A HISTORY OF THE OLD ENGLISH LETTER FOUNDRIES.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _A_ true & exact _Repreſentation_ of the _Art_ of
_Caſting_ & _Preparing_ Letters _for_ Printing.
_Engrav’d for the Universal Magazine 1750 for I. Hinton at the Kings
Arms in S^t. Pauls Church Yard LONDON._
58. Interior of Caslon’s Foundry in 1750. From the _Universal
Magazine_. (The mould is described, p. 108).]
A HISTORY
OF THE
OLD ENGLISH LETTER FOUNDRIES,
WITH NOTES,
Historical and Bibliographical,
ON THE
RISE AND PROGRESS OF ENGLISH TYPOGRAPHY.
BY
TALBOT BAINES REED.
LONDON:
ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1887.
[Illustration]
{v}
PREFACE.
In this age of progress, when the fine arts are rapidly becoming
trades, and the machine is on every side superseding that labour of
head and hand which our fathers called Handicraft, we are in danger of
losing sight of, or, at least, of undervaluing the genius of those who,
with none of our mechanical advantages, established and made famous in
our land those arts and handicrafts of which we are now the heritors.
The Art of Letter Founding hesitated long before yielding to the
revolutionary impulses of modern progress. While kindred arts—and
notably that art which preserves all others—were advancing by leaps and
bounds, the founder, as late as half a century ago, was pursuing the
even tenor of his ways by paths which had been trodden by De Worde and
Day and Moxon. But the inevitable revolution came, and Letter Founding
to-day bids fair to break all her old ties and take new departures
undreamed of by those heroes of the punch and matrix and mould who made
her what we found her.
At such a time, it seems not undutiful to attempt to gather together
into a connected form the numerous records of the Old English Letter
Founders scattered throughout our literary and {vi} typographical
history, with a view to preserve the memory of those to whose labours
English Printing is indebted for so much of its glory.
The present work represents the labour of several years in what may
be considered some of the untrodden by-paths of English typographical
history.
The curious _Dissertation on English Typographical Founders and
Founderies_ by the learned Edward Rowe Mores, published in 1778, is,
in fact, the only work in the language purporting to treat of Letter
Founding as distinct from the art which it fosters. This quaint and
crabbed sketch, full of valuable but half-digested information, was
intended to accompany a specimen of the types of John James, whose
foundry had gradually absorbed all the minor English foundries, and,
after the death of its owner, had become the property of Mores himself.
The enthusiasm of the Oxford antiquary infused new life into the dry
bones of this decayed collection. Working backwards, he restored
in imagination the old foundries of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, as they had been before they became absorbed in his own. He
tracked back a few famous historical types to their fountain-head, and
even bridged over the mysterious gulf which divided the early sixteenth
from the early seventeenth centuries of English letter-founding.
Mores’ _Dissertation_ has necessarily formed the basis of my
investigations, and is, indeed, almost wholly incorporated in the
present volume. Of the additional and more anecdotal notes on the
later founders, preserved by Nichols and Hansard, I have also freely
made use; although in every case it has been my endeavour to take
nothing on report which it has been possible to verify by reference to
original sources. This effort has been rewarded by several interesting
discoveries which it is hoped may be found to throw considerable fresh
light on the history of our national typography.
The first century of English letter-founding is a period of great
obscurity, to master which it is absolutely essential to have {vii}
unlimited access to all the works of all the printers whose books were
the only type specimens of their day. Such access it has been beyond
my power fully to secure, and in this portion of my work I am bound to
admit that I can lay claim to little originality of research. I have,
however, endeavoured to examine as many of the specimens of these early
presses as possible, and to satisfy myself that the observations of
others, of which I have availed myself, are such as I can assent to.
In detailing the rise and progress of the various English Letter
Foundries, it has been my endeavour to treat the subject, as far as
possible, bibliographically—that is, to regard as type-specimens not
merely the stated advertisements of the founder, but also the works for
which his types were created and in which they were used. The _Catena
on Job_, Walton’s _Polyglot_, Boyle’s _Irish Testament_, Bowyer’s
_Selden_, thus rank as type specimens quite as interesting as, and
far more valuable than, the ordinary letter founders’ catalogues.
Proceeding on this principle, moreover, this History will be found
to embody a pretty complete bibliography of works not only relating
to, but illustrative of, English Letter Founding. At the same time,
the particular bibliography of the subject has been kept distinct, by
appending to each chapter a chronological list of the Specimen Books
issued by the foundry to which it relates.
The introductory chapter on the Types and Type Founding of the First
Printers may be considered somewhat foreign to the scope of this
History. The importance, however, of a practical acquaintance with the
processes and appliances of the Art of Letter Founding as a foundation
to any complete study of typographical history—as well as the numerous
misconceptions existing on the part even of accepted authorities on the
subject—suggested the attempt to examine the various accounts of the
Invention of Printing from a letter founder’s point of view, in the
hope, if not of arriving at any very definite conclusions, at least of
clearing the question of a few prevalent fallacies.
The two chapters on Type Bodies and Type Faces, although also
{viii} to some extent foreign, are considered important by way of
introduction to the history of English Letter Founding in which the
“foreign and learned” characters have so conspicuously figured.
If this book—the imperfections of which are apparent to no one as
painfully as they are to the writer—should in any way encourage the
study of our national Typography, with a view to profit by the history
of the past in an endeavour to promote its excellence in the future,
the labour here concluded will be amply repaid.
* * * * *
The agreeable task remains of thanking the numerous friends to whose
aid and encouragement this book is indebted for much of whatever value
it may possess.
My foremost thanks are due to my honoured and valued friend, Mr.
William Blades, to whom I am indebted for far more than unlimited
access to his valuable typographical library, and the ungrudging
use of his special knowledge on all subjects connected with English
typography. These I have enjoyed, and what was of equal value his
kindly advice and sympathy during the whole progress of a work which,
but for his encouragement from the outset, might never have been
completed.
Another friend who, brief as was our acquaintance, had taken a genuine
interest in the progress of this History, and had enriched it by more
than one valuable communication, has been snatched away by the hand
of Death before the thanks he never coveted but constantly incurred
can reach him. In Henry Bradshaw the world of books has lost a
distinguished ornament, and this little book has lost a hearty friend.
To Mr. F. Madan, of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, I owe much valuable
information as to early printing at that University; while to the
kindness of Mr. Horace Hart, Controller of the University Press, I
am indebted for full access to the highly interesting collection of
typographical antiquities preserved at that Press, as well as for the
specimens I am here enabled to show of some of the most interesting
relics of the oldest Foundry in the country. {ix}
Mr. T. W. Smith has kindly given me similar facilities as regards the
archives and historical specimens of the venerable Caslon Foundry.
Mr. Sam. Timmins most generously placed at my disposal much of the
information embodied in my chapter on Baskerville, including the
extracts from the letters forming part of his unique collection
relating to that celebrated typographer.
To Mr. James Figgins I am obliged for many particulars relating to
the early association of founders at the commencement of the present
century; also for a specimen of one of the most noted founts of his
distinguished ancestor.
Mr. Charles R. Rivington I have to thank for one or two valuable
extracts from the _Minutes_ of the Court of the Stationers’ Company,
relating to Letter Founders.
To Messrs. Enschedé and Sons, of Haarlem, my thanks are also specially
due for giving me specimens of some of their most curious and ancient
types.
It is also my pleasure, as well as my duty, to thank the Secretary of
the American Antiquarian Society for information regarding specimens
in his possession; my friend, Dr. Wright, of the British and Foreign
Bible Society, for free access to the highly interesting Library under
his care; Messrs. Tuer, Bremner, Gill, and others for the kind loan
of Specimens; the Librarian of the London Institution for permission
to facsimile portions of the rare specimen of James’ Foundry in that
Library; and the numerous other friends, who, by reading proofs and in
other ways, have generously assisted me in my labours.
I also take this opportunity of thanking Mr. Prætorius and Mr. Manning
for the care they have bestowed on the preparation of facsimiles for
this work; and of expressing my obligations to the officials of the
British Museum and Record Office for their invariable courtesy on all
occasions on which their assistance has been invoked.
LONDON, _January 1st, 1887_.
{xi}
CONTENTS.
Introductory Chapter. THE TYPES AND TYPE FOUNDING OF THE
FIRST PRINTERS 1
Chap. 1. THE ENGLISH TYPE BODIES AND FACES 31
〃 2. THE LEARNED, FOREIGN AND PECULIAR CHARACTERS 57
〃 3. THE PRINTER LETTER-FOUNDERS, FROM CAXTON TO DAY 83
〃 4. LETTER FOUNDING AS AN ENGLISH MECHANICAL TRADE 102
〃 5. THE STATE CONTROL OF ENGLISH LETTER FOUNDING 123
〃 6. THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY FOUNDRY 137
〃 7. THE STAR CHAMBER FOUNDERS, AND THE LONDON POLYGLOT 164
〃 8. JOSEPH MOXON 180
〃 9. THE LATER FOUNDERS OF THE 17TH CENTURY 193
〃 10. THOMAS AND JOHN JAMES 212
〃 11. WILLIAM CASLON 232
〃 12. ALEXANDER WILSON 257
〃 13. JOHN BASKERVILLE 268
〃 14. THOMAS COTTRELL 288
〃 15. JOSEPH AND EDMUND FRY 298
〃 16. JOSEPH JACKSON 315
〃 17. WILLIAM MARTIN 330
〃 18. VINCENT FIGGINS 335
〃 19. THE MINOR FOUNDERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY 345
〃 20. WILLIAM MILLER 355
〃 21. THE MINOR FOUNDERS FROM 1800 TO 1830 357
{xiii}
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
1.—Types cast from leaden matrices, _circ._ 1500 16
2.—Specimen illustrating the variations in the face of type,
produced by bad casting 18
3.—Type mould of Claude Garamond. Paris, 1540. From Duverger 23
4.—Profile tracings from M. Claudin’s 15th century types 21
5.—A 15th century type. From M. Madden’s _Lettres d’un
Bibliographe_ 24
6.—A 15th century type. From _Liber de Laudibus...Mariæ_,
_circ._ 1468 24
7.—Roman letter. From the _Sophologium_, Wiedenbach? 1465–70? 42
8.—Roman and Black letter intermixed. From Traheron’s
_Exposition of St. John_, 1552 45
9.—Robijn Italic, cut by Chr. van Dijk. From the original
matrices 52
10.—Gothic Type or Lettre de Forme, _circ._ 1480. From the
original matrices 53
11.—Philosophie Flamand engraved by Fleischman, 1743. From
the original matrices 54
12.—Lettre de Civilité, cut by Ameet Tavernier for Plantin,
_circ._ 1570. From the original matrices 56
13.—Blooming Initials. Oxford, _circ._ 1700 80
14.—Pierced Initial. Oxford, _ante_ 1700 81
15.—Caxton’s Advertisement, in his Type 3 _face_ 88
16.—Caxton’s Type 4.* From the _Golden Legend_ _face_ 88
17.—Black letter, supposed to be De Worde’s. From
Palmer’s _History of Printing_ 90
18.—Pynson’s Roman letter. From the _Oratio in Pace
Nuperrimâ_, 1518 92
18_a_.—Berthelet’s Black letter and Secretary type. From
the _Boke named the Governour_, 1531 95
19.—Portrait of John Day, 1562. From Peter Martir’s
_Commentaries_, 1568 99
20, 21, 22.—Day’s Saxon, Roman, and Italic. From the
_Ælfredi Res Gestæ_, 1574 _face_ 96
23.—Letter Founding in Frankfort in 1568. From Jost
Amman’s _Stände und Handwerker_ 104
24.—Letter Founding and Printing _circ._ 1548. From the
Harleian MSS. 105
25.—Letter Founding in 1683. From Moxon’s _Mechanick
Exercises_ 109
26.—Letter Founding in France in 1718. From Thiboust’s
_Typographiæ Excellentia_ 115
27.—Colophon of the _Lyndewode_, Oxford, _n.d._ Showing
types [c], [d], [e], [f] _face_ 138
28.—Greek fount of the Eton _Chrysostom_, 1613 _face_ 140
29.—Greeks, Roman and Italic. From the _Catena on Job_,
1637 _face_ 140
30.—The Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. From an old wood-block 153
31.—The Clarendon Press, Oxford. From an old wood-block 156
32.—Pica Roman and Italic, presented to Oxford by Dr.
Fell, 1667 152
33.—Pica Roman and Italic, bought by Oxford University in
1692 152
34, 35, 36, 37, 38.—Hebrew, large and small, Coptic,
Arabic, and Syriac, presented to Oxford by Dr. Fell, 1667.
From the original matrices 147
39.—Ethiopic, bought by Oxford University in 1692. From
the original matrices 154
40.—Ethiopic of Walton’s _Polyglot_, 1657. From the
original matrices 174
41.—Syriac of Walton’s _Polyglot_, 1657. From the
original matrices 174
42.—Samaritan of Walton’s _Polyglot_, 1657. From the
original matrices 174
43.—Specimen of Nicholas Nicholls, 1665. From the
original _face_ 178
44.—Portrait of Joseph Moxon. From the _Tutor to
Astronomy and Geography_, 4th ed., 1686, _face_ 180
45.—Moxon’s Irish type, 1680. From the original matrices 189
46.—Dutch Initial Letters. From the original matrices 80
47.—Nonpareil Rabbinical Hebrew in Andrews’ Foundry. From
the original matrices 194
48.—Saxon, cut by R. Andrews for Miss Elstob’s _Grammar_,
1715. From the original matrices 196
49.—Old Dutch Blacks in R. Andrews’ Foundry. From the
original matrices 194
50.—Alexandrian Greek in Grover’s Foundry. From the
Catalogue of James’ Sale, 1782 200
51.—Scriptorial in Grover’s Foundry. From the original
matrices 204
52.—Court Hand in Grover’s Foundry. From the original
matrices 204
53.—Union Pearl in Grover’s Foundry. From the original
matrices 204
54.—Walpergen’s Music type. Oxford, _circ._ 1675. From
the original matrices 208
55.—Pictorial pierced Initial. From an 18th century
newspaper 81
56.—Title-page of the Catalogue and Specimen of
James’ Foundry, 1782. From the original 226
57.—Portrait of William Caslon. From Hansard _face_ 232
58.—View of the Interior of Caslon’s Foundry in 1750.
From the _Universal Magazine_ _Frontispiece_
59.—Pica Roman and Italic, cut by Caslon, 1720. From the
original matrices 236
60.—Black letter, cut by Caslon. From the original
matrices 239
61.—Arabic, cut by Caslon, 1720. From the original
matrices 235
62.—Coptic, cut by Caslon, _ante_ 1731. From the original
matrices 236
63.—Armenian, cut by Caslon, _ante_ 1736. From the
original matrices 239
64.—Etruscan, cut by Caslon, 1738. From the original
matrices 240
65.—Gothic, cut by Caslon, _ante_ 1734. From the original
matrices 239
66.—Ethiopic, cut by Caslon. From the original matrices 240
67.—Syriac, cut by Caslon II, _circ._ 1768. From the
original matrices 246
68.—Portrait of Alexander Wilson. From Hansard _face_ 258
69.—Greek, cut by Alex. Wilson, _ante_ 1768. From the
Glasgow _Homer_, 1768 262
70.—Portrait of John Baskerville. From Hansard _face_ 268
71.—Greek, cut by Baskerville for Oxford. From the Oxford
_Specimen_, 1768–70 _face_ 274
72.—Roman and Italic, cut by Baskerville, 1758. From the
_Milton_, Birmingham, 1758 _face_ 276
73.—Engrossing, cut by Cottrell, _circ._ 1768. From the
original matrices 289
73a.—Silhouette Portraits of Joseph and Edmund Fry. From
the originals _face_ 298
74.—Alexandrian Greek (formerly Grover’s), rejustified by
Dr. Fry. From the original matrices 304
74a.—Hebrew, cut by Dr. Fry, _circ._ 1785. From the
original matrices 304
75.—Portrait of Joseph Jackson. From Nichols’ _Literary
Anecdotes_ _face_ 316
76.—Portrait of William Caslon III. From Hansard _face_ 326
77.—Two-line English Roman, cut by Vincent Figgins, 1792.
