though, in the natural course of things, their personal relations were with publishers rather than with authors. Other arts than his own seem not to have allured the Uncle. The Nephew was a man of broader tastes, and I have heard that he performed most soulfully upon the flute. For sports the Uncle cared next to nothing. I do not find that in all the time he lived on the banks of Thames he ever pulled an oar. But the Nephew had a fondness for old Walton's lore and pastime, and could make a fly with the best of the anglers. Then, too, he took early morning plunges off the Eyot, after Edward Page, a bookseller, or stationer, at Hammersmith, had taught him how to swim. Neither the senior nor the junior Whittingham was ever known to mount a horse for any other purpose than to get to town and back again. Uncle did not seem to care much for animals; but it is related with gusto that Nephew once bought a dog, although I find that the object was to protect the Chiswick garden from marauders. Nephew, they say, was a sterner man than Uncle, and he set his countenance against the frivolities of this world. Yet he sometimes lapsed into fatherly indulgence, for I learn that he permitted his children to be taught music and dancing and drawing. And these children-two sons and three daughters — grew, under his guidance, to a shrewd and dainty taste in the gentle

craft of printing, and to the daughters must stand the credit for many embellishments which grace the Chiswick books.

The first Charles Whittingham of whom I have any account held Stoke Farm, a place of eightythree acres, in a hamlet called Caludon, in Warwickshire, three miles from Coventry. His good

wife Mary bore him four sons and a daughter, our printer, "the Uncle," being the youngest of the quintet. Humphrey, John, Samuel, and Rebecca were the other children. What became of Humphrey, John, and Rebecca I do not know; but Samuel followed his father's trade, and in the course of time married and begat a son-" the Nephew" of our chronicle.

The Caludon farmer was a man of fair prosperity, a devout Roman Catholic, and a hearty sympathizer with the American colonies in their disputes with his Most Gracious and troublesome Majesty George III. His youngest son, and namesake, was born on the 16th of June, in the year 1767. At this point the family legend lapses again to vagueness, and we jump twelve years for the next date, which is found in an indenture drawn and delivered on the 25th of March, 1779. By this document Charles Whittingham, son of Charles, is bound apprentice to one Richard Bird of Coventry, who in turn is bound to teach the lad, during the next seven years, "the

art and mysteries of printing, bookbinding, and stationery."

"The art and mysteries of printing" had in these islands fallen to decay. There was printing enough, but before John Baskerville no Englishman in the eighteenth century seemed to have the ambition, the skill, or the courage to make the business anything better than a plain trade. Even Baskerville, after six years of experiment and ten of production, had to abandon his heroic attempt to create an English taste for fine printing. He died four years before young Whittingham became an apprentice at Coventry. They make an odd contrast, the amiable and elegant Baskerville and the severe Whittingham. Baskerville in his youth had not prepared for a trade or a profession. A modest patrimony promised him a quiet life without labor. But at the But at the age of twentyone he was forced to begin earning. He became a writing-master at Birmingham. At the thirty-one he was teaching school in the same At forty-four he had acquired a fortune in the japanning business. At fifty he became a printer, after experimenting for half a dozen years in the production of artistic types. Baskerville was handsome, witty, and a lover of luxury. His coats displayed much bravery of gold lace; he drove a pair of cream-colored horses harnessed to an amazing fine coach; and he lived in a hand

town.

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