120. MR. WALBERGER OF OXFORD is the Peter Walperger or Walberger
of Holland who was installed by Bishop Fell as a punch-cutter for
the University Press, and who there earned the reputation of a good
workman. He died in 1714.
124. STEM is the thick-stroke of a letter, sometimes called by
type-founders the body-mark.
125. ENGLISH LETTER, as mentioned on this page, means Old English, or
black-letter.
Moxon’s notions of proportion for the variable thickness of the stems
or fat strokes of letters were tabulated by allowing forty-two equal
parts as the height of the body. The thickness or the width of the stem
in a roman capital should be five of these parts; in an italic capital,
four; in lower-case roman, three and a half; in lower-case italic,
three. These distinctions are nicer than those laid down by Albert
Dürer in his diagrams on the proper proportions of letters, where it is
stated that the width of the stem should be one tenth the height of the
body, which is in the proportion of four and one fifth to forty-two.
These proportions are no longer maintained. The stem is now made of
variable thickness to suit different styles of letter; sometimes it is
in the proportion of two to forty-two, and sometimes ten to forty-two.
The rule that the stem of the roman capital should be wider than that
of the lower-case, and that the stem of the italic capital should be
still thinner, has been generally observed in all type-foundries.
No defined width is made for the thin-stroke, which is now called the
hair-line; but a glance at the diagrams in plates 11 to 15 is enough
to show that this hair-line had a positive and appreciable width for
its height. It was well understood also by all punch-cutters that this
thin-stroke would appear in print much wider than it did in the punch.
The elastic blanket that forced the wet paper not only upon the type,
but lapped it around its edges, made the thin-stroke appear in print at
least one half wider than it was in the punch or in the type.
129-147, and plates 18 and 19. The type-founder’s mould is peculiar
to his art. It consists of two large pieces of steel, forming when
combined an upper and an under side, so fitted to each other that types
of different widths, from the thinnest space to the broadest quadrat,
can be cast in its central hollow space without any change in the depth
of the body. Each piece has firmly fixed attachments of many smaller
bits of steel to insure this exact adjustment. Types may have been
cast at a very early date in fixed moulds of sand, but types so made
must have been expensive, of irregular body, and exceedingly variable
in line, and could not have been combined with the accuracy that is
indispensable to the easy practice of type-setting. The usefulness of
typography really depends upon the squareness and geometrical accuracy
of each type. A variation of one thousandth part of an inch in body is
fatal. Early writers on typography did not clearly describe the mould,
but they have put on record their admiration of the mechanism devised
for the “wonderful art of letter-making,” and the “admirable proportion
and harmony between the letters.” The mechanism that produced this
accuracy was without doubt the mould.
The early type-mould was probably made adjustable in two directions,
so that it could cast two or more bodies of type. The Bruce foundry of
New York has a mould of this description of unknown age. Its peculiar
construction explains slight variations of body in types of the same
face, made by the same printer during the infancy of the art. This
adjustable mould went out of fashion in the sixteenth century, but it
was retained in many foundries as a mould of value for emergencies.
The mould of fixed body, adjustable as to width only, has always been
preferred.
Fournier says that the early moulds of Germany and Holland were of
brass. Moxon’s mould was of iron. They are now made of steel, with a
precision of fitting unimagined by any early founder. The most valuable
improvement made in this mould was devised by Archibald Binny of
Philadelphia, who, in 1811, affixed a spring to the matrix that gave
to it a quick return movement after the type had been cast out of the
mould. Many attempts have been made to alter the mould so that it could
cast two or more types at the same time. Didot’s polymatype mould, made
to cast fifty types at one operation, is the most notable but it can
be used only on very small type, and it is not approved by English or
American foundries. The mould attached to type-casting machines in most
use is, in its more important features, the mould used by Moxon. The
new Barth type-casting machine has a mould of different construction,
but without great change in principle.
135. GEAT is the old spelling of the word jet, or the waste metal that,
in cooling, clings to the type at the orifice in which the hot metal is
poured. The separation of this ragged bit of metal from the cast type
is known as “breaking off the jet.”
