TITLE. At the Sign of Atlas. In Moxon’s time the houses in London and
elsewhere were not numbered. A house of business was specified and
identified by a sign painted with some peculiar device that could be
recognized by people who could not read.
THE PORTRAITS. Satisfactory authority cannot be given for the accuracy
of the portrait of Gutenberg. Moxon copied it from an earlier German
book. The portrait of Coster is a copy of the print first shown by
Scriverius in 1635. Van der Linde doubts its genuineness. The portrait
of Moxon may be accepted as truthful. It first appeared in the fourth
edition (1686) of Moxon’s “Tutor to Astronomie and to Geographie.”
THE DEDICATION. “The Right Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Bishop of
Oxford and Dean of Christ Church,” was Doctor Fell, one of the three
persons to whom this work was dedicated. Doctor Fell had commended
himself to men of letters by a recent gift to the University of Oxford
of printing materials of great value. In a report written by him in
1679, he mentions “the low estate of the manufacture of printing” in
England, and in the University, as the motive that induced him and
associate members of the University, in 1672, to take “upon themselves
the charges of the press in the said University, and at the expence of
above four thousand pounds furnisht from Germany, France and Holland,
an Imprimery, with all the necessaries thereof, and pursued the
undertaking so vigourously, as in the short compass of time which hath
since intervened to have printed many considerable books in Hebrew,
Greek and Latin, as well as in English; both for their matter and
elegance of paper and letter, very satisfactory to the learned abroad
and at home.” Bagford said that the printing material so presented by
the Bishop could not be equaled by any of the great printing-houses on
the Continent. A specimen sheet of the types of the Oxford University
Press dated 1695 fully warrants this assertion. The types, punches, and
materials then given by Bishop Fell are insufficiently described by
Rowe Mores in his “English Typographical Founders and Founderies,” on
pages 44 and 45. A brief description of the Oxford Press as it now is,
with suitable illustrations, was published by the Oxford University in
1894.
Bishop Fell was equally interested in paper-making. He encouraged
George Edwards, “a cutter in wood of the great letters,” and an
engraver of maps and other things made use of in the printing of books,
to set up a paper-mill at Wolvercote. Bishop Fell died in 1686. Tom
Brown made him the subject of his famous epigram:
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
2, 3. THE ORIGIN OF THE INVENTION. Moxon’s notice of the invention
of typography records a general belief of the writers of that time.
The Coster legend had been published, but it was not accepted as
unimpeachable history. The weight of authority favored the claims
made for Gutenberg. The “Tullies Offices” (Cicero, De Officiis) of
1465, printed by “Johanes Hust” (Fust) and “Petri de Geurshem” (Peter
Schoeffer of Gernsheim), is one of the later books of these printers.
The book generally received as the one first printed is the Bible of
Forty-two Lines, which is at least ten years earlier. It is accepted
as the production of John Gutenberg, John Fust, and Peter Schoeffer.
Its claim to priority has been disputed in favor of the Bible of
Thirty-six Lines, accredited to John Gutenberg only. Discredit is now
given to the legend of the introduction of printing in Oxford in 1468
by Frederick Corseles. “The Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers,”
printed by William Caxton at Westminster in 1477, is considered as
the first book printed in England. The claims of Coster have been
thoroughly sifted by Dr. A. W. Van der Linde, and his earlier writings
on this subject have been translated into English by J. H. Hessels and
published under the title of “The Haarlem Legend.” The claims of Caxton
are fairly reviewed by William Blades in his “Life and Typography of
William Caxton.”
6, 7. THE BRANCHES OF TYPOGRAPHY. The specification of Letter Cutters,
Casters, and Dressers, of Compositors and Correctors, Pressmen and
Ink-makers, and some other trades, indicates the complexity of the
complete art of printing in 1683. The workmen in each one of these
trades tried to keep it distinct, and to prevent its practice by any
but those who had been qualified by regular apprenticeship. There
were few master-printers who had even superficial acquaintance with
the methods and usages of the different departments of typography,
and their general ignorance tended to the degradation of the art. The
ordinary book of the seventeenth century was distinctly inferior to a
book of the same class of the sixteenth century that had been made from
the beginning under the direction of a master “who could perform or
direct others to perform” all the work upon it. It was for the purpose
of diffusing a proper knowledge of the different processes among
master-printers that this book was written.
