.JAMES K.MOFFITT PAULINE FORE MOFFITT LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA GENERAL LIBRARY, BERKELEY nit <&^Q- t, d^ / HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES A LECTURE KEAD BEFORE THE GROLIER CLUB OF NEW-YORK, JANUARY 25, 1885, WITH ADDITIONS AND NEW ILLUSTRATIONS BY THEO. L. DE VINNE NEW-YORK THE DE VINNE PRESS MDCCCLXXXVI Copyright, 1886, by Theo. L. De Vinne. CONTENTS. i INTRODUCTION Page 9 ii THE BLACK LETTER OR GOTHIC TYPE OF THE EARLY GERMAN PRINTERS 11 in EARLY ROMAN TYPES . 20 iv EARLY ITALIC TYPES 26 v FRENCH TYPE-FOUNDERS OF THE XVITH AND XVIITH CENTURIES . 31 vi DUTCH TYPES OF THE XVITH AND XVIITH CENTURIES . . 40 vii ENGLISH BLACK LETTER 50 vin STYLES OF CASLON AND BASKERVILLE 59 ix STYLES OF OTHER BRITISH TYPE-FOUNDERS 65 x TYPES OF BODONI, FOURNIER, AND OF LATER FRENCH FOUNDERS 76 xi EEVIVAL OF OLD STYLE 85 xii TYPES OF AMERICAN FOUNDERS . 96 ILLUSTRATIONS. Bible of 42 lines Page 13 Catholicon of 1460 17 Contrast of German and Roman characters . . . . . . 19 Roman of Sweinheym and Pannartz, 1465 ..... 20 Roman of Sweinheym and Pannartz, 1467 21 Roman of Ulrich Hahn, 1468 21 Roman of John and Vindelin de Spira, 1469. . . . . . 22 Roman of Ulrich Gering, 1470 22 Roman of Nicholas Jenson, 1470 ........ 23 Italic of Aldus Manutius ......... 27 Italic of Bartholomew Trot . . . . . . . . .29 Imitation of Swash letters ......... 30 Cursive Francois of Granjon . . . . . . . . .32 Tory's method of forming the letters I and K ..... 33 Tory's method of forming the letter Z ....... 35 A contrast of different forms of serifs 38 Explanation of technical words used in describing faces of type . . 39 Page from an Elzevir duodecimo ....... 43 Types attributed to Van Dijck 44 Types of Daniel Elzevir, 1476 45 Imitation of Italic used by John Elzevir, 1659 ..... 47 Imitation of Roman of John Elzevir, 1659 ..... 49 Types of John Brito, 1481 51 Types of Caxton .......... 52 Imitation of Caxton's types ........ Page 52 English Black of xvith century 52 English Black with Flemish mannerisms ...... 53 Moxon's models of Black Letter 54, 55 Black Letter of Fox's "Acts and Monuments" . . . . . . 57 Bold-face Black of 1825 57 Condensed Black of 1855 58 A contrast of Black Letters of the dates 1825, 1885 and 1550 . 58 Moxon's models of Roman capitals . . . . . . . 59 Types of Caslon ........... 61 Types of Baskerville 64 Bold-face style of Thorne 70 Scotch-face style 71 Types of Bodoni ........... 77 Types of Jules Didot 81 Founder's Large Face .......... 82 Fournier's Poetic Face 83 French Condensed Face 84 Modernized form of Old Style 89 Modernized form of Old Style 91 Elzevir, or xvnth Century Old Style 93 "Ronaldson" Old Style 95 Modern Kourid Face . . . . . 101 Modern Light Face 102 Expanded Face 103 Condensed capitals 104 Series of capitals of uniform style 106 The last novelty 107 The "Harper "style 108 HISTOEIC FEINTING TYPES. O HANDICRAFT receives so much attentive obser- vation as printing. But the observation of the ordinary reader, however attentive it may be, is usually superficial and imperfect. Types are seen but not regarded: it is only the information conveyed by types that is considered. Few general readers know by name the different sizes or styles of types ; fewer still could identify the types made or used by famous printers. To men whose limited time compels them to care more for the ends than the means of knowledge, this want of consideration is pardonable. Life is short, and even a studious man may be excused for neglecting typography, when English literature is so deficient in instructive tech- nical works on this subject. Our books on typography are 2 9 10 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. written for printers, and interest printers only. There is no popular treatise about book types; nothing that gives us in succinct and connected form information about their designers and makers, and that tells us why styles once popular are now obsolete. 1 . The subject is not trivial. The services that have been rendered to literature by types, and the esteem in which good printing and fine editions have always been held, should dignify the agents by which these results have been produced. Nor is the subject meager. There is more to be said "about types than can be fairly told in an evening's lecture. Much must be left unsaid. The origin, and the early forms of letters, and their frequent changes before they were fixed in types, as well as the methods of making types, cannot be described for want of time. I propose to consider only the " faces " or general appearance of the plain types of our standard books the faces or styles that have been selected by eminent printers and are found in good editions. To do this fairly, one must begin with the Black Letter, or the Gothic character. 1 Moxon's " Mechanick Exercises " Mores entirely neglects the practical (London, 1683),Mores's "Dissertation part : he writes with wit and zeal about upon English Typographical Founders early English types and type-founders, and Founderies " (London, 1778), and but not always with exactness. These Hansard's " Typographia" (London, books are scarce. Hansard is full and 1825) are the only books in English, exact concerning English types and known to me, which attempt to fully founders of his own period ; but he treat of type-founding. Moxon writes has little to say about the types of chiefly on the practice of type-making, printers on the Continent. II The Black Letter or Gothic Type of the Early German Printers. HE oldest type-printing containing an authentic date is a Letter of Indulgence dated 1454, in which the date is written in. The oldest type- printing containing an authentic printed date is the Psalter of 1457, which bears the imprint of John Fust of Mentz and Peter Schoeffer of Grernszheim. We also know of a Latin Bible, in folio, 42 lines to the page, in First books double columns, one copy of which contains the written from types, statement of the illuminator that his work on the book was finished at Mentz in the year 1456. And there is another edition of a Latin Bible in double columns, 36 lines to the page, which was probably done before 1459. All these pieces of printing are correlated. The types are of different sizes, but of marked resemblance as to cut or style. I shall not here discuss the relative claims of Fust and Schoeffer to the invention. It is enough to say that it is the general belief that these books are the work, Typography dependent on separately or jointly, of Ghitenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer ; type-founding, and that they were " made by a new and unheard-of art," or, as the Psalter of 1457 explicitly states, " by the mas- 11 12 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. Bible of 42 1 1 in - has the first place. Its value as evidence of early skill. terly invention of printing and also of type-making." In this notice, as in other notices by early writers, we find the implication that the real invention of printing was the invention of practical types. One of these books, the Bible of 42 lines, is emphatically The Book, not because it is the Bible and to be regarded as the Book of Books, but because it is generally regarded as the first printed book. It is not only the typographic editio princeps of what had been a manuscript, but princeps facile over all books, in matter as in manner. It stands like a monument at the great turn between the old and the new method of manufacture. It shows the best features of each method the dignity, the quaintness, the decorative beauty of the manuscript, and the superior exactness and uniformity of the printed book. The value of the work may be inferred from the prices paid for it within the last half century from $10,000 to $25,000 a copy, according to condition and circumstances. These seem large sums. But greater prices have been paid for cracked and faded paintings, and for mutilated statues : the sum of $200,000 has been asked in this city for a Ma- donna not larger than a barrel-head, and as much by another dealer for a collection of medieval pottery. The prices are boldly asked because the average buyer has more regard for paintings or pottery than for books. But has not this book a greater value in its history and associa- tions I Is not the first product of an art which has done $ tos . ft poBtn ta? t tambtte fit ttng.^ tri natcamt ijucatmtoDu pmit tu0 nifttautt fu* tntteii gtntibue fljfiu noraini fuo:? iuiit tqnroztsant uttte jj^taruifitut finptfl f.poG |ec reutttacttrtrtj ta tiaotaaificabon m^am illuUrut wquitat tctttilpramu Unmu onuud rotu tritttfinelaritna ljf )Ftotu a ft tulof tm&0u8ruu.wttr ucij sumunt aD titudf i> ftnbm alt Fac-simile of the types of the Bible of 42 lines, with the rubricator's marks on the capitals. Photographed from a fragment of the original in the collection of Mr. David Wolfe Bruce. 13 14 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. so much for the pleasure, the knowledge, the civilization of the world of more value as an historical relic than any work of brush or potter's wheel ? Mine may be the pride of a man who magnifies his art, yet it is my belief that the time will come when a copy of this Bible of 42 lines will be held of more value than any painting. For, although The work of a it is accepted as the first of all printed books, there is nothing about it that seems experimental nothing that is timid, or petty, or mean. It bears the stamp and seal of a great invention, and a perfected invention. One need not scrutinize it to be convinced that it was the work of a great inventor who knew the value of his art and knew how to use it. Looking at it in this light one can appreciate, even if he does not fully assent to, the statement of an eminent MT. G. w. book-lover that " the first book is better than the last " ; that in strength of paper, in blackness of ink, in pictur- esqueness of letter, and in many artistic features, the Bible of 42 lines is and ever will be a model of style. Yet it is a curious fact in literary history that this book, which is so much admired now, was practically out of use, Neglected for and held in light esteem a hundred years after it was printed. The finding of a copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin at the close of the xvnth century gave it the misleading name of the Mazarin Bible ; its identification as the work of Gutenberg gave it merit in the eyes of bibliographers. But proper recognition came at a later GEKMAN BLACK LETTEE. 15 date ; it was reserved for the xixth century to appraise the book at its true value. We have to ask, why was this book so long neglected I One has but to look at this fac-simile of a part of a page see page is. to get the answer. The text is not easy to read. The types are black, compressed, and closely fitted to indistinct- ness; the text is not divided in verses; contractions are fre- quent. The eye aches for that relief of white space within and around each letter which is to be found in all modern book types. No one who wishes to read a Latin Bible, to read it and not look at it, would ever select the Bible of 42 lines if a modern copy of the text could be had. It Not a readable is for this reason, and this reason only, that this edition book, of the book fell into disuse. It was supplanted by editions in smaller types that were more easily read; editions that had the divisions of book, chapter, and verse more clearly marked by the printer than had been done by the illu- minator ; editions in plainer types that did not offend the eye with blackness. I put special stress on this quality of being easily read, for, whatever may be the merit of a book in other features, it will be ultimately approved or condemned by the reader on the test of its legibility. The fac-simile appended does not show the beauty of see page is. the full page as that page appears in the few copies that have been enriched by the professional illuminators of the xvth century. The size and splendor of the many colored its beauty largely made initial letters, and the grace of the painted decorative by decoration. 16 HISTOEIC FEINTING TYPES. borders, did much to relieve the somberness of the black text. It was the gold and bright color put in by hand that made the book attractive. Deprived of these graces the letters were not beautiful. Without doubt, the letters were fairly copied from some unknown manuscript model ; fairly copied as to shape and size, and the form of page and arrangement of text were also imitated. The printer supposed that the blanks which had been left for initials Not attractive and border would be filled in by the buyer. The book w lie ii it wfts not decorated, was incomplete without painted initials and border, for these were the features which made the work attractive to ecclesiastics then as it does to artists now. Here was a miscalculation. Not every buyer of the printed book had the ability or the means to decorate it. We may rightfully suppose that the largest number of copies never had any decoration. Destitute of bright color the text was somber, and this somberness gradually put the edition out of fashion. In G-ermany, this pointed Black Letter was the style always preferred for the service books of the Church. The more magnificent the book, the more formal and stately pointed Black the character. Perhaps the finest specimen of this letter in a printed book was shown in the Bamberg Missal of 1481, which has text types three-quarters of an inch high. For the books that were made to be bought and read by the laity, a simpler form of Black Letter was in great favor. A good example of this form may be seen in the Catholicon GERMAN BLACK LETTER. 17 of 1460, which is attributed to Gutenberg. The same form may be seen in the Letter of Indulgence of 1454, in the edi- tion of Cicero of 1465, printed by Schoeffer, and in many of the popular books of the early German printers. This form of letter has no simple distinctive name: French bibli- ographers call it Lettre de somme; English bibliographers, Round Gothic Semi-gothic. I have called it Round Gothic, to distinguish the laity, it from the Pointed Gothic. TrTcuuo.fl.um.ni ICUA Jj^Jjcx leqpe.o"* <\ Icgo.gia.lcst qi Tcxjlts fcripril afcifcensj bonelKu^pbibcns contT riu.ut lox c fcnptu po n* quortK ct populo rcrpotioJntc.OolebAt ima^iftcr eiwitatfe ntm Aliqua Icg^m wcllct i en? a(ccna?n? pulpjtu m mooia conoone ct A populo fi ucllct illuo Wht cfTc.ct Acrcpw nc <\ populo ZxHnccpcr

