Chapter V (1)

_Vantage._ When a _White-page_ or more happens in a Sheet, the _Compositer_ calls that _Vantage_: So does the _Press-man_, when a _Form_ of one _Pull_ comes to the _Press_.

_Varnish._ See § 11. ¶ 23.

_Visorum._ See § 22. ¶ 4.

_Un-lock the Form._ See § 22. ¶ 2.

_Underlaid._ A Phrase used by _Press-men_ for the _Light_ and _Easie_, or _Heavy_ and _Hard Running in_ of the _Carriage_. Thus they say, _The Press goes light and easie under Hand_, or it _goes heavy or hard under Hand_.

_Upper Hand_, when the _Spindle_ goes soft and easie, the _Press-men_ say, _It goes well under Hand_, or _Above Hand_. But the contrary if it goes _Hard and Heavy_.

W

_Wash the Form._ See § 24. ¶ 18.

_Way-goose._ See Customs.

_Weak-Inck._ See _Soft-Inck_.

_Wedge._ See § 20. ¶ 3.

_White-line._ A Line of _Quadrats_.

_White-Page._ A _Page_ that no _Matter_ comes in.

_White-Paper._ Although the first _Form_ be Printed off, yet _Press-men_ erronically call that _Heap White-Paper_, till the _Reteration_ be Printed.

_Whole-press._ See _Full-Press_.

_Wind-furnace._ See _Open-furnace_.

_Wind-hole._ See § 18. ¶ 1.

_Wood._ See § 15. ¶ 11.

_Wyer._ See § 15. ¶ 9.

FINIS.

TYPOGRAPHICAL CORRECTIONS

In In
Page Line Original Reprint

17 9 _wieght_ _weight_.
17 23 _so_ _to_.
19 15 _witout_ _without_.
20 23 _thanthe_ _than the_.
22 15 _batttens_ _battens_.
36 21 _containiug_ _containing_.
42 31 _hyphen_ inserted after _Ten_.
47 25 _clapse_ _claspe_.
51 15 _an_ _and_.
56 3 _betwen_ _between_.
63 7 _Whether_ _Whither_.
64 4 doublet of _it_ corrected.
65 5 doublet of _it_ corrected.
65 18 _to_ _too_.
70 19 _Serews_ _Screws_.
77 15 doublet of _much_ corrected.
87 17 doublet of _the_ corrected.
89 1 _parenthesis_ inserted.
90 3 _in_ _into_.
92 9 _parenthesis_ inserted.
103 12 _Pnnch_ _Punch_.
120 5 doublet of _the_ corrected.
120 10 _a_ _at_.
136 30 _peice_ _piece_.
141 16 _Bottome_ _Bottom_.
145 9 _he_ _the_.
150 24 _puuch_ _punch_.
200 26 _in_ _is_.
211 17 _nor_ _not_.
213 24 _Lettets_ _Letters_.
221 26 _n_ _in_.
222 11 _Rnn_ _Run_.
237 16 _a bout_ _about_.
239 16 _thrust_ _thrusts_.
247 3 _Chapher_ _Chapter_.
247 11 _Over-rnn_ _Over-run_.
248 30 _Fnrniture_ _Furniture_.
253 7 _proeeed_ _proceed_.
267 16 _performanee_ _performance_.
276 2 _hatdens_ _hardens_.
294 24 _Rnns_ _Runs_.
297 6 _wiIl_ _will_.
303 15 _Wot_ _Wet_.
304 26 _Srrong_ _Strong_.
307 11 _is_ _it_.
307 27 _Bnll_ _Ball_.
308 6 _Seeeps_ _Sheeps_.
322 22 _parenthesis_ inserted.
332 22 _thc_ _the_.
378 19 _to_ _too_.
391 8 _o_ §
392 9 _a_ §
393 6 _ot_ _or_.

NOTES

TITLE. At the Sign of Atlas. In Moxon’s time the houses in London and elsewhere were not numbered. A house of business was specified and identified by a sign painted with some peculiar device that could be recognized by people who could not read.

THE PORTRAITS. Satisfactory authority cannot be given for the accuracy of the portrait of Gutenberg. Moxon copied it from an earlier German book. The portrait of Coster is a copy of the print first shown by Scriverius in 1635. Van der Linde doubts its genuineness. The portrait of Moxon may be accepted as truthful. It first appeared in the fourth edition (1686) of Moxon’s “Tutor to Astronomie and to Geographie.”

THE DEDICATION. “The Right Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Bishop of Oxford and Dean of Christ Church,” was Doctor Fell, one of the three persons to whom this work was dedicated. Doctor Fell had commended himself to men of letters by a recent gift to the University of Oxford of printing materials of great value. In a report written by him in 1679, he mentions “the low estate of the manufacture of printing” in England, and in the University, as the motive that induced him and associate members of the University, in 1672, to take “upon themselves the charges of the press in the said University, and at the expence of above four thousand pounds furnisht from Germany, France and Holland, an Imprimery, with all the necessaries thereof, and pursued the undertaking so vigourously, as in the short compass of time which hath since intervened to have printed many considerable books in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, as well as in English; both for their matter and elegance of paper and letter, very satisfactory to the learned abroad and at home.” Bagford said that the printing material so presented by the Bishop could not be equaled by any of the great printing-houses on the Continent. A specimen sheet of the types of the Oxford University Press dated 1695 fully warrants this assertion. The types, punches, and materials then given by Bishop Fell are insufficiently described by Rowe Mores in his “English Typographical Founders and Founderies,” on pages 44 and 45. A brief description of the Oxford Press as it now is, with suitable illustrations, was published by the Oxford University in 1894.