ADVERTISEMENT on page 8. The plot here mentioned was the one revealed
by Titus Oates, who gave false details of an alleged conspiracy to kill
Charles II, King of England, and to reëstablish the rule of the Roman
hierarchy.
This advertisement is a side-light of value on the methods of the
book-selling trade. Moxon foresaw that the cost of the complete book
would be too much for the ordinary buyer. He tempted subscriptions by
offering it in monthly parts: “2_d._ for each Printed Sheet. And 2_d._
for every Print taken off of Copper Cuts.” At these rates the complete
book on printing, unbound, then cost 14_s._ 4_d._ The publishing of a
book in parts was an old expedient to increase sales. I first note it
in an edition of the Bible in Hebrew, published by Robert Stephens of
Paris between the years 1539 and 1544.
Copper-plates were preferred for the illustrations because they could
be engraved and printed more neatly and at a smaller expense. The arts
of engraving on wood and of woodcut presswork were then in their lowest
condition, and Moxon foresaw that his illustrations engraved on wood
would not be properly printed.
9. PRINTING-HOUSE. Although “printing-house” is still used in England
as a proper designation for the workshop of the master-printer, the
term “printing-office,” which is more common in the United States,
has equally good authority. Many of the early printers called their
workshops by the Latin name of “Officina.” A book before me by Jodocus
Badius, dated 1513, has the imprint “In Officina Ascensiana.”
10. THE CASES AND PRESS. The allowance of “four foot and a half by
five foot and a half” for every pair of double frames or stands is the
same as that established by modern usage. The allowance of seven feet
square of space for each press, which necessarily includes the bank,
and working-room for the two pressmen, seems small. It indicates a
press for the printing of a sheet not larger than fifteen by twenty
inches. The caution to put the presses upon a solid foundation, and to
brace them with beams against the ceiling and side walls, shows that
provision had to be made for the shrinking of the wood and for its
imperfect construction.
11. WINDOWS of glass were unusual. Paper (probably oiled) to admit the
light was the only defense against cold, which was sometimes so severe
that work had to be suspended. Then, as now, printers preferred the
upper floors of the building for composition, and these upper floors
were usually lighted by small windows near the ceiling. The English
printing-house of the seventeenth century was rude, bare, and small.
It was a large printing-house that had four hand-presses and a dozen
frames.
13. FONT. Moxon’s etymology is not approved by recent
dictionary-makers, who tell us that font is derived from the French
_fonte_, a casting, through _fondre_, to melt or to found. Font is
now used to describe a complete collection of founded types. The
English face here mentioned as opposed to the roman and italic must be
understood as old English black-letter.
14. SIZES AND PROPORTIONS OF TYPE. Ten bodies of type are specified as
a full assortment of sizes from pearl to “great-cannon.” Within this
limit American and English type-founders now make twenty-one sizes,
as well as some smaller and many larger sizes beyond the limit. The
dimensions of the bodies here specified are irregular fractions of
the English linear foot. An accurate or standard foot measure was
not easily procured, and the irregular subdivisions of the foot were
calculated with difficulty and often with error. Types so made were
unavoidably inexact; when made in different foundries they did not
accord in size, and there was often serious disagreement in the bodies
of the same foundry when the types were cast at different times.
For a specification of these variations, see Savage’s “Dictionary
of Printing,” page 802, and any recent English work on practical
typography.
Pick is the name given to any bit of dirt that falls in the counter of
a type, and fouls the print.