From the original matrices 337
78.—Samaritan, cut by Dummers for Caslon, _circ._ 1734.
From the original matrices 345
[Illustration]
{1}
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER
THE TYPES AND TYPEFOUNDING OF THE FIRST PRINTERS.
For four centuries the noise of controversy has raged round the cradle
of Typography. Volumes have been written, lives have been spent,
fortunes have been wasted, communities have been stirred, societies
have been organised, a literature has been developed, to find an answer
to the famous triple question: “When, where, and by whom was found out
the unspeakably useful art of printing books?” And yet the world to-day
is little nearer a finite answer to the question than it was when Ulric
Zel indited his memorable narrative to the _Cologne Chronicle_ in 1499.
Indeed, the dust of battle has added to, rather than diminished, the
mysterious clouds which envelope the problem, and we are tempted to
seek refuge in an agnosticism which almost refuses to believe that
printing ever had an inventor.
It would be neither suitable nor profitable to encumber an
investigation of that part of the History of Typography which relates
to the types and type-making of the fifteenth century by any attempt
to discuss the vexed question of the Invention of the Art. The man
who invented Typography was doubtless the man who invented movable
types. Where the one is discovered, we have also found the other. But,
meanwhile, it is possible to avail ourselves of whatever evidence
exists as to the nature of the types he and his successors used, and as
to the methods by which those types were produced, and possibly to {2}
arrive at some conclusions respecting the earliest practices of the
Art of Typefounding in the land and in the age in which it first saw
the light.
No one has done more to clear the way for a free investigation of all
questions relating to the origin of printing than Dr. Van der Linde,
in his able essay, _The Haarlem Legend_,[1] which, while disposing
ruthlessly of the fiction of Coster’s invention, lays down the
important principle, too often neglected by writers on the subject,
that the essence of Typography consists in the mobility of the types,
and that, therefore, it is not a development of the long practised art
of printing from fixed blocks, but an entirely distinct invention.
The principle is so important, and Dr. Van der Linde’s words are so
emphatic, that we make no apology for quoting them:―
“I cannot repeat often enough that, when we speak of Typography and
its invention, nothing is meant, or rather nothing must be meant, but
printing with _loose_ (separate, moveable) types (be they letters,
musical notes, or other figures), which therefore, in distinction
from letters cut on wooden or metal plates, may be put together or
separated according to inclination. One thing therefore is certain:
he who did not invent printing with moveable types, did, as far as
Typography goes, invent nothing. What material was used first of all
in this invention; of what metal the first letters, the patrices
(engraved punches) and matrices were made; by whom and when the leaden
matrices and brass patrices were replaced by brass matrices and steel
patrices; . . . . . all this belongs to the secondary question of the
technical execution of the principal idea: multiplication of books by
means of multiplication of letters, multiplication of letters by means
of their durability, and repeated use of the same letters, _i.e._,
by means of the independence (looseness) of each individual letter
(moveableness).”—P. 19.
If this principle be adopted—and we can hardly imagine it questioned—it
will be obvious that a large class of works which usually occupy a
prominent place in inquiries into the origin of Printing, have but
slight bearing on the history of Typography. The block books of the
fifteenth century had little direct connection with the art that
followed and eclipsed them.[2] In the one respect of marking the early
use of printing for the instruction of mankind, the block books and
the first works of Typography proper claim an equal interest; but, as
regards their mechanical production, the one feature they possess in
common is a quality shared also by the playing-cards, pictures, seals,
stamps, {3} brands, and all the other applications of the principle
of impression which had existed in one form or another from time
immemorial.
It is reasonable to suppose that the first idea of movable type may
have been suggested to the mind of the inventor by a study of the
works of a xylographic printer, and an observation of the cumbrous and
wearisome method by which his books were produced. The toil involved
in first painfully tracing the characters and figures, reversed, on
the wood, then of engraving them, and, finally, of printing them with
the frotton, would appear—in the case, at any rate, of the small
school-books, for the production of which this process was largely
resorted to—scarcely less tedious than copying the required number
by the deft pen of a scribe. And even if, at a later period, the
bookmakers so far facilitated their labours as to write their text in
the ordinary manner on prepared paper, or with prepared ink, and so
transfer their copy, after the manner of the Chinese, on to the wood,
the labour expended in proportion to the result, and the uselessness
of the blocks when once their work was done, would doubtless impress
an inventive genius with a sense of dissatisfaction and impatience.
We can imagine him examining the first page of an _Abecedarium_, on
which would be engraved, in three lines, with a clear space between
each character, the letters of the alphabet, and speculating, as Cicero
had speculated centuries before,[3] on the possibilities presented by
the combination in indefinite variety of those twenty-five symbols.
Being a practical man as well as a theorist, we may suppose he would
attempt to experiment on the little wood block in his hand, and by
sawing off first the lines, and then some of the letters in the lines,
attempt to arrange his little types into a few short words. A momentous
experiment, and fraught with the greatest revolution the world has ever
known!
* * * * *
No question has aroused more interest, or excited keener discussion in
the history of printing, than that of the use of movable wooden types
as a first stage in the passage from Xylography to Typography. Those
who write on the affirmative side of the question profess to see in the
earlier typographical works, as well as in the historical statements
handed down by the old authorities, the {4} clearest evidence that
wooden types were used, and that several of the most famous works of
the first printers were executed by their means.
As regards the latter source of their confidence, it is at least
remarkable that no single writer of the fifteenth century makes the
slightest allusion to the use of wooden types. Indeed, it was not
till Bibliander, in 1548,[4] first mentioned and described them, that
anything professing to be a record on the subject existed. “First they
cut their letters,” he says, “on wood blocks the size of an entire
page, but because the labour and cost of that way was so great, they
devised movable wooden types, perforated and joined one to the other by
a thread.”
The legend, once started, found no lack of sponsors, and the
typographical histories of the sixteenth century and onward abound with
testimonies confirmatory more or less of Bibliander’s statement. Of
these testimonies, those only are worthy of attention which profess to
be based on actual inspection of the alleged perforated wooden types.
Specklin[5] (who died in 1589) asserts that he saw some of these relics
at Strasburg. Angelo Roccha,[6] in 1591, vouches for the existence
of similar letters (though he does not say whether wood or metal) at
Venice. Paulus Pater,[7] in 1710, stated that he had once seen some
belonging to Fust at Mentz; Bodman, as late as 1781, saw the same types
in a worm-eaten condition at Mentz; while Fischer,[8] in 1802, stated
that these precious relics were used as a sort of token of honour to be
bestowed on worthy apprentices on the occasion of their finishing their
term.
This testimony proves nothing beyond the fact that at Strasburg,
Venice, and Mentz there existed at some time or other certain
perforated wooden types which tradition ascribed to the first printers.
But on the question whether any book was ever printed with such type,
it is wholly inconclusive. It is possible to believe that certain early
printers, uninitiated into the mystery of the punch and matrix, may
have attempted to cut themselves wooden types, which, when they proved
untractable under the press, they perforated and strung together in
lines; {5} but it is beyond credit that any such rude experiment ever
resulted in the production of a work like the _Speculum_.
It is true that many writers have asserted it was so. Fournier, a
practical typographer, insists upon it from the fact that the letters
vary among themselves in a manner which would not be the case had they
been cast from a matrix in a mould. But, to be consistent, Fournier
is compelled (as Bernard points out) to postpone the use of cast type
till after the Gutenberg _Bible_ and Mentz _Psalter_, both of which
works display the same irregularities. And as the latest edition of
the _Psalter_, printed in the old types, appeared in 1516, it would
be necessary to suppose that movable wood type was in vogue up to
that date. No one has yet demonstrated, or attempted seriously to
demonstrate, the possibility of printing a book like the _Speculum_
in movable wooden type. All the experiments hitherto made, even by
the most ardent supporters of the theory, have been woful failures.
Laborde[9] admits that to cut the 3,000 separate letters required for
the _Letters of Indulgence_, engraved by him, would cost 450 francs;
and even he, with the aid of modern tools to cut up his wooden cubes,
can only show four widely spaced lines. Wetter[10] shows a page printed
from perforated and threaded wooden types[11]; but these, though of
large size, only prove by their {6} “naughty caprioles” the absurdity
of supposing that the “unleaded” _Speculum_, a quarternion of which
would require 40,000 distinct letters, could have been produced in 1440
by a method which even the modern cutting and modern presswork of 1836
failed to adapt to a single page of large-sized print.
John Enschedé, the famous Haarlem typefounder, though a strong
adherent to the Coster legend, was compelled to admit the practical
impossibility, in his day at any rate, of producing a single wood type
which would stand the test of being mathematically square; nor would it
be possible to square it after being cut. “No engraver,” he remarks,
“is able to cut separate letters in wood in such a manner that they
retain their quadrature (for that is the main thing of the line in
type-casting).”[12] Admitting for a moment that some printer may have
succeeded in putting together a page of these wooden types, without the
aid of leads, into a chase: how can it be supposed that after their
exposure to the warping influences of the sloppy ink and tight pressure
during the impression, they could ever have survived to be distributed
and recomposed into another forme?[13]
The claims set up on behalf of movable wood types as the means by which
the _Speculum_ or any other of the earliest books was printed, are
not only historically unsupported, but the whole weight of practical
evidence rejects them.
Dismissing them, therefore, from our consideration, a new theory
confronts us, which at first blush seems to supply, if not a more
probable, certainly a more possible, stepping-stone between Xylography
and Typography. We refer to what Meerman, the great champion of this
theory, calls the “sculpto-fusi” {7} characters: types, that is, the
shanks of which have been cast in a quadrilateral mould, and the
“faces” engraved by hand afterwards.
Meerman and those who agree with him engage a large array of testimony
on their side. In the reference of Celtis, in 1502, to Mentz as the
city “quæ prima sculpsit solidos ære characteres,” they see a clear
confirmation of their theory; as also in the frequent recurrence of the
same word “sculptus” in the colophons of the early printers. Meerman,
indeed, goes so far as to ingeniously explain the famous account of
the invention given by Trithemius in 1514,[14] in the light of his
theory, to mean that, after the rejection of the first wooden types,
“the inventors found out a method of casting the bodies only (fundendi
formas) of all the letters of the Latin alphabet from what they
called matrices, on which they cut the face of each letter; and from
the same kind of matrices a method was in time discovered of casting
the complete letters (æneos sive stanneos characteres) of sufficient
hardness for the pressure they had to bear, which letters before—that
is, when the bodies only were cast—they were obliged to cut.”[15]
After this bold flight of translation, it is not surprising to find
that Meerman claims that the _Speculum_ was printed in “sculpto-fusi”
types, although in the one page of which he gives a facsimile there are
nearly 1,700 separate types, of which 250 alone are _e_’s.
Schoepflin, claiming the same invention for the Strasburg printers,
believes that all the earliest books printed there were produced by
this means; and both Meerman and Schoepflin agree that engraved metal
types were in use for many years after the invention of the punch and
matrix, mentioning, among others so printed, the Mentz _Psalter_,
the _Catholicon_ of 1460, the Eggestein _Bible_ of 1468, and even
the _Nideri Præceptorium_, printed at Strasburg as late as 1476, as
“literis in ære sculptis.”
Almost the whole historical claim of the engraved metal types, indeed,
turns on the recurrence of the term “sculptus” in the colophons of the
early printers. Jenson, in 1471, calls himself a “cutter of books”
(librorum exsculptor). Sensenschmid, in 1475, says that the _Codex
Justinianus_ is “cut” (insculptus), and that he has “cut” (sculpsit)
the work of _Lombardus in Psalterium_. Husner of Strasburg, in 1472,
applies the term “printed with letters cut of metal” (exsculptis {8}
ære litteris) to the _Speculum Durandi_; and of the _Præceptorium
Nideri_, printed in 1476, he says it is “printed in letters cut of
metal by a very ingenious effort” (litteris exsculptis artificiali
certe conatu ex ære). As Dr. Van der Linde points out, the use of the
term in reference to all these books can mean nothing else than a
figurative allusion to the first process towards producing the types,
namely, the cutting of the punch[16]; just as when Schoeffer, in 1466,
makes his _Grammatica Vetus Rhythmica_ say, “I am cast at Mentz” (At
Moguntia sum fusus in urbe libellus), he means nothing more than a
figurative allusion to the casting of the types.
The theory of the sculpto-fusi types appears to have sprung up on no
firmer foundation than the difficulty of accounting for the marked
irregularities in the letters of the earliest printed books, and the
lack of a theory more feasible than that of movable wood type to
account for it. The method suggested by Meerman seemed to meet the
requirements of the case, and with the aid of the very free translation
of Trithemius’ story, and the very literal translation of certain
colophons, it managed to get a footing on the typographical records.
Mr. Skeen seriously applies himself to demonstrate how the shanks could
be cast in clay moulds stamped with a number of trough-like matrices
representing the various widths of the blanks required, and calculates
that at the rate of four a day, 6,000 of these blanks could be engraved
on the end by one man in five years, the whole weighing 100 lb. when
finished! “No wonder,” Mr. Skeen naïvely observes, “that Fust at last
grew impatient.” We must confess that there seems less ground for
believing in the use of “sculpto-fusi” types as the means by which any
of the early books were produced, than in the perforated wood types.
The enormous labour involved, in itself renders the idea improbable.
As M. Bernard says, “How can we suppose that intelligent men like
the first printers would not at once find out that they could easily
cast the face and body of their types together?”[17] But admitting
the possibility of producing type in this manner, and the possible
obtuseness which could allow an inventor of printing to spend five
years in laboriously engraving “shanks” enough for a single forme, the
lack of any satisfactory evidence that such types were ever used, even
experimentally, inclines us to deny them any place in the history of
the origin of typography.
* * * * *
Putting aside, therefore, as improbable, and not proved, the two
theories of {9} engraved movable types, the question arises, Did
typography, like her patron goddess, spring fully armed from the brain
of her inventor? in other words, did men pass at a single stride from
xylography to the perfect typography of the punch, the matrix, and the
mould? or are we still to seek for an intermediate stage in some ruder
and more primitive process of production? To this question we cannot
offer a better reply than that contained in the following passage from
Mr. Blades’s admirable life of Caxton.[18] “The examination of many
specimens,” he observes, “has led me to conclude that two schools of
typography existed together . . . The ruder consisted of those printers
who practised their art in Holland and the Low Countries, . . . and
who, by degrees only, adopted the better and more perfect methods of
the . . . school founded in Germany by the celebrated trio, Gutenberg,
Fust, and Schoeffer.”
It is impossible, we think, to resist the conclusion that all the
earlier works of typography were the impression of cast metal types;
but that the methods of casting employed were not always those of
matured letter-founding, seems to us not only probable, but evident,
from a study of the works themselves.
