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Title: The Pentateuch of printing
Author: William Blades
Contributor: Talbot Baines Reed
Release date: August 24, 2026 [eBook #79445]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1891
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79445
Credits: deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PENTATEUCH OF PRINTING ***
[Illustration: ST. CHRISTOPHER. EARLIEST DATED WOODCUT. 1423.]
THE PENTATEUCH OF PRINTING
WITH
A CHAPTER ON JUDGES.
BY
WILLIAM BLADES.
_With a Memoir of the Author, and List of his Works_,
BY
TALBOT B. REED.
_CHICAGO:
A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY._
_1891._
[Illustration]
_Blades, East & Blades,
Printers,
23, Abchurch Lane, London, E.C._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PREFACE
The Pentateuch of Printing is not so fanciful a title for the present
book as might at first sight appear. There is a self-evident analogy
between the _Genesis_ of the World and the Genesis of Printing. The
spread of Typography is not inaptly typified by an _Exodus_; while the
laws promulgated in _Leviticus_ have a plain parallel in idea with
the laws and observances necessary to be followed in making a book.
_Numbers_ certainly is not so directly suggestive of the many great
names which figure upon the Printers’ Roll of Honour; but _Deuteronomy_
at once suggests, by its very signification, the second birth and
reinforcement of the vital conditions of Printing introduced by the
steam-machine. No subject is nowadays complete without a knowledge
of what specialists have previously written upon it, and the public
generally are certain to form their opinions upon the published
statements of the best _Judges_. We thus obtain six chapter-heads for
our book, and whether the information offered under these heads is
worth reading must now be left to the only Judge, against whose verdict
it is useless to appeal--the Reading Public.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PREFACE iii.
MEMOIR OF WILLIAM BLADES ix.
PROLOGUE xxv.
GENESIS 1
EXODUS 23
LEVITICUS 43
NUMBERS 59
DEUTERONOMY 83
A CHAPTER ON JUDGES 95
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
St. Christopher. Earliest dated Woodcut _Frontispiece_
Assyrian Clay Tablet, Stamped 5
Letters Stamped on a Greek Lamp 5
Letters Stamped on a Roman Lamp 5
Fifteenth Century Playing Card 6
Fac-simile, from the _Biblia Pauperum_. Block-book, 15th
century 8
Scriptorium Monk at work 9
Bookbinder, 16th century 10
Cover of a Book, 15th century 11
Fragment from a Xylographic _Donatus_ 12
_Image of Pity._ (Wood block and type) 13
Statue of Coster 17
Coster Commemoration Medal, 1856 19
Portrait of Ulric Gering 29
Manuscript written at Bruges, circ. 1472 34
Supposed Portrait of Caxton 36
Fac-simile from the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_,
1474. (Caxton’s Type, No. 1) 37
Bas-relief from the Entablature, Jerusalem Chamber,
Westminster 39
Illustrations showing regular and irregular body of Type 46
Impression of a Type in 1476 48
Impression of a Type, circ. 1470 48
Profile tracings from M. Claudius’ 15th century Types 49
Diagram of a Type 50
Illustration of a Punch 50
Illustration of a Matrix 51
The “Lay” of a pair of Type Cases 52
A Fifteenth Century Wooden Composing Stick 53
Old Iron Composing Stick 53
A Line of Composed Type 53
Old Wooden Press, 1508 54
Interior of a 17th century Printing Office 55
Improved Wooden Press, 1640 56
Portraits of Coster, Gutenberg, Fust, Aldus and Froben. (From
_Maittaire_) 62
Portrait of Aldus 65
The Medal of Aldus 67
The Plantin Museum, at Antwerp 75
Portrait of Christopher Plantin 76
Portrait of John Day, 1562 77
John Day’s Trade Mark 77
Portrait of William Spottiswoode 78
Portrait of Benjamin Franklin 79
Fac-simile Letter of Benjamin Franklin 80
Stationers’ Hall 81
Centenary Medal of the Walters, of the _Times_, 1885 87
Diagram Illustrating a Flat Impression 88
Diagram Illustrating Single Cylindrical Impression 88
Diagram Illustrating Double Cylindrical Impression of a
Perfecting Machine 89
Diagram Illustrating Cylindrical Impression from Curved
Stereotype 90
The “Hoe” Newspaper Printing Machine 90
Early Logotypes 92
Fac-simile Title-page of the _Star Chamber Decree_, 1637 104
Fac-simile Title-page of Atkyn’s _Original and Growth of
Printing_, 1664 105
Fac-simile Title-page and Illustration from Wolffger’s
_Format Buchlein_, 1620 106, 107
Fac-simile Title-page of Moxon’s _Mechanick Exercises_,
1683 108
Fac-simile Title-page of the Elzevir Specimen Book, 1713 109
Fac-simile Title-page of Watson’s _History of Printing_,
1713 110
Fac-simile Title-page of Lewis’ _Life of Caxton_, 1737 111
Fac-simile Title-page of Mores’ _Dissertation on Founders_,
1778 112
Fac-simile Title-page of I. Thomas’ _History of Printing in
America_, 1810 113
[Illustration]
_MEMOIR of the late WILLIAM BLADES_,
BY
TALBOT BAINES REED.