The geometric rules for the proportions of letters as laid down by
Moxon and other theorists are impracticable. They make no provision
for the meeting of irregularly shaped letters and no allowance for
optical illusions. To make letters seem harmonious and symmetrical in
combination, some characters must purposely be out of drawing.
The commendation of Christophel Van Dijck (Christopher Van Dijk) is
approved by modern bibliographers and printers. Willems, in his “Les
Elzeviers,” rates him as the leading punch-cutter of his time, and as
really superior to the famous French founders Sanlecque and Le Bé. The
beauty of his designs, and the merit of the type made by his Dutch
successors in type-founding, secured to them the practical control
of the English market for more than a century. During Moxon’s time,
and for many years after, British type-founders bought most of their
punches and matrices in Holland. William Caslon, who began as a
type-founder in 1720, was the first English punch-cutter who broke the
domination of the Dutch type-founders in England.
It was the first purpose of the writer of these notes to have this
book reprinted in the Dutch types that served Moxon for models.
Unfortunately, they were not to be had. They were in the Enschedé
foundry before 1735, but at that time they had been put aside as
old-fashioned and unsalable. M. Fleischman, a German punch-cutter
intrusted with the management of this foundry, had destroyed as useless
old metal most of the Van Dijk punches and matrices. This wanton
destruction should not prejudice the reader against Fleischman, for he
was an expert punch-cutter, although the originator of a bad school of
typography. It was from him that Bodoni of Italy, Didot of France, and
Baskerville of England, drew their erroneous notions of the superior
beauty of over-sharp hair-lines. This peculiarity is clearly shown in
the new types of the specimen-book of the Enschedé foundry for the year
1786, which contains a portrait of Fleischman, and signed and dated
specimens of his work at that time.
15. THE FACE OR STYLE OF VAN DIJK TYPES. “... the commodious Fatness
they [the Van Dijk letters] have beyond other Letters, which easing the
Eyes in Reading renders them more Legible.” The word “fatness” cannot
be understood as printers now accept the word, for the Van Dijk letter
would now be rated as thin and much below the present standard of
width. It was supposed to ease the eyes in reading because the interior
counters of the small or round letters like e, o, and m had been
enlarged, but this enlargement was most in height.
“... the true placing their Fats and their Leans” means the extension
of thick-stroke to the corresponding shortening of hair-lines, as
may be seen in a comparison of the old-style m with a modern m.
This improvement was modified by Fleischman and his successors. He
protracted the hair-line and shortened the thick-stroke, showing his
own skill as a cutter, but seriously damaging the legibility of the
letter. This unwise fashion is still in force in nearly all types of
modern cut. The bold and sturdy types of William Morris, and the Jenson
types of the Dickinson foundry, are practical protests (possibly too
emphatic) against the effeminacies of the modern school of weak and
delicate letter.
“... the sweet driving them into one another” I understand as the close
fitting of the different letters. This close fitting or narrow set for
each type, with a corresponding thinness of face, made a composition
unusually compact. The novelty of this new style was most admired by
French type-founders, who have never allowed it to go out of fashion.
Fournier, in his “Manuel Typographique,” shows compressed types of
many sizes, which he says are “in the Dutch style.” The type used by
Moxon in his book is of the same English body as the type in which this
reprint is set, but the Moxon face is a trifle taller and much more
compressed.
The uniformity or geometrical accuracy of proportion that is here
commended in all sizes of Van Dijk types could not have been made by
careful drawing. Yet it does not appear that Moxon had instruments of
precision that could measure with exactness any fraction smaller than
the thirtieth part of an inch.
16. THE COUNTERS OF TYPES. The deep cut or counter recommended for
punches is correct instruction, but deep counters were uncommon.
The punches that I have examined in the Plantin-Moretus Museum have
relatively shallow counters. Fertel of St. Omer, writing in 1723,
denounces the shallow counters then made by all founders as a cause
of the bad presswork of French printers. Even Fournier (“Manuel
Typographique,” vol. i, p. 12) says that a counter “about one fourth of
a line” (.0222 of the English inch) is deep enough for types between
nonpareil and long-primer or pica. No modern printer would be satisfied
with a counter of this depth.