Z>VnO? lex Ic^io tenet flAturiiin butuo pteri ti Icqi.atm ptimAni pmo'.X^.Tlon Cecct H(A Icapi oontranA Ic^'.Dc Icgt? nali uiDt? in confcfd c J5r4ttt2 paufKco ucl (cmio.ct in ba? bucj.p t \p wcm oior. Lexis ijrerc l<\ti nc loaico.t.qudtbct nil^iiifuox quo fcribi Dcb| Types of the Catholicon of 1460, attributed to Gutenberg. Neither the Pointed nor the Bound form of Gothic was German print- entirely acceptable to German printers and readers of the ornate typef xvth century. Apparently there was a craving for more of elaboration and complexity. The type of Erhard Rewich, 3 18 HISTOEIC PRINTING TYPES. Types of the Theuerdaiik. Fractur. as shown by him in 1486, seems the first departure toward a series of new forms which finally led to the general use of the modern German character. The types of the Theuer- dank, 1 a poem printed at Nuremberg, in 1517, by Schoans- perger, more florid, more complex, fuller of flourishes, may be accepted as the motive if not the model for the style of type known as German Text. Modern taste would not accept this ornate letter as an improvement on the older, simpler form, but its peculiarities were gradually accepted by all German printers. Considering its angularity, the name, Fractur, which Germans give to their modern Ger- man character is well chosen. The Round Gothic letter, modified and simplified, finds use among German printers under the name of Schwabacher. The popularity of the German forms of letters was not disturbed at all in Germany by the introduction elsewhere of the Roman character. Educated readers favored Roman letters, but they were not at all acceptable to the common Black Letter a people who, as a class, were just beginning to buy books. favorite In all . countries. In all civilized countries, outside of Italy, the written text- books of schools were in black and pointed letters. All the early prayer-books and books of devotion were in pointed letters. To readers accustomed to this character, a book in Roman letter was not easily read. This prejudice still 1 This book shows more than ordi- nary skill in type-founding. There were good type-founders elsewhere : in 1490, Froben, of Basle, printed an octavo Bible in Gothic characters, of the small size known to us as Non- pareil, which makes about twelve lines to the American inch. GERMAN BLACK LETTER. 19 survives. The German statesman, Bismarck, not long ago put on record his objections to Roman types in German books. He tells us that he had, watch in hand, compared Bismarck's 7 ' dislike of the the time he had given to the reading of a page in Grerman Roman letter, type and a page in Roman type, and that the reading of the Roman page was a greater tax on his attention", and required much more time. The reader who is not familiar with Grerman will receive this opinion with surprise. He will say that the Roman letter, so much simpler in form, should be more easily read ; and the following comparison of Grerman letters that are perplexingly similar with Roman equivalents that are clearly distinct will strengthen this conclusion: (< 33$ 3$ CE G S BV IF ff I) i) baoce i t I fs hy daoce i t 1 Dr. Taylor suggests that the frequency of the use of spec- - ... Alphabet, voL tacles among young men in Germany, as compared with n., P . is*. England, France or Italy, may be due in great part to the more trying nature of German types. Ill Early Roman Types. Printed in partnership from 1465 to 1473. WEINHEYM and PANNAKTZ, the first printers in Italy, began their work in the monastery of Subiaco, near Rome, with new types of the Roman form. We do not know what model they had for the cutting of this letter. It may have been angular and faulty,' but it is more probable that Swein- heym and Pannartz could not entirely free themselves a HIM ADVERT! fepe Donate plurimos id exifHarc : quod mam nonulli pbilolbpbo y p uta u crime : non irafd deu* quom'am uel benefica fie cantumodo n atuna d (uma : tiec cuujnocere preftatiffime arcp oprie congruar potad. uel cerce nil curet oino.ut ne^ ex beneb'cencia cms qufcq Sweinheym and Pannartz, Subiaco, 1465. From their edition of Lactantius. from their prejudices in favor of pointed letters, and that they unwittingly made Roman types with many of the nartz died 1476. features of Black Letter. Their fashion of Roman is thick and compressed, almost as thick and black as the Black 90 EAELY BOMAN TYPES. 21 Letter, but it has the merit of a proper space of white between the lines. It does not seem to have been a popular type, for when these printers went to Rome, they produced another form of Roman type which was not so black, nor so condensed, but it was not more pleasing. R. ebattuf Familiartf rncuT ad me fcnpfit ce exquififTc quibuf i Io/ cif efT^molefteq! ferre cp me pp/ ter uahcudi nem tua cu ad urbem accefciflfe non ut diffef : et hoc cc/ Sweinheym and Pannartz, Rome, 1467. From their edition of Cicero. Next year, 1467, came to Rome a rival German printer, Printed in Ulrich Hahn, who, in compliment to Italian tastes, also U67toi8. printed his first book in an imitation of Roman letter. rncro fctnemoria ueterarepetenti perbeatifa ifTe . Q^frater till uidcri folet qvu in optima RE . PV : quom &; honoribus &rerum gcf tar am. gloria, f lor ercnt cum. uite curfum Ulrich Hahn, Rome, 1468. From his edition of Cicero. A very bad imitation it was; showing just as distinctly the influences of a Grerman-like preference for the Grothic form. It was no improvement on the Roman of his rivals. 22 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. If we had never been provided with better forms of Roman type, Black Letter might still be in use everywhere. John died U69. The first fair Roman types were made by John and Nothing is i i known of vin- Vuidelin de Spira, of V emce, and were shown by them in delin after 1477. Iipfa Rcsp.tibinarrare pofl&quo fefebaber&: nonfacihus ex ea cognofcerepoflesiqex liberto tuo Pbama-.ua ell homo no modo prudens: ue^t etia uir fquus:& cjuod uidi cunofus. Quapropter illc nbt omnia tibi cxplanabitJd cnim tmbi & ad John and Vindelin de Spira, 1469. From their edition of Cicero. their edition of Cicero, of 1469. Here we have something of the roundness, simplicity, and perspicuity of the Roman character. Yet it was but an approximation : the propor- tions of the letters are not good. tftfti-nupcc ad me fuairiffimas Gafpa/ tint pergamenfif epiftolaf jno a tc modo diligent emedatas* fed a tuis quoq? get'/ manis imprefforibus nitride & tcrfe era'/ fcctptas*Magnam ttbi gcatiS gafpannus Ulrich Gering, Paris, 1470. From his edition of Gasparinus. The first printer in Paris, Ulrich G-ering, was almost as unsuccessful as his German brothers in the art had been Printed from . 1470 to 1510. at Rome. His idea of a proper form of Roman letter is shown in this fac-simile of his types in 1470. This is not EAELY ROMAN TYPES. 23 a good form. It does not surprise us to learn that this face of type was only acceptable, barely so, to the scholars of the university whose printer he was, and that, in all books for popular use, he was obliged to make use of the Round Grothic. The first really good form was made by Nicholas Jenson Printed from at Venice, and shown for the first time in his edition of motousa. E VSEBIVM Pamphili deeuangelicapreparatione latinum ex graco beatiffime pater luflu tuo effeci , Nam quom eum uinim turn eloquetia: tu multaijr rerum peritiaiet fgenii mitabili flumine ex his quae iam tradufta funt praeftatiflimum fancftitas tua iu' dicet: atqj ideo quaccuqj apud gracos ipfius opera extet lanna facere fftituerit: euangelica praepatione quxin urbe forte reperta eft: primum aggrefTi tra' Nicholas Jenson, Venice, 1470. From his edition of Eusebius. Eusebius, in 1470. Compared with modern letter it may seem rude and coarse, but the simplicity and beauty of his design can be perceived by the expert, even where his lines have been partially obscured by thick presswork and superiority of . . Jenson's form imperfect copying. One cannot rail to note the improved of Roman, roundness and clearness and even lining of his letter, and its general symmetry in the combinations of composition. Jenson gave to Venice a reputation for typography which 24 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. The types of Venice pre- ferred. Roman type disliked by uneducated readers. it enjoyed for many years after his death. Printers in Lyons, Paris, and in Flanders knew that they would best commend their books to literary men by their announce- ments, frequently made, that the types they used were "the true Venetian characters." It cannot be said that Jenson invented the Roman char- acter, but his models were adopted everywhere, to the suppression of all rival forms. We shall see that Jenson's forms were afterward changed and too often perverted, but the improved taste of our day shows an inclination to revert to many of his peculiarities. The superior merit of the Roman character was not, at first, conceded by printers and readers. Accepted by edu- cated men everywhere, it was disliked and rejected by common people who were just beginning to buy books. Printers who were well supplied with fonts of Black Letter intensified the prejudices of the readers by their absurd commendations of the Black Letter. It was a " sublime letter," the "most beautiful form," "unquestionably supe- rior to all other styles." Black Letter books found buyers in Italy, long after the introduction of Roman types. Even Jenson found it necessary to print popular books in Grothic letters. The most beautiful books printed in Paris, the Books of Hours, from the presses of Pigouchet and Kerver, are all in the most pointed form of G-othic character. ' The first books of the Netherlands, and of England, were in pointed letters. EAKLY ROMAN TYPES. 25 In Germany the dislike of Eoman forms was inveterate. The printers of the Strasburg classics in Eoman type found that their editions were neglected. Not even the authority and example of Albert Durer, who preferred the Eoman form, could make that character popular. Obliged Roman not accepted in to lighten and make less somber the old monastic Gothic, Germany, the German printers retained all its angularity and even added to its bristling rows of ornaments and nourishes. Eeligious prejudices had a good deal to do with the old dislike. A book of devotion, to be orthodox, must be in pointed letters. A book in Eoman type savored of heresy. The free-thinking scholars and philosophers of Italy were suspected of heathenism when they tried to restore the Regarded as a heterodox letters and literature of old Eome. Every book in the character. Eoman character was an object to be mistrusted. Nor was the objection confined to Eoman letter or literature. The early printers of Paris encountered active hostility from the ecclesiastical authorities of that city when they printed books in Greek or Hebrew. Eoman types were occasionally used in England by Eichard Pynson, but the first book 1 printed in England 1 These Roman types were probably the printer to cast a new Italian letter made in France. The first distinct which he is doinge, and it will cost mention I find of the making in Eng- him XL marks ; and loth he and other land of Roman types is in a letter of printers be to printe any lattin booke, Archbishop Parker to Lord Burgheley, because they will not heare be uttered, Dec. 13, 1572: "To the better accom- and for that Bookes printed in Englande plishment of this worke, and other that be in suspition abroade." Timperley's shall followe, I have spoken to Daie Encyclopaedia, p. 381. 26 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. in 1521. iBaac Taylor, vol. n. p. is*. ' entirely with the Roman letter, was the Treatise by Henry viii., on account of which the Pope bestowed on him the title of Defender of the Faith. It was probably in defer- ence to the Italian taste that Roman types were obtained for & book intended as a compliment to the Pope. IV Early Italic Types. T the beginning of the xvith century, the reading world was practically divided in two classes: those who favored Roman ; those who favored Black Letter. An eminent printer of Venice, Aldus Manutius. thought the time was favorable for a Aldus born in 1450. Printed new form of printing type. He selected a fashion of writ- from 1494 to ing, then known as Cursivetos or Cancellarius, and in high favor with copyists. The body marks were thin and the letters condensed; in every feature more simple than the Gothic. It was very compact, warranting the belief that, with this letter, he could print a text in octavo which had before been done in quarto. Possibly emula- tion was another motive. Jenson had earned great honor 1515. iiB.rrn. f attere etntailtos arts adtt.ertere crlnes* S all tet hen fitperi cwm tit cluddrc mtnad C aflide ferrdtufy fines ' eg) diuitis aurum H itrmonlts dofale gerdro ?ddbit aftior ijht P ors dens ' drgtliatfy babitu prf/hbo marittL C wn regf coniux , cum te mihifofyite tetnpU V otiuif mflenddcbory 'nttncindttatilla Qjtte petit jt bellantc potcft gtudere marito ' S ic eripkyl de rdfur Irt A H mc t at^tndemor(e iaculif^tfcrrea cwrru S ylti4trcmit>procnlip/e grdutme E minet'ctdypeotti&umxythona corufat K WHS dfoUinete cwmm comiMntur A iles CdrigtudentttatortMn in JAM pdrentef H orfonfur'qimeri defletiam'q; Italic of Aldus Manutius, Venice, 1502. From his edition of Statins. 27 28 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. First book In Italic. Peculiarities of first form. See fao-simile of an Italian MS. (plate 27) in Hum- phreys' Hist, of Printing. by his cut of Roman types: why should not Aldus be as fortunate 1 Selecting for his model a very neat manu- script of Petrarch, he had punches cut for it by a distin- guished goldsmith, Francesco Raibolini. The types so made were first shown in an edition of Virgil, 1501, and the new face was much admired. The senate of Venice and three popes of Rome gave him a patent for its exclusive use. This illustration of Aldus's Italic is a f ac-simile from his edition of Statius, printed by him in 1502 while the types were still unworn. As every copy must be, this is inferior to the original. There is a lack of sharpness about the lines, but the thickening of line is not greater than that of over-inked pages in the original. It differs from our forms of Italic in many points. The ascending and descending letters are unusually long; the inclination of the letter is very slight ; double or conjoined letters and different forms of the same letter are common. But the most noticeable peculiarity is the small upright form of capital letters, spaced off, and standing apart from the text. The incongruity of upright with inclined letters did not trouble Aldus. Like Caxton, he did "but follow his copy," for this method of separating capitals was then an established mannerism with Italian copyists. Aldus had great reverence for classic forms, and probably thought that it would have been as great an offense to alter the forms of Roman capitals, by giving them inclination, as it would be to alter or change the words of the text. EAKLY ITALIC TYPES. 