To the friends of the late WILLIAM BLADES no apology is needed for
publishing in its present form the work on which he was engaged at the
time of his death, in April, 1890. For such as did not know him, it is
thought that a few biographical notes on the man and his career will
sufficiently explain the peculiar interest which attaches to his last
and not least important work.
WILLIAM BLADES was born at Clapham, on the 5th of December, 1824--at a
period when the romantic bibliomania of DIBDIN and the Roxboro’ Club
was in its zenith. These enthusiasts met periodically to celebrate
their discoveries in the field of book-lore; to keep one another in
mind of the famous occasion when the Marquess of BLANDFORD wrested the
_Valdarfer Boccaccio_ from the Earl of SPENCER for the sum of £2,260,
at Evans’s; and to drink in silence to the “Cause of Bibliomania
all over the World.” Emulated by the example of these aristocratic
enthusiasts, other more humble enquirers, such as TIMPERLEY, HANSARD,
and JOHNSON were exploring the same field, and helping one another to
conclusions. There was more zeal than knowledge. There was a great deal
of fine writing, entertaining anecdote, and expensive book-making;
there were sweeping generalizations, and a touching confidence in
second-hand evidence. But in all the school, although it included one
or two practical printers, no one had the courage to defy authority,
and question all bibliographical dogma until he could verify it for
himself. The little boy at Clapham was destined to inaugurate this
desirable revolution, and apply to the study of Early Printing a sturdy
agnosticism which would have horrified DIBDIN and scandalized the
choice spirits of the Roxboro’ Club.
At the early age of sixteen, and after a comparatively brief
educational career at the Clapham Grammar School, WILLIAM BLADES
entered the office of his father, the late JOSEPH BLADES, a respected
City printer, at 11, Abchurch Lane. In after life he was always ready
to attribute the main part of his success as a bibliographer, as well
as his own business prosperity, to the thorough grounding which, during
his ’prentice years, he received in all the details, practical and
artistic, of his profession. Nor was he wont, in dealing with questions
relating to the well-being and relief of the journeyman printer, in
which he took so deep an interest, ever to ignore the days, often
severe and wearisome, when he wore the apron and worked at case side
by side with his father’s _employés_. His description of himself as
“WILLIAM BLADES, Printer,” on the title-page of one or more of his
books, conveyed what he felt to be his chief claim to authority on
matters relating to the history and antiquities of his craft. Those
matters it was his rule to investigate as a printer first, as an
antiquary next, and as a man of letters last; and it was by adhering to
this order that he was able to do for bibliography what AMES and DIBDIN
and TIMPERLEY had failed to do.
These investigations, however, do not appear to have interested him
specially during the early years of his career as a printer. It was
not till he had become a master in his craft that he gave the first
indications of a turn for the antiquities of Printing. Long before
1858 the bibliomania of the DIBDIN school had died down into a vague
academic interest in the productions of the early presses, measured
chiefly by their market value at auctions, and studied wholly on
the unquestioned authority of the author of the _Bibliographical
Decameron_ and his contemporaries. The art of exact fac-simile was
as yet unknown; and for those who, without access to the originals,
pretended to a knowledge of the typography of the early printers, the
lax copper-plates and wood engravings of the old illustrators were the
principal data of research.
In a few directions, however, the interest was reviving, and, in
1858, Mr. BLADES undertook to write an introductory note for a
reprint of Caxton’s edition of _The Governayle of Health_. His
special qualification for the task was that he had already begun his
investigation of the typography of the works of the first English
press, which were to result in his _Life of Caxton_. What it was
which specially turned his attention to this inquiry he has not left
on record. Whatever it was, looking at it from the printer’s point
of view, a very little study sufficed to convince him of the general
untrustworthiness of the old authorities, and the necessity of
instituting an original research.
The manner in which he went about this was characteristic of the man’s
enthusiasm and determination. He shut up his LEWIS, and AMES, and
DIBDIN, and ALDUS, and assumed that neither he, nor anyone else, knew
anything of WILLIAM CAXTON. From this clear stand-point he began first
to study the life, and then the books of the Mercer printer. He groped
through the City records till he established the clear connection
between the apprentice of ROBERT LARGE, and the merchant adventurer
in the Burgundian Court. Then, step by step, he traced the literary
_protegé_ of the Duchess to Bruges, and into the printing-office of
COLARD MANSION. As he himself confessed, it was no easy task. Often
he had to go back on his steps, and often the difficulties in the way
seemed to forbid all further progress. But the ground cleared as he
went on, and when once he had traced his hero to Westminster, the chief
biographical difficulties of his task were over.
There remained the still more important study of CAXTON’S works.
Here, more than ever, he resolved to take nothing at second hand. He
personally inspected no fewer than 450 Caxtons in different libraries,
collating, comparing, and classifying them as he went along. His
printer’s instinct at once found the key to the study. It was not in
the titles or colophons, in the diction or the literary evidence, but
in the types. He subjected each book to a searching typographical
examination, and classified it according to its types. He made the
whole work and method of the primitive little printing-house at the
“Red Pale” live before our eyes; we saw when type 1 came to an end, and
when type 2 appeared; we found the ingenious craftsman, when type 2 was
wearing out, trimming it with his graver, and creating type 2* out of
its ruins. We watched the career of each type, from the moment it was
cast in its rough mould, till the day when, worn out and discarded, it
passed into strange hands and finally vanished. Meanwhile, each book
as it came up, fell into its proper class. The year of undated books
was fixed by the evidence of their dated companions; and the relative
order in a single year was often determined by the observation of some
typographical detail, visible only to the eye of the expert, which
clearly marked off one stage in the printers’ habits from another.
