Figure 288
Page of English-Saxon Homily: Bowyer, London
From Internet Archive (scan)
1709
This particular lady had a good deal to do with it, and she is interesting typographically because her book, printed by the elder William Bowyer in 1709, employed some Anglo-Saxon types—in their day remarkable. The Homily is a good example of a well-made edition, issued by a careful publisher for a distinguished company of subscribers. A crowded and rather seventeenth century title-page is followed by an Address to the Queen composed in a large old style roman letter.…A Latin version, an appendix, notes, etc., close a good-looking volume. Its feature—from a printer’s standpoint—is that the columns of Saxon and roman vary in width, so that each version ends a page approximately at the same word. This required, for every page, exact calculation in order to know what measure for each version would accomplish it. It is done so well, that it often appears not to have been done at all!