Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/95

 EEVIVAL OF OLD STYLE. 91 THE proprietors of the paper, entituled The Idler, having found that those essays are inserted in the newspapers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that the Universal Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred with the most shameless rapacity into the weekly or monthly com- pilations, and their right, at least for the present, alien- ated from them before they could themselves be said to enjoy it But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbors, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide mar- gin, and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow r space and sell them at an humble price ; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by punishment, than by crimes : we shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the magdalens : for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of peni- tent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet ap- pears neither penitence nor shame. LONDON, Jan. 5th, 1759. SAMUEL JOHNSON. Pica No. 20, from the foundry of George Bruce's Son & Co.