29 Aldus never seriously changed these letters, but his son 7 _ . The Italic of did, not, however, to their improvement. It is difficult Paul Manutius. for a modern reader, who sees things with his own eyes, and not through the spectacles of others, to perceive the remarkable beauty which has been attributed to the son's improved Italic. Intending to make the letter firmer and bolder, the younger Aldus made it blacker but more ob- TheGiunta scure. Aldus's patent was not respected. The rival print- began to print at Venice in ing house of the Giunta made an imitation : so did printers im at Lyons, who not only copied his patented types, but printed from them spurious editions of Aldus's best books. Explicit fchnfcr.Amto dni.'M.C C C C C .XI Die Hero.q.Mttt/B SfpfcinkrifcExpen/ij The imprint of a counterfeiter, the "honest man, Bartholomew Trot." Aldus intended that this Italic should be used as a text letter, and it was so used by himself and his successors for many years. But Italic never succeeded in getting popularity in Germany. It did not supplant Black Letter ; it did not prevent a freer use of the Eoman. In France it was more successful. Geofroy Tory, who had recently Not successful returned from Rome full of admiration for Italian art, published at Paris, in 1510, an edition of Quintilian, in which he praised the new letter as the most beautiful of types. Other printers used it as a text letter, but it did not stay in fashion long. The Eoman face of Jenson was 30 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. Diminished use of Italic. Capitals In- clined by French type founders. more readable and was preferred. In time Italic was assigned its present office as a display letter for Eoman, of which it is now the indispensable complement. Yet its use is diminishing. One hundred years ago a font of text type was made up of about nine-tenths Eoman and one- tenth Italic. The apportionment made by type-founders of our time allows but about one-twentieth of Italic. Gran j on of Lyons, as well as Tory of Paris, gave to the capitals of their Italic the same inclination as to the small letters, but Tory's pupil, Claude Graramond, thought ^(OTHING FOT{ THE WHITE , 5^07? THE ^BE^IUTIFUL i SEE ONLY^J TETTY TYPE ON ^ - Hair Line. Kerned letter. Thin letter. J m Full-bodied letter. Short letter. 7 Descending letter. W Fat letter. d Ascending letter. The flat serif weakened the strength and legibility of Roman types; its only merit was in the direction of lightness and delicacy. Upon poetry and leaded work this delicacy may have been a satisfactory change; for solid type and for sober books, in which legibility should be the first con- . . Made types sideration, the flat hair-line serif was a mischievous inven- weak and ob- tion. For the flat serifs soon thickened or broke off under wear, leaving the body marks "on their stumps." When types in this condition were badly printed, as they often were, on poor paper with weak ink, the print therefrom was almost unreadable. The bad printing of the xvinth century is largely due to this innovation. YI Dutch Types of the xvith and xviith Centuries. Types of C. Van Dyck. Mechanick Exercises, pp. 14-16. NE of the most notable of early Dutch founders was Christopher Van Dijck, " the great master of his time and of our own," as was truly said of him by the widow of Daniel Elzevir. Although one of the ablest, he has been one of the least known of type-founders. What is worse, his types are now known and described as the Elzevir types, or xviith century types. His individuality seems to have been merged into that of one of the Elzevirs, of whose type- foundry he was the manager and punch-cutter. Moxon was the first English writer who discovered his merits, and he writes about him enthusiastically, introducing the subject with some quaint remarks on taste in letter-design- ing which deserve preservation: I confess this piece of judgment, viz. knowing of true Shape, may ad- mit of some controversy, because neither the Ancients whom we re- ceived the knowledge of these Let- ters from, nor any other authentick Authority have delivered us Rules, either to make or know true shape by: And therefore it may be ob- jected that every one that makes Letters but tolerably like Romain, Italick, etc. may pretend his to be true shap'd. To this I answer, that though we can plead no Ancient Authority for the shape of Letters, yet doubtless 40 DUTCH TYPES. 41 (if we judge rationally) we must conclude that the Eomain Letters were Originally invented and con- trived to be made and consist of Cir- cles, Arches of Circles, and straight Lines; and therefore those Letters that have these Figures, either en- tire, or else properly mixt, so as the Course and Progress of the Pen may best admit, may deserve the name of true Shape, rather than those that have not. Besides, Since the late made Dutch Letters are so gen- erally, and indeed most deservedly accounted the best, as for their Shape, consisting so exactly of Mathematical Regular Figures as aforesaid, And for the commodious Fatness they have beyond other Let- ters, which easing the Eyes in Read- ing, renders them more Legible ; As also the true placing their Fats and their Leans, with the sweet driving them into one another, and indeed all the accomplishments that can render Letter regular and beautiful, do more visibly appear in them than in any Letters Cut by any other People : And therefore I think we may ac- count the Rules they were made by, to be the Rules of true shap'd Letters. For my own part, I liked their Letters so well, especially those that were Cut by Christophel Van Dijck of Amsterdam, that I set my self to examine the Proportions of all and every the parts and Members of 6 every Letter, and was so well pleased with the Harmony and Decorum of their Symetrie, and found so much Regularity in every part, and so good reason for his Order and Method, that I examined the big- gest of his Letters with Glasses, which so magnified the whole Letter, that I could easily distinguish, and with small Deviders measure off the size, scituation and form of every part, and the proportion every part bore to the whole ; and for my own future satisfaction collected niy Ob- servations into a Book, which I have inserted in my Exercises on Let- ' ter- Cutting. For therein I have ex- hibited to the World the true Shape of Christophel Van DijcVs aforesaid Letters, largely Engraven in Copper Plates. Whence I conclude, That since common consent of Book-men assign the Garland to the Dutch-Letters as of late Cut, and that now those Letters are reduced unto a Rule, I think the Objection is Answered; And our Master-Printers care in the choice of good and true shap'd Letters is no difficult Task : For if it be a large Bodied Letter, as English, Great-Primer and upwards, it will shew itself; and if it be small, as Pearl, Nomparel, etc. though it may be difficult to judge the exact Sym- etry with the naked Eye, yet by the help of a Magnifying-Glass, or two 42 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. Commended by Willerns. Lea Elzevler, p. Ixxix. if occasion be, even those small Letters will appear as large as the biggest Bodied Letters shall to the naked Eye : And then it will be no difficult Task to judge of the Order and Decorum even of the smallest Bodied Letters. For indeed, to my wonder and astonishment, I have observ'd V. Dijcks Pearl Dutch Let- ters in Glasses that have Magnified them to great Letters, and found the whole Shape bear such true pro- portion to his great Letters, both for the Thickness, Shape, Fats and Leans, as if with Compasses he could have measur'd and set off in that small compass every particular Member, and the true breadth of every Fat, and Lean Stroak in each Letter, not to exceed or want (when magnified) of Letter Cut to the Body it was Mag- nified to. Alphonse Willems, the annalist of the Elzevirs, is even more emphatic in his praise of Van Dijck's types. 1 After reading these eulogies the reader will probably be disappointed when he examines the fac-simile shown by Willems of the specimen sheet of Van Dijck's types which the widow of Daniel Elzevir sent to Moretus, then the owner of the Plantin printing-house. The fac-simile, al- though fairly made, does not fully show the merits of the 1 "All who seek and value the master- pieces that came from the Elzevir press have often asked the name of the ar- tist who designed and engraved the types, the outlines of which are so del- icate, the proportions so fine, and the spacing so intelligently arranged, all of them features which give to the El- zevir editions the seal of the master, and which put them altogether beyond comparison. Surely the man who de- signed this beautiful type so perfect in its style that the phrase Elzevirian, by which it is known, has become in bibliographic language the synonym of perfection was not an ordinary ar- tist, and deserved, not less than the Elzevirs themselves, that his name should go down to posterity. * " The name, formerly unknown, of Christopher Van Dijck is now attached to the history of printing, and will add itself to the glorious line of artists of all kinds which the inhabitants of the Netherlands are proud of. If France mentions with pride the name of Claude Garamond and the Sanlecques, Hol- land can be proud, too, in possessing a master scarcely inferior to the first, and surely surpassing the two others." DUTCH TYPES. 43 S T A T V S DIVO SEVERO PIO. COLONIAVLPIATRAIANA AVG < DACLEZARMIS. I. O. M. 31OMVLO PARENTI , MARTI AV- XILIATORI, FOEU.CIBVS AVSPI' CIIS Cd-SAUlS DIVI NERV^ TRA- 2ANIAVGVSTI, CONDITA COLO- NIADACIAZARMIS,PERM.SCAV- RIANVMEIVSPRO P.R. Sunt przterea in caprovincia monies auri&argentidinflimi, ucpote Abrug- lunia , Zalathnia, 8c Kerelbania, ex qui- fciis magna vis ami & argent! fumicur, & Camera Regix pro cudendis cam au. reis quam argenteis monetis applicatur. Abrugbania dives auri oppidum, in cujus circuini rnontes mira return om- nium ferrilirate, nfqueadeo cumulative tolertiscerczvilceribus, thefauros Re- giis opibus non indignos alac nempe illi- cobrifum aurum patulis de moncium verticibus fruftulatimprztiditur,fubter quorum valles vitrd ^peilucidiamnes dccur- A page from an Elzevir duodecimo. Van Dijck types. Liberal allow- ance should be made for the worn types and the bad printing 1 of the original specimen sheet, as well as for some falling-off, even from this low standard, in a fac-simile made by the process of photo-engraving. Yet the good form and fitting-up not entirely of the Flemish Black Letters are satisfactory, but slightly obscured in the fine fac-simile of Willems : any punch- cutter might be justly proud of them. The smaller sizes of Eoman and Italic make a creditable ap- pearance, but all of the larger sizes are not so good : some are really bad. Letters more uncouth than those of the capitals of the body "Dubbelde Augustijn Kapitalen," 1 Bad printing was as common in the xvuth as in the xixth century. Blades, writing about the old Dutch types of the Enschede foundry, says: "It is difficult even for a printer to believe that the types in the old [Ensched6 specimen book of 1757] and the new [of 1870] are from the same matrices. In the old specimen books, the casting seems faulty, the fine strokes of the letters are often wanting, and the face has become so encrusted at the edges Blades on the with hard ink that the true shape is printing of completely concealed. This is espe- the xvnth. 11 -i-i J.T- i T. i century. cially visible in the large types ; but in the 1870 specimens, modern skill and careful working have done for them their best. It would not be improbable that were the great Fleischman himself to see the result, he would not recognize the types of his own cutting, as now printed." Book-worm, April, 1870. Kleene Kanon Curfijf. am in Imperil curaSublevabat. Hollan- dis ^ Zelandifque atque in Burgundis Trxfeffu T)efi Afcendonica Romeyn. Quod quifque in ano eft, fci unt. Sciunt Id qui in Aurum Rex reginae dixerit : Sciunt quod Juno; Neque & futura in J ABCDEFGHIKLMN OPRSTVWXUYXfflffl^ ( [ t ? ^ e_J>ABCDEFGHIKLMNO DubbeJde Auguftijn Kapiralen. ABCDEFGHIK LMNOPQTRU JVWXYZ^J:; A part of Willems's fac-aimile of the large specimen sheet of Van Dijck types. 44 DUTCH TYPES. 45 of which a fac-simile is shown on the preceding page, were probably never shown by any reputable type-founder. 1 Moxon's tracings of the Van Dijck Roman letter, although rudely done, showing undue sharpening of the lower serifs, give a clearer idea of its peculiarities of style and of its M.T.C. T. TITIOTITI F. LEGATO S.D. Tfi non dubito quin apud tc mea commendatio pri- ma fads valeat , tamen obfequor homini familiariili- mo, C. Aviano Flacco : cujus caufla omnia cum cupio turn mehercule etiam debeo. De quo & praefens tecum egi dfligenter , cum tu mihi humaniflime refpondifti , & fcripfi M Tvllii ad te accurate antea : fed putat interefle fua, me ad te quam ciceronis faepiffime fcribere. Quare velim mihi ignofcas , fi illius vo- SSS^I luntati obtemperans , minus videbor meminhTe conftantiae Amsterdam, tuae. A te idem illud peto , ut de loco , quo deportee fru- mentum , & de tempore , Aviano commodes : quorum u- trumque per eundem me obtinuit triennium,dum Pompeius ifti negotio praefuit. Summa eft , in quo mihi gratiflimum facere poCfis, fi curaris ut Avianus , quum fe a me amari pu- tat, me a te amari fciat. Erit id mihi pergratum. Vale. Fac-simile of types used by Daniel Elzevir. real merit than can be had from the study of the Elzevir specimen sheet. The general effect of this letter is shown to the best advantage in the larger types of some of the 1 The widow of Daniel Elzevir has sion that she could not direct all the said that these types were by Van work that had been done by her hus- Dijck, but it is possible that she may band. In other words, she was not have been deceived. She begins her an expert in typography, and did but letter (see page 47) with the admis- repeat what she had been told. HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. Merits of the Van Dyck types. Typographia, p. 618. octavos of Daniel Elzevir. The smaller types of the duo- decimos are too small to clearly show the peculiarities of cut. Van Dijck seems to have designed letters with intent to have them resist the wear of the press. The body-marks were firm, and the counters of good width, not easily choked with ink. Hair lines were few and of positive thickness. The serif s were not noticeably short, but they were stubby, or so fairly bracketed to the body-mark that they could not be readily gapped or broken down. When printed, as much of the Elzevir printing was done, with strong impression and abundance of ink, the types were almost as bold and black as the style now known as Old Style Antique. This firmness of face explains the popularity of the so-called Elzevir letter. It may not be comely, but it is legible. The letters may be stubby, but they have no useless lines ; they were not made to show the punch-cutter's skill in truthful curves and slender lines, but to be read easily and to wear well. Yet to readers whose standard of taste is the deli- cacy of copper-plate engraving, the Elzevir types are, as Hansard calls them, types of " awkward stiffness." The fickleness of popular taste is illustrated by the fate of the Van Dijck punches, which were last owned by the founders Enschede. Before the year 1770 all the Van Dijck letters were out of fashion. Michael Fleisch- man, a German punch-cutter then in the employ of the Enschedes, undertook to renew the types of their foundry, which he did by sending all the Van Dijck punches and DUTCH TYPES. 