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XVII. 



AN" EAELY EIGHTEENTH-CENTUEY BEOADSIDE ON PRINTING. 



By E. E. M'CLINTOCK DIX. 



Plate XVIII. 



Read January 11. Ordered for Publication January 13. Published August 19, 1909. 



Some months ago, in the earlier part of the year, in the course of an 

 address which I delivered to An Ctitn/Min mis \.eishi>.'\\lisr\Y\, dealing with 

 Dublin printing of the eighteenth century, I referred to the fact that, on 

 the occasion of the Eiding of the Franchises for Dublin in that century, 

 at which the various guilds were represented, it was the custom of the 

 printers or stationers, who belonged to the Guild of St. Luke, to have a 

 hand-press on a cart in the procession, and, while the procession was 

 proceeding, to print some handbill, broadside, or ballad in praise of printing, 

 and to scatter it amongst the spectators as they passed along. I further 

 stated that I had come across, in the British Museum, two or three specimens 

 of such broadsides or handbills, and that I had also met with an Ode 

 upon the subject of Printing by Mrs. Constantine Grierson, the wife of 

 Mr. George Grierson, the famous printer in Dublin, in the earlier part of the 

 eighteenth century. I stated at the time, in addition, that I was not aware 

 of any copy of such handbill or broadside existing anywhere in Ireland. 

 It was therefore with great pleasure to myself that my attention was drawn 

 by a friend, who had been searching in one of the MS. volumes in the 

 Academy (12 F. 44), to a copy of such a broadside poem, printed upon the 

 occasion of the Eiding of the Franchises in Dublin, in the year 1728. 

 Why this broadside was inserted in the manuscript volume, which chiefly 

 contains letters, I do not know ; but I think the finding of it is sufficiently 

 a matter of interest to submit to the Academy to-day, and to place on 

 record some particulars of it. 



It is headed : " The Art of Printing," and the words are in red ink at 

 the top of the broadside. It is plain that the broadside has been cut down ; 

 but the measurements, as it now exists, are roughly as follows : 12f inches 

 in length by 7| inches in width. 



R.I. A. PROC, VOL. XXVII., SECT. C. L^^] 