In such manner was the _Life of Caxton_ written. It marked a new epoch
in bibliography, and disposed finally of the lax methods of the old
school. With a work like the _Life of Caxton_ on record, it would be
impossible in future to write with authority about the old printers
and their books, without approaching the study from the point of view
of the typographical expert. There is no doubt that the mechanical
improvements in processes of fac-simile added much to the success and
value of the _Life and Typography of William Caxton_. It is useless to
talk about old type unless you can display it. This Mr. BLADES did on a
lavish scale. Not only were fac-simile pages of all the representative
books given, but the alphabets in each class of type were laboriously
picked out and presented, with the combinations and variants of each
letter, so that the student was able to study CAXTON’S works not only
as they appeared ready printed, but letter by letter, in the case
before composition.
The first volume of the _Life of Caxton_ appeared in 1861, and the
second in 1863; between which two dates, Mr. BLADES had married the
lady who, for twenty-eight years, was to be the loyal partner in his
life and work.
The _magnum opus_ was received with general approbation. It was
recognised that a right method of investigating the problems of
palæotypography had been discovered. A new interest was aroused in the
works of the early presses, and the fortunate possessors of “Caxtons”
became suddenly alive to their privileges.
Not the least gratifying result of the labours connected with this work
were the friendships which Mr. BLADES formed with men of his own taste,
engaged in like pursuits. It is worth recording the pleasant account
given by Mr. PROTHERO of the meeting of HENRY BRADSHAW and WILLIAM
BLADES, while the proofs of the _Caxton_ were still in the press. “In
September, 1860, Mr. BLADES paid a visit to Cambridge, taking with him
the first two sheets of his book in type, and the rest in manuscript.
It was a fine, warm afternoon, and after dinner--they dined earlier in
those days than now--they went down, as BRADSHAW was fond of doing,
into the college garden; a bottle of wine was ordered out, and there
and then, without moving from the place, Mr. BLADES read the whole
historical portion of the book to his willing listener, who frequently
interposed criticisms and suggestions of the most useful kind.”
The friendship thus begun continued uninterruptedly for a quarter of a
century. It was none the less valued because BRADSHAW, the keenest of
the new scientific school of bibliographers, was an outspoken critic.
“Believe me,” wrote Mr. BLADES, when acknowledging a voluminous letter
of criticism on his second volume, “no review in the _Athenæum_ or
_Saturday_ will give me half the inward satisfaction that I feel when
you tell me that my book has enabled or assisted you to write such a
body of sound, critical notes as now lies before me.”
This was not the only friendship for which he was indebted to his _Life
of Caxton_. His work brought him into contact and friendly intercourse
with librarians and printers, not only in England, but in France,
Holland, and Germany, and made his already rich library a rallying
point for students and enquirers of all kinds, who came to him for
advice and information, and received, in addition to both, an unfailing
and kindly welcome.
The publication of the _Caxton_ by no means completed Mr. BLADES’
attention to history of the first English press. His bibliographical
method forbade him to consider any question, however exhaustively
treated, as closed. He was constantly collecting new material, and as
constantly giving the world the benefit of his studies. The _Life of
Caxton_ was supplemented by a very useful hand list of the specimens
of the old master’s press in the British Museum, by his _How to tell a
Caxton_, as well as his introductory notes and monographs to several
valuable fac-simile reprints of English _incunabula_. He became a
constant and diligent contributor to the trade periodicals, and his
scattered articles--of which it is hoped the list appended will be
found to be a pretty complete catalogue--comprehend an important,
and perhaps not sufficiently well-remembered, volume of his literary
work. He did as much as any writer of the time to call the printer’s
attention to the honourable and interesting traditions of his craft,
and to lift him from the _rôle_ of a mere tradesman into that of a
partner in a glorious Art.
Meanwhile, his business was prospering. The distractions of literary
work and of a rapidly increasing bibliomania were not allowed to
interfere with the careful attention demanded in the building up and
maintenance of a large trade connection. His interest in the methods
and practice of the old press never hindered him from keeping pace
with all the improvements of the new. His office became well known in
the City for its enterprise in adopting any new improvement consistent
with the production of good printing; and he was looked up to as an
authority on the practice of the art and craft of today, no less than
on that of four centuries ago.