17. TYPES MADE FOR BOOKS. The few bodies of type then made were for
books only, and were provided in small fonts. The types most largely
cast now are those intended for newspapers: brevier, minion, nonpareil,
and agate, and they are provided in fonts of many thousand pounds.
Italic, which then made at least one third, is now but one tenth of
the entire weight of the font. In many morning newspapers italic is
excluded.
THE BEARD of a type was the long sloping shoulder that connected the
face with the body. The square and high shoulder of modern types, which
is of recent invention, is indispensable for the proper moulding of
types composed for stereotype work.
18. DECAY OF ENGRAVING ON WOOD. “Few or good Cutters in Wood appear.”
The decadence of engraving on wood is plainly indicated by Moxon’s
choice of copper-plate for all his illustrations. The imperfect methods
then in use for making brass rules are also illustrated on many pages
of his book, where they show rules of unequal height and uneven face.
THE “PLANISHING” OF BRASS RULE was the rolling of the metal in sheets
before it was cut in strips type-high.
19. THE LAY OF THE TYPE-CASES. The illustration of the type-cases in
plate 1 is apparently of a case in one piece, but the text distinctly
says that two cases were used, an upper and a lower, as is customary
now. The dimensions of the case, “two foot nine inches long, one foot
four inches and an half broad,” are almost like those of the modern
cases. These two cases were unwisely placed on the stand at the same
inclination, so that they seem as one case in the illustration. The
capital letters are unhandily put in the extreme left-hand corner of
the upper-case. Arabic figures are at the foot of these capitals.
There are no small capitals, but the boxes of the right side of the
upper-case, of easiest reach, are filled with accents and astronomical
signs. The copy of the compositor was laid over these boxes that were
seldom used. To keep the copy near to the compositor’s eye, the hand
in search of frequently used capitals had to make a needless length of
reach.
The lay of the lower-case, as shown in plate 1 (b, c, d, e, f, g, in
the upper row of large boxes; l, m, n, o, p, q, in the second row;
r, t, u, in the lowest row), is an indication that the first printer
laid the letters of the lower-case as we now lay the capitals of the
upper-case, in alphabetical order. When it had been demonstrated that
the letters were unequally used, and that the characters in most
request should be near the compositor’s hand, the letters a, h, and the
thick spaces took the places occupied by sorts not so often needed.
The lay of the case and the size of the boxes in Moxon’s plan, and
indeed in all modern plans, are not in proper position or proportion
to give the greatest convenience to the compositor. Many attempts
have been made to correct these faults, but none have succeeded. In
this plan, as in other plans maintained by compositors of our time,
tradition is stronger than reason. To this day the larger boxes of
modern cases contain the same sorts and are in the same position as
those of Moxon’s plan.
25. THE GALLEY described in plate 2 is the modern slice-galley. The
long tray-galley of wood and the long proof-galley of brass are not
mentioned. It must have been customary for each compositor to make up
his matter on a slice-galley as soon as he had completed his page. When
composition was so managed the difficulty of keeping two or more men at
work on the same book must have been great.
28. A CORRECTING-STONE “four foot and an half long, and two foot broad”
... as “a convenient size for the generality of Work” is another
indication of the small size of the forms.
28. SCABBORD is an old spelling of scabbard or scale-board, which was
once a thin strip or scale of sawed wood. The difficulty of sawing wood
to uniform thickness led to the use of strips of thin iron, which were
cheaper and more even as to thickness. The name that had been given to
the wood was continued for the iron. Scabbards were also used as aids
in justifying forms and in making register. The scabbards mentioned in
printers’ grammars of the last century were of cardboard or millboard.
GUTTER-STICKS are so called because of the groove cut in the center,
constructed after the fashion of a gutter for the drainage of water.
The groove was needed to prevent the bagging of the tympan and the
blacking of the white paper in the operation of presswork. The grooving
of gutter-sticks is still maintained, although there is now no need for
the groove.
