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HISTORY OF PRINTING.
copy of tbis splendid work, printed upon vellum, in two volumes, to the emperor, in the ^llery at St. Cloud, and in return, received a pension of 3,000 francs. While Italy was under the JPrench rule, Bodoni received the most tempting offers to quit Parma. Prince Eugene Beauhar- nois offered him the superintendence of the press at Milan, and Murat that of Naples; but he pleaded age and infirmities, and his wish to remain at Parmi. In 181 1, having received the Cross of the Two Sicilies from Muiat, he pro- posed to publish for the education of the young prince, the son of Murat, a series of French classics, and commenced the execution of his project by a folio Telemachus in 1812. Racine was not published till 1814,after Bodoni'sdeath.
Bodoni had long suffered from the gout, to which a fever was at last superadded, which terminated the life of this eminent typographer. Within a few months of his death Napoleon no- minated him a chevalier de la Reunion, and sent him a present of 18,000 francs to aid him in the publication of the French classics.
In 1810 Bodoni's widow sent forth a work which Bodoni had prepared so long as 1809, the date of which year appears on the title-page, entitled Le piu insigni Pitture Parmerui indicati agli Amatori delle Belle Arti, accompanied by engravings of the different pictures.
In 1818 the Manuale Tipographico del Cava- tiere Giambattista Bodoni, containing specimens of his various types, appeared from the Bodonian iress, the business of which was still carried on y his widow. It forms two splendid volumes in 4to. with his portrait prefixed.
Two works were printed by Bodoni in English; an edition of lord Orford's Castle of Otranto, printed for Edwards of Pall Mall, in 1791, 8vo; and an edition of Thomson's Seatont, in two sizes, folio and quarto, 1794.
Bodoni's classics were not all as correct as they were beautiful. Didot discovered about thirty errors in the Virgil, which were noticed in the preface to his own edition. Among the books belonging to George III. in the British museum, is one of twenty-five copies of the Homer on the largest paper, a most splendid specimen of typography. For more minute details of Bodoni's life, the reader may refer to Joseph de Lama's Vita del Cavaliere Giambattista Bo- doni, 3 tom. Parma, 1816, the second volume of which is filled with an analytical catalogue of the productions of his press. " A medallioi) with a portrait of Bodoni appears in the frontispiece to the first volume. See also the works of M. de Gregory Verceil, 8vo. and P. Passeroni, 8vo.
1613, Nov. 23. Richard Makemzie Bacon, of the city of Norwich, printer; and Brvan DoNKiN, of Foot-place, Bermondscy, in the county of Surrey, engineer, obtained a patent for certain improvements in the implements or apparatus employed in printing, whether from types, from blocks, or from plates.
1813. William Caslon, type-founder, Dorset- street, London, obtained a patent for improving printing types.
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1813, Dee. John Maobk editor and pro- prietor of the Dublin Evening Post, found guilty of publishing a libel against the duke of Rich- mond, then lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and sentenced to pay a fine to the king of £600, to be imprisoned two years in Newgate, and to lind sureties for bis conduct for seven years, himself in £1000, and two others in £600 each. By a novel application of a temporary law, Mr. Magee's paper was suppressed by the disallow- ance of furtner stamps.
Mr. Ponsonby, a distinguished member of the Irish parliament, made a motion, impeaching the earl of Clonmell, chief justice of Uie court of king's bench, for an oppressive exercise of his power in the case of Mr. Magee. Tbe charge was so clearly made out, that the crown lawyers in the house did not attempt to refute it, but contented themselves with shielding the chief justice from the consequences, by that majority of votes which it was in their power to interpose. Mr. Ponsonby, seeing how the mat- ter was to go, warmly observed, that " he bad done his duty in bringing the subject before the bouse; and he sboiud leave it to them to do theiis. If the attorney-general was content to abandon the defence of his noble friend, the learned judge, by declining all argument, and trusting to the decision of the Book of Numbers, be it so; be was quite aware what would be the issue: — he might, it is true, lose his motion, but lord Clonmell was d — forever." Mr. Ponsonby spoke prophetically. The question was indeed put, and negatived without a division; but the judicial character and mental feelings of lord Clonmell never recovered the blow. He sur- vived but a few years.
1813, Dec. 2. Died,JoHii Robinson, the last surviving member of the bookselling firm of G.J. and J. Robinson,of Paternoster-row, many years the greatest trading booksellers and pub- lishers known in this country. After the death of the elder George, and the failure of the house, he went into partnership with Mr. George Wilkie, with whom be carried on a respectable country trade, and held shares in many estab- lished books. He was a man of considerable ability, a lover of literature for its own sake, and of indefatigable and laborious attention to business. The family name is sustained in the trade, by the grandsons of the elder George, who reside in the house of the original firm; and it is but justice to state, that literature was scarcely under greater obligation to the name of Tonson, than it has been to the energetic and enterprising spirit of the family of the Robin- sons. He died at Putney, in his sixty-first year, leaving a widow, and two sons, John, and Rich- ard, the former a bookseller in Paternoster-row, who was assisted by bis brother.
1813. The Intellectual Repository of the New CAurcA, published quarterly, by Edward Parsons, a preacher of the calvinistical metbodists, at Leeds, and one of the conductors of the Evan- gelical Magazine.
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