47 Amsterdam, den 3 January 1681. Mevrouwe : Wesende te rade geworden om mijne scbrift gieterije te verkopen, also ick mijselve niet bequaem oordeele alles te beheeren, bestaet uyt zj soorten van stempels en bij 50 ofMoretU8 - soorten van matrijsen, en gemaekt wesende bij Cbristoffel van Dijck, de beste meester van sijnen en onsen tijdt, en bij gevolge de beroemste gieterije, die ooyt is gewecst, so bebbe qulks UE. wel willen bekent maken, en de proeven en catalogue daervan senden, op dat UE. genegentbeyt tot Les Elzevler, deselve bebbende UE. tijdt kan waernemen, en profijt doen. p. ixxxi. Waermede blijve Mevrouwe UEd .... Pro de weduwe van Dan. Elsevier. Amsterdam, January 3, 1681. Madame : Not believing that I am competent to manage everything, I have decided to sell my type-foundry. It consists of 27 suites of punches and 50 suites of matrices, which are the work of Christopher I/an Dijck, the best master of his time, and of our own. This foundry is, consequently, the most famous ever made. I wish to inform you of the Translation. intended sale, and to send you the specimens and the catalogue, so that, if so disposed, you can sei^e the occasion, and profit by it. I am, madame, Yours, etc., for the widow of Daniel Elsevier, Imitation of Italic types used by John Elzevir at Leyden in 1659. From the foundry of Gustave Mayeur, Paris. 48 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. types. other Dutch matrices to the cellar, and by cutting entirely new punches in imitation of the prevailing styles of the leading French founders. The new faces had the merit of novelty and pleased the type-buyers of England and Holland for man y F^ 1 * 8 ' About 1810 > one of tne descendants of the Enschede family, annoyed by the sight of punches and matrices which seemed of no use, ordered all of them to be broken up and destroyed. Sixty years after, Willems vigorously rebuked the bad taste which prompted this wanton act of vandalism. Founders in Holland and Bel- gium discovered when too late that there was a good deal of merit in the destroyed types, and men of letters everywhere called for the reproduction of the entire series. ^ n the brief time allowed me I can say but little of other Dutch founders. Dirck Voskens was a celebrated founder at Amsterdam. Athias of the same city maintained a high reputation for his " Jewish f oundry " as it was then called. Isaac Van der Putte of Amsterdam deserves as honor- able mention. There were other foundries in the xviith century at the Hague, at Leyden, at Antwerp, and at Haarlem. Rudolph Wetstein, a printer of Amsterdam, inherited from three generations of founders at Basle and Geneva the materials of a great foundry which he reestablished at Haarlem, and which in time passed into the hands of the Enschede family. The Enschede foundry is still in exist- ence, and eminent for its good cuts of Orientals. DUTCH TYPES. 49 AD DANIELEM ELZEVIRIUM, BIBLIOPOLAM AMSTELODAMENSEM. Ecquidnam video ? O Dei Deseque ! Nostros scilicet Elzevirianis Excuses video typis libellos. O typos nitidos & elegantes ! O comptum & lepidum novum volumen ! Atro literulae picem colore, Et candore nives papyrus aequat. Codex sindone non quotidiana, Et membrana nitet novo umbilico. Fulget pagina cuncta purpurisso, Et sunt omnia pumice expolita. Tarn comptum & lepidum novum volumen Invitos trahit & tenet legentes ; Et, quas non habuere, dant habere Typi versiculis amoenitates. Sic nuptae, invida Fata quos negarunt, Ornatrix tribuit novos lepores. At, 6 dulce decus meum, Elzeviri, Prsestantissime quot fuere, quot sunt, Typorum pater elegantiorum, Ecquid, die mihi, die, venuste noster, Hoc pro munere, muneris reponam ? Quas possum tibi gratias referre? Sic semper lepidos tuos libellos Facundus probet & requirat orbis. Sic vestras adeat frequens tabernas Emptor. Sic decus Elzevirianum, Doctorum volitans per ora vatum, Terras impleat, impleatque ccelum. Turnebos simul atque Vascosanos, Et vincas Stephanos, Manutiosque. TO DANIEL ELZEVIR, BIBLIOPOLE AT AMSTERDAM. O ye gods and goddesses ! what do I see ? My verses reproduced by the Elzevir types ! O types elegant and exquisite ! O gracious and charming volume ! The dainty types are as black as pitch ; the paper is as white as snow. * * * * So gayly attired, the book attracts and retains the reader in spite of himself. The types give charms to my verses which they never had before : like the bride to whom a skillful hair-dresser gives the graces that a jealous fate has denied. But thou, Elzevir, my sweet ennobler ! thou, the father of types of incomparable elegance, thou, I say it again, most amiable of friends ! what can I offer thee in return for such a gift? How can I acquit myself of this debt? May men of letters forever prize and collect thy bewitching books ! May crowds of buyers be steadily pressing forward to thy store ! May the name of Elzevir, transmitted from age to age by the songs of poets, fill the great globe, and fill the heavens. Mayst thou vanquish Turnebus and Vascosan ; surpass the Stephens and the Alduses. GILLES MENAGE" Imitation of Roman Types used by John Elzevir at Leyden in 1659. From the foundry of Gustave Mayeur, Paris. 50 HISTOBIC FEINTING TYPES. Types of Plantln. The types of the Plantin foundry were not exclusively Flemish. His Eoman types by Flemish designers have no local or national features. As a Frenchman, his tastes inclined to the French designers Granjon and Le Be. He also had some fonts cut in Germany. VII English Black Letter. Types of Caxton. Bee page 51. I NGLISH printing, unlike that of France, Italy, or Grermany, began with a book in its own ver- nacular; but its first book, the "Recuyell of the Histories of Troy," was printed not in Eng- land, but in the Netherlands, by William Caxton, about 1474. The types of this book, as well as of the second, " The GTame and Playe of the Chesse," also by Caxton, are unlike the usual English form of Black Letter. They closely resemble the types used by John Brito, of Bruges, in 1481, of which a fac-simile is appended. Resemblance may also be traced in comparing these types with those attributed to Colard Mansion, another printer of Bruges. "Whether Caxton made the types he afterward used in Eng- land, or had them made in the Netherlands, is not positively known, but he always preferred the Flemish form of letters. ENGLISH BLACK LETTER. 51 The printers who followed Caxton Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, and William Faques were of French birth Confer oyue opttr*fperirfu* cofcue cotfcg HUm Qtlt ft* Typesof John Brito. attic 2(>tamt?5 arfe^ nutto mon Qjnftrunteth qttoqf no)) minus Types of John Brito, Bruges, 1481. and inheritors of French tastes. The form of letters which they used closely resemble the Black Letter types of print- ers at Paris and Rouen, in which cities books of devotion OH htt ^bmmce noiirri^ tj atimme fin guficnetf ^i/f oiw^ tc f rop0 / vi uo cfc tx^artc iilifft qnc tx jfaeflc fairs vtiij cudl j[c Jttbufftc rtp tu U c meat te f tc0 no Bte cf itccr lJhteu)r p lacfmcr fni/ctir be towfcc Early form of Flemish type. Fac-simile of the types of the first edition of " Recueil des Histoires de Troye," printed before Caxton's edition in English. were largely printed to be sold on English soil. The laws of England were then officially printed in French, and 52 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. Types used by Caxton in 1477. i* franffato ou* of Jtenf info #t (UoBfe ani puifean* forb (Qntoint er0 forb of |kafes of ^e 3ffe of Tl?gg^ + efenbour anb of t$t fiege @poffofiqu^ tic. tern; me T3?tfftatn Ca^^on ^e ^ear of out fotb nt* cccc, Specimen of the types used by Caxton in 1477. These types were cut by Vincent Figgins, of London, in 1855, and used by him in a fac-simile edition of "The Game and Playe of the Chesse." French was still the language of its court and its cultivated society. It is not surprising that the French printers of England should join with English readers in a preference E>f tlje Craft of ^otnttng* cijerbe fiue tnancr prayer-books. ^Oltt^0, dUD lttflOU0 ttlOft Ufl&C \Bltl) CUUU^ng a^en : t^e trj^icl),, tf tlje? be tneil ufiD 3 mafte tl)e Cen^ ten0 ber^ Ug^t, anD fy to unuetttontJ, botl) to tlje BeDeranDtl)e^erer,attn t^e^be t^efe : Otrpl, Conic, ?aarent^eCt0, ^la^nt ^o^nt anD Slnterrogattf* a airgil 10 a ^clenner ^tr^fte : len^nge tyrtoarne tl)t0 toife / be tofc?n?ttge a L^l ffiort reft, twfyout an^ perf etne0 ytt of >enten& Specimen of an early English Black from matrices made in xvith century. ENGLISH BLACK LETTER. 53 for French fashions of types. Black Letter maintained its popularity in England and in the Netherlands after it had fallen into disuse in France. Obliged to go to Holland to get types, or the matrices for making types (for England had no type-foundry of note before that of John Day), English printers had to accept with the Dutch types some of the mannerisms of Dutch Eng n sh Biack punch-cutters. The English JF&W? ?">*??* with Flemish (Cfte Sfernfe ban in vis fcccfepn a cofce, mannerisms Black Letter of this period a *toute .flfcm anb a fa. does not seem to have been ^)?t*n Joban Oreuie a 0oot> fltbe pofeen of, toere all conoemneD bt> &tepfym ^artjmer,br?st)op of Mincljester, urtjtcl) tljen teas ljSl) C^auncellour: but Ijc bet?ing noto toear^, as it seemetl), of tlje pavne anu trouble, put of al ttje rest to (BftmunD HBoner, b^stjoppe of ilonuon, to be conuemneD b^ t)tnt Specimen of the Black Letter of Fox's "Acts and Monuments," from original matrices. The popular taste of our time puts aside all early forms of Black Letter as old-fashioned, and altogether too rude. That there are in some styles occasional letters of uncouth form may be admitted ; but that many of the Black Letters made in this century as improvements on the old are any better, or even as good, must be denied. Here is the Bold- a summit antr Uolroni ! tuijnt uiottin i>r Datir satH of tljts tjio0ra)il)ir moiisrroofti) .^ Specimen of the Bold-face Black of 1825. faced Black, in high favor with many printers fifty years ago. Are the forms of capitals, improvements I Here too 58 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. is the Condensed Black, which had a more recent day of popularity. Its capitals are neatly flourished, and its angles Condensed gf fa % flitf ty$t 000fl fltffUtttt 0f t&* tmttfb-flttttt'0 ut urfoat to* you tone witft tft* 0tr*ti0tft, tfce f the Specimen of the Condensed Black of 1855. are duly bristled; it has graceful curves, exact angles, and most delicate hair lines, but whether it has as good general effect, whether it is as readable or even as comely a letter as the older style of the xvith century, may be left to the decision of the reader without another word of comment. 1550. A Contrast of Capitals. VIII Styles of Caslon and Baskerville. OSEPH MOXON, "mathematical instrument maker, A founder from 1659 to and nydrographer to his majesty, Charles u.," ices. was the first English type-founder of note. 1 His types cannot be compared with those of his more eminent rivals in France and Holland, but they were better than those of other English type-founders of the cale of J.-2. farts Vt'f. the ''-^-'-^-'-^-'--^-'-^^"^ Model Letters from Moxon's "Mechanick Exercises," 1683. xvnth century. Before and after his time, publishers and men of letters preferred foreign types. The University of Foreign types preferred. Oxford in 1672 paid 4000, a very large sum at that time, 1 The type-founding skill of England Grismand, Thomas Wright, Arthur declined after the death of John Day. Nicholas, and Alexander Fifield pro- The founders authorized by the decree duced no types of value. Nor did Moxon of the Star Chamber in 1637 John have any successor of marked merit. 59 60 HISTOEIC FEINTING TYPES. A founder from 1710 to 1738. Born 1692. Died 1766. Precision of Caelon's style. for foreign-made types, punches, and matrices. Even as late as 1710, the type-founder Thomas James had to go to Hol- land to buy matrices and molds not to be had in London. 1 Hansard says that "the glorious works of English litera- ture which immortalized the reign of Queen Anne were originally presented to the public through the medium of Dutch types." William Caslon was the first English founder who shook the faith of his countrymen in the superiority of Dutch founders. 2 The merit of the Caslon types was not in their novelty of design, but in their careful cutting and good founding. The beauty of uniformity, about which Tory, Jaugeon, and Moxon had written, and which they thought could be had only by strict conformity to mathematical rules, was most signally shown by Caslon, who made rules bend to suit necessities. No founder before him ever suc- ceeded in repeating the same form on many sizes with such precision of style. His largest and his smallest types show unmistakable features of relationship. 1 Eowe Mores, in his "Dissertation on English Type Founders and Foun- deries," prints three letters written by James, in which he reports the difficul- ties he met. The Dutch founders were " sly and jealous," ready to sell types, but matrices and molds were not to be had at any price. Athias would not allow James in his house. Voskens " watched me as if I had been a thief." He had to deal with inferior punch- cutters, and pay high prices. 2 Caslon had served his time as an apprentice to an engraver on metal, whose chief work was the decoration of gun-barrels, when his neat lettering attracted the attention of the printer William Bowyer, who persuaded him to devote all his time to the making of types. STYLES OF CASLON AND BASKEKVILLE. 