Bishop Fell was equally interested in paper-making. He encouraged George Edwards, “a cutter in wood of the great letters,” and an engraver of maps and other things made use of in the printing of books, to set up a paper-mill at Wolvercote. Bishop Fell died in 1686. Tom Brown made him the subject of his famous epigram:

I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this alone I know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.

2, 3. THE ORIGIN OF THE INVENTION. Moxon’s notice of the invention of typography records a general belief of the writers of that time. The Coster legend had been published, but it was not accepted as unimpeachable history. The weight of authority favored the claims made for Gutenberg. The “Tullies Offices” (Cicero, De Officiis) of 1465, printed by “Johanes Hust” (Fust) and “Petri de Geurshem” (Peter Schoeffer of Gernsheim), is one of the later books of these printers. The book generally received as the one first printed is the Bible of Forty-two Lines, which is at least ten years earlier. It is accepted as the production of John Gutenberg, John Fust, and Peter Schoeffer. Its claim to priority has been disputed in favor of the Bible of Thirty-six Lines, accredited to John Gutenberg only. Discredit is now given to the legend of the introduction of printing in Oxford in 1468 by Frederick Corseles. “The Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers,” printed by William Caxton at Westminster in 1477, is considered as the first book printed in England. The claims of Coster have been thoroughly sifted by Dr. A. W. Van der Linde, and his earlier writings on this subject have been translated into English by J. H. Hessels and published under the title of “The Haarlem Legend.” The claims of Caxton are fairly reviewed by William Blades in his “Life and Typography of William Caxton.”

6, 7. THE BRANCHES OF TYPOGRAPHY. The specification of Letter Cutters, Casters, and Dressers, of Compositors and Correctors, Pressmen and Ink-makers, and some other trades, indicates the complexity of the complete art of printing in 1683. The workmen in each one of these trades tried to keep it distinct, and to prevent its practice by any but those who had been qualified by regular apprenticeship. There were few master-printers who had even superficial acquaintance with the methods and usages of the different departments of typography, and their general ignorance tended to the degradation of the art. The ordinary book of the seventeenth century was distinctly inferior to a book of the same class of the sixteenth century that had been made from the beginning under the direction of a master “who could perform or direct others to perform” all the work upon it. It was for the purpose of diffusing a proper knowledge of the different processes among master-printers that this book was written.

ADVERTISEMENT on page 8. The plot here mentioned was the one revealed by Titus Oates, who gave false details of an alleged conspiracy to kill Charles II, King of England, and to reëstablish the rule of the Roman hierarchy.

This advertisement is a side-light of value on the methods of the book-selling trade. Moxon foresaw that the cost of the complete book would be too much for the ordinary buyer. He tempted subscriptions by offering it in monthly parts: “2_d._ for each Printed Sheet. And 2_d._ for every Print taken off of Copper Cuts.” At these rates the complete book on printing, unbound, then cost 14_s._ 4_d._ The publishing of a book in parts was an old expedient to increase sales. I first note it in an edition of the Bible in Hebrew, published by Robert Stephens of Paris between the years 1539 and 1544.

Copper-plates were preferred for the illustrations because they could be engraved and printed more neatly and at a smaller expense. The arts of engraving on wood and of woodcut presswork were then in their lowest condition, and Moxon foresaw that his illustrations engraved on wood would not be properly printed.

9. PRINTING-HOUSE. Although “printing-house” is still used in England as a proper designation for the workshop of the master-printer, the term “printing-office,” which is more common in the United States, has equally good authority. Many of the early printers called their workshops by the Latin name of “Officina.” A book before me by Jodocus Badius, dated 1513, has the imprint “In Officina Ascensiana.”

10. THE CASES AND PRESS. The allowance of “four foot and a half by five foot and a half” for every pair of double frames or stands is the same as that established by modern usage. The allowance of seven feet square of space for each press, which necessarily includes the bank, and working-room for the two pressmen, seems small. It indicates a press for the printing of a sheet not larger than fifteen by twenty inches. The caution to put the presses upon a solid foundation, and to brace them with beams against the ceiling and side walls, shows that provision had to be made for the shrinking of the wood and for its imperfect construction.

11. WINDOWS of glass were unusual. Paper (probably oiled) to admit the light was the only defense against cold, which was sometimes so severe that work had to be suspended. Then, as now, printers preferred the upper floors of the building for composition, and these upper floors were usually lighted by small windows near the ceiling. The English printing-house of the seventeenth century was rude, bare, and small. It was a large printing-house that had four hand-presses and a dozen frames.

13. FONT. Moxon’s etymology is not approved by recent dictionary-makers, who tell us that font is derived from the French _fonte_, a casting, through _fondre_, to melt or to found. Font is now used to describe a complete collection of founded types. The English face here mentioned as opposed to the roman and italic must be understood as old English black-letter.