142. Properly made, the two halves of the mould should fit so close
as to be air-tight; but a too close fitting will not allow the escape
of the air from the mould when the fluid metal is injected. An
imperceptible slackness in fitting is necessary to allow the escape of
the air at the joints. With this escaping air goes out also, at these
joints, a thin feather-edge of cooling metal, then known as the rag.
THE JUSTIFYING OF THE MOULD was done without gauges. The types cast
were tested by setting them up in parallel rows, one row head up, and
one row feet up. If one row overlapped the other, the fault could be
felt by a nice touch. The test of squareness was made by holding two
types, nick to nick, between the eye and light. If a glimmer of light
appeared, the mould was in fault. To the modern founder these seem
tests of great crudity, but they were adjudged good enough.
145. THE DAWK was a slight concavity or depression in the body of
the cast type, made by a corresponding convexity in the mould. For
the correction of faults Moxon allows the use of the file upon the
mould with a freedom that must provoke the surprise of every modern
mould-maker. For a modern type-caster to file a mould after it has
been adjusted is now regarded as a blunder worse than a crime; yet
Moxon says that accuracy need not be expected on the first, or even
the seventh, time of testing. The workman must mend “on, on, on, by
a little at a time, till at last it is so finisht.” The underlaying
of different parts of the mould with an “assidue,” or thin plate of
brass, as is here recommended, is evidence that the mould was often
filed recklessly and to its injury. In no reputable modern foundry
or machine-shop would this tampering with a mould be allowed. The
straight-edge, the square, the eye, the fingers--these seem to have
been the only available tools of precision.
149. MATRICES. Soft copper is recommended because it is not liable to
break the punches; but soft copper is not durable. Continued spurts
of hot metal against a soft copper matrix soon blunt its edges and
finer lines. Modern founders find it a wiser economy to use hard
rolled copper, and risk the breaking of punches. Very large types are
sometimes struck in copper softened by heat, but this is not regarded
as good workmanship. A matrix made by the electrotype process, or by
the use of a perforated copper plate riveted upon another solid copper
plate, is preferred.
COUNTERS. A thick space, or one third of the square of the body, is
made the proper depth for the sinking of a matrix, but this depth was
not always secured. The fear of breaking the punch made early founders
cautious, and their matrices were sunk to a depth of one fourth or
one fifth the square of the body. When the counter-punch had been
made correspondingly shallow, the counter of the cast type and the
beard outside the letter were often blackened by the inking-balls,
and dots or spots of ink were transferred with the print to the wet
paper. Fertel, a French printer of 1723, says (“La Science pratique de
l’Imprimerie,” page 4) that the counters of some new types were of no
greater depth than the thickness of a sheet of strong paper.
153. THE JUSTIFYING OF THE MATRICES is one of the nice operations
of type-founding. Each matrix must have a free movement to and from
the mould, but it must fit snugly to the nicest fraction. All the
matrices for the same font must occupy a prescribed position upon the
mould, exact as to top, foot, and sides. A slight deviation puts the
types cast therefrom perceptibly out of line, or makes them crooked,
with more space on one side of the character than on the other. Nor
is this all. The face of the letter in the matrix must be in exact
parallel with the face of the outer plate and the face of the mould.
If higher at one side than at the other, the type cast therefrom will
have a corresponding unevenness of height. If the distance between the
outer surfaces and the faces of the letter is not the same in all the
matrices, the types will be of uneven height.
It is a marvel that early type-founders did so well with their
imperfect methods. The commonest fault was making the matrix too
low, so that the types cast therefrom would be low to paper. As the
remedying of this defect calls for an entire section on the botching
of matrices, it may be inferred that a certain amount of botching was
considered unavoidable. The press of the early printers seems to have
been constructed to hide irregularities of height in type that were
then thought unavoidable.
164. MAKING METAL. The melting-point of lead is about 617° and that of
iron is about 2100°. At the greater heat lead is destroyed as a metal.
It is possible to incorporate lead with iron, but it cannot be done
by the process here described. The only useful office performed by
the stub-nails was to deprive the antimony of its excess of sulphur,
which was incorporated, undetected, with the dross and the slag. The
proportions are not clearly stated: “For every three pounds of iron,
about five and twenty pounds of lead.” The exact quantity of antimony
is not stated. In the second paragraph it is said that the iron and
antimony are equal as to weight. Were the ingredients twenty-five
pounds of lead, three of iron, and three of antimony; or twenty-five
pounds of lead, and three pounds of mixed iron and antimony? No mention
is here made of tin or copper. The lead gave to the alloy softness and
easy-working qualities; the antimony hardness and stiffness; the iron
was intended to give hardness.
