Note 529 — Chapter XII · ALEXANDER WILSON, 1742.

These eminent printers, the most elegant typographers of which Scotland can boast, produced in their day some of the finest editions ever printed. Robert was originally a barber, but began as a printer in 1740. In 1743 he was appointed printer to Glasgow University, one of his first productions being an edition of Demetrius Phalereus in that year. In 1744 he brought out his famous “immaculate” edition of Horace in 12mo at Glasgow. Shortly afterwards his brother Andrew, who had been a teacher of French at the University, joined him, and the two together, by great industry and excellent artistic taste, produced a large number of beautifully printed works, some of which will rank with the finest achievements of Bodoni, or Barbou, or even the Elzevirs. Their classics, both Greek and Latin, were as remarkable for their exactness as for their beauty, and it is recorded that the brothers, following the example of some of the old masters, were in the habit of publicly exhibiting their proof sheets and offering a reward for the detection of any error. Andrew Foulis died in 1775, and Robert in the following year. The business was carried on under the old name of R. & A. Foulis for some years by Andrew Foulis, son of Robert. This printer it was who was associated with Tilloch in his patent for stereotype in 1784. He died in 1829 in great poverty.