Mr. Theo. De Vinne, in his able treatise on the invention of
printing,[19] speaking with the authority of a practical typographer,
insists that the key to that invention is to be found, not in the press
nor in the movable types, but in the adjustable type-mould, upon which,
he argues, the existence of typography depends. While not prepared to
go as far as Mr. De Vinne on this point, and still content to regard
the invention of movable types as the real key to the invention of
typography proper, we find in the mould not only the culminating
achievement of the inventor, but also the key to the distinction
between the two schools of early typography to which we have alluded.
The adjustable mould was undoubtedly the goal of the discovery, and
those who reached it at once were the advanced typographers of the
Mentz press. Those who groped after it through clumsy and tedious
by-ways were the rude artists of the _Donatus_ and _Speculum_.
In considering the primitive modes of type-casting, it must be frankly
admitted that the inquirer stands in a field of pure conjecture. He
has only negative evidence to assure him that such primitive modes
undoubtedly did exist, and he searches in vain for any direct clue as
to the nature and details of those methods.
We shall briefly refer to one or two theories which have been
propounded, all with more or less of plausibility.
Casting in sand was an art not unknown to the silversmiths and {10}
trinket-makers of the fifteenth century, and several writers have
suggested that some of the early printers applied this process to
typefounding. M. Bernard[20] considers that the types of the _Speculum_
were sand-cast, and accounts for the varieties observable in the shapes
of various letters, by explaining that several models would probably be
made of each letter, and that the types when cast would, as is usual
after sand-casting, require some touching up or finishing by hand. He
shows a specimen of a word cast by himself by this process, which, as
far as it goes, is a satisfactory proof of the possibility of casting
letters in this way.[21] There are, indeed, many points in this theory
which satisfactorily account for peculiarities in the appearance of
books printed by the earliest rude Dutch School. Not only are the
irregularities of the letters in body and line intelligible, but the
specks between the lines, so frequently observable, would be accounted
for by the roughness on the “shoulders” of the sand-cast bodies.[22]
An important difficulty to be overcome in type cast by this or any
other primitive method would be the absence of uniformity in what
letter founders term “height to paper.” Some types would stand higher
than others, and the low ones, unless raised, would not only miss the
ink, but would not appear at all in the impression. The comparative
rarity of faults of this kind in the _Speculum_, leads one to suppose
that if a process of sand-casting had been adopted, the difficulty
of uneven heights had been surmounted either by locking up the forme
face downwards, or by perforating the types either at the time of or
after casting, and by means of a thread or wire holding them in their
places. The uneven length of the lines favours such a supposition, and
to the same cause Mr. Ottley[23] attributes the numerous misprints of
the _Speculum_, to correct which in the type would have involved the
unthreading of every line in which an error occurred. And as a still
more striking proof that the lines were put into the forme one by one,
in a piece, he shows a curious printer’s blunder at the end of one
page, where the whole of the last reference-line is put in upside down,
thus:―
[Illustration]
{11}
A “turn” of this magnitude could hardly have occurred if the letters
had been set in the forme type by type.
Another suggested mode is that of casting in clay moulds, by a method
very similar to that used in the sand process, and resulting in similar
peculiarities and variations in the types. Mr. Ottley, who is the chief
exponent of this theory, suggests that the types were made by pouring
melted lead or other soft metal, into moulds of earth or plaster,
formed, while the earth or plaster was in a moist state, upon letters
cut by hand in wood or metal; in the ordinary manner used from time
immemorial in casting statues of bronze and other articles of metal,
whether for use or ornament. The mould thus formed could not be of long
duration; indeed, it could scarcely avail for a second casting, as it
would be scarcely possible to extract the type after casting without
breaking the clay, and even if that could be done, the shrinking of the
metal in cooling would be apt to warp the mould beyond the possibility
of further use.
Mr. Ottley thinks that the constant renewal of the moulds could be
effected by using old types cast out of them, after being touched up
by the graver, as models. And this he considers will account for the
varieties observable in the different letters.
In this last conjecture we think Mr. Ottley goes out of his way to
suggest an unnecessary difficulty. If, as he contends, the _Speculum_
was printed two pages at a time, with soft types cast by the clay
process and renewed from time to time by castings from fresh moulds
formed upon the old letters touched up by the graver, we should
witness a gradual deterioration and attenuation in the type, as the
work progressed, which would leave the face of the letter, at the end,
unrecognisable as that with which it began. It would be more reasonable
to suppose that one set of models would be reserved for the periodical
renewal of the moulds all through the work, and that the variations
in the types would be due, not to the gradual paring of the faces of
the models, but to the different skill and exactness with which the
successive moulds would be taken.[24] {12}
The chief objection urged against both the clay and sand methods as
above described is their tediousness. The time occupied after the first
engraving of the models in forming, drying and clearing the mould, in
casting, extracting, touching up, and possibly perforating, the types
would be little short of the expeditious performance of a practised
xylographer. Still there would be a clear gain in the possession of a
fount of movable types, which, even if the metal in which they were
cast were only soft lead or pewter, might yet do duty in more than
one forme, under a rough press, roughly handled. On the xylographic
block, moreover, only one hand, and that a skilled one, could labour.
Of the moulding and casting of these rude types, many hands could make
light work. M. Bernard states that the artist who produced for him
the few sand-cast types shown in his work, assured him that a workman
could easily produce a thousand of such letters a day. He also states
that though each letter required squaring after casting, there was no
need in any instance to touch up the faces. M. Bernard’s experience
may have been a specially fortunate one; still, making allowance for
the superior workmanship and expedition of a modern artist, it must
be admitted that, in point of time, cost and utility, a printer who
succeeded in furnishing himself with these primitive cast types was as
far ahead of the old engraver as the discoverer of the adjustable mould
was in his turn ahead of him.[25]
There remains yet another suggestion as to the method in which the
types of the rude school were produced. This may be described as a
system of what the founders of sixty years ago called “polytype.”
Lambinet, who is responsible for the suggestion, under cover of a new
translation of Trithemius’s wonderful narrative, explains this to mean
nothing less than an early adoption of stereotype. He imagines[26] that
the first printers may have discovered a way of moulding a page of some
work—an _Abecedarium_—in cooling metal, so as to get a matrix-plate
impression of the whole page. Upon this matrix they would pour a liquid
metal, and by the aid of a roller or cylinder, press the fused matter
evenly, so as to penetrate into all the hollows and corners of the
letters. This tablet of tin or lead, being easily lifted and detached
from the matrix, would then appear as a surface of metal in which the
letters of the alphabet stood out reversed and in relief. These letters
could easily be detached and rendered mobile by a knife or other sharp
instrument; and the operation could be repeated a hundred times a day.
The metal faces so produced would be fixed on wooden shanks, type high;
and the fount would then be complete. {13}
Such is Lambinet’s hypothesis. Were it not for the fact that it was
endorsed by the authority of M. Firmin Didot, the renowned typefounder
and printer of Lambinet’s day, we should hardly be disposed to admit
its claim to serious attention. The supposition that the Mentz
_Psalter_, which these writers point to as a specimen of this mode of
execution, is the impression, not of type at all, but of a collection
of “casts” mounted on wood, is too fanciful. M. Didot, it must be
remembered, was the enthusiastic French improver of Stereotype, and
his enthusiasm appears to have led him to see in his method not only a
revolution in the art of printing as it existed in his day, but also a
solution of the mystery which had shrouded the early history of that
art for upwards of three centuries.
It may be well, before quitting this subject, to take note of a certain
phrase which has given rise to a considerable amount of conjecture and
controversy in connection with the early methods of typography. The
expression “_getté en molle_” occurred as early as the year 1446, in a
record kept by Jean le Robert of Cambray, who stated that in January
of that year he paid 20 sous for a printed _Doctrinale_, “_getté en
molle_.” Bernard has assumed this expression to refer to the use of
types cast from a mould, and cites a large number of instances where,
being used in contradistinction to writing by hand, it is taken to
signify typography.[27]
Dr. Van der Linde,[28] on the other hand, considers the term to
mean, printed from a wooden form, _i.e._, a xylographic production,
and nothing more, quoting similar instances of the use of the words
to support his opinion; and Dr. Van Meurs, whose remarks are quoted
in full in Mr. Hessel’s introduction to Dr. Van der Linde’s _Coster
Legend_,[29] declines to apply the phrase to the methods by which the
_Doctrinale_ was printed at all; but dwelling on the distinction drawn
in various documents between “en molle” and “en papier,” concludes that
the reference is to the binding of the book, and nothing more; a bound
book being “brought together in a form or binding,” while an unbound
one is “in paper.” {14}
It is difficult to reconcile these conflicting interpretations,
to which may be added as a fourth that of Mr. Skeen, who considers
the phrase to refer to the indented appearance of the paper of a
book after being printed. In the three last cases the expression is
valueless as regards our present inquiry; but if we accept M. Bernard’s
interpretation, which seems at least to have the weight of simplicity
and reasonable testimony on its side, then it would be necessary to
conclude that type-casting, either by a primitive or a finished process
(but having regard to the date and the place, almost certainly the
former), was practised in Flanders prior to January 1446. None of the
illustrations, however, which M. Bernard cites points definitely to
the use of cast type, but to printing in the abstract, irrespective of
method or process. “Moulées par ordre de l’Assemblée” might equally
well apply to a set of playing-cards or a broadside proclamation;
“mettre en molle” does not necessarily mean anything more than put into
“print”; while the recurring expressions “en molle” and “à la main,”
point to nothing beyond the general distinction between manuscript
and printed matter. In fact, the lack of definiteness in all the
quotations given by M. Bernard weakens his own argument: for if we are
to translate the word _moulé_ throughout in the narrow sense in which
he reads it, we must then believe that in every instance he cites,
figurative language was employed where conventional would have answered
equally well, and that the natural antithesis to the general term, “by
hand,” must in all cases be assumed to be the particular term, “printed
in cast metal types.” For ourselves, we see no justification for taxing
the phrase beyond its broad interpretation of “print”; and in this
light it appears possible to reconcile most of the conjectures to which
the words have given rise.
* * * * *
Turning now from the conjectured primitive processes of the ruder
school of early Typography, we come to consider the practice of that
more mature school which, as has already been said, appears to have
arrived at once at the secret of the punch, matrix and adjustable
mould. We should be loth to assert that they arrived at once at the
most perfect mechanism of these appliances; indeed, an examination of
the earliest productions of the Mentz press, beautiful as they are,
convinces one that the first printers were not finished typefounders.
But even if their first punches were wood or copper, their first
matrices lead, and their first mould no more than a clumsy adaptation
of the composing-stick, they yet had the secret of the art; to perfect
it was a mere matter of time.
Experiments have proved conclusively that the face of a wood-cut type
may be without injury impressed into lead in a state of semi-fusion,
and thus produce _in creux_ an inverted image of itself in the matrix.
It has also been shown that a lead matrix so formed is capable, after
being squared and justified, {15} of being adapted to a mould,
and producing a certain number of types in soft lead or pewter
before yielding to the heat of the operation.[30] It has also been
demonstrated that similar matrices formed in clay or plaster, by the
application of the wood or metal models[31] while the substance is
moist, are capable of similar use.
Dr. Franklin, in a well-known passage of his Autobiography, gives
the following account of his experiences as a casual letter-founder
in 1727. “Our press,” he says, “was frequently in want of the
necessary quantity of letter; and there was no such trade as that of
letter-founder in America. I had seen the practice of this art at the
house of James, in London; but had at the time paid it very little
attention. I, however, contrived to fabricate a mould. I made use of
such letters as we had for punches, founded new letters of lead in
matrices of clay, and thus supplied in a tolerable manner the wants
that were most pressing.”[32] M. Bernard states that in his day the
Chinese characters in the Imperial printing-office in Paris were cast
by a somewhat similar process. The original wooden letters were moulded
in plaster. Into the plaster mould types of a hard metal were cast, and
these hard-metal types served as punches to strike matrices with in a
softer metal.[33]
In the Enschedé foundry at Haarlem there exists to this day a set of
matrices said to be nearly four hundred years old, which are described
as leaden matrices from punches of copper, “suivant l’habitude
des anciens fondeurs dans les premiers temps après l’invention de
l’imprimerie.”[34] By {16} the kindness of Messrs. Enschedé, we are
able to show a few letters from types cast in these venerable matrices.
[Illustration: 1. Types cast from leaden matrices (_circ._ 1500?) now
in the Enschedé foundry, Haarlem.]
Lead matrices are frequently mentioned as having been in regular use in
some of the early foundries of this country. A set of them in four-line
pica was sold at the breaking up of James’s foundry in 1782, and in the
oldest of the existing foundries to this day may be found relics of the
same practice.
At Lubeck, Smith informs us in 1755,[35] a printer cast for his own
use, “not only large-sized letters for titles, but also a sufficient
quantity of two-lined English, after a peculiar manner, by cutting his
punches on wood, and sinking them afterwards into leaden matrices; yet
were the letters cast in them deeper than the French generally are.”
When, therefore, the printer of the _Catholicon_, in 1460, says of
his book, “non calami styli aut pennæ suffragio, sed mirâ patronarum
formarumque concordiâ proportione ac modulo impressus atque confectus
est,” we have not necessarily to conclude that the types were produced
in the modern way from copper matrices struck by steel punches. Indeed,
probability seems to point to a gradual progress in the durability of
the materials employed. In the first instance, the punches may have
been of wood, and the matrices soft lead or clay[36]; then the attempt
might be made to strike hard lead into soft; that failing, copper
punches[37] might be used to form leaden matrices; then, when the
necessity for a more durable substance than lead for the letter became
urgent, copper would be used for the matrix, and brass, and finally
steel, for the punch.
Of whatever substance the matrices were made, the first printers appear
early to have mastered the art of justifying them, so that when cast
in the mould they should not only stand, each letter true in itself,
but all true to one another. Nothing amazes one more in examining these
earliest printed works than the wonderful regularity of the type in
body, height, and line; and if anything could be considered as evidence
that those types were produced from matrices in {17} moulds, and not
by the rude method of casting from matrices which comprehended body
and face in the same moulding, this feature alone is conclusive. We
may go further, and assert that not only must the matrices have been
harmoniously justified, but the mould employed, whatever its form,
must have had its adjustable parts finished with a near approach to
mathematical accuracy, which left little to be accomplished in the way
of further improvement.
Respecting this mould we have scarcely more material for conjecture
than with regard to the first punches and matrices. The principle of
the bipartite mould was, of course, well known already. The importance
of absolute squareness in the body and height of the type would demand
an appliance of greater precision than the uncertain hollowed cube of
sand or clay; the heat of the molten lead would point to the use of
a hard metal like iron or steel; and the varying widths of the sunk
letters in the matrices would suggest the adoption of some system of
slides whereby the mould could be expanded or contracted laterally,
without prejudice to the invariable regularity of its body and height.
By what crude methods the first typefounder contrived to combine these
essential qualities, we have no means of judging[38]; but were they
ever so crude, to him is due the honour of the culminating achievement
of the invention of typography. “His type mould,” Mr. De Vinne
remarks, “was not merely the first; it is the only practical mechanism
for making types. For more than four hundred years this mould has been
under critical examination, and many {18} attempts have been made to
supplant it. . . . But in principle, and in all the more important
features, the modern mould may be regarded as the mould of Gutenberg.”
[Illustration: 2. Specimens illustrating the variations in the face of
type produced by bad casting.]