61 ACompleat and Private List of all the Printing Houses in and about the Cities of London and West- minster, together with the Printers' Names, what News- papers they print, and where they are to be found : also an Account of all the Printing Houses in the Towns in England; and humbly laid before the Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Town- . Bowyer,Printer. The Caslon Style from types cast in Caslon's matrices. 62 HISTOEIC FEINTING TYPES. The Caslon face is cleaner and clearer than that of any French or Dutch founder ; it is nearly as light, and is much The marked more inviting than the best letter of Jenson. The body- features of caeion's types, mark is protracted after the old fashion, as may be seen in the m, t, O; hair lines are frequent in the capital letters, but they are not too thin ; angled serifs are used on the top line of the lower case; the short, flat serif appears more freely on foot lines. The triangular stub of Van Dijck appears in the serifs of the capitals, but it is somewhat rounded in a bracket-like curve. The hard angles and stiff curves in letters like a and g are not the fault of bad taste or of carelessness in drawing. Caslon was more intent on making letters readable than on making them pretty; he had the wit to see that some angularity was really needed to give relief to too much roundness. It must also be remembered that the English reader of 1750 was familiar with Black Letter, and had not entirely outgrown a liking for angles. Caslon's style retained its supremacy in Eng- land for more than fifty years. 1 It compelled the respectful notice of French and Dutch critics, who had heretofore small respect for English types. 1 "Beginning early in life, attaining . . . From 1720 to 1780 few works advanced age, and engraving for him- were printed with the types of any self, he had the advantage of complet- other foundry. Caslon has since been ing his specimen on his own plan, excelled in individual fonts, but . . . For clearness and uniformity, for the no foundry has shown a collection of use of the reader and the student, sizes and styles which equals his in it is doubtful whether it has been ex- congruity, or appears so strongly the ceeded by any subsequent production, result of one mind." Hansard, p. 350. STYLES OF CASLON AND BASKEKVILLE. 63 John Baskerville, of Birmingham, England, was another ' . Died 1775. amateur who made more serious innovations in the fashion of Roman letter. 1 His first types were influenced by the style of Caslon, but as he gained skill and experience, he developed a style of his own. His matured form of letters Baskerville's appears to best advantage in his folio Bible, and Book of best works. Common Prayer, in which he shows types of round, open form, without excess of angles, and with positive hair lines. Baskerville's types have been warmly praised but inex- actly described by Dr. Dibdin. According to modern no- tions, they were not at all " slender and delicate," but have The features quite enough of firmness. The peculiarity of his Roman, as of MS types. compared with other types of his time, is its superior round- ness, openness, and clearness. His Italic, on the contrary, is unusually condensed, and shows in many letters the graces of the professional writing-master. 1 In 172 6 Baskerville kept a writing- was greatly in advance of his rivals; school at Birmingham; in 1745 he he made his presses; mixed his inks; engaged in the japanning business, and hot-pressed his printed sheets, Soon after he attempted type-found- which were either of carefully selected ing, in which he "sunk 600 before Dutch manufacture, or English papers he could produce one letter to please made under his own direction. His himself, and some thousands before printing was not profitable. In a letter the shallow stream of profit began to to Walpole, Nov. 2, 1762, he writes, flow." Upon the types he made he " This business of printing I am heart- printed many books of great merit, ily tired of, and repent I ever at- the Bible, in imperial folio ; Paradise tempted." After his death his foundry Lost, in 4to and 8vo ; Virgil, in 4to was sold in 1779 to a literary society and 12mo; the Book of Common of Paris, and his types were used by Prayer, in 8vo, and an edition of Hor- Beaumarchais in a great edition of the ace, in 12mo. As a printer, Baskerville works of Voltaire. 64 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. PRATERS and THANKSGIVINGS Vponfeveral Occafiom; to be ufed before the twojinal prayers of the Litany ', or of Morning and Evening Prayer. PRATERS. I For Rain. OGod heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jefus Chrift haft promifed to all them that feek thy kingdom and the righteoufnefs thereof, all things neceffary to their bodily fu- ftenance: Send us, \ve befeech thee, in this our neceffity, fuch moderate rain and fhowers, that we may receive the fruits of the earth to our comfort, and to thy honour, through Jefus Chrift our Lord. Amen. Fac-simile of Baskerville's types, from the Book of Common Prayer. Printers of Baskerville's time objected to this face as too delicate and too liable to injury; readers objected to the lines as too fine and too dazzling to the eyes. The great- est fault of the new style seems to have been that Basker- for his time, ville printed books from it with greater skill and beauty than any rival had done or could do. It was his misfortune to introduce a style which was in advance of the abilities of the trade. As printing was then done, a proper quality of STYLES OF OTHEE BRITISH TYPE-FOUNDERS. 65 paper and ink, and proper presses and pressmen, could not be readily found to do the types justice. Seventy years after Baskerville's death, when all these conditions were to style. be had, his style was revived. It is still esteemed. To many book-lovers the Baskerville style is the embodiment of all that is really praiseworthy in types. IX Styles of other British Type-founders. EFORE the xvnith century had closed, the Caslon style had been adjudged "too stiff"; the Bas- kerville, "too delicate." Of the two styles, the Baskerville was the less objectionable ; but the punches and matrices had gone abroad and could not be recalled, and the types that he left had been worn out. The Round and open types taste of the day was for roundness and openness of form, preferred. Hogarth's new theory that the true line of beauty was in the curve and reversed curve, seems to have been accepted by the many publishers who called for types that should have more of the curve and less of the angle. To meet this want, Joseph Jackson, the ablest apprentice of the first J. Jackson, Caslon, designed a style which was intended to combine diedi792.' the good features of all previous types. The best work done with Jackson's new types may be seen in Macklin's Begun 1739. 9 66 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. edition of the Bible, as printed by Bensley an edition Macklin's J Bible. in eight volumes of large folio, probably the most expan- sive edition of the book ever published. The printing was excellent; the style of letter "the most perfect symmetry P. 359. to which the art had at that time arrived." 1 One of the peculiarities of this book is the exclusion of Italic from the text. Words that should be in Italic were indicated by placing dots under the vowels, with intent to avoid the frequent and offensive contrast of oblique Italic with upright Roman. Jackson died before the Bible was complete. His appren- tice, Vincent Figgins, was intrusted with the cutting and Figgins began as a master founding of an exact imitation of this type, which he did creditably. Figgins soon became a popular founder; his styles of types were preferred by the University of Oxford, and by many London publishers. William Martin, brother of Robert Martin, of Birming- ham, who had served apprenticeship with Baskerville, was another London founder who favored round light-faced types. Buhner, of the Shakespeare Press, preferred his cut founder in 1792. Martin was a founder from 1790 to 1817. 1 Jackson had not been taught punch- cutting by Caslon, for that branch of the business was kept by him pro- foundly secret. All Jackson knew was gained by secret observation and ex- periment. When he showed to his master his first punch, which had been cut at home after work-hours, instead of receiving praise he was rewarded with a blow, and a threat to be sent to jail if he ever made another attempt at meddling with work out of his prov- ince. This is but one of many evi- dences of the narrow jealousies of the old type-founders. The elder Caslon and his grandson, the third Caslon, were afterward obliged to acknowl- edge the merit of Jackson. STYLES OF OTHER BRITISH TYPE-FOUNDERS. 67 of letter, which he made use of to good advantage in Boy- Boydell's dell's great edition of Shakspeare. snakspeare. Baskerville's workmanship had raised the standard of printing even higher than that of type-founding. Book buyers called for more neatly printed books, and the books were soon forthcoming. Millar Ritchie, a native of Scotland, A ne w 8Ch o1 of printers. led the way with a series of Latin classics, to be followed and distanced by the more fortunate, but not more skillful, Bulmer, Bensley, M'Creery, Corrall, and Whittingham. Type-founders were not entirely content with the new styles of light faces preferred by the new school of book printers. When they discovered that Bodoni of Italy was The competi- tion of Bodonl. printing a book 1 for an English author, in bold types, then supposed to be more beautiful than any in England, they made strong efforts to checkmate the skillful Italian printer. Imitations of the Bodoni style were attempted; the imita- tors exaggerated his peculiarities; they made sharp hair lines and longer body-marks and serifs, but the great Italian's style was never popular in Great Britain. Nor can it be said that the new style of light faces was popular with the great body of printers. It came before its time. Few printers could use delicate types with profit. The time for light-faced and delicate types came when Printers were needed improvements had been made in presses, paper, improvements and inks. The iron hand-press, which enabled the printer i Hansard specifies, on page 313 of Bodoni for English publishers between his Typographia, five books printed by the years 1791 and 1794. 68 HISTOKIC PRINTING TYPES. Improvements in presses, paper and ink. Influence of Bewick. Changes of style by type- founders. to print the full size of a large sheet at one impression, with more control over the impression than had been possible on the old wooden press, was invented about 1802, and was in general use in 1812. Paper of greater smooth- ness and finer texture was made by paper-makers who feared the impending competition of the Fourdrinier ma- chine, which was in successful operation soon after. Some printers believed that they had discovered the secret of the smooth paper of Bodoni and Baskerville, and began to use the screw-press for the pressing of paper both before and after printing. The brilliant black ink of Baskerville had compelled ink-makers to emulation. But the greatest impulse to fine printing was given by a man who had never been taught type-making or printing processes. Thomas Bewick, the reviver of engraving on wood, had demonstrated that even from such a frail substance as boxwood it was possible to produce printed lines of a delicacy which had been thought attainable only by the process of copper-plate printing. When it was demonstrated that hair lines could be fairly printed upon an ordinary hand-press, type-founders began to cut finer lines for all new faces. Stubby serifs were rejected, the hair lines were sharpened and extended, and the body-marks were tapered down to meet hair lines. Without meaning to do so, the punch-cutters of this new style were really more intent on showing how truly they could make curves and tapers, than they were on making STYLES OF OTHEK BRITISH TYPE-FOUNDEKS. 69 legible letters. They forgot that the perspicuity of letters depended quite as much on their well-balanced irregularity as on their uniformity ; that a certain degree of angularity and hardness or stiffness of form arrested the eye much more readily than a monotonous roundness. The new styles were admired, but only when the larger sizes were Ineffectiveness used in large books. They were never effective for com- of new styles. mon or ordinary books, or for newspapers. Feeble-faced types made ordinary printing seem gray, fuzzy, and indis- tinct, especially so when the printing was done, as much of it had to be done, with weak ink on poor paper. Old- fashioned printers, and readers with failing eyesight, called for blacker printing and bolder types. To meet this reasonable request, Robert Thorne of London introduced a new style, which has ever since About mo. been known as the Bold-face. It was almost as somber as the old Black Letter. The thickened body-marks made the page blacker, but blackness did not make it more readable. Indeed, it was not as readable as a page in the Caslon style, for the bold-faced types had no proper relief of white either within or without the letters. In spite of this grave fault, the Bold-face was a popular type for at least thirty years, Popularity of 7 the Bold-face. both in England and in America, but it was most pleasing when it was new or little worn. As first made, the serifs were in the French style long, thin, and without sup- port. Type-founders showed them as evidences of care- ful cutting and even lining. Printers showed them as 70 THORNE'S BOLD-FACE. IT is a greater misfortune that all the early chronicles of printing were writ- ten in a dead language. Wolf's collection of Typographic Monuments, which in- cludes nearly every paper of value written before 1740, is in Latin ; the valuable books of Meerman, Maittaire, and Scho- epflin are also in Latin. To the general reader these are sealed books : to the student, who seeks exact knowledge of the methods of the first printers, they are tiresome books. Written for the informa- tion of librarians rather than of printers, it is but proper that these books should devote the largest space to a review of the controversy or to a description of early editions ; but it is strange that they should so imperfectly describe the construction and appearance of early types and the usages of the early printers. The me- chanical features of typography were, ap- parently, neglected as of little importance. The Bold-face style of Robert Thorne. From the foundry of George Brace's Son & Co. Great Primer No. 1. THE SCOTCH-FACE. 71 THE word printing has acquired a conventional meaning not entirely warranted by its derivation. It means much more than impression. It is commonly understood as a process in which paper and ink are employed in conjunction with impression. Printing and typography are not strictly synony- mous, as might be inferred from the definitions. Typog- raphy, although the most useful, is not the only form of printing. Printing on paper with ink is done by four methods. Each method is, practically, a separate art, distinct from its rivals in its theory, in its process, and its application. These methods are : Steel-plate or Copper-plate printing, in which the subject is printed from an etching or engraving below the surface of a plate of steel or copper. Lithography, in which the subject is printed from a transferred engraving on the surface of a prepared stone. Typography, in which the subject is printed from a combination of movable metal types cast in high relief. Xylography, in which the subject is printed from a design engraved on a block of wood in high relief. The distinct nature of the substances in use for print- ing surfaces by the four methods should be enough to teach us that the methods are entirely different. But the manner in which the letters, designs, or figures of each method are put on the respective printing sur- faces will show the differences more noticeably. The Scotch-face style. From the foundry of George Brace's Son & Co. English No. 19. 