14. SIZES AND PROPORTIONS OF TYPE. Ten bodies of type are specified as a full assortment of sizes from pearl to “great-cannon.” Within this limit American and English type-founders now make twenty-one sizes, as well as some smaller and many larger sizes beyond the limit. The dimensions of the bodies here specified are irregular fractions of the English linear foot. An accurate or standard foot measure was not easily procured, and the irregular subdivisions of the foot were calculated with difficulty and often with error. Types so made were unavoidably inexact; when made in different foundries they did not accord in size, and there was often serious disagreement in the bodies of the same foundry when the types were cast at different times. For a specification of these variations, see Savage’s “Dictionary of Printing,” page 802, and any recent English work on practical typography.

Pick is the name given to any bit of dirt that falls in the counter of a type, and fouls the print.

The geometric rules for the proportions of letters as laid down by Moxon and other theorists are impracticable. They make no provision for the meeting of irregularly shaped letters and no allowance for optical illusions. To make letters seem harmonious and symmetrical in combination, some characters must purposely be out of drawing.

The commendation of Christophel Van Dijck (Christopher Van Dijk) is approved by modern bibliographers and printers. Willems, in his “Les Elzeviers,” rates him as the leading punch-cutter of his time, and as really superior to the famous French founders Sanlecque and Le Bé. The beauty of his designs, and the merit of the type made by his Dutch successors in type-founding, secured to them the practical control of the English market for more than a century. During Moxon’s time, and for many years after, British type-founders bought most of their punches and matrices in Holland. William Caslon, who began as a type-founder in 1720, was the first English punch-cutter who broke the domination of the Dutch type-founders in England.

It was the first purpose of the writer of these notes to have this book reprinted in the Dutch types that served Moxon for models. Unfortunately, they were not to be had. They were in the Enschedé foundry before 1735, but at that time they had been put aside as old-fashioned and unsalable. M. Fleischman, a German punch-cutter intrusted with the management of this foundry, had destroyed as useless old metal most of the Van Dijk punches and matrices. This wanton destruction should not prejudice the reader against Fleischman, for he was an expert punch-cutter, although the originator of a bad school of typography. It was from him that Bodoni of Italy, Didot of France, and Baskerville of England, drew their erroneous notions of the superior beauty of over-sharp hair-lines. This peculiarity is clearly shown in the new types of the specimen-book of the Enschedé foundry for the year 1786, which contains a portrait of Fleischman, and signed and dated specimens of his work at that time.

15. THE FACE OR STYLE OF VAN DIJK TYPES. “... the commodious Fatness they [the Van Dijk letters] have beyond other Letters, which easing the Eyes in Reading renders them more Legible.” The word “fatness” cannot be understood as printers now accept the word, for the Van Dijk letter would now be rated as thin and much below the present standard of width. It was supposed to ease the eyes in reading because the interior counters of the small or round letters like e, o, and m had been enlarged, but this enlargement was most in height.

“... the true placing their Fats and their Leans” means the extension of thick-stroke to the corresponding shortening of hair-lines, as may be seen in a comparison of the old-style m with a modern m. This improvement was modified by Fleischman and his successors. He protracted the hair-line and shortened the thick-stroke, showing his own skill as a cutter, but seriously damaging the legibility of the letter. This unwise fashion is still in force in nearly all types of modern cut. The bold and sturdy types of William Morris, and the Jenson types of the Dickinson foundry, are practical protests (possibly too emphatic) against the effeminacies of the modern school of weak and delicate letter.

“... the sweet driving them into one another” I understand as the close fitting of the different letters. This close fitting or narrow set for each type, with a corresponding thinness of face, made a composition unusually compact. The novelty of this new style was most admired by French type-founders, who have never allowed it to go out of fashion. Fournier, in his “Manuel Typographique,” shows compressed types of many sizes, which he says are “in the Dutch style.” The type used by Moxon in his book is of the same English body as the type in which this reprint is set, but the Moxon face is a trifle taller and much more compressed.

The uniformity or geometrical accuracy of proportion that is here commended in all sizes of Van Dijk types could not have been made by careful drawing. Yet it does not appear that Moxon had instruments of precision that could measure with exactness any fraction smaller than the thirtieth part of an inch.

16. THE COUNTERS OF TYPES. The deep cut or counter recommended for punches is correct instruction, but deep counters were uncommon. The punches that I have examined in the Plantin-Moretus Museum have relatively shallow counters. Fertel of St. Omer, writing in 1723, denounces the shallow counters then made by all founders as a cause of the bad presswork of French printers. Even Fournier (“Manuel Typographique,” vol. i, p. 12) says that a counter “about one fourth of a line” (.0222 of the English inch) is deep enough for types between nonpareil and long-primer or pica. No modern printer would be satisfied with a counter of this depth.

17. TYPES MADE FOR BOOKS. The few bodies of type then made were for books only, and were provided in small fonts. The types most largely cast now are those intended for newspapers: brevier, minion, nonpareil, and agate, and they are provided in fonts of many thousand pounds. Italic, which then made at least one third, is now but one tenth of the entire weight of the font. In many morning newspapers italic is excluded.

THE BEARD of a type was the long sloping shoulder that connected the face with the body. The square and high shoulder of modern types, which is of recent invention, is indispensable for the proper moulding of types composed for stereotype work.

18. DECAY OF ENGRAVING ON WOOD. “Few or good Cutters in Wood appear.” The decadence of engraving on wood is plainly indicated by Moxon’s choice of copper-plate for all his illustrations. The imperfect methods then in use for making brass rules are also illustrated on many pages of his book, where they show rules of unequal height and uneven face.

