214 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



are extant;^ one of which is in Trinity College, Dublin, and the other in 

 Emmanuel College, Cambridge ; (2) two Proclamations, by the Lord Lieutenant 

 and Council in the one case, and by the Lords Justices and Council in the 

 other, and dated 1561 and 1564 respectively; and, lastly, (3) the " Brefe 

 Declaration of Certein Principall Articles of Eeligion," of which the unique 

 copy is in Trinity College, Dublin, and is dated 1566. 



Both from the date of the Eoyal Warrant and the size and necessary 

 time and labour required for printing the Book of Common Prayer, it is 

 pretty certain that Powell's printing press was set up here in 1550. 



Powell was an original member of the London Company of Stationers, 

 and Mr. Gordon Duff thinks he was most probably a near relation of 

 Thomas Powell, the printer, and a nephew of Berthelet, a leading London 

 printer of the reign of Henry VIII, inasmuch as he came into possession of 

 and used some founts of type which had belonged to Berthelet. 



I propose to show you on the screen to-day one or two pages of the 

 Prayer Book, and also of the " Brefe Declaration," as well as copies of the two 

 Proclamations. You will thus be enabled to judge of the character of the 

 types, and to note the initial letters used by Powell in his press-work. 



Powell's type seems to have consisted almost entirely of black-letter, of 

 which he had more than one fount; any other type appearing in his extant work 

 seems to have been italic. His initial letters seem to have been of Dutch or 

 German origin, rather Flemish perhaps, and occur again and again in his 

 work, and came into the hands of his immediate successors, for they appear 

 in their work. 



It is not unlikely that Powell went backwards and forwards between 

 London and Dublin. His patron. King Edward, died on 6th July, 

 1553, and was succeeded by Queen Mary, with whom he must also have been 

 in favour, for in the first Charter to the Company of Stationers granted by 

 Queen Mary and King Philip, about the year 1556, Powell's name appears, 

 and it may be that he was back in London at the time. Though thus 

 belonging to the Stationers' Company, no work of his at this period 

 appears in their Eegister, so ably edited by Mr. Arber ; nor is there any 

 extant specimen of his press in Dublin for about ten years (1552-1560, 

 inclusive). 



We will now take the first work of his press, the Book of Common 

 Prayer. It is a folio and contains 10 unnumbered leaves with separate 

 signatures, and 140 leaves numbered as folios only, that is, each leaf only is 

 numbered. There are, therefore, in fact 150 leaves in all. It is in black- 



' See Note at end. 