It may be asked, if the matrices were so truly justified, and the
mould so accurately adjusted, how comes it that in the first books
of these Mentz printers we still discover irregularites among the
letters—fewer, indeed, but of the same kind as are to be found in
books printed by the artists of the ruder school? To this we reply,
that these irregularities are for the most part attributable neither
to varieties in the original models, nor to defects in the matrix or
the mould, but to the worn or unworn condition of the type, and to the
skill or want of skill of the caster. Anyone versed in the practice
of type-casting in hand-moulds, is aware that the manual exercise of
casting a type is peculiar and difficult. With the same mould and the
same matrix, one clever workman may turn out nineteen perfect types out
of twenty; while a clumsy caster will scarcely succeed in producing
a single perfect type out of the number. Different letters require
different contortions to “coax” the metal into all the interstices
of the matrix; and it is quite possible for the same workman to vary
so in his work as to be as “lucky” one day as he is unprofitable the
next. In modern times, of course, none but the perfect types ever
find their way into the printer’s hands, but in the early days, when,
with a perishable matrix, every type cast was of consequence, the
censorship would be less severe,[39] and types would be allowed to
{19} pass into use which differed as much from their original model
as they did from one another. Let any inexperienced reader attempt to
cast twenty Black-letter types from one mould and matrix, and let him
take a proof of the types so produced in juxtaposition. The result of
such an experiment would lead him to cease once and for all to wonder
at irregularities observable in the Gutenberg _Bible_, or the Mentz
_Psalter_, or the _Catholicon_.
With regard to the metal in which the earliest types were cast, we have
more or less information afforded us in the colophons and statements
of the printers themselves; although it must be borne in mind that the
figurative language in which these artists were wont to describe their
own labours is apt occasionally to lead to confusion, as to whether the
expressions used refer to the punch, the matrix, or the cast types.
We meet almost promiscuously with the terms,—“ære notas,” “æneis
formulis,” “chalcographos,” “stanneis typis,” “stanneis formulis,”
“ahenis formis,” “tabulis ahenis,” “ære legere,” “notas de duro
orichalco,” etc. We look in vain for “plumbum,” the metal one would
most naturally expect to find mentioned. The word _æs_, though strictly
meaning bronze, is undoubtedly to be taken in its wider sense, already
familiar in the fifteenth century, of metal in the abstract, and to
include, at least, the lead, tin, or pewter in which the types were
almost certainly cast. The reference to copper and bronze might either
apply to the early punches or the later matrices; but in no case is it
probable that types were cast in either metal.
Padre Fineschi gives an interesting extract from the cost-book of the
Ripoli press, about 1480,[40] by which it appears that steel, brass,
copper, tin, lead, and iron wire were all used in the manufacture of
types at that period; the first two probably for the mould, the steel
also for the punches, the copper for the matrices, the lead and tin for
the types, and the iron wire for the mould, and possibly for stringing
together the perforated type-models.
It is probable that an alloy was early introduced; first by the
addition to the lead of tin and iron, and then gradually improved
upon, till the discovery of {20} antimony at the end of the fifteenth
century[41] supplied the ingredient requisite to render the types
at once tough and sharp enough for the ordeal of the press. There
is little doubt that at some time or other every known metal was
tried experimentally in the mixture; but, from the earliest days of
letter-casting, lead and tin have always been recognised as the staple
ingredients of the alloy; the hard substance being usually either iron,
bismuth, or antimony.
* * * * *
Turning now from type-casting appliances to the early types themselves,
we are enabled, thanks to one or two recent discoveries, to form a
tolerably good idea as to their appearance and peculiarities. We have
already stated that, with regard to the traditional perforated wooden
types seen by certain old writers, the probability is that, if these
were the genuine relics they professed to be, they were model types
used for forming moulds upon, or for impressing into matrices of moist
clay or soft lead. We have also considered it possible, in regard to
types cast in the primitive sand or clay moulds of the rude school,
that to overcome the difficulties incident to irregular height to
paper, uneven bodies, and loose locking-up, the expedient may have been
attempted of perforating the types and passing a thread or wire through
each line, to hold the intractable letters in their place.
This, however, is mere conjecture, and whether such types existed or
not none of them have survived to our day. Their possessors, as they
slowly discovered the secret of the punch, matrix and mould, would
show little veneration, we imagine, for these clumsy relics of their
ignorance, and value them only as old lead, to be remelted and recast
by the newer and better method.
But though no relic of these primitive cast types remains, we are
happily not without means for forming a judgment respecting some of the
earliest types of the more finished school of printers. In 1878, in the
bed of the river Saône, near Lyons,[42] opposite the site of one of
the famous fifteenth century printing-houses of that city, a number of
old types were discovered which there seems reason to believe belonged
once to one of those presses, and were used by the early printers of
Lyons. They came into the hands of M. Claudin of Paris, {21} the
distinguished typographical antiquary, who, after careful examination
and inquiry, has satisfied himself as to their antiquity and value as
genuine relics of the infancy of the art of printing.
[Illustration: 4. _Profile tracings from M. Claudin’s Types. October
1883._]
It has been our good fortune, by the kindness of M. Claudin, to have an
opportunity of inspecting these precious relics. The following outline
profile-sketches will give a good idea of the various forms and sizes
represented in the collection. There is little doubt that they were all
cast in a mould. The metal used is lead, slightly alloyed with some
harder substance, which in the case of a few of the types seems to be
iron. The chief point which strikes the observer is the variety in the
“height to paper” of the different founts. Taking the six specimens
shown in the illustration, it will be seen that no two of the types
correspond in this particular. No. 4 corresponds as nearly as possible
to our English standard height. No. 3 is considerably lower than an
ordinary space height. No. 2 approaches some of the continental heights
still to be met with, while Nos. 1, 5, and 6 are higher than any known
standard. It is easy to imagine that an early printer who cast his
own types would trouble himself very little as to the heights of his
neighbours’ and rivals’ moulds, so that in a city like Lyons there
might have been as many “heights to paper” as there were printers. It
is even possible that a printer using one style and size of letter
exclusively for one description of work, and another size and style for
another description, might not be particular to assimilate the heights
in his own office; and so, foreshadowing the improvidence of some of
his modern followers, lay in founts of letter which would not work with
any other, but which, as time went on, could hardly be dispensed with.
Then, when the days of the itinerant typesellers and the type-markets
began, he might still further add to his “heights” by the purchase of a
German fount from one merchant, a Dutch from another, and so on.
The type No. 3, though lower than all the rest, has yet a letter upon
its {22} end. But it seems likely that the old printers cut down their
worn-out letters for spaces, not by ploughing off the face, but by
shortening the type at the foot. So that No. 3 (presuming the bodies to
have corresponded) might stand as a space to No. 4, or No. 4 to No. 1.
At the same time, the collection includes a good number of plain spaces
and quadrats (the latter generally about a square body), which may
either have been cast as they now appear, or be old letters of which
the face and shoulder have been cut off.
The small hole appearing in the side of type No. 4 is a perforation,
and the collection contains several types, both letters and spaces,
having the same peculiarity. Whether this hole was formed at the
time of or after casting; whether the letters so perforated were
originally model-types only, or types in actual use; whether the hole
was intended for a thread or wire to hold the letters in their places
during impression; or whether, for want of a type-case, it was used
for stringing the types together for safety when not in use, it is as
easy to conjecture as it is impossible to determine. The perforated
types which we examined certainly did not appear to be older, and in
most cases appeared less old than those not perforated,—the outline of
type No. 4 itself shows it to be fairer and squarer than any of its
companions.
Another peculiarity to be noted is the “shamfer,” or cutting away of
one of the corners of the feet of types 2, 5, and 6. This appears to
have been intentional, and may have served the same purpose as our
nick, to guide the compositor in setting. None of the types have a
nick, and types 1 and 3 have no distinguishing mark whatever. The two
small indentations in the side of type 2 are air-holes produced in the
casting.
With regard to the faces of the types, there are traces in most of the
letters of the “shoulders” of the body having been tapered off by a
knife or graver after casting, so as to leave the letter quite clear on
the body. In most cases the letter stands in the centre of the body,
which is, as a rule, larger than the size of the character actually
requires. In point of thickness, however, the old printers appear
to have been very sparing; and a great many of the letters, though
possessing ample room “body-way,” actually overhang the sides, and
are what we should style in modern terminology “kerned” letters. The
difficulty, however, which would be experienced by printers to-day with
these overhanging sorts, was obviated to a large extent in the case of
the old printers by the numerous ligatures, contractions, and double
letters with which their founts abounded, and which gave almost all the
combinations in which an overhanging letter would be likely to clash
with its neighbour.
One last peculiarity to be observed is the absence of what is known
as the “break” at the foot of the type. The contrivance in the mould
whereby the {23} foot of the type is cast square, and the “jet,” or
superfluous metal left by the casting, is attached, not to the whole
of the foot, but to a narrow ridge across the centre, from which it
is easily detached, was probably unknown to the fifteenth century
typefounders. Their types appear to have come out of the mould with
a “jet” attaching to the entire foot, from which it could only be
detached by a saw or cutter. The “shamfer” already pointed out in types
2, 5, 6, if produced in the mould, may indicate an early attempt to
reduce the size of the jet, which, if attaching to the entire square
of the foot of a type the size of No. 2, would involve both time and
labour in removal. M. Duverger, in his clever essay to the invention of
printing,[43] gives an illustration of the manner in which he imagines
the old types would be detached from their jets; and considers that
in the three points only of the want of a breaking “jet,” the want of
a spring to hold the matrix to the mould, and the absence of a nick,
the mould of the first printer differed essentially from that of the
printer of his day.
[Illustration: 3. Type Mould of Claude Garamond. Paris, 1540. (From
Duverger.)
_a._ The “body” in which the type is cast. _b_, _c_. The “jet,” or
mouthpiece, in which the fluid metal is poured. _d._ The type as cast.]
Such are some of the chief points of interest to be observed in these
venerable relics of the old typographers. It is to be hoped that M.
Claudin may before long favour the world with a full and detailed
account of their many peculiarities. Yet, curious as they are, they
prove that the types of the fifteenth century differed in no essential
particular from those of the nineteenth. Ruder and rougher, and less
durable they might be, but in substance and form, and in the mechanical
principles of their manufacture, they claim kinship with the newest
types of our most modern foundry. {24}
The old Lyonnaise relics are not the only guide we have as to the form
and nature of the fifteenth century types.
M. Madden, in 1875, made a most valuable discovery in a book printed by
Conrad Hamborch, at Cologne, in 1476, and entitled _La Lèpre Morale_,
by John Nider, of the accidental impression of a type, pulled up from
its place in the course of printing by the ink-ball, and laid at length
upon the face of the forme, thus leaving its exact profile indented
upon the page. We reproduce in facsimile M. Madden’s illustration
of this type, which accompanies his own interesting letter on the
subject.[44]
[Illustration: 5. From M. Madden’s _Lettres d’un Bibliographe_. Ser.
iv, p. 231.]
[Illustration: 6. From _Liber de Laudibus ac Festis Gloriosæ Virginis_.
Cologne(?), 1468(?). Fol. 4 verso. (From the original.)]
A similar discovery, equally valuable and interesting, was made not
many months ago by the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw, of Cambridge, in a copy
of a work entitled _De Laudibus Gloriosæ Virginis Mariæ_, _sine notâ_,
but printed probably about 1468 at Cologne.[45] We are indebted to
Mr. Bradshaw for the present opportunity of presenting for the first
time the annexed facsimile of this curious relic, {25} photographed
direct from the page on which it occurs.[46] These two impressions
are particularly interesting in the light of the old Lyonnaise types
still in existence. Like them, it will be seen they are without nick,
and tapered off at the face. They are also without the jet-break.
The height of both types (which is identical) is above the English
standard, and more nearly approaches that of No. 2 of the Lyons
letters; and M. Madden points out as remarkable that this height (24
millimètres) is exactly that fixed as the standard “height to paper” by
the “réglement de la libraire” of 1723. The body of the types (assuming
the letter to be laid sideways, of which there can be little doubt) is
about the modern English, and so corresponds exactly to the body of the
text on which it lies.
The chief point of interest, however, is in the small circle appearing
in both near the top, which M. Madden (as regards the type of the
_Nider_) thus explains: “This circle, the contour of which is exactly
formed, shows that the letter was pierced laterally by a circular hole.
This hole did not penetrate the whole thickness of the letter, and
served, like the nick of our days, to enable the compositor to tell by
touch which way to set the letter in his stick, so as to be right in
the printed page. If the letter had been laid on its other side, the
existence of this little circle would have been lost to us for ever.”
It would, however, be quite possible for a perforated type, with the
end of the hole slightly clogged with ink, to present precisely the
same appearance as this, which M. Madden concludes was only slightly
pierced; and were it not for the fact that the pulling-up of the letter
from the forme is itself evidence that the line could not have been
threaded, we should hesitate to affirm that either of the types shown
was not perforated. The sharp edge of the circumference in the type of
the _De laudibus_, leaving, as it does, in the original page, a clearly
embossed circle in the paper, makes it evident that the depression was
not the result of a mere flaw in the casting, although it is possible
(as we have satisfied ourselves by experiment) for the surface of the
side of a roughly-cast type to be depressed by air-holes, some of which
assume a circular form, and may even perforate a thin type. Indeed, at
the present day it is next to impossible to cast by hand a type which
is not a little sunk on some part of its sides; and this roughness of
surface we can imagine to have been far more apparent on the types {26}
cast by the earliest printers. We doubt, therefore, whether, in types
liable to these accidental depressions of surface, a small artificial
hole thus easily simulated would be of any service as a guide to the
compositor. A more probable explanation of the appearance seems to be
that the head of a small screw or pin, used to fix the side-piece of
the mould, projecting slightly on the surface of the piece it fixed,
left its mark on the side of the types as they were cast, and thus
caused the circular depression observable in the illustrations.[47]
Before leaving this subject it may be remarked that the clear
impression of the printed matter, despite the laid-on types, which
must in either case have been a thin sort, is strong evidence of the
softness of the metal in which the fount was cast. The press appears to
have crushed the truant types down into the letters on which it lay,
and, unimpeded by the obstacle, to have taken as good an impression of
the remainder of the forme as if that obstacle had never existed.
* * * * *
The quantity of type with which the earliest printers found it
necessary to provide themselves, turns, of course, upon the question,
did the first printers print only one page at a time, or more? M.
Bernard considers that the Gutenberg _Bible_, which is usually collated
in sections of five sheets, or twenty pages, containing about 2,688
types in a page, would require 60,000 types to print a single section;
and if sufficient type was cast to enable the compositors to set
one section while another was being worked, the fount would need to
consist of 120,000 letters. Others consider that two pages, requiring,
in the case of the Gutenberg _Bible_, only 6,000 types, were printed
at one time. But even this estimate has been shown to be opposed to
the evidence afforded by a considerable number of the incunabula,
respecting which it is evident only one page was printed at a time.
On this point we cannot do better than quote the words of Mr. Blades.
