Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 13, January 26, 1850 - Various - Страница 8

[NASO has, in compliance with our request, furnished us with a facsimile of the heading of his early number of The Times, which is as follows:—"THE (here an engraving of the King's Arms) TIMES, OR DAILY UNIVERSAL REGISTER, PRINTED LOGOGRAPHICALLY, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12. 1788," and informs us that it was printed "By R. Nutkins, at the Logographic Press, Printing-House Square, near Apothecaries' Hall, Blackfriars," and the height to which the Mr. Walter of that day had brought his invention, by the same energy by which his successor has raised THE TIMES to its present position, is shown by the following note from a kind and most able correspondent.]

A much more remarkable specimen of Logographic Printing than the number of the Times newspaper mentioned by NASO, No. 9., p. 136., is an edition of Anderson's History of Commerce, with a continuation, in 4 vols. 4to., printed by that method in 1787-1789, "at the Logographic Press, by J. Walter, Printing-House Square, Blackfriars." The work, which makes in all not much short of 4000 pages, is very well printed in all respects; and the following interesting note on the subject of Logographic Printing is attached to the preface heading the Continuation, or fourth volume.

"Mr. Walter cannot here omit suggesting to the Public a few observations on his improved mode of printing LOGOGRAPHICALLY. In all projects for the general benefit, the individual who conceives that the trade in which he is engaged diminishes in its emoluments from any improvement which another may produce in it, is too much disposed to become its enemy; and, perhaps, the interest of individuals never exerted itself with more inveteracy than has been experienced by Mr. Walter from many concerned in the trade into which he had entered.

"The invention which he brought forward, promised to be of essential service to the public, by expediting the process and lessening the expense of printing. Dr. Franklin sanctioned it with his approbation, and Sir Joseph Banks encouraged him with the most decided and animated opinion of the great advantages which would arise to literature from the LOGOGRAPHIC PRESS. Nevertheless Mr. Walter was left to struggle with the interest of some, and the prejudice of others, and, though he was honoured by the protection of several persons of high rank, it happened in his predicament, as it generally happens in predicaments of a similar nature, that his foes were more active than his friends, and he still continued to struggle with every difficulty that could arise from a very determined opposition to, and the most illiberal misrepresentations of, the LOGOGRAPHIC IMPROVEMENT.