THE “PLANISHING” OF BRASS RULE was the rolling of the metal in sheets before it was cut in strips type-high.

19. THE LAY OF THE TYPE-CASES. The illustration of the type-cases in plate 1 is apparently of a case in one piece, but the text distinctly says that two cases were used, an upper and a lower, as is customary now. The dimensions of the case, “two foot nine inches long, one foot four inches and an half broad,” are almost like those of the modern cases. These two cases were unwisely placed on the stand at the same inclination, so that they seem as one case in the illustration. The capital letters are unhandily put in the extreme left-hand corner of the upper-case. Arabic figures are at the foot of these capitals. There are no small capitals, but the boxes of the right side of the upper-case, of easiest reach, are filled with accents and astronomical signs. The copy of the compositor was laid over these boxes that were seldom used. To keep the copy near to the compositor’s eye, the hand in search of frequently used capitals had to make a needless length of reach.

The lay of the lower-case, as shown in plate 1 (b, c, d, e, f, g, in the upper row of large boxes; l, m, n, o, p, q, in the second row; r, t, u, in the lowest row), is an indication that the first printer laid the letters of the lower-case as we now lay the capitals of the upper-case, in alphabetical order. When it had been demonstrated that the letters were unequally used, and that the characters in most request should be near the compositor’s hand, the letters a, h, and the thick spaces took the places occupied by sorts not so often needed. The lay of the case and the size of the boxes in Moxon’s plan, and indeed in all modern plans, are not in proper position or proportion to give the greatest convenience to the compositor. Many attempts have been made to correct these faults, but none have succeeded. In this plan, as in other plans maintained by compositors of our time, tradition is stronger than reason. To this day the larger boxes of modern cases contain the same sorts and are in the same position as those of Moxon’s plan.

25. THE GALLEY described in plate 2 is the modern slice-galley. The long tray-galley of wood and the long proof-galley of brass are not mentioned. It must have been customary for each compositor to make up his matter on a slice-galley as soon as he had completed his page. When composition was so managed the difficulty of keeping two or more men at work on the same book must have been great.

28. A CORRECTING-STONE “four foot and an half long, and two foot broad” ... as “a convenient size for the generality of Work” is another indication of the small size of the forms.

28. SCABBORD is an old spelling of scabbard or scale-board, which was once a thin strip or scale of sawed wood. The difficulty of sawing wood to uniform thickness led to the use of strips of thin iron, which were cheaper and more even as to thickness. The name that had been given to the wood was continued for the iron. Scabbards were also used as aids in justifying forms and in making register. The scabbards mentioned in printers’ grammars of the last century were of cardboard or millboard.

GUTTER-STICKS are so called because of the groove cut in the center, constructed after the fashion of a gutter for the drainage of water. The groove was needed to prevent the bagging of the tympan and the blacking of the white paper in the operation of presswork. The grooving of gutter-sticks is still maintained, although there is now no need for the groove.

QUOINS “about three inches square” are not to be found in any modern printing-office.

31. THE “DRESSING-BLOCK” is now known as the planer, but the form of planer now in greatest use is usually two and one half inches high and eight and one half inches long.

“SHEERS, such as Taylors use,” were common tools in all printing-houses fifty years ago, but they have been supplanted by simple machines that cut brass rule with more accuracy.

32. THE EARLIEST COMPOSING-STICKS were veritable sticks of wood. The Plantin-Moretus Museum, at Antwerp, has preserved several of these venerable implements. The stick illustrated by Moxon with a bottom plate, which he calls the back, is one inch narrower than the stick now used in English and American printing-houses. In other features no serious difference can be noted. The sliding measure, now known as the knee, was then made in two parts for the composition of type in two distinct measures--one for the text and one for the marginal notes. The iron would now be adjudged too thin, and the soldering on of a head-plate of long-primer thickness would not be tolerated. The suggestion that the sliding measures, or the knees, could be filed when they proved untrue leads us to the inference that these frail composing-sticks soon became inexact.

34. A CHASE “two and twenty inches long and eighteen inches broad” is the proper size for a form of crown paper fifteen by nineteen inches. This, we must suppose, was the size of paper in greatest use. The construction of the Moxon chase is substantially like that of the modern chase, but the iron used was thinner, and the method of hand-filing recommended for the making of squares and dovetails could not have been entirely satisfactory. The old chase must have been weak and easily bent or twisted out of square.

37. THE PRESS in greatest use in England during the first half of the seventeenth century is the one shown in plate 3 and properly stigmatized by Moxon as a “make-shift slovenly contrivance.” The press that he approves and illustrates in plate 4 is the “excellently improved invention” of Willem Jansen Blaew, but it received no noteworthy improvement during the eighteenth century. In all its more important features it was the press on which Benjamin Franklin worked in Philadelphia and in London. It is now entirely out of use, and the technical names of its different parts are imperfectly understood and are often misapplied. Before study is made of the function of each part, the novice should understand the combined action of the different parts.