“The scribe,” he says, “necessarily wrote but one page at a time,
and, curiously enough, the early printers here also assimilated their
practice. Whether from want of sufficient type to set up the requisite
number of pages, or from the limited capability of the presses, there
is strong evidence of the early books from Caxton’s press having been
printed page by page. . . . . Instances are found of pages on the same
side of the sheet being out of parallel, which could not occur if two
pages were printed together. . . . A positive proof of the separate
printing of the pages may be seen in a copy of the _Recuyell of the
Histories of Troye_, in the Bodleian; {27} for the ninth recto of
the third quaternion has never been printed at all, while the second
verso (the page which must fall on the same side of the sheet) appears
properly printed.”[48]
What is true of Caxton’s early works is also true of a large number of
other fifteenth century printed books. Mr. Hessels, after quoting the
testimony of Mr. Bradshaw of Cambridge, and Mr. Winter Jones of the
British Museum, refers to a large number of incunabula in which he has
found evidence that this mode of printing was the common practice of
the early typographers.[49]
Assuming, then, that the first books were generally printed page by
page, it will be seen that the stock of type necessary to enable the
printer to proceed was but small. 2,700 letters would suffice for one
page of the forty-two-line _Bible_; and for the _Rationale Durandi_,
about 5,000 would be required. It is probable, however, that, as
Bernard suggests, the printers would cast enough to enable one forme
to be composed while the other was working, so that double these
quantities would possibly be provided. Nor must it be forgotten that
a “fount” of type in these days consisted not only of the ordinary
letters of the alphabet, but of a very large number of double letters,
abbreviations and contractions, which must have seriously complicated
the labour of composition, as well as reduced the individual number
of each type required to fill the typefounder’s “bill.” This feature,
doubtless attributable to the attempt on the part of the early printers
to imitate manuscript as closely as possible, as well as to the
exigencies of justification in composition, which, in the absence of a
variety of spaces, required various widths in the letters themselves,
was common to both schools of early typography. M. Bernard states that,
in the type of the forty-two-line _Bible_, each letter required at
least three or four varieties; while with regard to Caxton’s type 1,
which was designed and cast by Colard Mansion at Bruges, before 1472,
Mr. Blades points out that the fount contained upwards of 163 sorts,
and that there were only five letters of which there were not more
than one matrix, either as single letters or in combination. Speaking
of the _Speculum_, Mr. Skeen counts 1,430 types on one page, of which
22 are _a_, 61 _e_, 91 _i_, 73 _o_, 37 _u_, 22 _d_, 14 _h_, 30 _m_, 50
_n_, 42 _s_, and 41 _t_; besides which there are no less than ninety
duplicate and triplicate characters, comprising one variation of _a_,
15 of _c_, 7 of _d_, 3 of _e_, 9 of _f_, 10 of _g_, 3 of _i_, 7 of
_l_, 2 of _o_, 3 of _n_, 2 of _p_, 10 of _r_, 9 of _s_, 9 of _t_,
varying in the frequency of their occurrence from once to eleven times,
leaving but 541 other letters for the rest of the alphabet, including
the capitals; {28} and of these last, from three to twenty would be
the utmost of each required. Altogether, calculating 138 matrices
(_i.e._, two alphabets of twenty-four letters each, and ninety double
and treble letters) to be the least number of matrices required to
make a complete fount,[50] the highest number of types of any one
particular sort necessary to print a single page would be ninety-one.
The average number of the eleven chief letters specified above would be
about forty-four, while if we take into calculation the minor letters
of the alphabet and the double letters, this average would be reduced
to little more than ten. It will thus be seen that the founts of the
earliest printers consisted of a small quantity each of a large variety
of sorts. Mr. Astle, in his chapter on the Origin and Progress of
Printing,[51] is, we believe, the only writer who has dwelt upon the
difficulty which the first letter-founders would be likely to encounter
in the arrangement of their “bill.” This venerable compilation
was, he considers, made in the fifteenth century, probably by the
ordinary method of casting-off copy. If so, it must have experienced
considerable and frequent change during the time that the ligatures
were falling into disuse, and until the printer’s alphabet had reduced
itself to its present limits.
* * * * *
Of the face of type used by the earliest printers we shall
have occasion to speak later on. Respecting the development of
letter-founding as an industry, there is little that can be gathered in
the history of the fifteenth century. At first the art of the inventor
was a mystery divulged to none. But the sack of Mentz, in 1462, and
the consequent dispersion of Gutenberg’s disciples, spread the secret
broadcast over Europe. Italy, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands,
Spain, England, in turn learned it, and after their fashion improved
it. Italy, especially, guided by the master-hands of her early artists,
brought it to rapid perfection. The migrations of Gutenberg’s types
among the early presses of Bamberg, Eltville, and elsewhere, have
led to the surmise that he may have sold matrices of his letter.[52]
In 1468, Schoeffer put forward what may be considered the first
advertisement in the annals of typography. “Every nation,” he says, in
{29} the colophon to _Justinian’s Institutes_, “can now procure its
own kind of letters, for he (_i.e._, Schoeffer himself) excels with
all-prevailing pencil” (_i.e._, in designing and engraving all kinds
of type).[53] For the most part printers were their own founders, and
each printer had his own types. But type depôts and markets, and the
wanderings of the itinerant typographers, as the demands of printing
yearly increased, brought the founts of various presses and nations
to various centres, and thus gave the first impulse to that gradual
divorce between printing and typefounding which in the following
century left the latter the distinct industry it still remains.
* * * * *
Such is a brief outline of the chief facts and opinions regarding the
processes, appliances and practices of the earliest typefounders. It
may be said that, after all, we know very little about the matter.
The facts are very few, and the conjectures, in many instances, so
contradictory, that it is impossible to erect a “system,” or draw any
but general conclusions. These conclusions we very briefly summarise as
follows.
Accepting as a fundamental principle that the essence of typography
is in the mobility of the types, we dismiss, as beyond the scope
of our inquiry, the xylographic works which preceded typography.
Passing in review the alleged stepping-stones between the two arts, we
fail to see in the evidence adduced as to the use of movable wooden
perforated types anything to justify the conclusion that the earliest
printers printed books by their means. Such types may have been cut
experimentally, but the practical impossibility of cutting them square
enough to be composed in a forme, and of producing a work of the size
and character of the _Speculum_, is fatal to their claims. With regard
to the sculpto-fusi types—types engraved on cast-metal bodies—the
evidence in their favour is of the most unsatisfactory character,
and, coupled with the practical difficulties of their production,
reduces their claims to a minimum. The marked difference of style and
excellence in the typography of certain of the earliest books leads us
to accept the theory that two schools of typography existed side by
side in the infancy of the art—one a rude school, which, not having
the secret of the more perfect appliances of the inventors, cast its
letters by some primitive method, probably using moulds of sand or
clay, in which the entire type had been moulded. Such types may have
been perforated and held together in lines by a wire. The suggestion
that the earliest types were produced by a system of polytype, and
that the face of each letter, sawn off a plate resembling a {30}
stereotype-plate, was separately mounted on loose wooden shanks, we
dismiss as purely fanciful.
Turning now to the processes adopted by the typographers of the more
advanced school, we consider that in the first instance, although
grasping the principle of the punch, the matrix and the adaptable
mould, they may have made use of inferior appliances—possibly by
forming their matrices in lead from wooden or leaden punches or
models—advancing thence by degrees to the use of steel punches, copper
matrices, and the bipartite iron mould. We hold that the variations
observable in the early works of this school are due mainly to uneven
casting and wear and tear of the types. As to the metal in which the
type was cast, we find mention made of almost every metal, several
of which, however, refer to the punches and matrices, leaving tin,
lead, and antimony as the staple ingredients of the type-metal. Of
the types themselves, we find these in most essential particulars to
be the same as those cast at a later date. We see, however, evidence
of perforated, mould-cast type, and, in the absence of a nick, a
“shamfer” at the foot, from which the jet appears to have been sawn or
cut, instead of being broken. We remark a great irregularity in the
heights of different founts, the average of which height is beyond any
modern English standard. The accidental impression of a type in two
early German books, proves that about the year 1476 types were made
differing only in the two points of the want of a nick and the want of
a jet-break from the types of to-day. The quantity of types required
by the earliest printers, we consider, would be small, since they
appear in most instances to have printed only one page at a time; but
the number of different sorts going to make up a fount would be very
considerable, by reason of the numerous contractions, double letters
and abbreviations used.
Finally, we consider that the art of letter-founding rapidly reached
maturity after the general diffusion of printing consequent on the
sack of Mentz; and that when the writer of the _Cologne Chronicle_, in
the last year of the 15th century, spoke of “the art as now generally
used,” he spoke of an art which, at the close of the 19th century, has
been able to improve in no essential principle on the processes first
made use of by the great inventors of Typography.
[Illustration]
{31}
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
THE ENGLISH TYPE BODIES AND FACES.
We have laid before the reader, in the Introductory Chapter, such facts
and conjectures as it is possible to gather together respecting the
processes and appliances adopted by the first letter-founders, and
shall, with a view to render the particular history of the English
Letter Foundries more intelligible, endeavour to present here, in as
concise a form as possible, a short historical sketch of the English
type bodies and faces, tracing particularly the rise and development
of the Roman, Italic, and Black letters before and subsequent to
their introduction into this country; adding, in a following chapter,
a similar notice of the types of the principal foreign and learned
languages which have figured conspicuously in English typography.
TYPE-BODIES.
The origin of type-bodies and the nomenclature which has grown around
them, is a branch of typographical antiquity which has always been
shrouded in more or less obscurity. Imagining, as we do, that the
moulds of the first printers were of a primitive construction, and,
though conceived on true principles, were adjusted to the various sizes
of letter they had to cast more by eye than by rule, it is easy to
understand that founts would be cast on no other principle than that of
ranging in body and line and height in themselves, irrespective of the
body, height and line of other founts used in the same press. When two
or more {32} founts were required to mix in the same work, then the
necessity of a uniform standard of height would become apparent. When
two or more founts were required to mix in the same line, a uniformity
in body, and if possible in alignment, would be found necessary. When
initials or marginal notes required to be incorporated with the text,
then the advantage of a mathematical proportion between one body and
another would suggest itself.
At first, doubtless, the printer would name his sizes of type according
to the works for which they were used. His Canon type would be the
large character in which he printed the canon of the Mass. His Cicero
type would be the letter used in his editions of that classical author.
His Saint Augustin, his Primer, his Brevier, his Philosophie, his
Pica type, would be the names by which he would describe the sizes of
letter he used for printing the works whose names they bore. It may
also be assumed with tolerable certainty that in most of these cases,
originally, the names described not only the body, but the “face” of
their respective founts. At what period this confused and haphazard
system of nomenclature resolved itself into the definite printer’s
terminology it is difficult to determine. The process was probably a
gradual one, and was not perfected until typefounding became a distinct
and separate trade.
The earliest writers on the form and proportion of letters,—Dürer[54]
in 1525, Tory[55] in 1529, and Ycair[56] in 1548,—though using terms
to distinguish the different faces of letter, were apparently unaware
of any distinguishing names for the bodies of types. Tory, indeed,
mentions Canon and Bourgeoise; but in both cases he refers to the face
of the letter; and Ycair’s distinction of “teste y glosa” applies
generally to the large and small type used for the text and notes
respectively of the same work.[57]
In England, type-bodies do not appear to have been reduced to a
definite scale much before the end of the sixteenth century. Mores[58]
failed to trace them further back than 1647; but in a Regulation of the
Stationers’ Company, dated 1598,[59] Pica, English, Long Primer, and
Brevier are mentioned by name as apparently well-established bodies at
that time; and in a petition to the same Company in 1635,[60] Nonpareil
and “two-line letters” are mentioned as equally familiar.
Moxon, our first writer on the subject, in his _Mechanick Exercises_,
in 1683, {33} described ten regular bodies in common use in his day,
and added to his list the number of types of each body that went to a
foot, viz.:―
Pearl 184 to a foot
Nonpareil 150 〃
Brevier 112 〃
Long Primer 92 〃
Pica 75 〃
English 66 〃
Great Primer 50 〃
Double Pica 38 〃
2-line English 33 〃
French Canon 17 1/2 〃
“We have one body more,” he adds, “which is sometimes used in England;
that is, a Small Pica: but I account it no great discretion in a
master-printer to provide it, because it differs so little from the
Pica, that unless the workmen be carefuller than they sometimes are, it
may be mingled with the Pica, and so the beauty of both founts may be
spoiled.”
In this sentence we have the first record of the introduction of
irregular bodies into English typography, an innovation destined very
speedily to expand, and within half a century increase the number of
English bodies by the seven following additions:
Minion 132 to a foot
Bourgeois 100 〃
Small Pica 76 〃
Paragon 46 〃
2-line Pica 37 1/2 〃
2-line Great Primer 25 〃
2-line Double Pica 19 〃
The origin of these irregular bodies it is easy to explain. Between
Moxon’s time and 1720 the country was flooded with Dutch type. The
English founders were beaten out of the field in their own market,
and James, in self-defence, had to furnish his foundry entirely with
Dutch moulds and matrices. Thus we had the typefounding of two nations
carried on side by side. An English printer furnished with a Dutch
fount would require additions to it to be cast to the Dutch standard,
which might be smaller or larger than that laid down for English type
by Moxon, and yet so near that even if it lost or gained a few types
in the foot, it would still be called by its English name, which would
thenceforth represent two different bodies. If, on the other hand,
a new fount were imported, or cut by an ill-regulated artist here,
which when finished was found to be as much too large for one regular
body as it was too small for another, a body would be found to fit it
between the two, and christened by a new name. In this manner, Minion,
Bourgeois, Small Pica, Paragon, and two-line Pica insinuated themselves
into the list of English bodies, and in this manner arose that
ancient anomaly, the various body-standards of the English foundries.
For a founder who was constantly called upon to alter his mould to
accommodate a printer requiring a special body, would be likely to cast
a quantity of the letter in excess of what was immediately ordered; and
this store, if not sold in due time to the person for whom it was cast,
would be disposed of to the first {34} comer who, requiring a new
fount, and not particular as to body, provided the additions afterwards
to be had were of the same gauge, would take it off the founder’s
hands. _Facilis descensus Averni!_ Having taken the one downward step,
the founder would be called upon constantly to repeat it, his moulds
would remain set, some to the right, some to the wrong standard,
and every type he cast would make it more impossible for him or his
posterity to recover the simple standard from which he had erred.
Such we imagine to have been the origin of the irregular and ununiform
bodies. Even in 1755, when Smith published his _Printer’s Grammar_, the
mischief was beyond recall. In no single instance were the standards
given by him identical with those of 1683. Indeed, where each founder
had two or three variations of each body in his own foundry it is
impossible to speak of a standard at all. Smith points out that, in
the case of English and Pica alone, Caslon had four varieties of the
former, and the Dutch two; while of the latter, Caslon had three, and
James two. Nevertheless, he gives a scale of the bodies commonly in use
in his day, which it will be interesting to compare with Moxon’s on the
one hand, and the standard of the English foundries in 1841 as given by
Savage, on the other.