72 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. Weakness of the Bold-face. Wilson began ae a founder In 1742. Andrew Fou- lis, born 1712, died 1775. Robert Foulis, born 1707, died 1776. Page 370. their evidences of clean presswork. But whether attached to light faces or bold faces, they were not durable ; they gapped or broke off after moderate wear, and made com- paratively new types seem old and badly worn. It took some time for printers to discover that the bold-faces were not durable; that they called for more pressure than the older styles, and that the hair lines were not fairly pro- tected against this overpressure. They began to seek a more durable form, which they found in the letter of Scotch type-founders, who had been neglected for many years. Alexander Wilson, the first type-founder of Scotland, like many of his predecessors, was an amateur, entirely self- taught in the art. More clearly than any of his rivals, he understood the importance of making types that were useful as well as comely. That they were good as well as strong may be inferred from their use by Andrew and Robert Foulis, whose editions of classic authors will compare honor- ably with those of Barbou or Didot. Wilson's sons main- tained the reputation of their father. They in turn set an example to their successors, which has been so strong that the words Scotch type are regarded by all printers as the synonyms of very high mechanical merit. Hansard highly praised them for their refusal to adopt the French flat serif, and for their adherence to the best features of the older forms. But not long after this praise was written, the Scotch founders were making faces as light and hair lines as sharp as those of any French or English founder. The STYLES OF OTHER BRITISH TYPE-FOUNDERS. 73 taste of the time was for sharp hair lines and light open faces, and they were obliged to conform to it. They conformed with much intelligence. The hair-line The new Scotch face. serif was connected to the body-mark by means of a bracket-like curve, supported by a sloping shoulder, which gave it strength, while it did not rob it of its old lightness and delicacy ; the round form of the Baskerville letter was preserved, and made more graceful by smoother curves; but the curves were more elliptical than round ; the letters were more closely fitted and made more compact. Here was a type which gave promise of adaptability to the best Its excellent or the cheapest books, a type probably as durable as it workmanship, was comely. The graceful appearance of the new style, as well as its superior . mechanical execution, made it popular everywhere. In France it was called ^cossais ; and the name of Scotch-face was then given by printers, too often inexactly, to every face in which bracketed serifs were joined to sharp hair lines or graceful curves. This fashion had its day. After a long trial, discreet publishers decided that although it was admirable in books of poetry and the fine arts, it was too ornate, too graceful, too feminine for books of history, science, or theology. It Not entirely was dazzling to the eye; it lacked firmness and boldness, satisfactory. Old-fashioned readers disapproved of it from the beginning of the fashion, as decidedly inferior to the style of the first Caslon. They had reason. The hair line of this Scotch face, as well as of many imitations, is almost the ideal 10 74 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. Lacking in legibility. Types made to suit new methods of printing. mathematical line: it has extension, but no appreciable width. When printed, as much of the book printing of America has been done for the past twenty years, on dry calendered paper, after an inking from hard rollers filmed with stiff ink against a hard surface that would not thicken the line, it showed a faintness and feebleness that had been seen only in a print from copper or steel plate. Here it may be necessary to show, although somewhat out of the order of time, how the fashions of types have been changed to suit different methods of printing. Before 1845, all kinds of book and job printing had been done, in America, on dampened paper, by flat platen press- ure against thick woolen blankets, or other elastic resisting surface. About, and perhaps a little before, 1850, calen- dering rollers were used in American paper-mills, and book papers of smooth glossy surface, that did not require damp- ening, were to be had in every paper-warehouse. On this smooth paper it was not necessary to make use of an elastic resisting surface to sink the types in the fabric, as was necessary on all rough papers. It was only for the pur- pose of making rough paper pliable and susceptible to impression that it had been dampened. Job printers who made use of small platen job-presses, and wood-cut printers who printed wood-cuts from the wood on hand-presses, found that they got the cleanest and sharpest impressions on smooth dry paper against an inelastic impression sur- face. In 1850, cylinder presses were used with marked STYLES OF OTHEK BRITISH TYPE-FOUNDERS. 75 success for fine printing on dry paper. A new standard of merit in presswork was established. A printed page was esteemed, not, as before, for its blackness, but for its lightness ; if the hair lines could be shown with the razor- Type-founders imitate style like sharpness of a copper-plate line, grayness or weakness of engravers, on the body-marks would be overlooked. Faces of type that showed extremely fine lines were admired : the nearer the imitation of copper-plate, the greater the merit. Type-founders did all they could to promote this false taste, for they were as much pleased as printers to discover that they could make fine lines. Before 1836 they could not have made them by the process of hand-casting from hand moulds. It was not until the type-casting machine Largely aided had been perfected that these delicate hair lines could be by new type- casting ma- made with unvarying uniformity. Neither printer nor type- dimes. founder could see any impropriety in sharp hair lines. They were regarded as evidences of skill, beyond the reach of old-fashioned or inferior workmen, and for that reason to be maintained. X Types of Bodoni, Fournier, Didot, and of later French Founders. Born 1740. Died 1813. Formality of the types of Bodoni. IAMBATTISTA BODONI of Parma was the first Italian after Aldus who won the highest honors of typography. Unlike Aldus, his taste was for large types and great books. The ordinary folio page was not big enough to show his broad plans. For his master-pieces he insisted on leaves so wide that the largest press then in use could print only one page at an impression. These large leaves gave ample space for noble printing, but they entailed an objectionable method of binding, for the flat, unfolded leaves could be bound only by "whipstitching" them on the raw edge. He made the pecu- liar types of many languages, some of great merit ; but he did not show the highest skill in his Roman and Italic. His Koman has very long ascenders and descenders, thick body-marks, sharp hair lines, and flat serifs. It betrays a servile obedience to mechanical rules and to geometrical notions of propriety of form. His Italic has more freedom, but the inflexible parallelism of his long body-marks, and his excessive nicety in even lining, at the top as well as at the foot of lines, making round letters tend to squareness, r RANCOIS, due de la Rochefoucauld, auteur des Reflexions morales, naquit en 1618. Son education fut negligee; mais la nature supplea a F instruction. II avoit , dit madame de Maintenon , une physionomie heureuse , Fair grand, beaucoup d'esprit, et peu de savoir. 77" wousavez recu les felicitations de FItalie sur le manage de VHeritier de vos vertus et dun nom illustre dans les fastes de la Ville de Bologne; daignez agreer aussi Fac-simile of the Roman and Italic of Bodoni, from his edition, in folio, of Rochefoucauld's Maxims. 77 78 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. are wearisome to the eye. Yet he made his types look Beauty of his printing. beautiful by printing them beautifully. Always using the blackest of ink on the smoothest of paper, always providing broad spaces of white relief between his lines and in the margin, always using new types and clean balls, always hot-pressing his sheets, he showed printing with a perfec- tion of workmanship that astonished as much as it delighted the literary world. On the smaller sizes of type his cut of letter is not so pleasing, nor was his presswork on the small types of greater superiority than that of Barbou of Paris, or of Millar Ritchie and Corrall of London. The most noticeable exhibition of skill in recent Italian Microscopic type of Milan, type-founding is in the strongest contrast to the heroic style of Bodoni. It is the type of a dainty miniature edition of " La Divina Commedia," printed at Milan in 1878, on a leaf about If by 2 inches a "microscopic type" about twenty lines to the inch. France has steadily maintained her early reputation for Early French punch-cutters, good punch-cutters. The Imprimerie Royale" gave em- ployment from 1640 to 1790 to some of the more famous: to Grand jean and Alexandre, to the family of Luce, father, son, and grandson, as well as to Firmin-Didot, Marcellin Legrand, Jacquemin, Delafoiid, and Leger-Didot, of later date. Their work and those of their rivals and predecessors are shown with magnificence in the " Specimen Typogra- phique" of 1845, of the then French Royal Printing-house. This book exhibits a bewildering variety of types of foreign TYPES OF FOURNIER AND DIDOT. 79 languages, many of the greatest beauty but it does not show many Roman types of decided superiority. 1 The forms of Roman type made in France during the xvmth century, which modern taste calls the best, are those Born 1712. of Pierre Simon Founder, of Paris. His faces are angular, Died nes. but they are firm and clear, well designed and clean cut, not unlike those of Caslon in general effect. Fournier rendered Merit of the types of a great service to typography by the invention of the sys- Foamier, tern of "typographic points," for determining the sizes and the proportions of types, a system which was gradually adopted by all the founders in France. His merit as a type-founder is fairly proved by the two volumes of his "Manuel Typographique," beautifully printed by Barbou, which shows many styles of Roman cut by his own hand. They fully justify the good taste of numerous French pub- lishers who have never abandoned his models. The Didot family has done much for the honor of French Bom 173O typography. Francois Ambroise Didot made great improve- Died ISM. ments in the manufacture of paper, and became famous as the printer of many beautiful editions. He readjusted the 1 The French forms of Roman types both the Roman and Italic of the have been out of favor in England for French school." Many of the smaller more than a century. Hansard says French foundries made types bad (p. 382), " The worst pretender to the enough to justify this severe criticism, art of letter-founding in this country Nor were all the punch-cutters of the needs never light a furnace again were Royal Printing-house of uniform merit, he to show such disproportionate cut- Firmin-Didot cannot refrain from cen- ting, such miserable lining, and such suring the pearl types of Louis Luce, despicable casting as are exhibited in as types that could not be read. 80 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. Born 1765. Died 1852. Microscopic types of Didot. Born 1794. Died 1871. Types of Jules Didot. Large face of Fournier. typographic points of Fournier, and established the system of sizes which is now in use. His son, Henri Didot, was a famous punch-cutter; at the age of 66 he cut punches for the smallest microscopic types known, about twenty- five lines to the inch, on which he printed the Maxims of Rochefoucauld. Pierre Didot was equally celebrated as a skillful founder and printer. Jules, his son, was a worthy successor. The form of Roman type which was in highest favor in Paris at the beginning of this century is fairly shown in the following illustration of the types of Jules Didot. A strain- ing after originality may be detected in the forms of the letters S and ff, but, as a whole, this face is not original or characteristic. Even when the types are "set solid" or compact, they have the appearance of "leaded matter." Its readability is due largely to the broad relief of white space about every letter. Like the Bodoni letter, it is wasteful of space. The flat extended serif is in imitation of the style of Jaugeon ; the tall ascenders and descenders, the squared forms of small letters, the wide spaces between lines and in the margin are in imitation of the style of Bodoni. It was shown with best effect in large sizes. In the smaller sizes, it was not much more pleasing than the ordinary English bold-face. For plain books, in which the greatest compactness of letter was desired, another face was preferred, which Four- nier presents in many sizes, in his "Manuel Typographique," FABULA XII. Pullus ad Margantam. In sterculino Pullus gallinaceus Dum quaerit escam, Margaritam repperit, laces indigno, quanta res, inquit, loco! Te si quis pretii cupidus vidisset tui, Olim redtsses ad splendorem pristinum. Fac-simlle of types of Jules Didot, from an edition in folio of JSsop's Fables. 