QUOINS “about three inches square” are not to be found in any modern
printing-office.
31. THE “DRESSING-BLOCK” is now known as the planer, but the form of
planer now in greatest use is usually two and one half inches high and
eight and one half inches long.
“SHEERS, such as Taylors use,” were common tools in all printing-houses
fifty years ago, but they have been supplanted by simple machines that
cut brass rule with more accuracy.
32. THE EARLIEST COMPOSING-STICKS were veritable sticks of wood. The
Plantin-Moretus Museum, at Antwerp, has preserved several of these
venerable implements. The stick illustrated by Moxon with a bottom
plate, which he calls the back, is one inch narrower than the stick
now used in English and American printing-houses. In other features
no serious difference can be noted. The sliding measure, now known
as the knee, was then made in two parts for the composition of type
in two distinct measures--one for the text and one for the marginal
notes. The iron would now be adjudged too thin, and the soldering on
of a head-plate of long-primer thickness would not be tolerated. The
suggestion that the sliding measures, or the knees, could be filed
when they proved untrue leads us to the inference that these frail
composing-sticks soon became inexact.
34. A CHASE “two and twenty inches long and eighteen inches broad”
is the proper size for a form of crown paper fifteen by nineteen
inches. This, we must suppose, was the size of paper in greatest use.
The construction of the Moxon chase is substantially like that of
the modern chase, but the iron used was thinner, and the method of
hand-filing recommended for the making of squares and dovetails could
not have been entirely satisfactory. The old chase must have been weak
and easily bent or twisted out of square.
37. THE PRESS in greatest use in England during the first half of
the seventeenth century is the one shown in plate 3 and properly
stigmatized by Moxon as a “make-shift slovenly contrivance.” The
press that he approves and illustrates in plate 4 is the “excellently
improved invention” of Willem Jansen Blaew, but it received no
noteworthy improvement during the eighteenth century. In all its more
important features it was the press on which Benjamin Franklin worked
in Philadelphia and in London. It is now entirely out of use, and the
technical names of its different parts are imperfectly understood and
are often misapplied. Before study is made of the function of each
part, the novice should understand the combined action of the different
parts.
The form of type to be printed was placed on the bed, or, as it was
then called, the stone (marked _l_ in plate 4). The surface of the
type was inked by dabbing it over with the inking-balls, which are
shown on the left side of the wooden cheek of the press. The ink was
evenly spread over the surface of the balls by rocking their opposing
faces against each other in many directions. When the type was fairly
covered with a film of ink, the damp sheet to be printed was laid
upon the tympan (marked 5 in plate 4, where it is shown in very bad
perspective), which Moxon calls the tinpan. The pressman then folded
down the frisket (marked 6 in the plate and incorrectly drawn), so that
it would lie flat upon the tympan. This frisket had been previously
covered with a sheet of stout paper in which openings had been cut to
allow the face of the types to meet the sheet to be printed. This mask
of paper protected every other part of the sheet against a possible
blackening of ink. The pressman then folded down the tympan so that
it rested flat upon the form of type. This done, with his left hand
on the rounce handle projecting from the wooden bridge (marked _y_ in
plate), he drew the form of type half way under the platen (marked _c_
in plate), which, it should be noticed, is one half the size of the
stone and of the form of type upon it (not shown in plate 4). With
his right hand on the bar (marked _q_ in plate) he pulled this bar
toward him. This pull moved downward the screw and its attached spindle
(marked _i l m_ in the plate). The pressure so made, resisted above by
the head _e_, and below by the winter _d_, was received by the platen
and transferred to the paper and the types that were directly under the
platen. This pressure printed one half of the sheet. Then the pressman
put back the bar, and with the rounce handle moved forward the stone
with the type upon it until the unprinted half of the sheet was covered
by the platen. This done, he again pulled down the bar and completed
the printing of the unprinted half of the sheet. Reversing the motion
of the rounce handle, he drew backward the stone and type, unfolded
the frisket and tympan, and removed the sheet that was printed on one
side. This seems, and it really was, slow work; but all books printed
before the year 1800 were made by this slow method. In all presses made
in England before 1800, two pulls of the bar were needed to print a
full sheet on one side. The press was not sufficiently strong to print
properly a full sheet of demy by one impression. The power produced
barely sufficed for the printing of the half-sheet. The minuteness of
the directions here given concerning the construction and the fitting
up of the different parts shows that rigidity of fitting was regarded
as of importance. Yet it was foreseen that the press would leak
pressure.