+───────────────────+──────+──────────────+───────+────────+───────────+───────+
│ │MOXON,│ SMITH, │CASLON,│FIGGINS,│THOROWGOOD,│WILSON,│
│ │1683. │ 1755. │ 1841. │ 1841. │ 1841. │ 1841. │
+───────────────────+──────+──────────────+───────+────────+───────────+───────+
│Canon │17 1/2│ 18 and G. P. │ 18 │ 18 │ 18 │ 18 │
│2-line Double Pica │ — │ 20 3/4 │ 20 3/4│ 20 3/4 │ 20 1/2 │ 20 3/4│
│2-line Great Primer│ — │ 25 1/2 │ 25 1/2│ 25 1/2 │ 26 │ 25 1/2│
│2-line English │ 33 │ 32 │ 32 │ 32 │ 32 1/4 │ 32 │
│2-line Pica │ — │ 35 3/4 │ 36 │ 36 │ 36 │ 36 │
│Double Pica │ 38 │ 41 1/2 │ 41 1/2│ 41 1/2 │ 41 │ 41 1/2│
│Paragon │ — │ 44 1/2 │ 44 1/2│ 44 1/2 │ — │ 44 1/2│
│Great Primer │ 50 │ 51 and an r. │ 51 │ 51 │ 52 │ 51 │
│English │ 66 │ 64 │ 64 │ 64 │ 64 1/2 │ 64 │
│Pica │ 75 │ 71 1/2 │ 72 │ 72 1/2 │ 72 │ 72 │
│Small Pica │ — │ 83 │ 83 │ 82 │ 82 │ 83 │
│Long Primer │ 92 │ 89 │ 89 │ 90 │ 92 │ 89 │
│Bourgeois │ — │102 and space.│102 │101 1/2 │ 103 │102 │
│Brevier │ 112 │ 112 1/2 │111 │107 │ 112 │111 │
│Minion │ — │ 128 │122 │122 │ 122 │122 │
│Nonpareil │ 150 │ 143 │144 │144 │ 144 │144 │
│Pearl │ 184 │ 178 │178 │180 │ 184 │178 │
│Diamond │ — │ — │204 │205 │ 210 │204 │
+───────────────────+──────+──────────────+───────+────────+───────────+───────+
This list does not include Trafalgar, Emerald, and Ruby, which,
however, were in use before 1841. The first named has disappeared in
England, as also has Paragon. The _Printer’s Grammar_ of 1787 mentions
a body in use at that time named “Primer,” between Great Primer and
English.
It is not our purpose to pursue this comparison further or more
minutely; nor does it come within the scope of this work to enter into
a technical {35} examination of the various schemes which have been
carried out abroad, and attempted in this country, to do away with the
anomalies in type-bodies, and restore a uniform invariable standard.
The above table will suffice as a brief historical note of the growth
of these anomalies.
As early as 1725, in France, an attempt was made to regulate by a
public decree, not only the standard height of a type, but the scale
of bodies. But the system adopted was clumsy, and only added to the
confusion it was designed to remove. Fournier, in 1737, invented his
typographical points, the first successful attempt at a mathematical
systematisation of type-bodies, which has since, with the alternative
system of Didot, done much in simplifying French typography. England,
Germany, and Holland have been more conservative, and therefore less
fortunate. Attempts were made by Fergusson in 1824,[61] and by Bower
of Sheffield about 1840,[62] and others, to arrive at a standard of
uniformity; but their schemes were not warmly taken up, and failed.
Before proceeding to a brief historical notice of the different
English type-bodies, we shall trouble the reader with a further
table, compiled from specimen-books of the 18th century, showing what
have been the names of the corresponding bodies in the foundries of
other nations,—premising, however, that these names must be taken as
representing the approximate, rather than the actual, equivalent in
each case[63]:―
+────────────────────────+─────────────────────────────────────────+────────────────────+─────────────────────────────+
│ ENGLISH. │ FRENCH. │ GERMAN. │ DUTCH. │ ITALIAN. │ SPANISH. │
+────────────────────────+──────────────────────+──────────────────+────────────────────+───────────────+─────────────+
│ 1. French Canon. │Double Canon. │Kleine Missal. │Parys Kanon. │Reale. │ .... │
│ 2. 2-line Double Pica. │Gros Canon. │Große Canon. │Groote Kanon. │Corale. │Canon Grande.│
│ 3. 2-line Great Primer.│Trismegiste. │Kleine Canon. │Kanon. │Canone. │Canon. │
│ 4. 2-line English. │Petit Canon. │Doppel Mittel. │Dubbelde Augustyn. │Sopracanoncino.│Peticano. │
│ 5. 2-line Pica. │Palestine. │Roman. │Dubbelde Mediaan. │Canoncino. │ .... │
│ 6. Double Pica. │Gros Parangon. │Text or Secunda. │Dubbelde Descendiaan│Ascendonica. │Misal. │
│ │ │ │ (or Ascendonica). │ │ │
│ 7. Paragon. │Petit Parangon. │Parangon. │Parangon. │Parangone. │Parangona. │
│ 8. Great Primer. │Gros Romain. │Tertia. │Text. │Testo. │Texto. │
│ 9. (Large English.) │Gros Texte. │Große Mittel. │ .... │Soprasilvio. │ .... │
│ 9. English. │St. Augustin. │Kleine Mittel. │Augustyn. │Silvio. │Atanasia. │
│10. Pica. │Cicero. │Cicero. │Mediaan. │Lettura. │Lectura. │
│11. Small Pica. │Philosophie. │Brevier. │Descendiaan. │(Filosofia.) │ .... │
│12. Long Primer. │Petit Romain. │Corpus or Garmond.│Garmond. │Garamone. │Entredos. │
│13. Bourgeois. │Gaillarde. │(Borgis.) │Burgeois or Galjart.│Garamoncino. │ .... │
│14. Brevier. │Petit Texte. │Petit or Jungfer. │Brevier. │Testino. │Breviario. │
│15. Minion. │Mignone. │Colonel. │Colonel. │Mignona. │Glosilla. │
│16. Nonpareil. │Nonpareille. │Nonpareille. │Nonparel. │Nompariglia. │Nompareli. │
+────────────────────────+──────────────────────+──────────────────+────────────────────+───────────────+─────────────+
│17.│ Pearl. │Parisienne or Sedan. │Perl. │Joly. │Parmigianina. │ .... │
│ │ │Perle. │ │Peerl. │ │ │
+ +────────────────────+──────────────────────+──────────────────+────────────────────+───────────────+─────────────+
│ │ (Diamond.) │Diamant. │Diamant. │Robijn. │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │Diamand. │ .... │ .... │
+────────────────────────+─────────────────────────────────────────+────────────────────+─────────────────────────────+
{36}
A few notes on the origin of the names of English type-bodies will
conclude our observations on this subject.
CANON.—The Canon of the Mass was, in the service-books of the Church,
printed in a large letter, and it is generally supposed that, this size
of letter being ordinarily employed in the large Missals, the type-body
took its name accordingly: a supposition which is strengthened by its
German name of Missal. Mores, however (who objects equally to the
epithets of Great or French as unnecessary and delusive), considers
this derivation to be incorrect, and quotes the authority of Tory, who
uses the term Canon to apply to letter cut according to rule—_lettres
de forme_—as distinguished from letters not so cut, which he terms
_lettres bastardes_. So that the _lettre qu’on dict Canon_ was
originally a generic term, embracing all the regular bodies; and
subsequently came to be confined to the largest size in that category.
The theory is ingenious and interesting; but it seems more reasonable
to lay greater stress on the actual meaning of a word than on its
equivocal interpretation. In other countries two-line Great Primer was
commonly called Canon, and our French Canon was called by the Dutch
Parys Kanon; by which it would seem that both England and Holland
originally received the body from the French. In modern letter-founding
the name Canon applies only to the size of the face of a letter which
is a three-line Pica cast on a four-line Pica body.
Passing the next four bodies, which with us are merely
reduplications,[64] we note that―
DOUBLE PICA, which at present is Double Small Pica, was in Moxon’s
day, what its name denotes, a two-line Pica. When the irregular Small
Pica was introduced, Double Pica was the name given to the double of
the interloper, the double of the Pica being styled two-line Pica.
In Germany, Double Pica was called Text or Secunda—the former name
probably denoting the use of this size in the text of Holy Writ, while
the latter indicates that the body was one of a series, the Doppel
Mittel, corresponding to our two-line English, being probably the Prima.
PARAGON, the double of Long Primer, though a body unnamed in Moxon’s
day, was a size of really old institution; it having been a favourite
body with many of the earliest printers, and particularly affected
by Caxton in this country. Its name points to a French origin; and,
like most of the other fanciful names, proves that the appellation had
reference in the first instance, not to the depth of its shank, but
to the supposed beauty of the letter which was cut upon it. It was a
body which did not take deep root in this country, and for the most
part {37} disappeared with the first quarter of the present century.
It is noteworthy that Paragon and Nonpareil are the only bodies which
have preserved their names in all the countries in which they have been
adopted.
GREAT PRIMER.—For this body, Mores claims an indisputable English
origin. He considers it possible that it may date back to before the
Reformation, and that it was the body on which were printed the large
Primers of the early Church.[65] This derivation[66] would be more
satisfactory were it found that these works, or the school primers of a
later date, were, as a rule, printed in type of this size.[67] But this
is not the case. _Primers_, _Pyes_, and _Breviaries_ occur printed in
almost all the regular bodies. Great Primer was a favourite body with
the old printers, and having been adopted by many of the first Bible
printers, was sometimes called Bible Text. The French called it Gros
Romain; and the “Great Romaine letter for the titles,” mentioned in
Pynson’s indenture in 1519, may possibly refer to an already recognised
type-body of this size. In Germany it was called Tertia, being the
third of the regular bodies above the Mittel. In Holland, Italy, and
Spain it was called Text.
ENGLISH is also a body which undoubtedly belongs to us. Until the end
of last century the name served not only to denote a body, but the face
of the English Black-letter; and many of the old founts used in the law
books and Acts of Parliament were English both in body and face. As in
Germany, where it is called Mittel, English was the middle size of the
seven regular bodies in use among us: the Great Primer, Double Pica,
and two-line English (the Tertia, Secunda, and Prima of the Germans)
being on the ascending side, and Pica, Long Primer, and Brevier on the
descending. The French call it St. Augustin,[68] and the Spaniards
Atanasia, apparently from its use in printing the works of these
Christian Fathers. Although the middle body, its standard has been
subject to much variation, particularly in France and Germany, where
large and small English are two distinct bodies. {38}
PICA.—This important body, now the standard body in English typography,
presumably owes its name to its use in printing the ordinal of the
services of the early Church, and is coeval with Great Primer. “The
Pie,” says Mores, of which this is the Latin name, “was a table showing
the course of the service in the Church in the times of darkness.[69]
It was called the Pie because it was written in letters of black and
red; as the Friars de _Pica_ were so named from their party-coloured
raiment, black and white, the plumage of a magpie.” “The number and
hardness of the rules of this Pie” is referred to in the preface
to our Prayer-book; and it will be remembered that Caxton’s famous
advertisement related to “Pyes of Salisbury use.” But as a larger
type-body than Pica was generally used to print these, it is possible
the name may refer to nothing more than the piebald or black-and-white
appearance of a printed page. Some authorities derive Pica from the
Greek πίναξ, a writing tablet, and, hence, an index. The name was, in
fact, applied to the alphabetical catalogue of the names and things in
rolls and records. In France and Germany the body was called Cicero, on
account of the frequent editions of Cicero’s Epistles printed in this
size of letter.[70] It was the Mediaan body of the Dutch.
SMALL PICA, as already stated, was an innovation in Moxon’s day, and
was probably cast in the first instance to accommodate a foreign-cut
letter, too small for pica and too large for long-primer. It
subsequently came into very general use, one of the first important
works in which it appeared being Chambers’s _Cyclopædia_, in 1728. The
French called it Philosophie, and appear to have used it as a smaller
body on which to cast the Cicero face. The Germans called it Brevier,
the Dutch (it being one body below the Mediaan) called it Descendiaan,
and the Italians, when they had it, followed the French, and called it
Filosofia.
LONG PRIMER, Mores suggests, was another of the old English bodies
employed in liturgical works. He explains the use of the word Long to
mean that Primers in this size of type were printed either in long
lines instead of double columns, or that the length of the page was
disproportionate to the width, or more probably, that they contained
the service at full length a long, or without contraction.[71] These
_Primers_, however, are rarely to be met with in this body. The French
named the body Petit Romain, preserving a similar {39} relationship
between it and their Gros Romain, as we did between our Long Primer
and Great Primer. The other countries evidently attributed the body
to France, and named it after Claude Garamond, the famous French
letter-cutter, pupil of Tory, one of whose Greek founts, cut for the
Royal Typography of Paris, was on this body. The Germans, however, also
called the body Corpus, on account of their _Corpus Juris_ being first
printed in this size.
BOURGEOIS.—This irregular body betrays its nationality in its name,
which, however, is probably derived, not from the fact that it was used
by the bourgeois printers of France, but from the name of the city
of Bourges, which was the birthplace of the illustrious typographer,
Geofroy Tory, about the year 1485. Tory originally applied the term
_bourgeoise_ to the _lettre de somme_, irrespective of size,[72]
as distinguished from the _lettre Canon_. The French call the body
Gaillarde, probably after the printer of that name,[73] although it is
equally possible the name, like Mignon or Nonpareille, may be fanciful.
As a type-body, Bourgeois did not appear in England till about 1748,
and Smith informs us that it was originally used as a large body on
which to cast Brevier or Petit.
BREVIER.—The smallest of the English regular bodies claims equal
antiquity with Great Primer, Pica, and Long Primer. The conjecture that
it was commonly used in the _Breviaries_ of the early Church is not
borne out by an examination of these works, most of which are printed
in a considerably larger size.[74] The name, like the French and German
“Petit,” may mean that, being the smallest body, it was used for
getting the most matter into a brief space. The Germans, when they cut
smaller-sized letters, called the Petit Jungfer, or the Maiden-letter.
MINION, a body unknown to Moxon, was used in England before 1730;
and, like the other small fancifully named bodies, appears to have
originated in France. The Dutch and Germans call it Colonel, and the
Spaniards Glosilla.
NONPAREIL, now an indispensable body, because the half of Pica, was
introduced as a peerless curiosity long before Moxon’s day, and has
preserved its name in all the countries where it has gone. It is said
first to have been cut by Garamond about the year 1560. Mores supposes
that, because the Dutch founders of Moxon’s day called it “Englese
Nonpareil” in their specimens, the {40} body was first used in this
country. The Dutch name, however, evidently refers to the face of the
letter, cut in imitation of an English face, or adapted to suit English
purchasers. Paulus Pater[75] says that on account of its wonderful
smallness and clearness, the Dutch Nonpareil was called by many the
“silver letter,” and was supposed to have been cast in that metal.
PEARL, though an English body in Moxon’s day, appears to have been
known both in France and Holland at an earlier date. In the former
country it was celebrated as the body on which the famous tiny editions
at Sedan were printed. The Dutch Joly corresponded more nearly to our
modern Ruby than to Pearl. But Luce, in 1740, cut the size for France,
and provoked Firmin Didot’s severe criticism on his performance—“Among
the characters, generally bad, which Luce has engraved, . . . is one
which cannot be seen.”
DIAMOND was unknown in England until the close of last century, when
Dr. Fry cut a fount which he claimed to be the smallest ever used, and
to get in “more even than the famous Dutch Diamond.” This Dutch fount
was of some antiquity, having been cut by Voskens about 1700. Previous
to this, Van Dijk had cut a letter on a body below Pearl, called
Robijn, a specimen of which appears on Daniel Elzevir’s sheet in 1681.
M. Henri Didot, however, eclipsed all these minute-bodied founts by a
Semi-nonpareil in 1827.
* * * * *
It now remains to trace briefly the origin and development of the
leading type-faces used in English Typography.
I.—ROMAN.
To trace the history of the Roman character would almost require a
_résumé_ of the works of all the greatest printers in each country
of Europe. It must suffice to point out very briefly the changes it
underwent before and after reaching England.
