Letter -prefs -plate or Stereotype Printing. 2J$ 



inform? us, was printed from a MS.' dictated by Ged fome 

 time before hU death : the fecond pirt was written by his 

 daughter, for whofe benefit the profits of the publication were 

 intended : the third was a copy of proposals that had been 

 pubhfhed bvMr Ged's fon in 1751, for reviving his father's 

 art; and to the whole was added Mr. Mores's narrative 6f 

 block printing. 



From this "publication it appears, that ft) far back as the 

 year 1725 Mr. Ged had begun to profecute plate-making. 

 In 1727 he entered into a contract with a perlon who had a 

 little capital but who on converting witli feme printer got 

 fo intimidated that at the end of two years he had laid out 

 only 22I. In 1729 he entered into a new contract with a 

 Mr. Kenner, Thomas James a type-founder, and John 

 James the architect ; and fome time after a privilege was ob- 

 tained iron the univerfity of Cambridge to print bibles and 

 prayer-books. But it appears that one of his partners was 

 actually averfe to the fuccefs of the plan, and engaged fuch 

 people for the work as he thought moft likely to fpoil it. A 

 flraggling workman who had wrought there informed Mr. 

 Mores " that both bibles and common prayer-books had been 

 printed, but that the compofitors when they corrected one 

 fault made purpofely half a dozen more, and the preilmen 

 when the matters were abfent battered the letter in aid of the 

 compofitors. In confequence of thefe bafe proceedings, the 

 books were fupprefled by authority, and the plates lent to the 

 King's printing-houfe, and from thence to Mr. Caflon's 

 foundery." 



After much ill ufage^ Ged, who appears to have been a 

 perfon of great honeity and Simplicity, returned to Edin- 

 burgh. His friends were anxious that a fpecimen of his art 

 fhould be publifhed, which was at lail done by fubfeription. 

 His fon, James Ged, who had been apprenticed to a printer, 

 with the confent of his matter fet up the forms in the night- 

 time, when the other compofitors were gone, for his father to 

 caft the plates from ; by which means Saluft was finifhed iii 

 1736. Of this work I have a copy, and, which is more lin- 

 gular, the plate of one of the pages; and from it the fpeci- 

 men of Ged's work given with the prefent article was printed.' 

 This plate I firft faw in the hands of the deceafed Mr. John 

 Murray, bookfeller, in the year 1782, but do not now recol- 

 lect the way in which he faid it came into his poffeflion. 

 Having about a year ago applied to his fuccerfors in bufinefs, 

 Metfrs. Murray and Righley, to requeft, if the plate could be 

 f found, that I might be allowed to take fome impretTionr 

 from it ', they" verv politely infilled on my acceptance of what 



Vol, X. S they 



