History of Early Printing in Ireland 15 



They also printed more than one impression of Spenser's View of 

 the State of Ireland, Campion's History of Ireland, Hanmer's 

 Chronicle of Ireland, and a similar one by Henry Marlborough. 

 They also printed the Statutes of Ireland and numerous Procla- 

 mations, and another edition of the Book of Common Prayer in 

 1637. One instance will suffice to show the size of the volumes 

 they printed. They printed Usher's Ecclesiastical Antiquities of 

 Britain, which is a very thick quarto running into nearly 1,200 

 pages. To resume — 



The time, 1640-49, was an anxious one, politically. The 

 English Parliamentarian Party was rising into power, and Bladen 

 appears to have been in sympathy with that side, although 

 officially he was the King's Printer for five years. Mr. Elrington 

 Ball sent me an interesting note culled by him from State docu- 

 ments, showing that doubts had arisen in the minds of the 

 Koyalist Party, that Bladen was hostile to them and a suspicious 

 character. However, Bladen managed to hold his position until, 

 when the Royalist Party were overthrown and the Cromwel- 

 lian Party came into power, he was continued as State Printer 

 for the Cromwellian Government in Ireland, and did a consider- 

 able amount of their work, besides printing various books, 

 including one or two medical works. At the Restoration Bladen 

 was not re-appointed State Printer by the Royalists, but the post 

 M^as given to John Crook, a London printer, who came over, or 

 was brought over, to Dublin, and whom we find calling himself 

 King's Printer in 1661. Bladen, however, continued printing for 

 two or three years, and died about the year 1663, and his Will 

 was proved in Dublin, as already alluded to. John Crook con- 

 tinued to do all the State printing until his death, when he was 

 succeeded as King's Printer by another London printer named 

 Benjamin Took ; but John Crook was survived by his wife Mary 

 and two sons, John and Andrew, and we find Mary Crook, the 

 widow, acting as bookseller in Dublin, and her son John joined 

 with Benjamin Took, their names appearing together in 1679 in 

 partnership, and they were described as " King's Printers." 