In 1870, occurred an epoch in the annals of typographical controversy,
when Dr. VAN DER LINDE’S destructive essay against the claims of
Haarlem as the birthplace of Printing appeared in the “Cologne
Chronicle.” Mr. BLADES was sufficiently interested in the subject, and
in the general tenor of Dr. VAN DER LINDE’S argument, to publish an
English translation of the work by Mr. HESSELS at his own cost. At the
same time he maintained from the first an attitude of careful reserve
on the main question. In an article on _Early Schools of Typography_,
contributed, before the appearance of the English edition of the
_Coster Legend_, to Mr. BERJEAU’S _Bookworm_, he had suggested the
possibility of an independent invention of printing both in Holland and
Germany, a theory which has of late years gained some ground. While
heartily approving of the destruction of all obviously false and flimsy
evidence on the side of either claimant, it was to him a source of
regret when the literary duel between Dr. VAN DER LINDE and Dr. HESSELS
descended from the arena of forcible argument into that of acrimonious
dispute. To him, as to most other students of the controversy, the
existence of the “Costeriana” was an insuperable obstacle to the
admission of the German claim; and one of his latest utterances, before
the Library Association, was a careful and judicial summary of the case
on either side, with a decided inclination of opinion in favour of
Haarlem as against Mentz.
During the few years which followed the publication of Dr. VAN DER
LINDE’S book, Mr. BLADES’ energies were chiefly devoted to the
development of his important library of books on Printing, the
foundations of which had been laid as far back as his apprentice days.
The genuine book-hunter needs not to be reminded of the insidious
nature of his malady. Any excuse suffices for a new relapse. The _Life
of Caxton_ was a more than common excuse. Not only did it lead its
author to a search after “fifteeners,” (of which, however, he did not
acquire many) but it was the occasion for collecting every available
work on the early practice of the Art, not only in England, but
abroad. From this it was but a step to treatises on the multiplex craft
of modern printing. His enquiry into the types and typefounding of
Caxton naturally opened the way for a collection on that branch of the
subject generally--particularly of typefounders’ specimen books, to
whose historical importance his little book on the subject, published
in 1875, was one of the first to call attention. His interest in the
Invention controversy naturally brought onto his shelves the voluminous
literature devoted to that question, which, when once begun, must, to
be of real importance, be complete. Nor was there any reason why the
collector, once embarked on his career, should hold his hand from any
work, be it a memoir, an Act of Parliament, a typographical oddity, a
sober specification, a specimen of fine work, or an ephemeral tract,
provided it bore on his subject, and added weight to his collection.
And so, from small beginnings, and it may be to the occasional concern
of himself, his library grew into one of peculiar value and importance.
How wisely and carefully he selected, how thoroughly he explored the
highways and byways of typographical literature, the catalogue of his
collection, when it comes to be published, will disclose.
An occasion arrived in 1877 for admitting the book-loving public to
a participation in some of its treasures. The Caxton Celebration of
that year was an event which will always be peculiarly associated
with the name of WILLIAM BLADES. It was due to him that the solecism
of celebrating the Fourth Centenary of the Introduction of Printing
into England three years before its time was avoided. When the true
anniversary came, Mr. BLADES threw himself heart and soul into the
movement. What was his part in the success of the Celebration is
already on record. He suggested both the form the festival should
take, and the methods by which it might be carried out. He undertook
the collection and arrangement of the unique display of Caxtons and
early English printed books which were brought together--perhaps the
most complete collection ever seen at one time. He organized and
superintended the arrangement of the large miscellaneous collection of
books, specimens, autographs, portraits, medals and curiosities, to
which he himself contributed the lion’s share. For the catalogue he
wrote, of course, the prefatory note on Caxton.
The writer of these notes has good reason to remember those busy days
at South Kensington. It was in that long, upper gallery, crowded with
packing cases, noisy with the hammering of nails, dim with dust,
and with the hand on the dial creeping hourly towards the opening
day, that he first met WILLIAM BLADES. The man of letters was in his
shirt sleeves, busy with the unpacking of a box of Caxtons. He was
the guiding spirit of the scene. While others despaired of being up
to time, he kept his head and worked hard. While others differed and
argued, he was serene and genial. It was impossible in his presence to
stand idle, or doubt for a moment of the success of the undertaking.
How complete was that success need not be told here, or how modest was
the share of credit which he took to himself. When it was all over, he
took his books and pictures and medals back to the little library at
Croydon, and returned to the life of the printer-student as cheerfully
as he had emerged from it a year before.
The formation of the Library Association, in 1877, was another event
which commanded Mr. BLADES’ warm sympathy. He was a Member of the
Council of that body from the beginning, and a frequent attendant at
the pleasant yearly Conferences held under its auspices in various
parts of the country. His diary contains notes of some of these
bibliographical expeditions, that to the Glasgow Meeting, in 1888,
being recorded with special pleasure. He contrived on such visits to
see all that was to be seen in the way of early printed books and
libraries, and invariably came back refreshed in mind, and often
weightier in baggage, from these congenial holidays. He occasionally
read papers before the Association, one of his latest public
appearances being at the London Meeting of the Association in 1889,
when he read an interesting account of the Chained Library at Wimborne.
His love of books tempted him, in 1881, to a literary effort in
a lighter vein than any he had hitherto adopted. The _Enemies of
Books_ is a dainty and entertaining defence of his favourites against
their sworn enemies, human, insect, and elemental, and brought him
into contact with many admirers whom his more serious works had not
interested. This championship did not hinder the development of an
almost romantic interest on the part of the author for the real book
worm. Among the treasures of his library were usually to be seen one
or more of these learned insects, browsing on the pages of an old
magazine, or, as a special delicacy, being feasted on a morsel of
fifteenth century printed matter. His attempts to rear them, however,
were unsuccessful. As he confessed once to the writer, it was one of
the failures of his life!
