Foulis, ROBERT

Foulis, ROBERT and ANDREW, Glasgow printers, were born the one in 1707, the other in 1712. Robert for some years practised as a barber, but meanwhile attended Professor Hutcheson's lectures on moral philosophy. Andrew had been bred for the ministry. In 1741, after two tours with his brother in England and France, Robert set up as a Glasgow bookseller, in 1743 was appointed printer to the university, and between 1742 and his death published 554 works—classics, translations, poetry, plays, &c. The most celebrated are the 'inmaculate' Horace (1744), which contains, however, six misprints, and the splendid folio Homer (4 vols. 1756–58). With the view of promoting the fine arts in Scotland, Robert, after a fourth visit to the Continent, established in 1753—fifteen years before the foundation of the Royal Academy—an academy at Glasgow for engraving, moulding, modelling, and drawing. During the first ten years of its existence this institution produced 1112 prints, besides statues, busts, oil-paintings, and crayons; David Allan owed to it his early training. But the heavy attendant expense led to the decline of the printing business, and the death of the quiet, unwearying Andrew on 18th September 1775 proved the finishing blow. Eight months later Robert sold off his collection of 'old masters' at Christie's in Pall Mall; when all costs were defrayed the balance in his favour was just fifteen shillings. He died suddenly in Edinburgh, on his way back to Glasgow, 2d June 1776. For a full account of this par nobile fratrum, the 'Scottish Elzevirs,' see Richard Duncan's Literary History of Glasgow (Maitland Club, 1831; new ed. 1886).