Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/794

 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

786

'ery useful assistant in the establishment of leveial provincial newspapers — at Canterbury, Chester, Hereford — and at each of these places lis company was eagerly sought by those whose aaiae was fame — but, as has been well observed >y Dr. Johnson, the great are not always the >est rewarders of the companions of their plea- nires ! He left each of the situations unenrich- id, though with the satisfaction, in every sense >f the word, of bringing with him a good name ; )ut his principal occupation was the superin- «ndence of a newspaper, the General Evening Post. His conduct in that situation was stri&tly ^onsonant to the integrity of his principles, and lie soundness of his judgment ; and nu employ- nent could better have suited the inclination of 1 man who never wrote a licentious or an ill- latured line. His death was occasioned by a 'all during a severe frost, which, rendering the imputation of a leg unavoidable, terminated in I mortification.

1795, Jan. 31. Z>i«2, William Brown, book- «ller, at Ashboum, in Derbyshire, in the seventy- nghth year of his age.

1795, Jon. Died, William Allen, an emi- lent bookseller at Newark, in Nottinghamshire, iged sixty-two years.

1795, Peb. 7. Died, Edward Easton, many rears an eminent and respectable bookseller in he city of Salisbury, and an alderman of that .•orporation. In 1780, he was elected to the >ffice of chief magistrate of the city, which he illed with great credit, and presented a very oyal address to his majesty on the subject of the n'emorable riots of London in that year. Having ittained the age of seventy-five years, and re- tired only three months from the fatigues of }usiness to Bradford, Wilts, he died suddenly.*

1795, Jifarck 1. Died, Nathaniel Thomas, editor of the St. James's Chronicle from its in- stitution (1761) ; and, in a short time (by the pecuniary assistance of Henry Baldwin, the ori- pnal printer of the paper) became one of the oroprietors of it; and in that situation so con- lucted himself as to acquire a very general »teem. He was the son or Mr. Thomas, a g^n- Jeman of respectable family in Cardiff; and, n 1741 was entered of Jesus college, Oxford ; mt not choosing to subscribe to the articles, he etired, in 1752, and went to London in search if employment amongst the booksellers. He vas the first who translated Marmontel's Tales nto English, and also Condamine's Tour. He lied in Salisbury -square, in his sixty-fifth year.

1795, March 18. William Herbert, an tminent typographical antiquary, who published n 1786 the first volume of Ames's Typographical iniquities, 4to. The second volume appeared

in ■Iderman of that dty, died Dec. 91, 17M, aged 77, at Salisbary. He had attended a meeting of the magistrates Lt the conncil- chamber, and died on his return home. He ymd jnst before pnbllshed an essay on Hupum LoHgeeity, 'ecm ^b ag the wawg, age, mnd plate 0/ retidenee, and pear tfthe deeeau 0/ 1711 penofu, who attained a eenturg and tpwarda, from a. d. M to 1799, eomprieing a period of up- of 1733 ptar$,i^tkmntedote» of the most remarkaUe.
 * Hla brother Junes, in the commimionof the peace, and

in 1786 ; and the third and last in 1790. H« was born Nov. 29, 1718, and was educated at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire. His first career in life commenced in the service of the East India company, as purser's clerk to three of their ships ; and retired with £300, with which he set up as a printseller and engraver of charts on London bridge, and continued in it till the houses on the bridge were taken down. The first night be spent in his house on the bridge, be was witness to a dreadful fire in some part of London, on the banks of the Thames, which, with several other succeeding ones, suggested to him the thought of a floating fire-engine. He proposed it to captain Hill, of the royal exchange assur- ance, who told him, " there must be a fire every now and then for the benefit uf insurance." He published his proposal in the Gazetteer, and it was soon adopted. Mr. Herbert retired with an easy fortune, and died at Cheshunt He was three times married, but left no chUdren. After the death of Mr. Ames, and the dispersion of the materials which had been collected for the History of Printing in Great Britain and Ire- land, he stept forward to resume the subject. If there was not a limit assigned by a wise and kind providence to human life and human pro- ficiency, we should say that Mr. Herbert wore himself out by too close an application to his fa- vourite pursuit. But who can say this of a man who attained almost the verge of his seventy- seventh year? Who, that knew his integrity, simplicity, and modesty, and how punctually he fulfilled the relative, social, and public duties required at his hands, can presume to imagine he will lose the reward of a long and happy life.

1795. In London there were published four- teen daily newspapers, ten three times a-week, two twice a-week, and twelve weekly ; seventy- two in the country ; thirteen in Scotland ; and thirty-five in Ireluid — total, 158. The number of newspapers conveyed by post before the im- proved plan of Mr. Palmer, (which took place in 1794) was two million per annum ; and in this year they amounted to eight million.

1796, March. Died, John Junes, one of the proprietors of the Kentish Gazette, published at Canterbury, Mr. Jones was a young man of the fairest prospects and expectations.

1795, Aprils. Died, William Jackson, a printer of eminence at Oxford; and proprietor and publisher of the Oxford Journal born its establishment. He was also lessee of the Oxford Bible-press, and a principal in the banking-house there. In his public character he was much respected ; in private life, warm in his attach- ments, and -sincere in his friendship. He died at Oxford, aged upwards of seventy years. A friend, who knew him long and intimately, says that " that extraordinary phenomenon, Jackson, the printer of the Oxford Journal, was a man of no extraordinary abilities, but one who dared, and soon found the beneficial effects of printing, and had his own price, while it established his paper, the only sterling, political, electioneering controversy that ever existed ; where, not parties

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