169. THE CASTING OF LETTERS by the hand-mould was slow work. Four
thousand types a day was the average performance. It was also hard
work. To “face the type”--to make the liquid metal forcibly splash
against the face of the matrix--the caster, as Bernard truly says, must
make the contortions of a maniac. If it were not forcibly splashed, the
type would have a defective face. The jerk or twist given to the arm
was one of skill as well as of strength. It often happened that strong
men were never able to acquire this knack. They might work hard all
day, apparently going through all the motions, and yet be unable to
make perfect types. The smaller the body of the type, the harder must
be the jerk of the arm.
175. TIN. When types did not come with a good face, the caster put tin
in the metal-pot, to make the metal fluid. This is the only mention of
the use of tin as an ingredient, and it seems to have been used only to
lighten the work of the caster.
THE RAG, or feather-edge of thin metal made by the windage or escape
of air at the joints, was rubbed off on a grindstone. This method
of rubbing could not be employed for types like f or j or f, which
overhang the body: the rag on these letters was more slowly taken off
with a scraping-knife.
192. THE PLOWING OF A GROOVE at the bottom of the type was the
next process. No mention is made of an inspection of the type for
the detection of faults of casting, as is customary in modern
type-foundries.
197, 198. COPY. This introduction is obviously the outgrowth of
some painful experiences with authors. “By the Laws of Printing, a
Compositer is strictly to follow his Copy.” This law presupposes that
the copy is always correct--a supposition as untenable now as it was
then. Moxon admits that the compositor should amend bad spelling and
pointing, and use capitals and italics with sense and reason, even if
he has to deviate from copy. The standard of typographic style is much
higher now. The compositor of to-day who undertook to reset this book
in modern style would be required to cut out all the italics and more
than half the capitals, readjust the punctuation, correct the spacing,
make uniform the spelling, and remodel the headings and the make-up.
199. CASES. These directions for the papering of the cases indicate
that many were of unseasoned wood or insecurely jointed. It is not
probable that the different parts were dovetailed or fastened with
screws.
201. WASHING OF FORMS. The proper method of washing a form, as
described on this and following pages, warrants the supposition that
very thin ink must have been used, and that this ink must have flowed
or spread downward on the spaces and quadrats and between the letters
in loosely justified lines.
207. DISTRIBUTION. In these prolix directions concerning distribution,
it seems that a composing-rule was not used to uphold the type. The
compositor made use of a reglet for the purpose.
212. THE GALLEY here described was a quarto slice-galley, placed upon
the ledge of the upper-case at the right hand, covering the boxes for
signs and double letters, which were the characters supposed to be in
least use. If the galley had been put in a sliding drawer, upon an
inclined shelf under the stand, it would have been as accessible and
not so liable to damage.
212. THE VISORUM, or projecting copy-holder, is now out of use. This is
to be regretted, for it brought the copy nearer to the compositor’s
eye, enabled him to keep closer attention on each line of the copy, and
afforded readier access to all the boxes of the upper-case.
214. REGLETS. The rude way in which composition was then done is shown
in the second paragraph, in which it is said that compositors many
times used reglets instead of brass composing-rules.
218. SIGNATURES. The compositor was required to make up his page as
soon as it was composed, and to add the direction, or catch-line, and
the signature. The directions for signatures are minute. It was not
enough to put the signature letter A at the foot of the first page
of the first form. It must be repeated A2 on the third page, as an
additional safeguard against the possible carelessness of the folder.
If the section to be bound consisted of three or more double leaves,
the fifth or seventh page of the section must be appropriately marked
with A3 or A4. When these letters followed in numerical order, the
folder knew that the folding was correct.
As only twenty-three letters in the alphabet were accepted for
signatures (J, U, and W were rejected), the letters could serve only
for twenty-three signatures, usually of eight, and never more than
sixteen pages. If the book exceeded three hundred and sixty-eight
pages, and sometimes a lower number, the alphabet was doubled as Aa. If
the book had two or more volumes, the number of the volume had to be
added to the signatures. This old method of the trade is still observed
in Great Britain. In the United States Arabic figures are preferred for
signatures.