38. WILLEM JANSEN BLAEW, a map-maker and printer of eminence, was born
in Amsterdam in 1571, and died there in 1638. His improvements to the
press were made in 1620. As the Blaew press is now obsolete, I do not
think it necessary to follow Moxon in a more minute explanation of the
minor parts of his press.
PRESS-BUILDING was not a distinct trade in 1683. Every printer had
his presses made to order from his own plans by a local joiner or
carpenter, aided by a blacksmith or machinist. The bed-plate was of
stone, and the platen of wood. Iron was sparingly used, and only for
spindles, hooks, nuts, screws, bolts, etc., that could not be made
of wood. Iron was of high price, and was cast or forged with so much
difficulty that no one dared think of it as a proper material for the
framework or for any of the larger pieces of the press. The pasting
down of the vellum on the inner side of the tympan (now known as the
drawer) was done to prevent the bagging or bellying outward of the
outer tympan. The brayer of flat face was practically a wooden pestle.
Its office was to distribute the ink on the block before it was taken
up by the balls. This work is now done much better by a cylinder of
wood, which still keeps the name of brayer.
59, 60. Moxon estimated that one quarter turn of a home pull of the
bar lowered the spindle five eighths of an inch. In the pressure so
given, only one fiftieth of an inch (“the Form to the Stone half a
Scabbord”) was taken by the type, and about one twelfth of an inch by
the paper, tympan, and blankets. This shows waste of power, even when
impression was aided by an elastic spongy blanket. The greater part of
the force exerted leaked away and was lost in the yielding wood and the
compressible joints. A mechanician will see at a glance that a press so
constructed could not exert more power than the printing of two octavo
pages of type at one impression, and that it would fail entirely to
face the black background of a large woodcut.
68. It does not appear that the stone was tested by a straight-edge or
by a spirit-level. Many of the stone beds in use during the seventeenth
century were uneven as to face and badly leveled, and compelled the
pressman to make use of an elastic impression. The frequent breaking
of the stones complained of by Moxon was due as much to bad leveling
as to the carelessness of the pressman. His preference for the wood
lignum-vitæ was reasonable.
69. A PLATEN OF BEECH-WOOD was liable to warp and split, but a more
suitable material was rarely used. The only attempt at improvement
known to the writer was made by Christopher Plantin of Antwerp, who had
his platens covered with sheet copper to cover the cracks in the wood,
and to hide the faults they made in impression.
70. THE POINTS AND POINT-SCREWS are old devices that were used in the
fifteenth century. One can find the marks of point-holes in leaves of
books printed by Ratdolt and other careful printers of that period.
72. One of the most useful improvements made by Blaew in his new press
was the provision of leather girths, one end attached to the carriage,
and the other to the barrel around the spindle. With a rounce handle
on the end of this spindle, the pressman could easily run in and out
the carriage with the type upon it. The first presses did not have
this improvement. It is not to be seen in the woodcuts of the presses
of Aldus, Badius, and other early printers. (Compare the cuts, plates
3 and 4.) It seems that the carriage of the older form of hand-press
must have been shoved in and pulled out by lugging at the framework of
the carriage.
73. THE LYE-TROUGH, shown in plate 9, was in use fifty years ago as a
wash-trough. The form of type, laid flat in the bottom of the trough,
was drenched with water by rocking the trough to and fro.