ITALY.—The Italian scribes of the fifteenth century were famous for
their beautiful manuscripts, written in a hand entirely different
from the Gothic of the Germans, or the Secretary of the French and
Netherlands calligraphers. It was only natural that the first Italian
printers, when they set up their press at Subiaco, should form their
letters upon the best model of the national scribes. The _Cicero de
Oratore_ of 1465[76] is claimed by some as the first book {41} printed
in Roman type, although the character shows that the German artists who
printed it had been unable wholly to shake off the traditions of the
pointed Gothic school of typography in which they had learned their
craft. The type of the _Lactantius_, and the improved type of the works
subsequently printed by Sweynheim and Pannartz at Rome, as well as
those of Ulric Hahn, were, in fact, Gothic-Romans; and it was not till
Nicholas Jenson, a Frenchman, in 1470, printed his _Eusebii Præparatio_
at Venice, that the true Roman appeared in Italy, which was destined to
become the ruling character in European Typography. Fournier and others
have considered that Jenson derived his Roman letter from a mixture
of alphabets of various countries;[77] but it is only necessary to
compare the _Eusebius_ with the Italian manuscripts of the period, to
see that no such elaborate selection of models was necessary or likely.
The claims of Italy in the matter of Roman type have of late years
been somewhat seriously challenged by the researches of M. Madden, who
in a series of remarkable studies on the typographical labours of the
Frères de la Vie Commune at Wiedenbach, near Cologne, contends that the
Roman type known as the fount of the “[symb] bizarre,” on account of
the peculiar form of that capital letter, was used in that monastery
in 1465[78]; and that among the typographical fugitives from Mentz at
that time dwelling in Cologne, there is little doubt that Jenson was
here initiated into the art which he subsequently made famous. The
close resemblance between the Roman of the Wiedenbach monks and that of
the _Eusebius_ is, M. Madden considers, clear evidence that the same
hand had trained itself on the one for the marvellous perfection of
the other.[79] Jenson’s fount is on a body corresponding to English.
The form is round and clear, and differing in fashion only from its
future progeny. The capital alphabet consists of twenty-three letters
(J, U, and W not being yet in use); the “lower-case” alphabet is the
same, except that the “u” is substituted for the “v,” and in addition
there is a long ſ, and the diphthongs æ and œ. To complete the fount,
there are fifteen contractions, six double letters, and three points,
the . : ? making seventy-three punches in all.[80] Jenson’s Roman
letter fell after his death into the hands of a “firm” of which Andrea
Torresani was head. Aldus Manutius subsequently associated himself {42}
with Torresani, and, becoming his son-in-law and heir, eventually
inherited his punches, matrices, and types. The Roman founts of Aldus
were eclipsed by his Italic and Greek, but he cut several very fine
alphabets. Renouard[81] mentions eight distinct founts between 1494 and
1558.
GERMANY.—Whether the fount of the Wiedenbach monks was the progenitor
of the Venetian Roman, or whether each can claim an independent origin,
there seems little doubt that the fount of the “[symb] bizarre” is
entitled to rank as the first Roman letter in Germany. The accompanying
facsimile from the _Sophologium_ will give a good idea of the form and
size of this most interesting fount, and will at the same time show how
slightly the form of the Roman alphabet has changed since its first
introduction into Typography.
[Illustration: 7. From the _Sophologium_ “à l’[symb] bizarre.”
Wiedenbach (?), 1465–70.]
Roman type was adopted before 1473 by Mentelin of Strasburg, whose
beautiful letter placed him in the front rank of German printers.
Gunther Zainer, who settled at Augsburg in 1469, after printing some
works in the round Gothic, also adopted, in 1472, the Roman of the
Venetian School, founts of which he is said to have brought direct from
Italy. The German name of Antiqua, applied to the Roman character, has
generally been supposed to imply a reluctance to admit the claim of
Italy to the credit of introducing this style of letter. As, however,
the Italians themselves called the letter the “Lettera Antiqua tonda,”
the imputation against Germany is unfounded.[82] The French, Dutch, and
English called it “Roman” from the first. {43}
FRANCE.—The French received printing and the Roman character at the
same time, the first work of the Sorbonne press in 1470 being in
a handsome Roman letter about Great Primer in size, with a slight
suggestion of Gothic in some of the characters. Gering, a German
himself, and his associates, had learned their art at Basle; but cut,
and probably designed, their own letter on the best available models.
Their fount is rudely cast, so that several of their words appear
only half-printed in the impression, and have been finished by hand.
It has been stated erroneously, by several writers, on the authority
of Chevillier, that their fount was without capitals. The fount is
complete in that respect, and Chevillier’s expression, “lettres
capitales,” as he himself explains, refers to the initial letters for
which blank spaces were left to be filled in by hand. Besides the
ordinary capital and “lower-case” alphabets, the fount abounds in
abbreviations. This letter was used in all the works of the Sorbonne
press, but when Gering left the Sorbonne and established himself at
the “Soleil d’Or,” in 1473, he made use of a Gothic letter. In his
later works, however, new and greatly improved founts of the Roman
appear. Jodocus Badius, who by some is erroneously supposed to have
been the first who brought the Roman letters from Italy to France,
did not establish his famous “Prelum Ascensianum” in Paris till about
1500, when he printed in Roman types—not, however, before one or two
other French printers had already distinguished themselves in the same
direction.
NETHERLANDS.—The Roman was introduced into the Netherlands by Johannes
de Westfalia, who, it is said, brought it direct from Italy about
the year 1472. He settled at Louvain, and after several works in
semi-Gothic, published in 1483 an edition of _Æneas Silvius_ in the
Italian letter. His fount is elegant, and rather a lighter face than
most of the early Roman founts of other countries. This printer
appears to have been the only one in the Low Countries who used this
type during the fifteenth century; nor was it till Plantin, in 1555,
established his famous press at Antwerp, that the Roman attained to
any degree of excellence. But Plantin, and after him the Elzevirs,
were destined to eclipse all other artists in their execution of this
letter, which in their hands became a model for the typography of all
civilisation. It should be mentioned, however, that the Elzevirs are
not supposed to have cut their own punches. The Roman types which
they made famous, and which are known by their name, were cut by {44}
Christopher Van Dijk,[83] the form of whose letter was subsequently
adopted by the English printers.
SWITZERLAND early distinguished itself by the Roman letter of Amerbach
of Basle, and still more so by the beautiful founts used by Froben of
the same city, who between 1491 and 1527 printed some of the finest
books then known in Europe. His Roman was very bold and regular.
Christopher Froschouer of Zurich, about 1545, made use of a peculiar
and not unpicturesque form of the Roman letter, in which the round
sorts were thickened, after the Gothic fashion, at their opposite
corners, instead of at their opposite sides.
ENGLAND.—The Roman did not make its appearance in England till 1518,
when Richard Pynson printed Pace’s _Oratio in Pace Nuperrimâ_, in a
handsome letter, of which we show a facsimile at p. 93. This printer’s
Norman birth, and his close relationship with the typographers
of Rouen, as well as his supposed intimacy with the famous Basle
typographer Froben, make it highly probable that he procured his letter
abroad, or modelled it on that of some of the celebrated foreign
printers of his day. The fount is about Great Primer in body, and
though generally neat and bold in appearance, displays considerable
irregularity in the casting, and, like most of the early Roman founts,
contains numerous contractions.[84]
[Illustration: 8. From Traheron’s _Exposition of St. John_. Wesel (?),
1557. Showing Roman and Black-letter intermixed.]
The Roman made its way rapidly in English typography during the first
half of the sixteenth century, and in the hands of such artists as
Faques, Rastell, Wyer, Berthelet, and Day, maintained an average
excellence. But it rapidly degenerated, and while other countries were
dazzling Europe by the brilliancy of their impressions, the English
Roman letter went from good to bad, and from bad to worse. No type is
more beautiful than a beautiful Roman; and with equal truth it may be
said, no type is more unsightly than an ill-fashioned and ill-worked
Roman. While Claude Garamond[85] in France was carrying out into noble
practice the theories of the form and proportion of letters set out
by his master, Geofroy Tory; while the Estiennes at Paris, Sebastian
Gryphe at Lyons, Froben at Basle, Froschouer at Zurich, and Christopher
Plantin at Antwerp, were moulding and refining their alphabets into
models which were to become {45} classical, English printers, manacled
body and soul by their patents and monopolies and state persecutions,
achieved nothing with the Roman type that was not retrograde. For a
time a struggle appears to have existed between the Black-letter and
the Roman for the mastery of the English press, and at one period the
curious spectacle was presented of mixed founts of the two. We present
our readers with a specimen of English printing at a foreign press in
this transition period, as illustrative not only of the compromise
between the two rival characters, but of the average unappetising
appearance of the typography {46} of the day. Always impressionable
and unoriginal, our national Roman letter, in the midst of many
admirable models, chose the Dutch for its pattern, and tried to imitate
Plantin and Elzevir, but with very little of the spirit of those
great artists. No English work of the time, printed in English Roman
type, reproduces within measurable distance the elegant _embonpoint_,
the harmony, the symmetry of the types of the famous Dutch printers.
The seeker after the beautiful looks almost in vain for anything to
satisfy his eye in the English Roman-printed works of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. A few exceptions there are[86]; and when the
English printers, giving up the attempt to cut Roman for themselves,
went to Holland to buy it; or when, as in the case of Oxford and Thomas
James, the English foundries became furnished with Dutch matrices, our
country was able to produce a few books the appearance of which does
not call forth a blush.
The first _English Bible_ printed in Roman type was Bassendyne’s
edition in Edinburgh, in 1576. We have it on the authority of
Watson[87] that, from the earliest days of Scotch typography, a
constant trade in type and labour was maintained between Holland and
Scotland; and he exhibited in his specimen pages the Dutch Romans which
at that day were the most approved letters in use in his country.
Utilitarian motives brought about one important departure from the
first models of the Roman letter in the different countries where
it flourished. The early printers were generous in their ideas,
and cut their letters with a single eye to artistic beauty. But as
printing gradually ceased to be an art, and became a trade, economical
considerations suggested a distortion or cramping of these beautiful
models, with a view to “getting more in.” In some cases the variation
was made gracefully and inoffensively. The slender or compressed Roman
letters of the French, Italian, and in some cases the Dutch printers,
though not comparable with the round ones, are yet regular and neat;
but in other cases, ours among them, there was little of either
delicacy or skill in the innovation. The early part of the seventeenth
century witnessed the creation abroad of some very small Roman faces,
foremost among which were those of the beautiful little Sedan editions
of Jannon,[88] which gave their name to the body of the microscopic
letter {47} in which they were printed. Van Dijk cut a still smaller
letter for the Dutch in Black-letter, and afterwards in Roman; and
for many years the Dutch Diamond held the palm as the smallest fount
in Europe. England followed the general tendency towards the minute,
and though it is doubtful whether either Pearl or Diamond were cut by
English founders before 1700, an English printer, Field, accomplished
in 1653 the feat of printing a 32mo Bible in Pearl.[89] Among English
printers in the seventeenth century who did credit to their profession,
Roycroft is conspicuous, especially for the handsome large Romans in
which he printed Ogilby’s _Virgil_,[90] and other works. Yet Roycroft’s
handsomest letter—that in which he printed the Royal Dedication to
the _Polyglot_ of 1657—was the fount used nearly a century before by
Day,[91] whose productions few English printers of the seventeenth
century could equal, and none, certainly, could excel. Of Moxon’s
attempt in 1683 to regenerate the Roman letter in England, we shall
have occasion to speak elsewhere. His theories, as put into practice
by himself, were eminently unsuccessful; and though the sign-boards of
the day may have profited by his rules, it is doubtful if typography
did. His enthusiastic praise of the Dutch letter of Van Dijk may have
stimulated the trade between England and Holland; but at home his
precepts fell flat for lack of an artist to carry them out.
That artist was forthcoming in William Caslon in 1720, and from the
time he cut his first fount of pica, the Roman letter in England
entered on a career of honour. Caslon went back to the Elzevirs for
his models, and throwing into his labour the genius of an enlightened
artistic taste, he reproduced their letters with a precision and
uniformity hitherto unknown among us, preserving at the same time that
freedom and grace of form which had made them of all others the most
beautiful types in Europe. Caslon’s Roman became the fashion, and
English typography was loyal to it for nearly 80 years. Baskerville’s
exquisite letters were, as he himself acknowledged, inspired by those
of Caslon. They were sharper and more delicate in outline, and when
finely printed, as they always were, were more attractive to the
eye.[92] But what they gained in brilliance they missed in sterling
dignity; they dazzled the eye and fatigued it, and the fashion of the
{48} national taste was not seriously diverted. Still less was it
diverted by the experiments of a “nouvelle typographie,” which Luce,
Fournier, and others were trying to introduce into France. The stiff,
narrow, cramped Roman which these artists produced scarcely finds a
place in any English work of the eighteenth century. The Dutch type was
now no longer looked at. Wilson, whose letter adorned the works of the
Foulis press, and Jackson, whose exquisite founts helped to make the
fame of Bensley, as those of his successor Figgins helped to continue
it, all adhered to the Caslon models. And all these artists, with
Cottrell, Fry, and others, contributed to a scarcely less important
reform in English letter-founding, namely, the production by each
founder of his own uniform series of Roman sizes,—a feature wofully
absent in the odd collections of the old founders before 1720. Towards
the close of the century the Roman underwent a violent revolution.
The few founders who had begun about 1760 in avowed imitation of
Baskerville, had found it in their interest before 1780 to revert to
the models of Caslon; and scarcely had they done so, when about 1790
the genius of Didot of Paris and Bodoni of Parma took the English
press by storm, and brought about that complete abandonment of the
Caslon-Elzevir models which marked, and in some cases disfigured, the
last years of the eighteenth century. The famous presses of Bensley and
Bulmer introduced the modern Roman under the most favourable auspices.
The new letter was honest, businesslike, and trim; but in its stiff
angles, its rigid geometrical precision, long hair-seriffs, and sharp
contrasts of shade, there is little place for the luxuriant elegance
of the old style.[93] In France, the new fashion, even with so able an
exponent as Didot, had a competitor in the Baskerville type, which,
rejected by us, was welcomed by the French _literati_. Nor was this the
only instance in which the fashion went from England to France, for in
1818 the Imprimerie Royale itself, in want of a new _typographie_ of
the then fashionable Roman, came to London for the punches.
The typographical taste of the first quarter of the present century
suffered a distinct vulgarisation in the unsightly heavy-faced Roman
letters, which were not only offered by the founders, but extensively
used by the printers; and the date at which we quit this brief
survey is not a glorious one. The simple uniformity of faces which
characterised the specimens of Caslon and his disciples had been
corrupted by new fancies and fashions, demanded by the printer and
conceded by the founder,—fashions which, as Mr. Hansard {49} neatly
observed in 1825, “have left the specimen of a British letter-founder a
heterogeneous compound, made up of fat-faces and lean-faces, wide-set
and close-set, proportioned and disproportioned, all at once crying
“Quousque tandem abutêre patientia nostra?”
Some of the coarsest of the new fashions were happily short-lived; and
it is worth transgressing our limit to record the fact that in 1844 the
beautiful old-face of Caslon was, in response to a demand from outside,
revived, and has since, in rejuvenated forms, regained both at home and
abroad much of its old popularity.