The signature was put unhandily in the center of the line, making it
difficult to be seen by gatherer or collator. Modern usage now requires
that the signature be more conveniently placed for inspection, near the
beginning of the white line. A recent fashion is to put the signature
near the edge of the tail, so that it can be cut off by the binder.
Another fad is to suppress all signatures. This is recommended because
signatures are not now found in early manuscripts, but Blades has shown
in his essay on this subject that they were always used by all writers
of manuscript books, and that they do not show because they were put at
the foot of the page and were afterward trimmed off in binding.
220. EMPHASIS. The remarks in the fifth paragraph place Moxon before
us as a man who had his heart in his trade. The duty of a compositor,
“to make the meaning of his Author intelligent to the Reader,” and “his
Work shew graceful to the Eye, and pleasant in Reading,” is pointedly
stated. His methods were well adapted for the time and for prevailing
typographic fashions. He confesses that the “mode of ordering Titles
varies; as may be seen by comparing the Title Pages of every twenty
years: Therefore a Lasting Rule cannot be given for the ordering them:
only what has been said in general concerning Emphasis.” To suit the
taste of that time, print must have emphasis, and plenty of it. Every
page was peppered with italic; important nouns and verbs and some that
are not important must begin with a capital. For the title-page and the
running title roman capitals were not bold or black enough. Recourse
was had to black-letter. That there was some system, or attempt at
system, in this conglomerate of styles is probable, but Moxon has not
explained his rules. We know only that the style of this book is not
uniform. A proof-reader of our time who attempted to make it uniform
would score every page.
The fashion of displaying print with italic and capital letters died
hard. More than a hundred years passed before readers discovered that
too much emphasis in the text defeated its purpose, and made the text
really harder to be read. Not even yet are all publishers and printers
able to see that there should be a difference in the treatment of a
poster to be read across the street and of a title-page to be held in
the hand; and that there is but little more reason for classifying some
words of a title in bold display-lines, and others in petty catch-lines
of obscure small capitals, than there would be in treating the words of
a sentence in the text in a similar manner.
The uncouthness of many of the titles of the seventeenth century is
wrongly supposed by some critics to show the vanity of the printer, who
wished to display, as well as he could, the extent of his collection.
This supposition has no good foundation. The printer of that time did
not have types enough for the needs of title-pages. Between pica and
canon were only six distinct bodies and faces of roman letter, and
they were rarely of uniform face. There should have been at least a
dozen. These types were inelastic, and could not be neatly compressed
or expanded to fit the words of every line. The prominent word or
words selected by the author for a leading line might be too few or
too many to fill that line. All the printer could do was to space out
the letters of a short line, or divide words in the over-long line and
put them in two lines. The words had to be accommodated to the type.
It was for this reason that large roman lower-case, black-letter, and
italic were so freely used. Moxon showed good sense in his preference
for capital letters, for “Capitals express Dignity where-ever they are
Set, and Space and Distance also implies stateliness.” Capitals were
then made to one square standard form, and were really unfit for more
than half the title-pages for which they had to be used. The variety
of large roman capitals provided by modern type-founders is better
now than it was two centuries ago, yet it is still imperfect. We have
a greater variety of roman faces and more sizes, but not one of them
is properly graduated in the larger bodies, as they should be, by a
difference of three points only.
The mechanical directions concerning petty details of composition seem
needlessly minute, but most of them are good, and are obeyed to this
day.
232. OF IMPOSING. As the sheet to be printed in 1683 was always of
small size, imposing was a comparatively simple process. But four
foldings were made,--folio, quarto, octavo, and twelves,--all of them
clearly illustrated by the plates. Some of the simple rules that our
author lays down have been unwisely omitted in some modern printers’
grammars, viz: An even and an odd page always stand together; the
folios of the two pages that stand together make, in their addition,
one more than the number of pages in that form.
238. PLANING DOWN. The instruction about this duty is needed more now
than it was then. Our author recommends that projecting type be planed
down with knocks on the planer from the closed fist, or with the head
of the shooting-stick. Our larger forms require more force, but too
much force is often given. The pounding of a form after it has been
locked-up with furious blows from a heavy mallet is not warranted.