81 11 82 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. Peculiarities of Large face. XLII. ClCSROj GROS -; i i >ur la Typographic, p. 699. Probably of French cut. founders, in each copy is noticeable an adaptation, some- times without any set purpose, to the fashions or manner- isms of the present time, or to the requirements of modern methods of presswork. Some are thin, some are fat, some are square, but all are labeled old style. These faces, alike in some points, are unlike in others, and are not clearly denned by this ambiguous name. The purer and more characteristic styles should be known by names that fairly describe them. The Elzevir or xviith century style, of which an illustra- tion is given on the next page, is so called because it is a fac-simile of types in a book printed at Leyden in 1659, probably by John Elzevir. But we have little warrant for believing that this "Elzevir" 1 style was designed by a Dutch type-founder, for it is unlike any type made by Van Dijck or his rivals. Its peculiar features are those of the French type-founders of that period. Didot says that the most beautiful books of the Elzevirs were printed from types designed and cast by Graramond and Sanlecque. It is probable that this form of old style is of French origin. The most noticeable peculiarity of this style is the stubbi- ness or " club-footedness " of its short serifs. Hair-lines are few, and, when used, are short and of unusual thickness. It would be difficult to point out in any character a useless mark or stroke. Of all the typographic forms of Roman 1 This style of type was seldom used types in France, most of their books by the Elzevirs. Although they bought were printed on Dutch types. TO THE MESSIEURS ELZEVIR, PUBLISHERS AND PRINTERS AT LEYDEN. IAM indebted to you, and more so, perhaps, than you imagine. The honor of Roman citizenship is even less than the benefit you have conferred on me. For what do you think was this honor in comparison with that of being placed in the ranks with your authors ? It is to rank with the consuls and senators of Rome ; it is to be made fellow with the Sallusts and Ciceros ! What glory it is to rightfully say, I am a member of this immortal republic ! I have been received in the society of the demi-gods ! Practically, we live together at Leyden under the same roof. Thanks to your kindness, I am sometimes facing Pliny, sometimes by the side of Seneca ; at other times I am placed above Tacitus or Livy. Although I have but a small place there, it is as good as any : I do not leave it but to be at my ease, and to please myself in this delightful company. To say the least, all of me is there, however small the place I occupy. Homer, our patriarch, has been much more crowded than I am : he who lodged him in a shell was a more penurious manager than you have been of the accommodation you provided. Whether your art is shown in large or in small books, it is always to your credit as an artisan. There are workmen who have won fame by making pyramids and colossal figures. And there are others who are celebrated for their rings and seals. Does not his- tory speak with esteem of a four-horse chariot which a fly could cover with its wings? As this is well known as perfection in workmanship is most frequently conceded to the skillful handling of materials, and not to their prodigal use I have no right to com- plain that you have put me in a small volume. Although I am not published in folio, I am none the less, gentlemen, Your very humble and obliged servant, [Written 1651.] BALZAC. The Elzevir or xvnth century style. Prom the foundry of Gustave Mayeur, Paris. 93 94 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. Ronaldson Old Style. Old Style is best fitted for old books. capitals known to me, this style seems the closest approach to the simplicity of the early letters of ancient Rome. 1 The most characteristic of modern faces of old style is that of the Ronaldson series, from the foundry of the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan Company, in which the angular features of the face are developed in the most pronounced manner. The characters are not so thick and black as those of the old founders, but they are much more symmetrical; they are squarer and more open, of sharper cut and of as clear and firm face. The "Ronaldson" is in all points a very read- able and durable letter. The continued popularity of the revived old style face shows that it is not a passing fashion. It has come to stay. But is it always judiciously used ? There -are men of letters who hold that there should be propriety in the dress of the book as in the dress of the man. Each should be of its own time. There are publishers and printers who say that the old style face should be restricted to reprints of old books, or to sober writings addressed entirely to the understanding and not to the imagination. The time may come when a new novel or poem will be adjudged as odd in old style types as the author would appear if he were clothed in the old style garments of the last century. 1 About thirty years ago an unknown type-founder of Lyons cut (or revived ?) a few sizes of old style Roman capi- tals, differing greatly from this xviith century style, but remarkable for its quaintness and for its close imitation of the mannerisms of the early Italian printers. Types of this style occasion- ally appear in the titles of a few recent French books, but I have been unable to get the types or even to learn the name of the founder. EEVIVAL OF OLD STYLE. 95 JAMES RONALDSON, the son of William Ronald- son, was born in 1768, at Gorgie, near Edinburgh, and died in Philadelphia in 1842. In 1794 he came to Philadelphia, in the sailing-vessel Provi- dence. Shortly after his arrival he renewed his acquaintance with Mr. Archibald Binny, whom he had previously known in Scotland. For a year or two after his arrival in this country, Ronaldson carried on a biscuit bakery. His establishment was destroyed by fire in 1796, so that he found himself out of an occupation. It is related that about this time he encountered Binny in an ale- house; their acquaintance ripened into a friendly intimacy, and they soon learned each other's views and prospects. The natural result was the formation of a copartnership between them, be- ginning November i, 1796, establishing the first permanent type-foundry in the United States. Ronaldson furnished the greater portion of the capital, and assumed control of the financial branch of the business. Binny, who was a prac- tical type-founder, and had carried on the business in Edinburgh, contributed his tools, stock of metal, and types, and superintended the manu- facturing department. The connection proved mutually advantageous, and a prosperous busi- ness was the result. American printers, who had hitherto relied on British founders for their sup- ply of type, patronized the new establishment, and, in Mr. Ronaldson's words, "the importation of foreign type ceased in proportion as Binny & Ronaldson became known to the printers. Ronaldson Series, Pica Old Style, No. 4. Solid. From the foundry of the MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan Company. XII Recent forms of types. Beginning of American type-founding. Types of American Founders. HAVE now to notice types recently made which cannot yet be regarded as historic. It seems necessary to mention them, if for no other reason, to illustrate the progress of change in styles. That some of them will be used for the printing of books that may be prized hereafter needs no explana- tion. If not historic now, they will be. Until the beginning of this century, American printers depended on the type-founders of England for their sup- plies. Types had been made here before, but in amateurish fashion. 1 Franklin, who was one of the amateurs, has told us how he was compelled to cast the types that he needed. Binny and Ronaldson may be regarded as the fathers of the art in this country. Their success soon led to the estab- i The earliest -American type-found- ers of which I can find any record were Christopher Sauer, Germantown, 1735 Mitchelson, Boston, Mass. 1768 Abel Buell, New Haven, Conn. 1769 John Baine, Philadelphia, Penn. 1790 Binny & Ronaldson, Philadelphia, 1796 Elihu White & Wing, Hartford, 1810 David & George Bruce, New York, 1814 George Lothian, New York, 1822 William Hagar, New York, . . 1824 James Conner, New York, . . . 1827 Laurence Johnson, Philadelphia, 1833 Samuel Nelson Dickinson, Boston, 1847 Some of these founders were printers before they began to make types. The date when they abandoned their first art is not readily found. TYPES OF AMEKICAN FOUNDERS. 97 lishment of rival type-foundries in New York and Boston. British types only taken as Considering the difficulties encountered by the pioneer models. American founders in getting proper tools and skilled work- men, the quality as well as the quantity of types made by them before 1835 is remarkable. 1 Their workmanship was good, but not one style of the many they cast can be offered as original or even really characteristic. All the founders took British forms for their models. The styles of Jackson, Thorne, Fry, Martin, and Wilson successively came in and went out of fashion. No one tried to imitate or to copy the styles of Fournier, Didot, Bodoni, or the Dutch founders. No one tried to originate new forms or features. The contributions which America made to type-founding were in the field of mechanical improvement. The type- ct ^ n e e made by invention casting machine, invented by David Bruce, Jr., of New of type-cast- . ing machine. York, in 1838, and soon after introduced in all American foundries, has been adopted, in its more valuable features, by the type-founders of all countries. It made a revolution in the business, by producing types quicker, cheaper, and better than they had been made by the old hand-casting process. Ornamental types which could not be profitably made by hand were properly cast by the machine. The growing use of ornamental types was soon after largely increased by the introduction of small printing machines, specially made for printing cards and circu- 1 Early American printing also de- "Cato Major " and Fry & Kammerer's serves more respectful notice than it edition of Joel Barlow's "Columbiad" has received. Franklin's edition of are books of excellent workmanship. 13 98 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. lars. of which the machine invented by G-eorge P. Gordon Changes made by invention may be offered as one of the earliest and the most popular. ing machines. These machines enabled letter-press printers to print many varieties of printing which had been done only by litho- graphers and copper-plate printers. Clean, sharp impres- sions were easily obtained on the new machines when dry and smooth paper was used against a hard, inelastic resist- ing surface. After some years of successful practice of this method, the process of dry printing was adopted on the larger machines used for book printing, with similar results. This attempted rivalry with copper-plate, previously no- ticed, has made great changes in the perspicuity of books. The firm presswork of the last century, the clearness of text which makes reading a delight, has well-nigh disappeared. We have in recent books more careful presswork from types of graceful proportions ; but the color of the print is too often more gray than black, the lines are weak, the letters "run together," and are dazzling and confusing, a never-ending annoyance to men of failing eyesight. Types printed work made sharp enough by the type-founder are made still new methods, sharper by feeble presswork. The modern pressman is daily enjoined not to over-color, not to thicken hair line, not to wear out plates or types. 1 Cautions like these induce him to take the safe side; he gives as little ink and as i Unwillingness to wear out plates, publisher's objection to strong press- or to pay for the time of the pressman work. But some wear is unavoidable, who tries to prevent or lighten this Printing is impression, and impression wear, is the underlying motive of the means wear. TYPES OF AMERICAN FOUNDERS. 99 feeble impression as he can and he produces presswork which few good hand-pressmen of the last generation would have dared to offer their employers. Great changes in the appearance of types are also made by changed also by different different methods of presswork. Rough or smooth paper, papers and wet or dry paper, hard or elastic impression will produce from the same types changes in the appearance of printing that seem incredible to those who are not familiar with practical presswork. An elastic or "soaking" impression from new types on wet, coarse or laid paper will have the thickness and bluntness of worn-out letter; on hard, smooth paper, impressed against hard surface, the same types can be made to show hair lines almost as delicate as those of a copper-plate. This delicate method of printing, with a Delicate faces j j v j-i- j.i .of type now corresponding delicacy in the cut ot the types, is now in m fashion, favor, and it is seldom that a printer can find a publisher who will help him in any attempt to change the fashion. 1 Daily newspapers, the largest consumers of types in this country, have necessarily received from the type-founders more attention than books. Peculiar styles have been de- signed for newspapers that are admirably fitted to resist the wear of stereotyping by the papier-mache process, as well 1 Not long ago Mr. Henry O. Hough- of an old Venetian book. The founder ton, of the "Riverside Press," solicited declined, saying that the taste of the a foreign type-founder to make for him time was for light-faced types, and a series of firm-faced types, flat enough that he would cast no other. Mr. to take generous color, and firm enough Houghton has since had the types to withstand strong impression, for made in Boston. Their popularity which he furnished as models the types shows the soundness of his judgment. 