A _jeu d’esprit_ of another kind had been published in 1872,
whimsically connecting Shakespeare with the printing profession, a jest
which amused him all the more that it was taken _au grand serieux_
by some sober-minded correspondents. Later, in 1885, his account and
metrical paraphrase of the German morality play the _Depositio Cornuti
Typographici_, gave him scope for the combination of a good deal of
special lore to illustrate a quaint old-world literary drollery.
The closing years of his life witnessed no diminution of his
energies, either in business or literary pursuits, although both were
occasionally hindered by what proved to be premonitory symptoms of the
heart affection to which he was to succumb.
In 1884 he took up the cudgels on behalf of the English inventor of
the Steam Press, against his old friend Herr GOEBEL of Stuttgart, who
claimed the honour for his countryman KŒNIG. In the controversy which
ensued, Mr. BLADES was careful to keep the discussion free from the
faults which had marred the dispute between Dr. VAN DER LINDE and Dr.
HESSELS. It was a trial to him that his temperate statement of the
claims of NICHOLSON should, after all, cost him a valued friendship,
for the loss of which, however, he felt had not himself to reproach.
His widening interest in early books of every kind led him, among his
latest efforts, to undertake what promised to be a novel and highly
scientific natural-history study of the _incunabula_. His careful
note on _Watermarks_, contributed to the _Athenæum_, and the equally
valuable note on _Signatures_, with which he inaugurated his projected
series of _Bibliographical Miscellanies_, promised, had the author
lived to complete his scheme, to place the study of early printed books
on a clearer and still more precise footing than it had yet attained.
But the project was cut short at an early stage. His investigations
on these questions had been carried on with all his old enthusiasm
and determination, but with increasing difficulty, and at increasing
physical cost. For the same reason, the _Pentateuch of Printing_ had
lain on his study table many months incomplete. The idea of giving
to book lovers, not professionally conversant with Printing, a clear
and simple account of the origin and development of the Art by which
books are produced, was one which he had long cherished. To the lay
mind the question is full of confusion and intricacy. It is obscured
by much that is irrelevant, and distorted by much that is incorrect.
His object was to clear away the irrelevant, to reduce fiction to fact,
and technicality to plain English. Intended originally for a short
treatise, the idea had expanded, and took form in the quaint conceit
which the title of the work implies. Nor, when it was more than half
complete in that shape, did it stop growing. He determined to add to
its attractiveness by illustration on a lavish scale, and had already
began to collect and prepare the woodcuts for the purpose, and further
enlarge the treatment of his subject in other directions.
At this stage it was that the abrupt summons came to lay down the busy
pen and rest from work.
His own jubilee as a printer was about to be celebrated, and his
friends and workmen were invited to the gathering, when it was known
that he was unwell, and that the occasion must be postponed. The next
thing we heard was that he was dead, on April 28, 1890.
In these brief notes nothing more has been attempted than a sketch of
Mr. BLADES as a printer and a bibliographer. Yet the picture would be
incomplete without a word as to his private life. Those who had the
privilege of knowing him at home will not readily forget the atmosphere
of gentleness and kindness in which he lived. His family life was one
of simple harmony--no one who was with him for an hour could fail to
discover that behind his learning and enthusiasm and industry there was
the background of an unaffected goodness. With those especially who, in
that well-remembered library, surrounded by his precious books, sought
his assistance or counsel, the memory of him will linger long as of
one whose pleasure it was to be kind, whose sympathy was always ready,
and whose shrewd sense and wide knowledge and cheery helpfulness were
always at the service of a friend.
* * * * *
In preparing the _Pentateuch of Printing_ for publication in the
form in which it now appears, the present writer has been careful to
refrain from anything like “editing” on a large scale. In a few cases
additional matter was necessary to the clear meaning of the narrative.
In other cases, where fragmentary notes had been left to indicate
topics which the author intended to deal with more fully, some little
expansion has been ventured upon. Otherwise, the object has been to
present the book, although not professedly complete in every respect,
as nearly as possible, both as regards the text and the illustrations,
as it was left by the author at the time of his death.
TALBOT BAINES REED.
_List of Published Works by WILLIAM BLADES._
The Governayle of Helthe; by John de Bordeaux
(?), or by Bartholomeus Montagnassa; with the
Medecyne of ye Stomache, in verse; by John
Lydgate (?). Reprinted from Caxton’s edition,
with introductory remarks and notes by William
Blades. 8vo. London 1858.
[_Printed in imitation Caxton types, cast in
pewter._]
Morale Prouerbes; C. Du Castel; with introductory
remarks by William Blades; _fac-simile_. 4to. 1859.
[_Printed in imitation Caxton types, cast in
pewter._]
The Life and Typography of W. Caxton, England’s
first Printer, with evidence of his typographical
connection with Colard Mansion, the printer at
Bruges; with numerous plates. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1861-63.
A Catalogue of Books printed by, or ascribed to
the Press of W. Caxton, in which is included the
press mark of every copy contained in the British
Museum. sm. 4to. London, 1865.
