ker, in a report to Lord Burghley in 1582, says:--

'He has the printing of Tullie, Ovid, and diverse other great
workes in Latin. He doth yet, neither great good nor great harme
withall.... He hath other small thinges wherewith he keepeth his
presses on work, and also worketh for bookesellers of the Companye,
who kepe no presses.'

In 1580, on the invitation of the General Assembly, Vautrollier visited
Scotland, taking with him a stock of books, but no press, and in 1584 he
again went north, and set up a press at Edinburgh, still keeping on his
business in London. The venture does not seem to have turned out a
success, for Vautrollier returned to London in 1586, taking with him a
MS. of John Knox's _History of the Reformation_, but the work was seized
while it was in the press (_Works of John Knox_, vol. i. p. 32).

As a printer Vautrollier ranks far above most of the men around him,
both for the beauty of his types and the excellence of his presswork.
The bulk of his books were printed in Roman and Italic, of which he had
several well-cut founts. He had also some good initials, ornaments, and
borders. In the folio edition of Plutarch's _Lives_, which he printed in
1579, each life is preceded by a medallion portrait, enclosed in a frame
of geometrical pattern; some of these, notably the first, and also those
shown on a white background, are very effective. His device was an
anchor held by a hand issuing from clouds, with two sprigs of laurel,
and the motto 'Anchora Spei,' the whole enclosed in an oval frame.

Vautrollier was succeeded in business by his son-in-law, Richard Field,
another case of the apprentice marrying his master's daughter. Field was
a native of Stratford-on-Avon, and therefore a fellow-townsman of
Shakespeare's, whose first poem, _Venus and Adonis_, he printed for
Harrison in 1593. But we have no knowledge of any intercourse between
them.

Field succeeded to the stock of his predecessor, and his work is free
from the haste and slovenly appearance so general at that time. Another
work from his press was Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesy_, 1589, 4to.
The first edition, of which there is a copy in the British Museum, had
no author's name, but was dedicated by the printer to Lord Burghley. In
the second book, four pages were suppressed. They are inserted in the
copy under notice, but are not paged. This edition also contained as a
frontispiece a portrait of the Queen. Anothe