100 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. Condensed forms out of fashion. A standard form for type Impracticable. Round and broad faces preferred. as the rough usage they have to receive on rapid printing- machines. The style of type that promised to give the greatest compactness with the greatest apparent clearness was the style most approved by newspaper publishers of forty years ago. These virtues were supposed to be found in the highest degree in types that were tall and condensed. They enabled a publisher to get more letters in a fixed space than could be done with types of the ordinary face; but they did not keep the promise of greater readableness. They wore out sooner, were more slowly composed, and justified compositors in asking a higher price for their work. This form of type is now almost entirely neglected. The varieties of form that have already been shown, the temporary popularity of a novel face and the revival of a disused face, are evidences that it is more impracticable now than ever to fix by general agreement a standard of form. Admirable as any new face may now appear, it will not always be popular. Minor changes may be looked for. The style of types must be adapted to suit new methods of printing and stereotyping as well as to meet the un- ceasing craving for novelty. Hound and open faces are now in favor, of which style the types of this text will serve as an illustration. The bold face of the next page is another favorite for quartos and folios. Faces even broader than this are sometimes used in books, but more commonly in pamphlet work. TYPES OF AMERICAN FOUNDERS. 101 POSTEA faginas formas plumbeis mutauit, has Hadrian -.. ., v ,. T . Junius,Bata- deinceps stanneas lecit, quo soliciior mmusque via, P . 255. flexilis esset materia, durabiliorque : e quorum typorum reliquijs qua3 superfuerant conflata O3n- ophora vetustiora adhuc hodie visuntur in Lau- rentianis illis, quas dixi, a3dibus in forum pros- pectantibus, habitatis postea a suo pronepote Gerarclo Thoma, quern honoris caussa nomino, ciue claro, ante paucos hos annos vita defuncto sene. Fauentibus, vt fit, inuento nouo studijs hominum, quum noua merx, nunquam antea visa, eniptores yndique exciret cum huberrimo quaestu, creuit simul artis amor, creuit minis- terium, additi familix operarum ministri, prima mali labes, quos inter loannes quidam sine is (vt fert suspicio) Faustus fuerit ominoso cognomine, hero suo infidus & infaustus, sine alius eo no- mine, non magnopere laboro, quod silentum vmbras inquietare nolim, contagione coscientia? quondam dum viuerent tactas. Is ad operas excusorias sacramento dictus, postquam artem iungendorum characterum, fusilium typorum peritiam, quseque alia earn ad rem spectant, per- calluisse sibi visus est, captato opportune tern- pore, quo non potuit magis idoneum inueniri, ipsa nocte qua3 CHBISTI natality s solennis est, qua cuncti promiscue lustralibus sacris operari Modern Round Face. From the foundry of George Bruce's Son & Co, English No. 13. 102 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. Light faces of round form. Robert Ste- phens, preface to Thesaurus of 1572. For illustrated works that are widely leaded and have broad margins, the large and light round face, of which an illustration is given on this page, is frequently used with excellent effect. It is not a type that can be wisely used in crowded space. YOU are mistaken, reader, if you imagine this work (except a few portions) to have been written in any other way than by the printer's clock. That is to say : as typographical works are subjected to stip- ulated daily tasks, I bound myself to pro- duce a stated quantity of copy, which had to be done at a fixed hour. E"or was the time, short as it was, allowed for the task, exempt from other occupations and business of a varied nature, relating to my professional and domestic concerns. At times I had to lay aside my pen ten times in one hour. Pica Light Face, from the foundry of Farmer, Little & Co., New York. For the catalogue work of jobbing printers a still broader face is in favor, of which an illustration is given on the next page. But this is a type not allowed in standard books. In the composition of book titles, the inflexibility of the Roman capital has been found an annoyance. Where a TYPES OF AMERICAN FOUNDERS. 103 fixed number of words or letters are prescribed for one line, T yp es for 7 book titles. capitals of proper size are often found to be too thin or too thick, making the line too long or too short. The severer taste of the present day does not permit the wide spacing-out of the letters of a short line, nor the mutilation of a long line THEY that tear or cut books of the Old or New Testa- ment, or the Holy Doctors, or sell them to the depravers of books or to the ^pothe- council A canon of a council of the vnth century. caries, are ezxcomnrunicated for one year. They also that buy them to corrupt them, let them be excommnnicated. Pica Expanded No. 180, from the foundry of George Bruce's Son & Co., New York. by a division with hyphen, as was customary in the early days of printing. This difficulty has been evaded, after a fashion, by the use of expanded and condensed capitals, which seem Condensed to have been first made in France about the year 1830, for I title letter - do not find them in books of earlier date. They were first made in the varieties of capitals only, to be used as two-line letters for the display of titles or as initials or headings of 104 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. Condensed forms going out of use. Difficulties of composing title-pages. chapters. Their slender, graceful shapes were then a pleas- ing contrast to the squat and stubby faces of the rude old capital. Publishers preferred them : for many years no title was regarded as in good form if not composed in the grace- ful condensed letter. They have been cut by many founders, FRANCOIS AMBROISE DIDOT WAS A FAMOUS TYPE-FOUNDER AND AN ACCURATE PRINTER OF CLASSIC TEXTS. BORN 1730, DIED 1804. Two-line Pearl Condensed No. 121, from the foundry of George Bruce's Son & Co. for all the useful sizes, and of every degree of width, but they are declining in favor. There are publishers- and printers who prohibit them entirely in titles. The composition of title-pages is more of a task now than it was fifty years ago. As a rule, the more words there are in a title, the more ineffective is the composition. Difficulties seem to increase with the increase in styles of types. The reader reasonably wants a title that shall fairly set forth the subject; the author wants this too, but he also wants prominence given to some words and lines. Trying to please the author, the printer has to make, or thinks he has to make, a painfully nice balancing of long lines and short lines, of big and little types, of broad and narrow blanks, and to put in, here and there, a sprinkling of Italic and Black Letter, to break up the monotony of upright capitals. The effect of composition done in this manner is TYPES OF AMERICAN FOUNDERS. 105 seldom pleasing, but authors and publishers who try to Largely made so by artificial amend the work of the printer are rarely successful. Not arrangements, one title in ten is good. Nor can it ever be made good by any manner of composition which puts the cart before the horse; which makes offensively prominent the art of the printer or type-founder, and diverts the reader's attention from the words and the meaning of the author to the contemplation of an elaborately artificial arrange- ment. 1 These frequent failures are also largely the result of Titles e P oiled by the inix- the " heterogeneous mixture " of styles which Hansard turee of face s. denounced. This mixture seems unavoidable. The most pleasing and most used styles of book texts are made of few sizes. Large and very large sizes of the same style as the text are seldom made, and are rarely kept in the stock of any book-printer. In the composition of a title the printer has to contrast on the same page bold and light and con- densed styles in a manner which makes a bad effect, however careful the arrangement. He has no choice, for the standard form of modern Roman letter is deplorably deficient in variety of large sizes. There are very few series of standard letter which show graduation of size and uniformity of face as fully as the series shown on the next page. 1 After many failures with his titles, plain round capitals (rejecting all con- Pickering discarded nearly all of the densed styles), he arranged his title prevailing typographical rules about lines with little or no display, with the the balancing and the artificial display simple directness of the rude but good of lines. Selecting a few sizes of titles of the books of the early printers. 14 106 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. Revival of early forms of capitals. Preferences for careless forms. ID \ K 1 1V1 The present popularity of the old style has encouraged PM French type-founders to revive other early printed forms, PM but they seem to regard the imitation of early manu- PM script forms as a reversion to barbarism and ugliness. PM But this imitation has been cleverly done by artists P M who have undertaken to make designs for book titles P M an( i book covers. Some have gone far beyond early P M typographic models, selecting the early Roman let- the plain capital without serif or hair line, an almost absolute uniformity of thick line. t^ IWI Others have copied and exaggerated the manner- isms of mediaeval copyists and engravers, with all their faults, bundling words together without proper relief between lines, dividing them by periods and not by spaces, until they are almost unreadable. The closely huddled and carelessly formed letters of Botticelli and other early Italian engravers are even preferred by many artists to the simple, severe, and easily read letters of chiseled inscriptions on the stones of ancient Rome. There has been an eccentric de- ^V |k f parture in another direction. Some 1 ^M j% / designer has asked these questions: \ / Why copy letter forms of any origin ? J^ A. y A Why should letters always be as stiff xviith century capitals. M M PM PM TYPES OF AMERICAN FOUNDERS. 107 as soldiers on parade 1 Why should an be round and an L right-angled? Why should types be made to line? The new taste for grotesque Why not give to printed letters some of the dash and swing forms of type, and character of free-hand copying 1 Why not have printed letters that shall be artistic and aesthetic ? These questions ON PRONUNCIATION- [ abbop sucb fantastical faptasrps, sucb 117- Sociable ar?d poipt-deuise corr^papiops; sucb packers of optbo^papby as to speak dout fir?e, Wber? be should say doubt; det uibep be sbould ppopoupcedebt d-e-b-t, pot d-e-t; be clepetb a calf, cauf ; ba!f, bauf ; r?eibboup uocatup peboup; peigb abbpeViated pe : this is ab- bon^ipable (uL)bicb be cOouId call it ipsfpuQitetb 1776 of ips^ 1 ?^- L OIie> s L^OUP Lost. The last novelty. From the foundry of George Brace's Son & Co. have been practically answered by the occasional appearance on book covers, and in the pages of magazines, of eccentric forms of letters which have been reduced to types by many American type-founders. They do not put the standard or approved form of Eoman letter out of fashion. 108 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. Plainness of Many years ago a cynical Frenchman sneered at Eng- land as the country of a dozen religions and of one sauce. Yet Frenchmen and Englishmen, and Americans too, per- sist in a simplicity of taste concerning letters which some Extract from Revived, or an answer to Rev. Mr. Increase Mather, a book printed in New York in 1700. it t and tain of I be ^ t^ Dr^cc in [\2 e aw of ^ wl^om w e an tl^at w e could not t aDFint ^ only w l?av e ^ e nt t^e fop it^ Imppeccion, and pointed witl^ m e J)if fixit. i The "Harper" style. Prom the Central Type Foundry, St. Louis. TYPES OF AMERICAN FOUNDERS. 109 may regard as equally narrow. The calligrapher of the middle ages, who delighted to show his skill in new forms of letters, would despise the plainness of our printed books. There are modern readers, also, who admire the freedom of the letters made by engravers ; others, again, who like the quaintness of the letters of mediaeval books, compared with which Eoman and Italic letters seem stiff, ungraceful, and Incapable of pleasing combinations. To please these tastes, and others not so severe, modern type-founders make many forms of ornamental types ; engravers and lithographers are daily devising other forms of more or less ingenuity and merit. All of them have admirers; but, though all may be useful, at least in the broad field of job printing, they ornamental are not permitted in the standard book. The world of admitted in letters is full of alphabets, and there are many of them that can be easily read, but printers and publishers and readers are fully agreed that all standard works shall be in Eoman. No publisher dares print magazines or important volumes in types that deviate from the Roman model. Whatever the subject-matter, whether for the child in his nursery or for the wise man in his study, the book must be in Roman ; for it is with types as with dress at proper times man may wear any style of dress that pleases his fancy, but when he appears in evening society it must be in the conventional suit. There is no appeal. Whatever differences of opinion may exist concerning the relative merits of old and modern types in the matter of per- modern types; 110 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. spicuity, there is no fair room for argument about the superior mechanical construction of modern type. Types were never made as well as they are made now. Drawing was never so correct. Cutting was never so deep and clean, nor even lining so true. The bodies of types were never before made so solid, so uniform, so exact. The mechanical workman- ship of a second-rate modern founder is far better than that of Jenson or Van Dijck. It should be better. The old founders were self-taught; they did not work with proper scientific system ; their tools, compared with those now in general use, were rude and inexact. The greatest fault of modern type-founding the disagreement in the sizes of different foundries, an evil which seems now impossible of correction is an inherited fault. It comes from the in- ability of the old founders to see the advantages of system. The Roman That the Eoman letter is not free from fault, every one letter practi- cally unalter- will admit. There are letters that might be altered with able. advantage ; there are sounds that need new characters ; but every attempt at the radical reformation of our letters has failed and there have been many between the " real char- 1668. acter" of Bishop Wilkins and the phonotypes of Isaac Pit- 1837. man. The art of printing seems to have fixed the forms beyond the possibility of reconstruction.