596 ON THE PRICE OF PAPER, ETC. 



by New College. These are the latest examples of ruled 

 paper. But there is a kind called large, bought by Eton at i s. 

 a ream when ordinary purchases are not above 6d. ; and another 

 called royal, at 24*. the ream in London, under the year 1654 ; 

 at 4os. in 1666 at Cambridge, where it is said to be bought 

 for the bursar's book, that is the small folio used for engrossing 

 the annual account, and at 25$. and 30^. at London in 1674. 

 There is also a purchase of twelve reams of what is called 

 almanack paper in London in 1677, ^ e purchase being made 

 by the Oxford Press, which had a qualified or regulated 

 monopoly for the sale of these annual issues. 



As I have said, in the years 1670-1677, inclusive, the same 

 Press bought printing paper in London. In the first year the 

 kinds are not described ; in other years they are designated 

 as pot paper, Lombard, Genoa, crown and fine crown, demy 

 and Duran demy. The dealer from whom the Press generally 

 bought was one Carbonel. The paper was generally despatched 

 by barge up the course of the Thames, now made navigable 

 to Oxford. The books printed during this time by the Uni- 

 versity are of course on these different kinds of paper. 



There is a slight rise in the price of paper (if we assume 

 that the size and quality are the same in late years with what 

 they were in the earlier years,) towards the conclusion of the 

 period, though the rise is by no means so marked as it is in 

 other articles. In collecting the averages at which paper was 

 sold, I have omitted the higher-priced entries on which I 

 have commented above, and only taken those which are 

 obviously of ordinary use. It is however only in the last 

 decade, in which two entries by the quire and one by the ream 

 are found, that the advance is marked. I conclude that by 

 the middle of the seventeenth century, though there are entries 

 which seem to indicate foreign produce, paper-making had 

 become a settled industry in England, and though the price 

 was by no means low, some improvements in the manufacture 

 kept the price from rising to the rate at which other products 

 were raised. It is stated that much paper was imported from 



