_Miscellaneous Ornaments_
In addition to the forms treated of in the foregoing chapter, the
early English printers sometimes filled up the space at the end of a
paragraph with small printers’ ornaments. In his edition of Johannes de
Garlandía, _Multorum Vocabulorum_, printed in 1514, Pynson placed
at the end of the last line of the colophon two units of a fleuron
reversed. This is not shown by Messrs Meynell and Morison in their
article in the _Fleuron_, and nothing exactly like it is shown
by Mr D. B. Updike in his numerous illustrations of specimen sheets
English and Foreign. It consisted of a spiral with two leaves, and
measures about 10 mm. in length. It also proves that the fleuron or
‘petit fer’ was known in this country in 1514, and probably earlier.
He used these again in the Year Books of Edw. III. But on what system,
if any, he worked it is not easy to understand. In the first five
sheets of this book, although there were many vacant spaces that could
have been filled, no ornaments were used, but on signature F iiij they
begin to appear; but still there seems no uniformity. At the end of
one paragraph three such ornaments are placed: in the next nothing,
although the space at the end of the paragraph was just as large. Then
we find one with five; but the average number was three. Nor were they
all of the same kind. One arrangement was ribbon, fleuron, ribbon;
another, one plait and two ribbon; a third, three ribbon and one
fleuron, and so on; but why the compositor should have wasted his time
putting in these ornaments here and there only, is inexplicable.
Robert Redman was equally arbitrary in his use of them, the only
difference he made being to place a colon between each unit. This
custom very soon died out.
But the miscellaneous ornaments I have in mind are usually found on
the title-pages of books, and even there they are only occasionally
met with in the sixteenth century, when it was usual for the printer
to place his own device above the imprint. As these devices were often
very artistic, they served their purpose of decoration very well.
Vautrollier’s fine series of the _Anchora Spei_ may be cited as an
instance.
But there was at least one printer in the sixteenth century who did not
follow this custom, and that was Henry Bynneman. It was not that he
had no small block of the Mermaid to put on his title-pages, because
we know that he used such a block at the end of one of his books. From
the care he took in the printing of his books we may suppose him to
have taken a pride in their appearance, and this probably arose from
his chief patron being Sir Christopher Hatton, who at that time was the
most powerful of Elizabeth’s favourites, and was the friend and helper
of literary men. At any rate Bynneman frequently placed the crest of
that nobleman, a hart surrounded by the motto, “Cerva charissima et
gratissimus hinnulus,” with a very elaborate frame, on his title-pages.
It is seen in the fourth part of Gabriel Harvey’s _Gratulationis
Valdinensis_, the other three parts of which have on the title-page:
the first, the royal arms; the second, the crest of the Leicester
family--the bear and ragged staff; and the third, the crest of the
Burleighs--a sheaf of corn with two lions rampant as supporters, and
the motto, “Cor unvm via una,” within a border of fleurons.
Several of the blocks reproduced by Mr McKerrow in his _Printers’ and
Publishers’ Devices_ were not devices at all, but merely ornaments.
Such a one is No. 248, which he describes as a “two-tailed mermaid
blowing two horns. A fringe of tassels below.” In fact, he admits that
it is an ornament. Another was No. 244, which he describes as a wreath
enclosing armorial bearings found in A. Broke’s _Tragical History of
Romeus and Juliet_, printed by R. Robinson in 1578. A third that was
certainly not a device, though it was associated with the Eliots Court
Press, was the “Veritas felix temporis” block, a copy from a foreign
source, which, in spite of the bad workmanship, retains much of its
original grace and beauty.
John Windet placed on the title-page of H. Swinburne’s _Briefe
Treatise of Testaments and Wills_, 1590, a curious little decorative
block, in which two happy-looking cherubs sitting under overhanging
sprays of foliage that are part of the contents of an urn or basket of
fruit and flowers are busily playing, one a guitar and the other a viol
or violin, but whether they are serenading the lady whose head forms
part of the design one is left to guess. This block was perhaps in
reality a tail-piece.
The title-page of the first edition of _King Lear_, published by
Simon Stafford in 1605, had as an ornament a block that was used on
occasion both as head and tail piece, and came afterwards into the
possession of George Purslowe and so to the Eliots Court Press. That
seen on the title-page of Cyril Tourneur’s _Atheist’s Tragedie_,
published for John Stepneth and Richard Redmer in 1611, also belongs
to the same category, as does also the one placed on the title-page
of _A Description of New England_, printed by Humfrey Lownes in
1616. The fleur-de-lys placed above his imprint by William Jones in
Gerard Malynes’ _Center of the Circle of Commerce_ is familiar in
several seventeenth century books, while that seen on the title-page of
_Euphues, his Censure to Philautus_, printed by Elizabeth Allde in
1634, had a counterpart amongst the blocks of Felix Kingston, and is
frequently found as a head-piece.
Indeed, one can never be sure whether they are dealing with the
original or only a copy, as most of these blocks were copied over and
over again.
INITIAL LETTERS AND FACTOTUMS