The form of type to be printed was placed on the bed, or, as it was then called, the stone (marked _l_ in plate 4). The surface of the type was inked by dabbing it over with the inking-balls, which are shown on the left side of the wooden cheek of the press. The ink was evenly spread over the surface of the balls by rocking their opposing faces against each other in many directions. When the type was fairly covered with a film of ink, the damp sheet to be printed was laid upon the tympan (marked 5 in plate 4, where it is shown in very bad perspective), which Moxon calls the tinpan. The pressman then folded down the frisket (marked 6 in the plate and incorrectly drawn), so that it would lie flat upon the tympan. This frisket had been previously covered with a sheet of stout paper in which openings had been cut to allow the face of the types to meet the sheet to be printed. This mask of paper protected every other part of the sheet against a possible blackening of ink. The pressman then folded down the tympan so that it rested flat upon the form of type. This done, with his left hand on the rounce handle projecting from the wooden bridge (marked _y_ in plate), he drew the form of type half way under the platen (marked _c_ in plate), which, it should be noticed, is one half the size of the stone and of the form of type upon it (not shown in plate 4). With his right hand on the bar (marked _q_ in plate) he pulled this bar toward him. This pull moved downward the screw and its attached spindle (marked _i l m_ in the plate). The pressure so made, resisted above by the head _e_, and below by the winter _d_, was received by the platen and transferred to the paper and the types that were directly under the platen. This pressure printed one half of the sheet. Then the pressman put back the bar, and with the rounce handle moved forward the stone with the type upon it until the unprinted half of the sheet was covered by the platen. This done, he again pulled down the bar and completed the printing of the unprinted half of the sheet. Reversing the motion of the rounce handle, he drew backward the stone and type, unfolded the frisket and tympan, and removed the sheet that was printed on one side. This seems, and it really was, slow work; but all books printed before the year 1800 were made by this slow method. In all presses made in England before 1800, two pulls of the bar were needed to print a full sheet on one side. The press was not sufficiently strong to print properly a full sheet of demy by one impression. The power produced barely sufficed for the printing of the half-sheet. The minuteness of the directions here given concerning the construction and the fitting up of the different parts shows that rigidity of fitting was regarded as of importance. Yet it was foreseen that the press would leak pressure.

38. WILLEM JANSEN BLAEW, a map-maker and printer of eminence, was born in Amsterdam in 1571, and died there in 1638. His improvements to the press were made in 1620. As the Blaew press is now obsolete, I do not think it necessary to follow Moxon in a more minute explanation of the minor parts of his press.

PRESS-BUILDING was not a distinct trade in 1683. Every printer had his presses made to order from his own plans by a local joiner or carpenter, aided by a blacksmith or machinist. The bed-plate was of stone, and the platen of wood. Iron was sparingly used, and only for spindles, hooks, nuts, screws, bolts, etc., that could not be made of wood. Iron was of high price, and was cast or forged with so much difficulty that no one dared think of it as a proper material for the framework or for any of the larger pieces of the press. The pasting down of the vellum on the inner side of the tympan (now known as the drawer) was done to prevent the bagging or bellying outward of the outer tympan. The brayer of flat face was practically a wooden pestle. Its office was to distribute the ink on the block before it was taken up by the balls. This work is now done much better by a cylinder of wood, which still keeps the name of brayer.

59, 60. Moxon estimated that one quarter turn of a home pull of the bar lowered the spindle five eighths of an inch. In the pressure so given, only one fiftieth of an inch (“the Form to the Stone half a Scabbord”) was taken by the type, and about one twelfth of an inch by the paper, tympan, and blankets. This shows waste of power, even when impression was aided by an elastic spongy blanket. The greater part of the force exerted leaked away and was lost in the yielding wood and the compressible joints. A mechanician will see at a glance that a press so constructed could not exert more power than the printing of two octavo pages of type at one impression, and that it would fail entirely to face the black background of a large woodcut.

68. It does not appear that the stone was tested by a straight-edge or by a spirit-level. Many of the stone beds in use during the seventeenth century were uneven as to face and badly leveled, and compelled the pressman to make use of an elastic impression. The frequent breaking of the stones complained of by Moxon was due as much to bad leveling as to the carelessness of the pressman. His preference for the wood lignum-vitæ was reasonable.

69. A PLATEN OF BEECH-WOOD was liable to warp and split, but a more suitable material was rarely used. The only attempt at improvement known to the writer was made by Christopher Plantin of Antwerp, who had his platens covered with sheet copper to cover the cracks in the wood, and to hide the faults they made in impression.

70. THE POINTS AND POINT-SCREWS are old devices that were used in the fifteenth century. One can find the marks of point-holes in leaves of books printed by Ratdolt and other careful printers of that period.

72. One of the most useful improvements made by Blaew in his new press was the provision of leather girths, one end attached to the carriage, and the other to the barrel around the spindle. With a rounce handle on the end of this spindle, the pressman could easily run in and out the carriage with the type upon it. The first presses did not have this improvement. It is not to be seen in the woodcuts of the presses of Aldus, Badius, and other early printers. (Compare the cuts, plates 3 and 4.) It seems that the carriage of the older form of hand-press must have been shoved in and pulled out by lugging at the framework of the carriage.

73. THE LYE-TROUGH, shown in plate 9, was in use fifty years ago as a wash-trough. The form of type, laid flat in the bottom of the trough, was drenched with water by rocking the trough to and fro.

74. THE PAPER-BENCH is now made with an inclined bank at the end nearest the pressman. This inclination aids him in seizing the sheet to be printed. On the flat end of the bench he lays the paper after it has been printed.

