[15] Since this paper was in type I have been shown an earlier example of this letter in a book printed by R. Wolfe in 1563.
Some very fine heraldic initials still remain to be noticed. The initials in the early editions of the English Bible are disappointing, but in the first and second editions of the so-called 'Bishops' Bible,' printed by Jugge in 1568 and 1572, special attention seems to have been paid to them, and besides many small pictorial and decorative letters of interest, there are some really fine examples of heraldic designs. The owners of the arms which I have identified are Archbishop Cranmer, Archbishop Parker, Cecil, Dudley, and Francis Russell, second Earl of Bedford. Parker's arms are exhibited in several different letters, generally with his initials M. C. (Matthew of Canterbury) and the date. The form of these heraldic letters is usually graceful, and they are much more easily justifiable on artistic grounds than the pictorial initials at which we have been looking.
The title-pages of the 'Bishops' Bible' are adorned with copper-engravings of some merit of Elizabeth herself, Cecil, and Dudley. One of these, I regret to say, has been turned into an initial at the beginning of the Psalms by the simple device of giving Lord Burleigh a large Roman B to hold in his hand. A less violent and more successful effort after a portrait-initial is here shown from the edition of Foxe's 'Actes and Monumentes,' printed by Day in 1576. Another portrait-initial of the Queen is found in an E, which heads one of her Proclamations printed by Purfoot, and an inferior one in an F in another Proclamation printed by Barker.
[Illustration: 15. FROM FOXE'S 'ACTES AND MONUMENTES,' PRINTED BY JOHN DAY, 1576]
Some of the heraldic initials of the first and second editions of the 'Bishops' Bible' are repeated, with some additional ones of smaller size, in the 1573 edition. Parker's arms are also to be found in the edition of 'Matthew Paris' issued under his patronage in 1571, Cecil's in the 1577 'Holinshed' already mentioned, and it is probable that a good many others may be discovered. It seems to me, indeed, that students of the history of English printing have hardly paid the attention it deserves to the work of the forty years from 1540 to 1580. The printers and bookmen of this period were not distinguished by much originality, or by delicate artistic taste, but they were men of considerable enterprise, and their interest in their books was great and genuine. This interest and enterprise left a very distinctive mark on the types, the illustrations and the bindings of the books of the period, and though the ideas which underlie them were mostly borrowed from abroad, they were developed with a certain freedom and largeness which are not without their effect.