OLD NEW YORK. SEPTEMBER, 1889. NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF PRINTING IN II. Bradford remained in Philadelphia for seven years. Each year he issued an almanac, several pamphlets and a few handbills, and several times he brought forth a book. The copy for the almanac was largely taken from British sources, and in many respects conformed more closely to the originals than could have been pleasing to the Quakers around him, for in some of them, if not all, the feasts and fasts of the Church are set down as "Remarkable Days." "All these," as Mr. Wallace observes, "beginning with the Circumcision, and ending with the Slaughter of the Innocents, and including the Conversion of St. Paul; the Annunciation and Purification of the Virgin; the Ascension and Pentecost; the Decollation of the Baptist; the Feast of Michael the Archangel, and of every apostle in his turn, are set forth with prominence; and except a mention of the vernal equinox, and of certain days which mark the progress of the seasons, no other day in the annual round is noted in this almanac as remarkable at all." Many moral observations are scattered through these pages, and there are besides announcements of the times of the fairs and the courts at Philadelphia and Burlington. The first year the press was in operation he issued the "Epistle from John Burnyeat," of which I have previously spoken. It was a quarto, of four pages, giving good advice and counsel to the Friends scattered throughout HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and was partly paid for by the local Society of Friends in Philadelphia, who gave him fifteen shillings for one hundred copies. Another work brought out by him which reached to the dignity of a bound volume was the "Temple of Wisdom," chiefly a collection of the aphorisms and wise sayings of Lord Bacon. In 1688, having much leisure on his hands, he conceived the idea of reprinting the Scriptures, and sent forth a circular giving his ideas of the way it should be done. It was to be a large family Bible, with the Apocrypha and useful marginal notes, to be sold either with or without the Book of Common Prayer. It will be seen later that a portion of this design was accomplished, but in New York, not in Pennsylvania. Twenty-two years afterwards he issued the Common Prayer Book, partly at the expense of Trinity Church; but in 1688 there was no ecclesiastical organization to stand behind him and furnish him with means, and it was well, perhaps, that he did not attempt his proposed publication, as it probably never would have been completed. But the prospectus shows the large views he took of his calling. He was unwilling that there should be a scarcity of Bibles here, and he was anxious to be the means of affording a supply. The proposals were as follows: PROPOSALS FOR THE PRINTING OF A LARGE BIBLE, BY WILLIAM BRADFORD. These are to give Notice, that it is proposed for a large houseBible to be Printed by way of Subscriptions [a method usual in England for the Printing of large Volumns, because Printing is very chargeable] therefore to all that are willing to forward so good (and great) a Work, as the Printing of the holy Bible, are offered these Proposals, viz. 1. That it shall be printed in a fair Character, on good Paper, and well bound. 2. That it shall contain the Old and New Testament, with the Apocraphy, and all to have useful Marginal Notes. 3. That it shall be allowed (to them that subscribe) for Twenty Shillings per Bible: [A Price which one of the same volumn in England would cost.] 4. That the pay shall be half Silver Money, and half Country Produce at Money price. One half down now, and the other half on the delivery of the Bibles. 5. That those who do subscribe for six, shall have the Seventh gratis, and have them delivered one month before any above that number shall be sold to others. 6. To those which do not subscribe, the said Bibles will not be allowed under 26 s. a piece. 7. Those who are minded to have the Common-Prayer, shall have the whole bound up for 22 s. and those that do not subscribe 28 s. and 6 d. per Book. 8. That as encouragement is given by Peoples subscribing and paying down one half, the said Work will be put forward with what Expedition may be. 9. That the Subscribers may enter their Subscriptions and time of Payment, at Pheneas Pemberton's and Robert Halls in the County of Bucks. At Malen Stacy's Mill at the Falls. At Thomas Budds House in Burlington. At John Hasting's in the County of Chester. At Edward Blake's in New-Castle. At Thomas V Voodroofs in Salem. And at William Bradford's in Philadelphia, Printer & Undertaker of the said Work. At which places the Subscribers shall have a Receipt for so much of their Subscriptions paid, and an obligation for the delivery of the number of Bibles (so Printed and Bound as aforesaid) as the respective Subscribers shall deposit one half for. Also this may further give notice, that Samuell Richardson and Samuell Carpenter of Philadelphia, are appointed to take care and be assistant in the laying out of the Subscription Money, and to see that it be imploy'd to the use intended, and consequently that the whole Work be expedited. Which is promised by Philadelphia, the 14th of William Br. the 1st Month, 1688. The knowledge of these proposals was entirely lost, from a period shortly after they were issued, down to the late civil war. At that time they were brought to light by Nathan Kite, a respected member of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia. He was himself a bookseller, and had been accustomed to consider the method of manufacture of a book, as well as the matter. Looking at an old work in the Friends' Library in Philadelphia, he saw that the inner lining paper was white only on one side. He took out this lining, and found that it contained these proposals, so interesting to the antiquary and the printer. It is one of the glories of Bradford that he thus early attempted to publish the Scriptures in the common tongue. This was fifty-six years before Christopher Sauer issued the Bible in Germantown; it was about sixty years before Kneeland and Green privately printed an edition in Boston, to which they affixed the name of Mark Baskett, the King's printer; and it was nearly a century before Robert Aitken issued his edition, under the patronage of Congress. The Monthly Meeting of Friends approved his plan, and ordered that it should be recommended to the Quarterly Meeting, but nothing ever came of the design. There was not enough wealth in the country at that time. Those who had Bibles brought them from the Old World, and those who were unprovided either were compelled to do without them, or depend upon some lucky chance for one to fall into their hands. Other books were essayed by Bradford† in his eight years' so * There exists no reason for doubting the plain statements of Isaiah Thomas, in his History of Printing, i, pp. 107, 108, 123, that Kneeland and Green of Boston printed an edition of the Bible in small quarto about 1750. He received the statements at first hand, and there were excellent reasons for concealing the fact that a counterfeit edition was thus brought out. Whoever is familiar with the methods by which a printing office is carried on cannot help but believe Thomas. + I have been able in these notes upon Bradford to add nothing to the stock of common knowledge, so many have been the gleaners before me. The contemporary account of his trial by himself of course furnishes a large portion of what we know, and there are some other pamphlets of the day which give some few particulars. Thomas in his History of Printing adds a great deal; the Discourse by Wallace on Bradford's Bi-Centennary has many little facts, otherwise unknown; George Henry Moore of New York has written Historical Notes on the Introduction of Printing into New York, which evince the care and pains this author always takes in the examination of a historical question, and Hildeburn, in his Issues of the Press in Pennsylvania, has enumerated all the books known to have been printed in Pennsylvania before the close of the Revolution. |