Figure 269
Baskerville’s Type used in Virgil, Birmingham
From Publii Virgilii Maronis Bucolica, Georgica et Aeneis (scan)
1757
…Virgil, which (in Macaulay’s phrase) “went forth to astonish all the librarians of Europe.”
The book is set in great primer type, leaded. The folios and numbers to lines of the text employ a very calligraphic and rather disagreeable form of arabic figure. The book is printed on hot-pressed smooth paper, in my copy partly wove and partly laid. Very easy to read, the volume nevertheless does not seem to me a particularly agreeable or beautiful book, partly on account of its type, but chiefly because the type-page is too large for its paper, and the headings and running-titles, in restless italic capitals, become too much of a feature.