it was from Gibson he learnt the
art. He may have done so; but whatever he learnt there or elsewhere, in
his 'prentice days, he later on threw aside, and by his own enterprise
and the excellence of his workmanship raised himself to the proud
position of the finest printer England had ever seen.

In John Day's first books there was no sign of the skill he afterwards
manifested. These were published in conjunction with William Seres, of
whom we know little or nothing, outside his connection with Day. These
partners began work in the year 1546 at the sign of the Resurrection on
Snow Hill, a little above Holborn Conduit, that is somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the present viaduct. They had also another shop in
Cheapside. Their first book, so far as we know, was Sir David Lindsay's
poem, '_The Tragical death, of David Beaton, Bishop of St. Andrews in
Scotland; Wherunto is joyned the martyrdom of maister G. Wyseharte ...
for whose sake the aforesayd bishoppe was not long after slayne_' (1546,
8vo).

In the following year (1547) Day and Seres printed several other books
of a religious character, nearly all of them in octavo, including Cope's
_Godly Meditacion upon the psalms_, and Tyndale's _Parable of the Wicked
Mammon_.

Their work in 1548 included a second edition of the _Consultation_ of
Hermann, the bishop of Cologne, Robert Crowley's _Confutation of Myles
Hoggarde_, a sermon of Latimer's, a metrical dialogue aimed at the
priesthood and entitled _John Bon and Mast Person_, and, as a relief to
so much theological literature, the _Herbal_ of William Turner.

The types used in printing these books were not a whit better than
anybody else's, in fact if anything they were a shade worse. There was
the usual fount of large black letter, not by any means new, another
much smaller letter of the same character, and a fount of Roman
capitals, very bad indeed. Whether these types belonged to Day or to
Seres it is impossible to say, but I think the smaller of the two
belonged to Day, as it is sometimes found in his later books.

The workmanship was no better than the types. There was no pagination in
these books, and no devices, and the setting of the letterpress was very
uneven.

In 1548 Seres seems to have joined partnership with another London
printer, Anthony Scoloker, and to have moved to a house in St. Paul's
Churchyard, called Peter College; but his name still continued to appear
with Day's down to the year 1551, when