THE RACK to hang paper on, and the PEEL, illustrated in plate 32, are now unknown in many American printing-houses, which is much to be regretted. The development of printing that has put the wetting and dry-pressing of paper out of fashion, and has brought into general use the method of printing on dry paper against an inelastic impression, is not an unmixed benefit. The new method has quickened and cheapened common presswork, and has been of great advantage in the printing of fine woodcuts, but it has not bettered the presswork of books. The strong and readable print that was common at the beginning of this century is now produced with greater difficulty and at more expense upon dry paper.

75. CONCERNING INK. The very minute description here given of the preparations for making the varnish of ink, which was badly done then in England and better done in Holland, should be enough to correct the common belief that the printing-ink of our predecessors was of better quality than the ink of our time. It is not necessary for the reader to be an expert to note that the materials were crude and the processes unscientific. No test of the quality of the linseed-oil is suggested, which must have been as uneven then as it is now. Nor is anything here said concerning the black, which was probably the crude smoke-black of commerce, with its usual taint of sulphur and other impurities. The cheap printing-ink of our time, even when made by a manufacturer of low repute, is more scientifically compounded, and is blacker and better, than the ink used by the ordinary book-printer of the seventeenth century. In Moxon’s book the ink is variable--on many pages pale, on others over-black; and there are variations of color not entirely due to uneven inking by the pressman. A weak ink applied to a bold type, and printed on wet paper against a spongy impression, seems blacker in print than a better ink printed on dry paper against an inelastic impression.

Resin was the only ingredient added to the black and varnish. No mention is made of other substances that are now rated as of great value.

85. LETTER-CUTTING was always enveloped in mystery. Every new practitioner had to devise many of his own tools and work out his own methods, and independent action led some cutters into serious error. Others, unhampered by traditionary rules, introduced new methods. Moxon has frankly told us all about his tools. Some of them may have been invented by himself, but more of them were those of contemporary English and Dutch punch-cutters and of the makers of mathematical instruments. His descriptions of well-known tools like files, rules, or liners need no comment, but our surprise is aroused at their simplicity, and more than all, at his ignorance of tools of precision. Here and there he does mention the magnifying-glass, but nowhere does he speak of a micrometer. He had no unit as a base for measurement. He frequently describes a measure as a half inch, or as a quarter inch, rarely as an eighth inch. A sixteenth or thirty-second of an inch is never mentioned in these words. It is a proper inference that his measuring-rule was not so minutely subdivided. These nicer subdivisions had to be determined and marked by himself on measuring-rules of his own construction, and he must have done this work very well. To divide the body of english in forty-two equal parts is to make each part equal to about 46/10000 an inch. One forty-second part of long-primer body would make each part about 33/10000 of an inch. His method of determining the width of these parts was to make, by rubbing on a stone, seven thin spaces equal to the em quadrat, or square of the body. The full point or period was one and one sixth of this thin space; the colon, one and two sixths; the comma, one and three sixths; the hyphen, one and four sixths; the semicolon, one and five sixths. These were practically his testing measures, which were transferred to the plate he called his face-gauge. The modern punch-cutter will be amazed at the crudity of Moxon’s tools and methods; but crude as they were, they served him for making types that did good service. Nor does Fournier, in his “Manuel Typographique” of 1766, mention any tool of precision. A testing of distrusted types must have been done largely by sight and touch.

118. THE SWASH-LETTERS here mentioned are capitals that show the writing-master’s flourished extension of line. In many letters these lines hang over the body, as in the old form of roman capital Q. They are most common in old italic, and are fairly illustrated in plate 15.

119. EMERICK, emery.

120. MR. WALBERGER OF OXFORD is the Peter Walperger or Walberger of Holland who was installed by Bishop Fell as a punch-cutter for the University Press, and who there earned the reputation of a good workman. He died in 1714.

124. STEM is the thick-stroke of a letter, sometimes called by type-founders the body-mark.

125. ENGLISH LETTER, as mentioned on this page, means Old English, or black-letter.

Moxon’s notions of proportion for the variable thickness of the stems or fat strokes of letters were tabulated by allowing forty-two equal parts as the height of the body. The thickness or the width of the stem in a roman capital should be five of these parts; in an italic capital, four; in lower-case roman, three and a half; in lower-case italic, three. These distinctions are nicer than those laid down by Albert Dürer in his diagrams on the proper proportions of letters, where it is stated that the width of the stem should be one tenth the height of the body, which is in the proportion of four and one fifth to forty-two.

These proportions are no longer maintained. The stem is now made of variable thickness to suit different styles of letter; sometimes it is in the proportion of two to forty-two, and sometimes ten to forty-two. The rule that the stem of the roman capital should be wider than that of the lower-case, and that the stem of the italic capital should be still thinner, has been generally observed in all type-foundries.

No defined width is made for the thin-stroke, which is now called the hair-line; but a glance at the diagrams in plates 11 to 15 is enough to show that this hair-line had a positive and appreciable width for its height. It was well understood also by all punch-cutters that this thin-stroke would appear in print much wider than it did in the punch. The elastic blanket that forced the wet paper not only upon the type, but lapped it around its edges, made the thin-stroke appear in print at least one half wider than it was in the punch or in the type.