A List of Medals, Jettons, Tokens, etc., in
connection with Printers and the Art of Printing. 8vo. London, 1869.
[_Only 25 copies printed._]
A List of Medals struck by order of the
Corporation of London, with an appendix of other
Medals struck privately or for sale, having
reference to the same corporate body, or the
Members thereof. 8vo. London, 1870.
[_Privately Printed._]
How to tell a Caxton, with some hints where and
how the same might be found; plates. 8vo. London, 1870.
[_A handbook for the use of the amateur and
collector._]
Typographical Notes: The Early Schools of
Typography, from the _Bookworm_, March,
1870; The Enschedé Type Foundry at Haarlem. 8vo. London, 1870.
[_Privately Printed._]
Shakespere and Typography; being an attempt to
show Shakespere’s personal connection with, and
technical knowledge of the Art of Printing; also
remarks upon some common typographical errors,
with special reference to the text of Shakespere;
plates. 8vo. London, 1872.
Some early Type-specimen Books of England,
Holland, France, Italy, and Germany, with
explanatory remarks. 8vo. London, 1875.
[_With historical notes on the old English and
Foreign Type Foundries._]
Earl of Rivers. The Dictes and Sayings of the
Philosophers; a _fac-simile_ reproduction of
the first book printed in England; with a preface
by William Blades. 4to. 1877.
The Biography and Typography of William Caxton,
England’s first Printer; plates. 8vo. London, 1877.
[_A new edition, issued in connection with the
Caxton Celebration, 1877._]
The Boke of Saint Albans, by Dame Juliana
Berners; a _fac-simile_; with an
introduction by William Blades. 4to. 1881.
The Enemies of Books; Illustrated; Trübner & Co.,
London. 8vo. 1881.
2nd Edition. 8vo. 1881.
3rd Edition. 8vo. 1882.
The Biography and Typography of William Caxton,
England’s first Printer; plates. 2nd Edition. 8vo. 1882.
Les livres et leurs Enemis. 8vo. Paris (Claudin) 1883.
Numismata Typographica; or the Medallic History
of Printing; being an account of the Medals,
Jettons and Tokens struck in commemoration of
Printers and the Art of Printing. Illustrated. 4to. 1883.
An Account of the German Morality Play, entitled
“Depositio Cornuti Typographici”; as performed in
the 17th and 18th centuries. Illustrated. 4to. 1885.
[_With a metrical translation of the text of
the play._]
The Enemies of Books. Revised and enlarged by the
Author. (The Book-Lover’s Library.) Elliot Stock. 8vo. 1887.
2nd Edition. 1888.
Bibliographical Miscellanies, No. 1--Signatures. 8vo. 1890.
Bibliographical Miscellanies, No. 2--The Chained
Library at Wimborne Minster. 8vo. 1890.
Bibliographical Miscellanies, Nos. 3, 4, 5--Books
in Chains. 8vo. 1890.
The Pentateuch of Printing. Illustrated. Elliot
Stock, London. 4to. 1891.
List of Fugitive Pieces and Contributions to Periodicals.
Some Account of the Typography at St. Albans in the 15th century. 1860.
[_Privately Printed._]
[“_This went no further than half-a-dozen proofs._--W.B.”]
Numismata Typographica. _Numismatic Chronicle_, July, 1867.
The Early Types of the Royal Printing Office, Paris, and the Chancellor
of the University of Cambridge. _Bookworm_ (_Berjeau_) January, 1869.
The First Printing Press in England. _Bookworm_ (_Berjeau_), October,
1869.
[_Calls attention to the technical errors and anachronisms of the
pictorial representations of Caxton’s first printing-office._]
The Early Schools of Typography. _Bookworm_ (_Berjeau_) March, 1870.
[_Suggests the probability of an independent discovery of printing,
both in Holland and Germany._]
Specimens des Caractères Typographiques. _Printers’ Register_, April,
1870.
[_A Review._]
The Enschedé Type Foundry at Haarlem. _Bookworm_ (_Berjeau_) April,
1870.
Palæotypography--a series of articles in _Notes and Queries_. 1870.
[_A plea for a scientific study of early printed books._]
Review of Munsell’s Chronology of Paper and Paper Making. _Printers’
Register_, March and April, 1871.
Common Typographical Errors, with especial reference to the Text of
Shakespere. _Athenæum_, January 27th, 1872.
[_Dealing with corruptions in the text attributable to errors in
composition._]
List of Medals connected with Printers and the Art of Printing,
exhibited at the opening of the New Library and Museum, Guildhall,
London. 1872.
[_Privately Printed._]
Timperley and his Works. _Printers’ Register_, December, 1873.
A Strike in 1798. _Printers’ Register_, January, 1874.
A notice of Caslon I. _Caslon Circular_, January, 1875.
Early Type Specimen Books. _Caslon Circular_, April, 1875.
Early Type Specimen Books. A series of articles. _Printers’ Register_,
June, 1875.
[_Subsequently reprinted in a volume._]
The Literary Almanack; included in Southward’s _Dictionary of
Typography_. 8vo. 1875.
[_Gives notes of the principal dates and events connected with Printing
and Publishing._]
Bibliotheca Typographica. _Printers’ Register_, 1875-6.
