarded all regular work in the Composing Room. ”

“ He had always kept up his connection with the College, where he had numerous friends. He became auditor in 1852. Like his predecessor he stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a representative of the University: this was in 1856. Subsequently he was appointed counsel to the University. He entered parliament in 1859, and owing to press of work gave up his college office at the close of the audit of 1862. After a distinguished legal career he was raised in 1872 to the bench. He was a good scholar, had a fine presence, and to the end of his life was popular with all classes of Cambridge society. ”

“ My opinion of this Island hath always been, that it is the very face, and beauty of all Europe, in which both true Religion is faithfully professed without superstition, and (if on earth) true Learning sweetly flourishes without ostentation: and what are the two eyes of this Land, but the two Universities ... and truly I should forget myself, if I should not call Cambridge the right eye.
In the same year there was printed for David Owen, Fellow of Clare Hall, a controversial work entitled Herod and Pilate reconciled. ”

“ Those who are familiar with the Catalogue of Cambridge Books and the Biographical Notes on Cambridge Printers will appreciate the measure of my debt to the work of the late Robert Bowes. When, in 1913, I sent him a copy of a magazine article on the University Press, he wrote:
I am by it carried back to my pleasant work of 25 to 30 years ago, and I am very glad in my 78th year to see younger men interesting themselves in the subject. ”

“ The large stock of these books printed at Cambridge was bought by the London syndicate, who guaranteed to leave sufficient copies in Cambridge to supply the needs of the university, whilst Buck and Daniel undertook not to print further copies of the books for the space of ten years without the consent of the Stationers. ”

“ But a trade dispute of long standing was not settled, even in the seventeenth century, by a royal injunction. The leading London booksellers combined to keep the Cambridge edition of Lily's Grammar ("though sold at the cheapest price") out of the market and by intimidation compelled other booksellers to follow their lead ”

“ 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." ”

“ But a document of much greater importance in the history of Cambridge printing was the charter granted to the university in 1628: the King, in an attempt to settle the controversy once and for all, ratified the grant made by Henry VIII and declared that the university stationers and printers might print and sell any books which he or his two predecessors had licensed any person or body of persons to sell ”

“ The next award of the Privy Council, made on 29 November, 1623, embodied a compromise: the Cambridge printers were authorised to comprint with the Stationers all books save bibles, books of common prayer, grammars, psalters, primers or books of common law; they were to have one press only and to print only those almanacks of which the first copy was brought to them. ”

“ In the meantime the university had taken steps to ensure the suppression of heretical books. In 1529 a petition was presented to Cardinal Wolsey, begging:
that for the suppression of error, there should be three booksellers allowed in Cambridge by the King, who should be sworn not to bring in or sell any book which had not first been approved of by the censor of books in the University, that such booksellers should be men of reputation and gravity, and foreigners, (so it should be best for the prizing of books,) and that they might have the privilege to buy books of foreign merchants [14] . ”

“ It was, no doubt, as a result of this petition that five years later Cambridge printing was formally established by royal charter on 20 July, 1534, when Henry VIII by letters patent gave licence to the Chancellor, masters, and scholars
to assign and elect from time to time, by writing under the seal of the Chancellor of the University, three stationers and printers, or sellers of books, residing within the [20] University, who might be either aliens or natives, and hold either their own or hired houses. ”

“ The supposition contained in the last cryptic note was well justified, as Wilson had in March, 1805, proposed to the Clarendon Press "to put the University in possession of the Art of Stereotype Printing"; later in the same year the Delegates, having resolved that "the University of Cambridge being in possession of the Art, it seems not only expedient, but necessary, that Oxford should be possess'd of the [124] same advantages," entered into an agreement by which Wilson was to instruct their representatives in the stereotype processes for the sum of £4000 [128] . ”

“ Thomas Thomas's greatest achievement, perhaps, was the compilation and printing of his Latin Dictionary and when the London stationers began to publish editions of this and other Cambridge books, the university made another long protest to the Chancellor, pointing out that it was a "verie hard matter" either for the university to maintain its privilege or for the printer to do any good by his trade and begging of him "to become a meanes to her highnes in this behalf ... to graunt a speciall lycence to this our Universitie." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By 1890 the catalogue of the Syndics' publications had grown considerably, not only by additions to the Pitt Press and other Series, but by the publication of larger works on literary and scientific subjects, such as Robertson Smith's Kinship and Marriage in early Arabia, Willis and Clark's Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, Maitland's edition of Bracton's Note Book, and Jebb's Sophocles. ”