74. THE PAPER-BENCH is now made with an inclined bank at the end
nearest the pressman. This inclination aids him in seizing the sheet to
be printed. On the flat end of the bench he lays the paper after it has
been printed.
THE RACK to hang paper on, and the PEEL, illustrated in plate 32, are
now unknown in many American printing-houses, which is much to be
regretted. The development of printing that has put the wetting and
dry-pressing of paper out of fashion, and has brought into general use
the method of printing on dry paper against an inelastic impression,
is not an unmixed benefit. The new method has quickened and cheapened
common presswork, and has been of great advantage in the printing of
fine woodcuts, but it has not bettered the presswork of books. The
strong and readable print that was common at the beginning of this
century is now produced with greater difficulty and at more expense
upon dry paper.
75. CONCERNING INK. The very minute description here given of the
preparations for making the varnish of ink, which was badly done then
in England and better done in Holland, should be enough to correct the
common belief that the printing-ink of our predecessors was of better
quality than the ink of our time. It is not necessary for the reader to
be an expert to note that the materials were crude and the processes
unscientific. No test of the quality of the linseed-oil is suggested,
which must have been as uneven then as it is now. Nor is anything here
said concerning the black, which was probably the crude smoke-black of
commerce, with its usual taint of sulphur and other impurities. The
cheap printing-ink of our time, even when made by a manufacturer of low
repute, is more scientifically compounded, and is blacker and better,
than the ink used by the ordinary book-printer of the seventeenth
century. In Moxon’s book the ink is variable--on many pages pale, on
others over-black; and there are variations of color not entirely due
to uneven inking by the pressman. A weak ink applied to a bold type,
and printed on wet paper against a spongy impression, seems blacker
in print than a better ink printed on dry paper against an inelastic
impression.
Resin was the only ingredient added to the black and varnish. No
mention is made of other substances that are now rated as of great
value.
85. LETTER-CUTTING was always enveloped in mystery. Every new
practitioner had to devise many of his own tools and work out his own
methods, and independent action led some cutters into serious error.
Others, unhampered by traditionary rules, introduced new methods.
Moxon has frankly told us all about his tools. Some of them may have
been invented by himself, but more of them were those of contemporary
English and Dutch punch-cutters and of the makers of mathematical
instruments. His descriptions of well-known tools like files, rules,
or liners need no comment, but our surprise is aroused at their
simplicity, and more than all, at his ignorance of tools of precision.
Here and there he does mention the magnifying-glass, but nowhere does
he speak of a micrometer. He had no unit as a base for measurement. He
frequently describes a measure as a half inch, or as a quarter inch,
rarely as an eighth inch. A sixteenth or thirty-second of an inch is
never mentioned in these words. It is a proper inference that his
measuring-rule was not so minutely subdivided. These nicer subdivisions
had to be determined and marked by himself on measuring-rules of his
own construction, and he must have done this work very well. To divide
the body of english in forty-two equal parts is to make each part
equal to about 46/10000 an inch. One forty-second part of long-primer
body would make each part about 33/10000 of an inch. His method of
determining the width of these parts was to make, by rubbing on a
stone, seven thin spaces equal to the em quadrat, or square of the
body. The full point or period was one and one sixth of this thin
space; the colon, one and two sixths; the comma, one and three sixths;
the hyphen, one and four sixths; the semicolon, one and five sixths.
These were practically his testing measures, which were transferred to
the plate he called his face-gauge. The modern punch-cutter will be
amazed at the crudity of Moxon’s tools and methods; but crude as they
were, they served him for making types that did good service. Nor does
Fournier, in his “Manuel Typographique” of 1766, mention any tool of
precision. A testing of distrusted types must have been done largely by
sight and touch.
118. THE SWASH-LETTERS here mentioned are capitals that show the
writing-master’s flourished extension of line. In many letters these
lines hang over the body, as in the old form of roman capital Q. They
are most common in old italic, and are fairly illustrated in plate 15.