Chapter I: Preface (1)

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

{1}

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:―

{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.

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.”