“ They durst not venture on the whole: but advise to advertize them at 30s a Book, and let ye Booksellers have them at 25s....
[92]
I have hopes yt Vailliant may take them all at 25s a book, especially if he be allowed time for payment of the money, & ye University would take some of it in books, which we really want for ye 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. ”

“ The coat of arms to which Cole refers now hangs in the University Press.
[111] Cambridge is depicted in rosy colours:
The Air is very healthful, and the Town plentifully supplied with excellent Water.... Nor is it better supplied with Water, than it is with other Necessaries of life. The purest Wine they receive by the Way of Lynn.... Firing is cheap; Coals from Seven-pence to Nine-pence a Bushel. ”

“ For so the books printed in the University shall not be monopolised but freely vented.
The parting of the Printers will beget in them a laudable emulation which of them shall deserve best....
Whereas it is a common complaint that when schollars [53] have taken great paines in writing usefull bookes, they cannot get them printed but at their own great charges. It is probable that there will be cause of the like complaint here in Cambridge, if there be but one printing house, which likewise will be taken away, for it is likely if one Printer will not, another will [48] . ”

“ So he retires to his garret in Queens' and applies himself to his work on the New Testament (Novum Instrumentum) and his edition of St Jerome, both of which were to play an important part in preparing the way for the Reformation in England.
When weary of study, "for lacke of better exercise he would take his horse and ryde about the [6] Market Hill." But he has words of praise for the Cambridge school of theology:
In the University of Cambridge instead of sophistical arguments, their theologians debate in a sober, sensible manner and depart wiser and better men. ”

“ Now that the outworks of the hoary citadel of Classicism have been stormed, and the undermining of the great walls has already begun, the development of modern science at Cambridge will be accelerated, and in the face of the urgency of the demands of worldwide competition it would appear that the University on the Cam is more fitted to survive than her sister on the Isis. ”

“ She has nurtured all the great scientists, and all the great poets. The discoveries of world-wide importance have been the work of Cambridge men—such were the three which revolutionised the science of the world, the laws of the circulation of the blood, of gravitation, of evolution. From Bacon the founder of experimental philosophy to Darwin and Kelvin, every great name is a Cambridge name, if we except indeed the few who like Wallace, Humphry Davy, Faraday, and the elder Herschell owe nothing to a university. ”

“ We trust that the scientific workers at Cambridge will take heart at this happy issue of the struggle, and gird up their loins for the heavy task of introducing order and system into the chaos in which the natural-science studies at Cambridge are now lost. It is not a little to the credit of this university that she should have been actually the first to remove one more of the old-fashioned swaddling-clothes which have been checking the development of youthful science, and we trust it is an earnest of still greater changes which she means to take in hand. ”

“ Not only in these material ways are scientific studies in no sense neglected, but the position of the sciences is recognised and even envied by those who follow other kinds of learning. The scientific schools of Cambridge form perhaps the dominant force among the resident body of the university, and except by virtue of some great increase in the endowments, it would be impossible to extend further the scientific side of Cambridge and still maintain other forms of intellectual activity in such proportion as to preserve that healthy co-ordination which is the life of a great university. ”

“ Mr Baker being turned out of his fellowship for his honesty and integrity (as I have also lost my places for the same reason, in not taking the wicked oaths) , writes himself in all his books socius ejectus. His goodness and humanity are as charming, to those who have the happiness of his conversation, as his learning is profitable to his correspondents. The university library is not yet put into any order.”
25th June 1728.—“The Cambridge men are much wanting to themselves, in not retrieving the remains of their worthies. ”

“ Not one of those who were his greatest admirers at Cambridge, when I was an undergraduate, ever saw him till many years after they had left the university. Nothing, perhaps, was so remarkable in his character as his tenderness to the feelings of others, and the deference with which he listened to those in every respect inferior to himself. ”