In 1700, in the London _Oratio Dominica_, Moxon’s Irish type was used, as also in the reprint in 1713, after which the fount frequently reappeared until 1820, when it was used in the _Transactions of the Iberno Celtic Society_, for printing the titles of E. O’Reilly’s “Chronological Account of Irish Writers” there given.
The “punches and matrices”, said Mores, writing in 1778, “have ever since continued in England. The Irish themselves have no letter of this face, but are supplied with it by us from England; though it has been said, but falsely, that { 191} the University of Louvain have lately procured a fount to be cut for the use of the Irish Seminary there.”[364]
We are glad to add to this statement that the punches of this interesting fount are still in existence, and, indeed, that these most curious relics of the handiwork of the author of the _Mechanick Exercises_ lie before us as we write these words.
Among the other peculiar characters cut by Moxon may be mentioned the symbols used in Mr. George Adams’ scientific works, and the Philosophic or “Real Character” designed by Bishop John Wilkins for his learned _Essay towards a Universal Language_, printed in 1668.[365] The correcting marks used in the _Mechanick Exercises_, as well as other mathematical and astronomical symbols, were also the work of this versatile artist, whose scientific genius appears to have had a special bent towards the more curious by-paths of typography.
Moxon’s foundry descended to Robert Andrews, with whom it is possible he was, during the close of his career, associated, either as a master or a partner. Rowe Mores is unable to distinguish, beyond the peculiar founts above noted, and the Canon Roman and Italic (which subsequently came into Mr. Caslon’s hands), what were the precise contents of his foundry. He therefore omits his usual list, and includes the whole in Andrews’.
The date of Moxon’s death is uncertain. A third edition of the _Mechanick Exercises_, not including the typographical portion, was issued in 1703. Unless this was a posthumous publication, Moxon must have been seventy-six years old at the time.
Mores states that he founded in London from 1659 to 1683, from which it would seem that he retired from the type business a considerable time before his death. He was a voluminous writer on scientific and mathematical subjects, and many of his works ran through several editions. { 192}