It will not be out of place to add a word, before leaving the Roman,
in reference to letter-founders’ specimens. When printers were their
own founders, the productions of their presses were naturally also the
published specimens of their type. They might, like Schoeffer, in the
colophon to the _Justinian_ in 1468, call attention to their skill
in cutting types; or, like Caxton, print a special advertisement in
a special type; or, like Aldus, put forward a specimen of the types
of a forthcoming work.[94] But none of these are letter-founders’
specimens; nor was it till letter-founding became a distinct trade
that such documents became necessary. England was probably behind
other nations when, in 1665, the tiny specimen of Nicholas Nicholls
was laid under the Royal notice. It is doubtful whether any founder
before Moxon issued a full specimen of his types. He used the sheet
as a means of advertising not only his types, but his trade as a
mathematical instrument maker; and his specimen, taken in connection
with his rules for the formation of letters, is a sorry performance,
and not comparable to the Oxford University specimen, which that press
published in 1693, exhibiting the gifts of Dr. Fell and Junius. Of the
other English founders before 1720, no type specimen has come down to
us; that shown by Watson in his _History of the Art of Printing_ being
merely a specimen of bought Dutch types. Caslon’s sheet, in 1734,
marked a new departure. It displayed at a glance the entire contents
of the new foundry; and by printing the same passage in each size of
Roman, gave the printer an opportunity of judging how one body compared
with another for capacity. Caslon was the first to adopt the since
familiar “Quousque tandem” for his Roman specimens. The Latin certainly
tends to show off the Roman letter to best advantage; but it gives
an inadequate idea of its appearance in any other tongue. “The Latin
language,” says Dibdin, “presents to the eye a great uniformity or
evenness of effect. The _m_ and _n_, like the solid sirloin upon our
table, have a substantial appearance; no garnishing with useless {50}
herbs . . to disguise its real character. Now, in our own tongue, by
the side of the _m_ or _n_, or at no great distance from it, comes a
crooked, long-tailed _g_, or a _th_, or some gawkishly ascending or
descending letter of meagre form, which are the very flankings, herbs,
or dressings of the aforesaid typographical dish, _m_ or _n_. In short,
the number of ascending or descending letters in our own language—the
_p_’s, _l_’s, _th_’s, and sundry others of perpetual recurrence—render
the effect of printing much less uniform and beautiful than in the
Latin language. Caslon, therefore, and Messrs. Fry and Co. after
him,”—and he might have added all the other founders of the eighteenth
century,—“should have presented their specimens of printing-types in
the _English_ language; and then, as no disappointment could have
ensued, so no imputation of deception would have attached.”[95] Several
founders followed Caslon’s example by issuing their specimens on a
broadside sheet, which could be hung up in a printing-office, or inset
in a cyclopædia. Baskerville appears to have issued only specimens of
this kind; but Caslon, Cottrell, Wilson and Fry, who all began with
sheets, found it necessary to adopt the book form. These books were
generally executed by a well-known printer, and are examples not only
of good types, but of fine printing. Bodoni’s splendid specimens roused
the emulation of our founders, and the small octavo volumes of the
eighteenth century gave place at the commencement of the nineteenth to
quarto, often elaborately, sometimes sumptuously got up. Mr. Figgins
was the first to break through the traditional “Quousque tandem,”
by adding, side by side with the Latin extract, a passage in the
same-sized letter in English. But it has not been till comparatively
recent years that the venerable Ciceronian denunciation has finally
disappeared from English letter-founders’ specimens.
ITALIC.
The ITALIC letter, which is now an accessory of the Roman, claims
an origin wholly independent of that character. It is said to be
an imitation of the handwriting of Petrarch, and was introduced by
Aldus Manutius of Venice, for the purpose of printing his projected
small editions of the classics, which, either in the Roman or Gothic
character, would have required bulky volumes. Chevillier informs
us that a further object was to prevent the excessive number of
contractions then in use, a feature which rendered the typography of
the day often unintelligible, and always unsightly.[96] The execution
of the Aldine Italic was entrusted {51} to Francesco da Bologna,[97]
who, says Renouard, had already designed and cut the other characters
of Aldus’ press. The fount is a “lower-case” only, the capitals being
Roman in form. It contains a large number of tied letters, to imitate
handwriting, but is quite free from contractions and ligatures. It
was first used in the _Virgil_ of 1501, and rapidly became famous
throughout Europe. Aldus produced six different sizes between 1501–58.
It was counterfeited almost immediately in Lyons and elsewhere. The
Junta press at Florence produced editions scarcely distinguishable
from those of Venice. Simon de Colines cut an Italic bolder and larger
than that of Aldus, and introduced the character into France about
1521, prior to which date Froben of Basel had already made use of it
at his famous press. Plantin used a large Italic in his _Polyglot_,
but, like many other Italics of the period, it was defaced by a strange
irregularity in the slopes of the letters. The character was originally
called Venetian or Aldine, but subsequently took the name of Italic
in all the countries into which it travelled, except Germany, which,
acting with the same independence as had been displayed towards the
Roman, called it “Cursiv.” The Italians also adopted the Latin name,
“Characteres cursivos seu cancellarios.”
The Italic was at first intended and used for the entire text of a
classical work. Subsequently, as it became more general, it was used to
distinguish portions of a book not properly belonging to the work, such
as introductions, prefaces, indexes, and notes; the text itself being
in Roman. Later, it was used in the text for quotations; and finally
served the double part of emphasising certain words[98] in some works,
and in others, chiefly the translations of the Bible, of marking words
not rightly forming a part of the text.
In England it was first used by De Worde, in _Wakefield’s Oratio_,
in 1524. Day, about 1567, carried it to a high state of perfection;
so much so, that his Italic remained in use for several generations.
Vautrollier, also, in his _New Testaments_, made use of a beautiful
small Italic, which, however, was probably of foreign cut. Like the
Roman, the Italic suffered debasement during the century which followed
Day, and the Dutch models were generally preferred {52} by English
printers. These were carried down to a minute size, the “Robijn Italic”
of Christopher Van Dijk being in its day the smallest in Europe.
[Illustration: 9. Robijn Italic, cut by Chr. van Dijk. (From the
matrices in the Enschedé foundry.)]
It is not easy to fix the period at which the Roman and Italic became
united and interdependent. Very few English works occur printed wholly
in Italic, and there seems little doubt that before the close of the
sixteenth century the founders cast Roman and Italic together as one
fount. The Italic has undergone fewer marked changes than the Roman.
Indeed, in many of the early foundries, and till a later date, one face
of Italic served for two or more Romans of the same body. We find the
same Italic side by side with a broad-faced Roman in one book, and a
lean-faced in another. Frequently the same face is made to serve not
only for its correct body, but for the bodies next above or below it,
so that we may find an Italic of the Brevier face cast respectively
on Brevier, Bourgeois, and Minion bodies. These irregularities were
the more noticeable from the constant admixture in seventeenth and
eighteenth century books of Roman and Italic in the same lines; the
latter being commonly used for all proper names, as well as for
emphatic words. The chief variations in form have been in the capital
letters, and the long-tailed letters of the lower-case. The tendency
to flourish these gradually diminished on the cessation of the Dutch
influence, and led the way to the formal, tidy Italics of Caslon
and the founders of the eighteenth century, some of whom, however,
consoled themselves for their loss of liberty in regard to most of
their letters, by more or less extravagance in the tail of the [*Q]
which commenced the _Quousque tandem_ of their specimens. As in the
case of the Roman, Caslon cut a uniform series of Italics, having due
relation, in the case of each body, to the size and proportions of the
corresponding Roman. The extensive, and sometimes indiscriminate, use
of Italic gradually corrected itself during the eighteenth century; and
on the abandonment, both in Roman and Italic, of the long ſ and its
combinations,[99] English books were left less disfigured than they
used to be. {53}
BLACK LETTER.
[Illustration: 10. Gothic type, or “Lettre de Forme,” said to have been
engraved _circa_ 1480.
(From the original matrices in the Enschedé foundry.)]
The Gothic letter employed by the inventors of printing for the
_Bible_, _Psalter_, and other sacred works, was an imitation of the
formal hand of the German scribes, chiefly monastic, who supplied
the clergy of the day with their books of devotion. This letter,
as a typographical character, took the name of LETTRE DE FORME, as
distinguished from the rounder and less regular manuscript-hand of the
Germans of the fifteenth century, which was adopted by Schoeffer in
the _Rationale_, the _Catholicon_, and other works, and which became
known as LETTRE DE SOMME. The pointed Gothic, or LETTRE DE FORME, a
name[100] generally supposed to have reference to the precision in the
figure of the old ecclesiastical character (although some authorities
have considered it to be a corrupt, rather than a standard form of
handwriting), preserved its character with but little variation in
all the countries to which it travelled. It is scarcely necessary to
detail its first appearance at the various great centres of European
typography, except to notice that in Italy and France it came later
than the Roman.[101] In England it appears first in Caxton’s type No.
3,[102] and figures largely in nearly all the presses of our early
printers. De Worde was, in all probability, the first to cut punches
of it in this country, and to produce the letter which henceforth
took the name of “English,” as being the national character of our
early typography. De Worde’s English, or as it was subsequently
styled, Black-letter, was for two centuries and a half looked upon
as the model for all his successors in the art; indeed, to this day,
a Black-letter {54} is held to be excellent, as it resembles most
closely the character used by our earliest printers. The Black being
employed in England to a late date, not only for Bibles, but for
law books and royal proclamations and Acts of Parliament, has never
wholly fallen into disuse among us. The most beautiful typography of
which we as a nation can boast during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, is to be found in the Black-letter impressions of our
printers. The Old English was classed with the Roman and Italic by
Moxon as one of the three orders of printing-letter; and in this
particular our obligations to the Dutch are much less apparent than in
any other branch of the printing art. Indeed, the English Black assumed
characteristics of its own which distinguished it from the LETTRE
FLAMAND of the Dutch on the one hand, and the FRACTUR of the Germans
on the other. It has occasionally suffered compression in form, and
very occasionally expansion; but till 1800 its form was not seriously
tampered with. Caslon was praised for his faithful reproduction of the
genuine Old English; other founders, like Baskerville, did not even
attempt the letter; the old Blacks were looked upon as the most useful
and interesting portion of James’s foundry at its sale[103]; and the
Roxburgh Club, those Black-letter heroes of the early years of this
century, dismissed all the new-fangled founts of modern founders in
favour of the most venerable relics of the early English typographers.
Of these newfangled Blacks, it will suffice to recall Dibdin’s outburst
of righteous indignation—“Why does he (_i.e._, Mr. Whittingham), and
many other hardly less distinguished printers, adopt that frightful,
gouty, disproportionate, eye-distracting and taste-revolting form of
Black-letter, too frequently visible on the frontispieces of his books?
It is contrary to all classical precedent, and outrageously repulsive
in itself. Let the ghost of Wynkin de Worde haunt him till he abandon
it!”[104]
[Illustration: 11. Philosophie Flamand, engraved by Fleischman, 1743.
(From the matrices in the Enschedé foundry.)]
The LETTRE DE SOMME of the Germans, which, as we have seen, was adopted
by Schoeffer in 1459, became in the hands of the fifteenth century
printers a rival to the Gothic. Whether, as some state, it was derived
from the Gothic, or was a distinct hand used by the lay scribes, we
need not here discuss. Its name has been generally supposed to owe
its origin to the fact that among the earliest works printed in this
character was the _Summa fratris S. Thomas de Aquino_.[105] {55}
Others derive the name from the carelessly formed letters used in
books of account. This letter developed in considerable variety among
the early presses of the fifteenth century. Its main characteristics
being that of a round Gothic,[106] or at least of a Gothic shorn of
its angles, it lent itself readily to the influence of the Roman,
and we find it, as in the case of the first Italian books, merging
into that character; while in the case of many of the German and
Netherlands presses we find it occasionally absorbing that character,
adopting its form frequently in the capitals, and “Gothicising” it in
the lower-case. But to arrive at an accurate idea of the changes and
varieties of the LETTRE DE SOMME, it is necessary to study carefully
the productions of the various presses and schools of typography in
which it was used. In England it appeared, as might be expected, in
some of the early works of the first Oxford press,[107] whither it
was brought from Cologne. But it never took root in the country, and
was speedily rejected for the national Gothic, only to reappear as an
exotic or a curiosity.
SECRETARY.
The SECRETARY, or GROS-BÂTARDE, was the manuscript-hand employed by
the English and Burgundian scribes in the fifteenth century. It was,
therefore, only natural that Caxton, like his typographical tutor,
Colard Mansion of Bruges, should adopt this character for his earliest
works, in preference to the less familiar Gothic, Semi-Gothic, or Roman
letter. The French possessed a similar character, which, according to
Fournier, was first cut by a German named Heilman, resident in Paris
about 1490. But several years before 1490 the Gros-Bâtarde was in use
in France; in some cases the resemblance between the French and English
types being remarkable. The Rouen printers, who executed some of the
great law books for the London printers early in the sixteenth century,
used a particularly neat small-sized letter of this character. Like
the Semi-Gothic, the Secretary, after figuring in several of the early
London and provincial presses, yielded to the English Black-letter, and
after about 1534 did not reappear in English typography. It developed,
however, several curious variations; the chief of which were what Rowe
Mores describes as the SET-COURT, the BASE SECRETARY, and the RUNNING
SECRETARY. Of the first named, James’s foundry in 1778 possessed two
founts, come down from Grover’s[108]; but as the old deformed Norman
law hand which they represented was abolished by law in 1733, the
matrices, which at no time appear to have been much used, {56} became
valueless. The name COURT HAND has since been appropriated for one of
the modern scripts. Its place was taken in law work by the ENGROSSING
hand, which Mores denominates as Base Secretary. Of this character,
the only fount in England appears to have been that cut by Cottrell
about 1760.[109] The RUNNING SECRETARY was another law hand, described
by Mores as the law Cursive of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. It was similar
to the French Cursive, of which Nicolas Granjon in 1556 cut the first
punches at Lyons. Granjon’s letter at first was called after its
author, but subsequently became known as LETTRE DE CIVILITÉ, on account
of its use, so Fournier informs us, in a work entitled _la Civilité
puerile et honnête_, to teach children how to write. Plantin possessed
a similar character in more than one size, which he made use of in
dedications and other prefatory matter. The English fount in Grover’s
foundry appears to have been the only one in this country.
[Illustration: 12. Lettre de Civilité, cut by Ameet Tavernier for
Plantin, _circa_ 1570. (From the matrices in the Enschedé foundry.)]
The SCRIPT, by which is meant the conventional copy-book writing hand,
as distinguished from the Italic on the one hand and the law hand on
the other, is another form of the Bâtarde, and is supposed to have
originated with Pierre Moreau of Paris, whose widow in 1648 published
a very curious _Virgil_, the first volume of which is printed in this
character, in four or five sizes. The Dutch founders copied it, and the
curious founts in Grover’s foundry were probably most of them of Dutch
origin.[110] About 1760 Cottrell and Jackson both cut improved founts
of this character. The Script, which the French have called LETTRE
COULÉE and LETTRE DE FINANCE, and the Germans GESCHREVEN SCHRIFT, has
undergone a good many changes, especially during the present century.
M. Didot in 1815 introduced a series of ligatures, or connectors, which
had the effect of making the letters in each word join continuously;
and at the same time cast his letters on an inclined body, so as to
fit closely together, and be self-supporting. His system, however,
involved a large number of combination-letters and ligatures, which
rendered it generally impracticable; and it was eventually replaced
by a square-bodied Script, contrived to unite all the advantages, and
obviate all the disadvantages, of his ingenious system.
{57}
[Illustration]