129-147, and plates 18 and 19. The type-founder’s mould is peculiar to his art. It consists of two large pieces of steel, forming when combined an upper and an under side, so fitted to each other that types of different widths, from the thinnest space to the broadest quadrat, can be cast in its central hollow space without any change in the depth of the body. Each piece has firmly fixed attachments of many smaller bits of steel to insure this exact adjustment. Types may have been cast at a very early date in fixed moulds of sand, but types so made must have been expensive, of irregular body, and exceedingly variable in line, and could not have been combined with the accuracy that is indispensable to the easy practice of type-setting. The usefulness of typography really depends upon the squareness and geometrical accuracy of each type. A variation of one thousandth part of an inch in body is fatal. Early writers on typography did not clearly describe the mould, but they have put on record their admiration of the mechanism devised for the “wonderful art of letter-making,” and the “admirable proportion and harmony between the letters.” The mechanism that produced this accuracy was without doubt the mould.

The early type-mould was probably made adjustable in two directions, so that it could cast two or more bodies of type. The Bruce foundry of New York has a mould of this description of unknown age. Its peculiar construction explains slight variations of body in types of the same face, made by the same printer during the infancy of the art. This adjustable mould went out of fashion in the sixteenth century, but it was retained in many foundries as a mould of value for emergencies. The mould of fixed body, adjustable as to width only, has always been preferred.

Fournier says that the early moulds of Germany and Holland were of brass. Moxon’s mould was of iron. They are now made of steel, with a precision of fitting unimagined by any early founder. The most valuable improvement made in this mould was devised by Archibald Binny of Philadelphia, who, in 1811, affixed a spring to the matrix that gave to it a quick return movement after the type had been cast out of the mould. Many attempts have been made to alter the mould so that it could cast two or more types at the same time. Didot’s polymatype mould, made to cast fifty types at one operation, is the most notable but it can be used only on very small type, and it is not approved by English or American foundries. The mould attached to type-casting machines in most use is, in its more important features, the mould used by Moxon. The new Barth type-casting machine has a mould of different construction, but without great change in principle.

135. GEAT is the old spelling of the word jet, or the waste metal that, in cooling, clings to the type at the orifice in which the hot metal is poured. The separation of this ragged bit of metal from the cast type is known as “breaking off the jet.”

142. Properly made, the two halves of the mould should fit so close as to be air-tight; but a too close fitting will not allow the escape of the air from the mould when the fluid metal is injected. An imperceptible slackness in fitting is necessary to allow the escape of the air at the joints. With this escaping air goes out also, at these joints, a thin feather-edge of cooling metal, then known as the rag.

THE JUSTIFYING OF THE MOULD was done without gauges. The types cast were tested by setting them up in parallel rows, one row head up, and one row feet up. If one row overlapped the other, the fault could be felt by a nice touch. The test of squareness was made by holding two types, nick to nick, between the eye and light. If a glimmer of light appeared, the mould was in fault. To the modern founder these seem tests of great crudity, but they were adjudged good enough.

145. THE DAWK was a slight concavity or depression in the body of the cast type, made by a corresponding convexity in the mould. For the correction of faults Moxon allows the use of the file upon the mould with a freedom that must provoke the surprise of every modern mould-maker. For a modern type-caster to file a mould after it has been adjusted is now regarded as a blunder worse than a crime; yet Moxon says that accuracy need not be expected on the first, or even the seventh, time of testing. The workman must mend “on, on, on, by a little at a time, till at last it is so finisht.” The underlaying of different parts of the mould with an “assidue,” or thin plate of brass, as is here recommended, is evidence that the mould was often filed recklessly and to its injury. In no reputable modern foundry or machine-shop would this tampering with a mould be allowed. The straight-edge, the square, the eye, the fingers--these seem to have been the only available tools of precision.

149. MATRICES. Soft copper is recommended because it is not liable to break the punches; but soft copper is not durable. Continued spurts of hot metal against a soft copper matrix soon blunt its edges and finer lines. Modern founders find it a wiser economy to use hard rolled copper, and risk the breaking of punches. Very large types are sometimes struck in copper softened by heat, but this is not regarded as good workmanship. A matrix made by the electrotype process, or by the use of a perforated copper plate riveted upon another solid copper plate, is preferred.

COUNTERS. A thick space, or one third of the square of the body, is made the proper depth for the sinking of a matrix, but this depth was not always secured. The fear of breaking the punch made early founders cautious, and their matrices were sunk to a depth of one fourth or one fifth the square of the body. When the counter-punch had been made correspondingly shallow, the counter of the cast type and the beard outside the letter were often blackened by the inking-balls, and dots or spots of ink were transferred with the print to the wet paper. Fertel, a French printer of 1723, says (“La Science pratique de l’Imprimerie,” page 4) that the counters of some new types were of no greater depth than the thickness of a sheet of strong paper.

153. THE JUSTIFYING OF THE MATRICES is one of the nice operations of type-founding. Each matrix must have a free movement to and from the mould, but it must fit snugly to the nicest fraction. All the matrices for the same font must occupy a prescribed position upon the mould, exact as to top, foot, and sides. A slight deviation puts the types cast therefrom perceptibly out of line, or makes them crooked, with more space on one side of the character than on the other. Nor is this all. The face of the letter in the matrix must be in exact parallel with the face of the outer plate and the face of the mould. If higher at one side than at the other, the type cast therefrom will have a corresponding unevenness of height. If the distance between the outer surfaces and the faces of the letter is not the same in all the matrices, the types will be of uneven height.

