Chapter VIII: Modern Work 101

ILLUSTRATIONS

_Descriptive Catalogue_ 119

_Borders_ 149

_Head-pieces_ 191

_Tail-pieces_ 211

_Ornaments_ 229

_Initials_ 239

_Modern Work_ 249

INDEX 287

THE GENESIS OF
PRINTERS’ ORNAMENTS

Referring to the books printed in Venice by Erhard Ratdolt in
the years 1476 and 1477, Mr G. R. Redgrave writes: “They are
plentifully enriched with initial letters, sometimes printed
in red ink, and they have all of them the gracefully designed
title-borders for which the books of Ratdolt are so deservedly
famous.”

_Erhard Ratdolt and His Work at Venice_, p. 13
(Bibliographical Society’s Monograph, No. 1).

* * * * *

“The typography and illustrations of Vérard’s books, though
justly celebrated, are distinctly inferior to the best
productions of certain Parisian printers--for instance Jean
Dupré; but in one respect he is without a rival--in the
sumptuous illuminated copies on vellum produced for his royal
and other distinguished patrons.”

_Antoine Vérard_, by John Macfarlane, 1900
(Bibliographical Society’s Monograph, No. 7).

* * * * *

On a certain day in the year 1530 or thereabouts, the following
dialogue took place between Robert Copland, a printer in London
at the sign of the Rose Garland in Fleet Street, and a customer
of his, who desired him to print a quaint conceit which he
called the _Seven Sorrows that Women have when their Husbands
be Deade_.

The printer naturally wanted to see the manuscript, but the
author replied that it was in his brain and not in his pocket.

_Quidam._

“I have no boke, but yet I can you shewe
The matter by herte and that by wordes fewe,
Take your penne, and wryte as I do say
But yet of one thyng, hertely I you praye.
Amende the Englysh somewhat if ye can
And spel it true, for I shal tel the[e] man
By my soule ye prynters make such englyshe
So yll spelled, so yll poynted, and so pevyshe
That scantly one can rede lynes tow
But to fynde sentence, he hath ynoughte to do.”

To which the printer replies thus:

“Well, brother, I can not it amende,
I wyl no man ther of dyscommende,
I care no[t] greatly, so that I now and than
May get a peny as wel as I can.”

This confession of Copland’s, coupled with the fact that the
author had a moment before expressed the opinion that a ‘penny’
was enough to spend on books, shows how great was the gap that
separated the Continental from the English printer in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and accounts for the paucity
of borders and ornaments found in English books up to 1500,
noted by Mr E. G. Duff in the chapter which he added to Mr A. W.
Pollard’s work on _Early Illustrated Books_.