239. LOCKING-UP. His process of locking-up is not so good. He advises
the tightening of each page by the side-stick before that page
is tightened at the foot. This indicates the commonness of slack
spacing and line justification, for which he suggests the remedy of
chewed paper forced into the slack line at the point of a bodkin! He
confesses, however, that this is a botchy expedient. The frequent
hanging or inward bowing of a page at its foot is usually produced by
over-tight locking-up of the page at the side before locking-up the
foot.
242. CORRECTING. As proofs could not be taken on galleys, all
correction had to be done on the stone, and this was done as it is now,
with the destructive bodkin. Unusual tolerance seems to have been given
to the practice of overrunning matter in the form--a practice sure to
make bad justification.
260. OF THE CORRECTOR AND HIS OFFICE. Moxon requires the corrector
to be well skilled in “Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriack, Caldæ, French,
Spanish, Italian, High Dutch, Saxon, Low Dutch, Welch, &c.” Nor is
this all. “He ought to be very knowing in Derivations and Etymologies
of Words, very sagacious in Pointing, skilful in the Compositers
whole Task and Obligation, and endowed with a quick Eye to espy the
smallest Fault.” One may rightfully doubt that any reader permanently
employed by any master-printer of the old time had one half of these
accomplishments. Moxon’s ideal of a corrector seems to have been based
on the tradition that learned men had been employed by Christopher
Plantin of Antwerp, and the Stephens of Paris. His error was that he
mistook their principal duty, which was not so much to correct errors
in proof as to prepare copy after its diligent collation with earlier
editions or little-known manuscripts of merit. Scholarly work was
cheap. Plantin paid his principal correctors lower wages than his
compositors. That these correctors did a deal of scholarly work is not
to be questioned, yet they overlooked many typographical errors. The
scholarly preparer of copy and the editorial and critical proof-reader
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are now extinct. No living
master-printer can afford to pay for the services of even a presuming
successor to any one of these worthies. He has to be content with the
proof-reader who is “very knowing in Derivations and Etymologies, and
sagacious in Pointing.”
The signs or marks then used for the correction of proof are fewer in
number, but are substantially the same as those in use now.
266. ALTERATIONS. The admonition to the author to deliver his copy
perfect, and not to hope that he can mend it in proof without
additional expense, is an intimation that badly prepared copy is quite
as old as printing.
270. THE FITTING OF THE OLD HAND-PRESS. This section gives us a curious
insight into the defects of the early hand-press. The smearing of
tenons with soap or grease; the bracing up of the cheeks, head, and
cap, with beams; “the crazy make of the Winter,” or the resist to
downward impression; “the Under-laying of the Feet”--all these make one
doubt whether this press was really “invented upon mature consideration
of Mechanick Powers, deducted from Geometrick Principles.”
275. THE BEDDING OF THE STONE as here described was in bran, but
plaster of Paris was sometimes used.
The pouring of water from a sponge on the face of the stone, to see
whether it had a “propensitude” for one side more than the other, was
the substitute for a spirit-level.
278. OF HANGING THE PLATEN. The platen was suspended by whip-cords
from hooks. The spindle was steadied in its action by the guide-rods
attached to the hose. The adjustment of the whip-cords to the hose, so
that they would not be unevenly strained when the spindle descended,
was a nice operation that was not always done with accuracy. When
unevenly hung the platen gave untrue impression.
281. JUSTIFYING THE HEAD, as here described, was the repacking of the
mortises with felt, pasteboard, and scabbard, so that the resist to
the impression should be uniform. The mechanic who carefully reads
these descriptions of the construction and operation of the press
must wonder at the ingenuity of these cross-purposes. The press was
made to give impression upon the paper overlying the types, and it
must have been intended that the pressure exerted should be confined
almost exclusively to the form of types. It should have been rigid and
inflexible in every part where pressure might be lost. But we here see
that provision was made in the beginning for the escape of the force
exerted. Not one tenth of it was felt upon the type. Nine tenths of
that force leaked out in the fittings, and really contributed to the
needless wearing of elastic or shackly-fitted parts of the press. In
important joints one finds elasticity where there should have been
rigidity, as well as compressibility in the bed of bran under the
stone, in the loosely tenoned head and winter, and in the swinging
platen.