[_A list of publications in the English language, treating of Printers
and Printing, with annotations. The completion of this Bibliography was
suspended, and the material placed by Mr. Blades at the disposal of the
compiler of the “Bibliography of Printing.”_]
Typographical _Jeux de Mots_. _Printers’ Register_, October, 1876.
William Caxton and the Development of the Art of Printing in England
and Scotland.
_Caxton Celebration Catalogue_, 1877.
List of Medals connected with Printers and the Art of Printing. _Caxton
Celebration Catalogue_, 1877.
[_With historical and biographical notes._]
Portraits and Autographs of Printers and Publishers. _Caxton
Celebration Catalogue_, 1877.
[_With historical and biographical notes._]
A Guide to the objects of chief interest in the loan collection of the
Caxton Exhibition. 1877.
Numismata Typographica. Begun _Printers’ Register_, July, 1878.
[_Reprinted as a volume in 1883._]
An Enterprising French Printing Firm. _Printers’ Register_, Nov. and
Dec., 1878.
The Plantin Museum. _Macmillan’s_, September, 1878.
[_This was also translated into French._]
William Gye, Printer, of Bath. _Printers’ Register_, January, 1879.
Books and their Enemies. Begun _Printers’ Register_, June, 1879.
[_Subsequently expanded into “The Enemies of Books,” 1881._]
Mr. Hoe’s Typographical Library. _Printers’ Register_, June, 1879.
Franklin-ana. _Caslon Circular_, April, 1879.
Development of Books and their Size-Notations. _Library Notes_,
January, 1880.
A Day in Paris. _Caslon Circular_, July, 1880.
Almshouses or Pensions? _Printers’ Register_, October, 1880.
A Lad of Mettle. _Caslon Circular_, April, 1881.
The First Printing Press at Oxford. _Antiquary_, July, 1881.
[_With an account of the ‘Exposicio’ of “1468,” and a list of early
Oxford types._]
Who was Bercula? _Bibliographer_, December, 1881.
On Caxton’s “Four Sons of Amyon.” _Athenæum_, April 14th, 1882.
Vulgaria Whittintoni, 1520. _Bibliographer_, 1882.
Messrs. Blades’ New Printing Works. _Printers’ Register_, April, 1882.
Literary Ghosts. _Caslon Circular_, January, 1883.
How to Correct Printers’ Proofs. 8pp. 1883.
[_Privately Printed._]
The Invention of the Steam Press. A series of Articles in the
_Printers’ Register_, October, 1883, to June, 1884.
[_The object of these Articles was to defend the claims of Nicholson to
the honour of the invention, against those put forward by Herr Goebel
on behalf of the German, Kœnig. Herr Goebel’s reply was published in
the same periodical in March to June, 1885; Mr. Blades’ rejoinder in
July, 1885, and Herr Goebel’s last word in August, 1885._]
Memoir of Henry Bradshaw. A review. _Printers’ Register_, March, 1886.
The Auchinlech Press. _Caslon Circular_, April, 1886.
Old English Letter Foundries. _Leeds Mercury_, March 9th, 1887.
[_A review of Mr. T. B. Reed’s book--Article reprinted in Caslon
Circular._]
On the Present Aspect of the Question, Who was the Inventor of
Printing? 1887.
[_Privately Printed._]
[_This was a paper read before the Library Association at their
Birmingham Congress, in September, 1887._]
Type Composing and Matrix Machines. _Printers’ Register_, September,
1887.
The Hagermann Matrix Stamping Machine. _Printers’ Register_, January,
1888.
The Library of the French Protestant Church. _Antiquary_, July, 1888.
‘Form,’ or ‘Forme’? _Printers’ Register_, August, 1888.
Old Taverns in Candlewick Ward. _City Press_, October, 1888.
De Ortu Typographiæ. _Bookworm_ (_E. Stock_) 1888.
[_Notes on the Invention of Printing controversy._]
A New French Grammar. _Printers’ Register_, December, 1888.
[_Article unsigned._]
An Account of Proposals made nearly Two Centuries ago to found Public
Libraries. _Library_, 1889.
On Trade Unionism. _Caslon Circular_, January, 1889.
Bibliography. _Printers’ Register_, February, 1889.
Watermarks. _Athenæum_, March 16th, March 30th, May 18th, 1889.
A New Zealand Caxton. _Printers’ Register_, July, 1889.
MM. Madden and Alkan. _Printers’ Register_, August, 1889.
[_Article unsigned._]
On Signatures in Old Books. _Library_, 1889.
On Paper and Paper-marks. _Library_, 1889.
On Chained Libraries. _Library Association_, October, 1889.
Two “Old Style” Type Founders. _Caslon Circular_, July, 1890.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
PROLOGUE.
The following Chapters, being intended as a popular summary of a very
large and interesting subject, only profess to deal with the most
important aspects of that subject, both on its historical and practical
side.
Of late years the question, Who invented Printing? has assumed more
than ever a prominent place in bibliographical criticism, and many
books, large and small, have been published by opposing authors;
notably by Dr. Van der Linde, in support of the claims of Gutenberg, of
Mayence, and by Mr. Hessels on the side of Laurence Coster, of Haarlem.
