Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/921

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HISTORY OF PRINTING.

a great deal must hare depended on, and been effected by, the two last-named requisites, is very apparent, from his being able to produce the same effect in ink of another colour, namely red." After continuing in business with the highest credit for about thirty years, Mr. Bul- mer retired in 1819, with a well-earned fortune, to a genteel residence at Clapham Rise, and was succeeded at theShakspeare press by his partner, Mr. William Nicol, the only son of his friend. Mr. Nicol, in his Octoglot folio edition of Virgil, edited by W. Sotheby, esq. has proved himself a most diligent and able successor. But whilst we have justly placed Mr. Bulmer in the first rank of his profession, let us not forget that he had equal claims to distinction among those whose memory is revered for their many private and domestic virtues. We may then truly say, that his art was deprived of its brightest ornament, and his friends had to lament the loss of one not easily surpassed in every moral excellence.

Mr. Bulmer was one of the oldest members of the honourable band of gentlemen pensioners, and of which William Gifford* was paymaster. It was the practice of Mr. Gifford, whenever an exchequer warrant was issued for the payment of the quarterly salaries of the gentlemen of the band, to inform its members, by a circular letter, that their salaries were in a course of payment; but on many of these occasions he was wont to depart from his usual routine, and indulge him- self in a poetical notice to Mr. Bulmer. From a variety of these momentary effusions of the satirist, we select the following rf-

An Admonitorp E/Hitte to the Bight Worthy Oenilevian, W* Bulmer, Qentleman Peruioner,

" O thou who safelr daim'st the right to stand Before thy king, mtb dreaded axe in hand, My trustiest Bulmer I know upon my board A mighty heap of aah (O golden word I) Now lies for service done, the bounteoas meed. Haste then, in Wisdom's name, and hither speed : For if the truth old poets sing or say, Riehee ttraight make them wings and Jig away P*

Journeymen printers of Manchester be it said, that during the greater portion of that period, he was almost sup- ported by their praiseworthy twncvDlencc. About eight years before his decease, his mental faculties became so mnch impaired that he was rendered wholly incapable of working. He died 17th March, 1838, at Warrington.

« William Oifltord, author of the Baviad and Mmiad, translator of Juvenal and Pereius, editor of the plays of Maminger, Jonion, and Shirley, also editor of the Jnti- JaeoNn and tiitarterly Review, was born at Ashbnrton, in Oevonahire, in 1797, (and from the low origin of acountry shoe mender, by perseverance in the pursmtof knowledge and fortunate circumstances, l>ecame the first writer and satirist of the age. To his translation ctjtivenal l» pre- fixed a truly interesting account of himself. But while all must applaud the extraordinary talents with which he was endowed, it is a lamentable fact, that William Gifford, with determined hostility and persevering dislike, opposed the interests and hopes of the portion of society to which he himself originally belonged. He seems to have felt the necessity of vindicating his new position by contempt for his former associates ) to have proved the sincerity of his apostacy firom plebeianism by tenfold hostility to all but the aiistocracy i and to have made use of his elevation only to trample upon those with whom he was formerly on a level. He died at fxuidon, Dec si, in his 71st year. — In 1 825, John Gibson Lockhait succeeded to the editorship otthe Quarterly Review, under whom the work has ad- vanced to a higur reputation than it ever before possessed, both as a political and literary Journal.

t See Nichols's Illuetratione, vol. vl. pages, 27-99.

IV1 William Bulmer, eiq. brother to Sir Fenwiek Bsfaicr knight.*

Sm. ini. Dread Sir, whose blood, to knighthood near, Is sixpence now an ounce more dear

Than when my smmnons issued last ; With cap in hand, I beg to say. That I have money to defray

The service of the quarter past."

Mr. Bulmer died at Clapham Rise, on the 9lb

of September, in his 74tn year, and his remaim were interred on the 16th, at St. Clement Danes, Strand, (in which parish his brother had long resided,) attended to the grave by a numeroas and respectable company of mourning friends. He left a widow; but had no children. The portrut which we present of Bulmer,is 60m one laithfuUyexecuted in lithography,in 1827,pai]lt«d and drawn on stone by James Ramsay.

1830, Nov. 1. A trial took place in the conrt of king's bench, at the suit of William Beny, compiler of the County Genealogiet, against the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, to recorei damages for a presumed libel inserted in the magazine for August, 1829. The editor of the Literary Gazette, alluding to this discreditable proceeding, obser>ed, that "the author had recouree to the wretched law of libel, in the hope of catching a farthing or a shilling damages, and thus punishing his critic with the ustul ruinous expense, by which justice is defeated, and the reverse done." The Gentleman'i Ma}t- zine had been in existence for the period of 1 centurj-, and this was the first time that it had been brought before the public under an imputa- tion of its having published any thing of b slanderous character.

1830. DtedfJoun Crowder, alderman of lie ward of Farringdon-within, and late lord mayor of London. Alderman Crowder was a natife of Buckinghamshire, and served his apprentice- ship to a printer, and at the expiration of his time went to London, and obtained a situa- tion in his majesty's printing office, then under the control of William Slrahan. About 1780, he obtained an engagement in the printing office of Francis Blyth, printer and part proprietor of the Public Ledger, a daily morning paper, and the London Packet, an evening paper, pnb- lished three times a week. Both these papers had been for some years supported by the pro- ductions of Goldsmith, Kelly, and other Uteraiy gentlemen. This engagement, in which Mr. Crowder took a very active part, continued until the year 1787, the time of Mr. Blyth's death, when Mr. Crowder, who the year before had married Mr. Blyth's niece, (Mary Ann James) succeeded to the management of the whole con- cern. This he carried on for upwards of thirty years, with the greatest impartiality, diligence, and integrity; and, during this period, was frequently employed in printing valuable worb for the booksellers, by whom he was equally

• Mr. Bidmei's elder brother, as the senior membs of the band of gentlemen pensioners, was knighted on occa- sion of the coronation of George IV. He resided in the Strand, and died May 7, ISM, ared seventy-nine years.