287. Additional elasticity was given by the use of a blanket in two
folds, or a doubled blanket.
288. MAKING REGISTER. The rude manner in which forms were sent to
press is here shown by the directions to the pressman to correct them
when out of register from half a nonpareil to a long-primer! He is
ordered first to unlock the form and try to get the pages in register
by changing the quoins, or by varying the pressure on them, which
frequently produced a twisting of the cross-bars. If this expedient did
not serve, then the pressman must put in or take out furniture until
the pages were in parallel. This was bad practice. The proper usage
now is for the pressman to return a crooked form to the compositor,
and require him to make the change. Alterations of margins in crooked
type-forms should be made on the imposing-stone, and not on the bed of
the press.
291. THE UNDERLAYING of wood letters or engravings of any kind that
are too low to receive impression is here made another duty of the
compositor; but the underlaying or overlaying of types in masses or in
patches to correct inequalities of impression is nowhere advised. The
spongy blankets were the first and last resort for the correction of
this fault.
319. WORKING AT PRESS. Two pressmen were needed for its efficient
service: one to ink the type, one to put on the sheet, print it, and
take it from the tympan. It was intended that they should be of equal
ability, so that they could do either kind of work. The proper product
of the press so manned was put at the high standard of a token an hour,
or two hundred and forty sheets printed on one side. The work-day was
never less than twelve hours, sometimes more. The press was of small
size, yet it required much activity to pull a token in one hour, for
two pulls of the bar had to be made on each side of the sheet. In the
middle of every ream the paper-maker put a cross slip of white paper as
a mark or token that at this point one half-ream ended and the other
half-ream began. Printers of our time continue the use of the word
token as a measure of their work. The full ream printed on both sides
is rated as four tokens.
COMPOSITION INKING-ROLLERS came in with cylinder printing-machines.
The success of the new machines depended on the rollers. According to
Hansard, they were first made by Forster of Weybridge, England, who
derived his knowledge of the value of a mixture of glue and molasses
as a receiver and transferrer of ink from the Staffordshire potteries,
where it was used as an aid in the decoration of crockery.
The first printer in the United States to use composition rollers was
Jonas Booth of New York, who made them in 1827.
328. PRINTING IN RED. This paragraph 16 requires careful reading for
a clear understanding of the crudity of the old method of printing in
red and black. The pressman unlocked the form and picked out all words
to be printed in red, filling up the vacant spaces with quadrats. He
then printed the black form in the usual way. This done, he again
unlocked the form and withdrew the quadrats that had been used to fill
the spaces to be occupied by the words in red. At the bottom of each
vacated space he put in bits of scabbard as underlays for the types
in red. The thickness of the scabbards is not specified, but it must
be understood that they projected a nonpareil or more above other
types. The form was then locked up, the red words being in their proper
places. A new frisket was cut for this red form, and the red ink was
beaten only on the types for red ink that projected above their mates.
If the inking-balls slipped and inked any other part of the form, the
sheet was protected from smear by the new frisket that admitted through
it only the types intended for red. This treatment secured exact
register (provided the paper had not shrunk in drying), but the rudely
cut scabbards were an uncertain and variable support for the types, and
usually made uneven printing. The caution to pull lightly and not print
too hard was needed, for the difficulty of fairly inking and smoothly
printing types so treated cannot be overrated.
331. PRINTING IN GOLD. Equally unworkmanlike, to our notion, are the
directions about printing names in gold and silver. For this neither
chase nor press was provided. The type as set in the stick was coated
with hard varnish, and then pressed with the hands on wet paper against
a blanket on the correcting-stone. This done, the gold or silver leaf
was gently pressed on the print!
