Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/78

 he had two sons and one daughter. He married, secondly, the eldest daughter of Robert Cadell. The eighth baronet died in 1858, and was succeeded by his elder son, Sir James, born in 1847.

[Anderson's Scottish Nation; Gent. Mag. 1842.] 

FOULIS, ROBERT (1707–1776), printer, the eldest son of Andrew Faulls, maltman, of Glasgow, and of Marion Patterson, was born in Glasgow, 20 April 1707. Besides Andrew [q. v.] the elder [see end of this article], there were two younger sons, James, a clergyman, and John, a barber, who all owed their early education to their mother. Robert changed his name from Faulls to Foulis (pronounced Fowls), the surname of an old and distinguished county family. Robert was first apprenticed to a barber, and while practising on his own account attended the lectures of Francis Hutcheson [q. v.], who urged him to become a printer and bookseller. In 1738 he and his brother Andrew visited Oxford, and returned to Glasgow after a few months' absence in England and on the continent. They went to France in 1739, and were introduced through the Chevalier Ramsay into the public libraries. They collected specimens of the best editions of the classics and rare books, for which they found a ready sale in London. In 1741 Robert began bookselling in Glasgow. For a short time Robert Urie printed books for him. He then set up a press, and in the same year produced two editions of ‘The Temper, Character, and Duty of a Minister of the Gospel,’ of Dr. William Leechman, a Cicero, a Phædrus, and a couple of other works.

Foulis was appointed printer to the university of Glasgow 31 March 1743, and in that year produced the first Greek book printed in the city, ‘Demetrius Phalereus de Elocutione, Gr. et Lat.,’ sm. 8vo. Special type after a Stephens model was cast for him. His press-correctors were George Ross, professor of humanity in the university, and James Moor, whose sister he married, professor of Greek. Dr. Alexander Wilson, who had established a typefoundry at Camlachie, near Glasgow, was of great help to him. He made another journey to France in order to show his examples of typography, and to collect manuscripts and good editions of the classics. In 1744 the well-known ‘immaculate’ Horace, sm. 8vo (with six errors), appeared. The proof-sheets of this book were hung up in college and a reward offered for each inaccuracy discovered. Three editions of Horace of no value subsequently came from the Foulis press. About this time was issued ‘A Catalogue of Books, lately imported from France, containing the scarcest and most elegant editions of the Greek and Roman Classics.’ By 1746 there had been produced twenty-three classical editions, and in 1747 the fine Greek ‘Iliad,’ 2 vols. 4to, ‘very beautiful … and more correct than the small one in 12mo printed at the same place after Dr. Clarke's edition’ (, View of the Editions of the Classics, 1782, p. 4). Among the publications of 1748 were ‘The Philosophical Principles,’ 2 vols. 4to, of the Chevalier Ramsay, an edition of ‘Hardyknute,’ and specimens of Scottish verse, many of which subsequently came from the Foulis press. The following year was marked by the Cicero, 20 vols. sm. 8vo, after Olivet's text, in a type preferred by Renouard to that of the Elzevir edition (Catalogue de la Bibliothèque d'un Amateur, 1819, ii. 75), and a Lucretius in sm. 8vo, which is still sought after. Foulis also circulated proposals for printing by subscription the works of Plato in Greek, which produced a promise from John Wilkes to obtain a hundred subscribers to the undertaking (see an interesting letter, ap., Notices and Documents, pp. 54–5). In 1750 upwards of thirty works, many in polite literature, were printed, the largest number the Glasgow press had yet given forth in a single year. In an undated letter (ib. p. 18) Foulis states that in 1751 he made a fourth journey, lasting near two years, abroad with a brother. During his absence the printing office under the direction of his partner Andrew issued twenty-nine works in 1752 and eighteen in 1753. In 1752 was commenced the publication of the series of single plays of Shakespeare.

Having sent home his brother (not Andrew) with a painter, an engraver, and a copperplate printer, Foulis returned to Scotland in 1753, and soon afterwards instituted his academy for painting, engraving, moulding, modelling, and drawing. The idea had been suggested on the first visit to Paris (1738) by observations of the ‘influence of invention in drawing and modelling on many manufactures.’ The use of several rooms for the students and of a large apartment (afterwards the Faculty Hall) for an exhibition was granted by the university. He received practical help from three Glasgow merchants, Mr. Campbell of Clathic, Mr. Glasford of Dougalston, and Mr. Archibald Ingram, who afterwards became partners in the undertaking; while Charles Townshend, the Earl of Northumberland, and others threw cold water upon it.

A literary society, to which Adam Smith, Dr. Robert Simson, Dr. Reid, Dr. Black, and