It is a marvel that early type-founders did so well with their imperfect methods. The commonest fault was making the matrix too low, so that the types cast therefrom would be low to paper. As the remedying of this defect calls for an entire section on the botching of matrices, it may be inferred that a certain amount of botching was considered unavoidable. The press of the early printers seems to have been constructed to hide irregularities of height in type that were then thought unavoidable.

164. MAKING METAL. The melting-point of lead is about 617° and that of iron is about 2100°. At the greater heat lead is destroyed as a metal. It is possible to incorporate lead with iron, but it cannot be done by the process here described. The only useful office performed by the stub-nails was to deprive the antimony of its excess of sulphur, which was incorporated, undetected, with the dross and the slag. The proportions are not clearly stated: “For every three pounds of iron, about five and twenty pounds of lead.” The exact quantity of antimony is not stated. In the second paragraph it is said that the iron and antimony are equal as to weight. Were the ingredients twenty-five pounds of lead, three of iron, and three of antimony; or twenty-five pounds of lead, and three pounds of mixed iron and antimony? No mention is here made of tin or copper. The lead gave to the alloy softness and easy-working qualities; the antimony hardness and stiffness; the iron was intended to give hardness.

169. THE CASTING OF LETTERS by the hand-mould was slow work. Four thousand types a day was the average performance. It was also hard work. To “face the type”--to make the liquid metal forcibly splash against the face of the matrix--the caster, as Bernard truly says, must make the contortions of a maniac. If it were not forcibly splashed, the type would have a defective face. The jerk or twist given to the arm was one of skill as well as of strength. It often happened that strong men were never able to acquire this knack. They might work hard all day, apparently going through all the motions, and yet be unable to make perfect types. The smaller the body of the type, the harder must be the jerk of the arm.

175. TIN. When types did not come with a good face, the caster put tin in the metal-pot, to make the metal fluid. This is the only mention of the use of tin as an ingredient, and it seems to have been used only to lighten the work of the caster.

THE RAG, or feather-edge of thin metal made by the windage or escape of air at the joints, was rubbed off on a grindstone. This method of rubbing could not be employed for types like f or j or f, which overhang the body: the rag on these letters was more slowly taken off with a scraping-knife.

192. THE PLOWING OF A GROOVE at the bottom of the type was the next process. No mention is made of an inspection of the type for the detection of faults of casting, as is customary in modern type-foundries.

197, 198. COPY. This introduction is obviously the outgrowth of some painful experiences with authors. “By the Laws of Printing, a Compositer is strictly to follow his Copy.” This law presupposes that the copy is always correct--a supposition as untenable now as it was then. Moxon admits that the compositor should amend bad spelling and pointing, and use capitals and italics with sense and reason, even if he has to deviate from copy. The standard of typographic style is much higher now. The compositor of to-day who undertook to reset this book in modern style would be required to cut out all the italics and more than half the capitals, readjust the punctuation, correct the spacing, make uniform the spelling, and remodel the headings and the make-up.

199. CASES. These directions for the papering of the cases indicate that many were of unseasoned wood or insecurely jointed. It is not probable that the different parts were dovetailed or fastened with screws.

201. WASHING OF FORMS. The proper method of washing a form, as described on this and following pages, warrants the supposition that very thin ink must have been used, and that this ink must have flowed or spread downward on the spaces and quadrats and between the letters in loosely justified lines.

207. DISTRIBUTION. In these prolix directions concerning distribution, it seems that a composing-rule was not used to uphold the type. The compositor made use of a reglet for the purpose.

212. THE GALLEY here described was a quarto slice-galley, placed upon the ledge of the upper-case at the right hand, covering the boxes for signs and double letters, which were the characters supposed to be in least use. If the galley had been put in a sliding drawer, upon an inclined shelf under the stand, it would have been as accessible and not so liable to damage.

212. THE VISORUM, or projecting copy-holder, is now out of use. This is to be regretted, for it brought the copy nearer to the compositor’s eye, enabled him to keep closer attention on each line of the copy, and afforded readier access to all the boxes of the upper-case.

214. REGLETS. The rude way in which composition was then done is shown in the second paragraph, in which it is said that compositors many times used reglets instead of brass composing-rules.

218. SIGNATURES. The compositor was required to make up his page as soon as it was composed, and to add the direction, or catch-line, and the signature. The directions for signatures are minute. It was not enough to put the signature letter A at the foot of the first page of the first form. It must be repeated A2 on the third page, as an additional safeguard against the possible carelessness of the folder. If the section to be bound consisted of three or more double leaves, the fifth or seventh page of the section must be appropriately marked with A3 or A4. When these letters followed in numerical order, the folder knew that the folding was correct.

As only twenty-three letters in the alphabet were accepted for signatures (J, U, and W were rejected), the letters could serve only for twenty-three signatures, usually of eight, and never more than sixteen pages. If the book exceeded three hundred and sixty-eight pages, and sometimes a lower number, the alphabet was doubled as Aa. If the book had two or more volumes, the number of the volume had to be added to the signatures. This old method of the trade is still observed in Great Britain. In the United States Arabic figures are preferred for signatures.