356. THE CHAPEL. The common belief that the word “chapel” as the trade
name of an association of printers in a printing-house is as old
as Caxton, and that it was so given from a chapel attached to “the
almonesrye at the reed pale” in Westminster Abbey, in or near which
Caxton did his work, finds no warrant from Moxon. His explanation is
more reasonable: “... some great Churchman, or men, ... for the Books
of Divinity that proceeded from a Printing-house, gave it the Reverend
Title of Chappel.” I find no mention in any book of earlier date of
the word chapel as a synonym for a fraternity of printers. Although
England is regarded as the birthplace of guilds and fraternities, there
is no old record of any association of printers as printers only. The
Company of Stationers was an association dominated by booksellers who
were more intent on getting and holding patents and privileges for
the sale of books than on improving or developing typography. Roger
L’Estrange, the “surveyor of the Imprimerys,” writing in 1663, said:
“The stationers have subjected the Printers to be absolutely their
slaves by so increasing their number that one half must either play the
knave or starve.” The customs of the chapel among journeymen probably
came from Germany. Blades, in his “Depositio Cornuti Typographici”
(London, 1885), shows that some of the customs of English printers
closely resemble the older German customs that are fully described in
this curious book.
Thomas Gent, printer, in his “Autobiography” (page 16, edition of
1832), thus describes his initiation in a London printing-house about
the year 1714: “On my entrance amongst a number of men, besides paying
what is called Ben-money [benvenue], I found, soon after, I was, as it
were, to be dubbed as great a cuz as the famous Don Quixote ... though
the insipid folly thereof, agreeably to their strange harangues in
praise of the protecting charms of cuzship ... was not very agreeable
to my hearing; yet, when the master himself insisted it must be done,
I was obliged to submit to that immemorial custom, the origin of which
they could not then explain to me. It commenced by walking round the
chapel, (Printing rooms being called such, because first begun to
be practised in one at Westminster Abbey;) singing an alphabetical
anthem, tuned literally to the vowels; striking me, kneeling, with a
broadsword; and pouring ale upon my head; my titles were exhibited much
to this effect, ‘Thomas Gent, baron of College Green, earl of Fingall,
with power to the limits of Dublin bar, captain general of the Teagues
near the Lake of Allen, and lord high admiral over all the bogs in
Ireland.’ To confirm which, and that I might not pay over again for
the same ceremony, through forgetfulness, they allowed me godfathers,
the first I ever had before, because the Presbyterian minister, at
my christening, allowed none at his office; and these, my new pious
fathers, ... were the unreverend Mr. Holt and Mr. Palmer. Nay, there
were witnesses also, such as Mr. Fleming, Mr. Gibbins, and Mr. Cocket,
stanch journeymen printers.”
In some printing-houses the jocularity and horse-play of the chapel
meetings led to drunken revelries and a neglect of business that became
intolerable. The chapel undertook to decide who was a fair workman and
who was not. The fairness or unfairness of the workman was determined
by his compliance or non-compliance with the rule of an irresponsible
chapel. In 1820 the master-printers of London were almost unanimous in
opposing the chapel. Hansard says (“Typographia,” pages 309, 310) that
in most houses it was abolished.
Few of the old customs survive in America. The benvenue and the solaces
are unknown even by name to the majority of journeymen compositors.
The word chapel is still used: it defines an assembly of workmen in a
composing-room who are members of a Typographical Union.
361. WAY-GOOSE. Hansard (“Typographia,” foot-note, page 305) quotes
Bailey’s dictionary for the definition of the word: “Wayz-Goose, a
stubble-goose, an entertainment given to journeymen at the beginning of
winter.” Wayz is the old English word for stubble. A wayz-goose was a
known dainty, and the head dish at the annual feasts of the forefathers
of our fraternity.
363. THE COMPANY OF STATIONERS is an old fraternity. Long before
printing had been invented, the copyists, text-writers, and makers
of devotional books of low price, like the Creed, Pater Noster, Ave
Maria, etc., were associated, and sold their books in or near those
streets of London that still retain the names of Pater Noster Lane, Ave
Maria Lane, and Amen Corner. In the year 1403 they were formed into a
guild and governed by a master and two wardens. In 1553 they owned and
occupied a large hall near St. Paul’s Church, which was burned in the
great fire of 1666. A new hall was built, and finished in 1670. Hansard
shows in his “Typographia” (facing page 237) a print of the building
as it then appeared, in which the festivities described by Moxon were
celebrated.
Transcriber’s Notes.
Italic text is indicated with _underscores_, bold text with =equals=,
underlined text with ~tildes~.
Small/mixed capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
Cover art created for this eBook is granted to the public domain.