The unrestrained abuse and the attribution of base motives in which
both these writers indulge demands the strongest protest from all who
wish to see the evidence treated with calmness and without prejudice.
The question is not at all whether Dr. Van der Linde can or cannot read
Dutch fifteenth century MSS., or whether Mr. Hessels, as a Costerian,
is incapacitated from writing a true word: these mutual recriminations
only raise a feeling of repulsion to the whole subject. We really
want a fair and impartial criticism, based on acknowledged facts and
historical evidence.
As to the various forged documents, we now know them, so let us treat
them as incumbrances and throw them on one side. This has been the
object aimed at by
THE AUTHOR.
_July, 1888._
[Illustration]
_THE PLAN._
[Illustration]
{ 1. ENGRAVED STAMPS.
{ 2. PARCHMENT AND PAPER.
_Creation_ { 3. PLAYING-CARDS.
{ 4. ENGRAVED BLOCK-BOOKS.
{ 5. CAST TYPES.
{ 1. EUROPE.
{ 2. ASIA.
_Propagation_ { 3. AFRICA.
{ 4. AMERICA.
{ 5. AUSTRALIA.
{ 1. TYPEFOUNDER.
{ 2. COMPOSITOR.
_Law_ { 3. PRESSMAN.
{ 4. PAPER.
{ 5. INK.
{ 1. BEFORE A.D. 1500.
{ 2. A.D. 1501 TO 1600.
_Famous Printers_ { 3. A.D. 1601 TO 1700.
{ 4. A.D. 1701 TO 1800.
{ 5. A.D. 1801 TO A.D. 1890.
{ 1. MACHINE-MADE TYPES.
{ 2. PRINTING MACHINES.
_Second Birth_ { 3. COMPOSITION ROLLERS.
{ 4. STEREOTYPE.
{ 5. COMPOSING MACHINES.
[Illustration]
GENESIS.
“_Let Lyght be._”
[Illustration]
GENESIS.
“In the beginning!” What a whirlpool of disputations and theories have
these three words created! Our grandfathers attributed the creation
of the world with amusing accuracy to the year B.C. 4004; and just as
geology and astronomy have pushed back this old-fashioned “beginning”
to indefinite millions of years, during which Evolution, with slow but
certain progress, was working out this world’s destiny in obedience
to the fiat of the Almighty, so modern research and criticism have
demonstrated that the same law of evolution applies to mental as well
as physical phenomena, and that in both cases what _is_ follows by
fixed law on what _was_. Looked at in this light, the Art of Printing,
as indeed all arts, never had a definite beginning, but was the
necessary development of a previous process, as sure to come in the due
course of events as harvest is to follow seed-time.
No acorn, no oak; and the idea that Printing, Minerva-like, started up,
perfect from its birth, in the form of the Mazarin Bible or the Mayence
Psalter, will not bear the test of criticism, although long current
in typographical histories. The steam engine, the gasometer, the
railway, the telegraph, the telephone, and all the great discoveries
of modern science, had to pass through an imperfect infancy and gradual
development; why, then, imagine that Invention in the one instance of
typography reached perfection by a sudden leap?
Typography, or the art of combining separate letters and taking from
them an impression, was a growth of the fifteenth century. At that time
progress of any kind was much more slow and difficult than now; and we
hardly realise the immense advantage all modern inventors have derived
from the Printing-press. Every step forward in art or science is now
chronicled, and we can watch the infancy and growth of each great
discovery through all its stages. But just imagine the Printing-press
to be non-existent, and not only would invention be a slow and tedious
process, through the absence of that previous knowledge which leads
up to it, but of those tardy advances which were made posterity would
learn but little and profit less.
In this respect the art which is “omnium artium servatrix” has been at
a great disadvantage. Slowly born, just as the nations were emerging
from centuries of torpor, its promoters realised to a very limited
extent its future greatness, and omitted to register, with any attempt
at accuracy, either the date of its birth or even its parentage. The
chroniclers of those days, mostly ecclesiastics, who noted carefully
the occurrence of an unusually high flood or the death of some obscure
abbot, had the barest recognition for the young Hercules whose infancy
gave no intimation of his future prowess, and whose only mission seemed
to be the manufacture of cheap school books or poor imitations of the
picturesque old manuscripts.
But here the question arises, Was Printing, strictly speaking, a
development of the fifteenth century? The word Printing in its broad
sense means “making an impression”; and if this be accepted as a
definition, we can trace its footsteps to a period long before man
stood upon this earth. All over the world we find, in the various
strata of the earth’s crust, Nature herself printing on the pliant
rocks representations of animals and trees; a life history entombed
ages before language was born or man possessed the power of observation.
Language itself was of necessity a slow development, and equally slow
was the next step; for speech existed long before man discovered that
the human voice, which informed the brain through the ear, could be
represented by figures or a combination of signs which produced the
same result through the eye.
[Illustration: ASSYRIAN CLAY TABLET, STAMPED.]
This wonderful development--the art of writing--was progress sufficient
for many centuries, during which all kinds of materials were used to
perpetuate the deeds and ideas of various nations. Leaves of trees
and pieces of wood were written upon; clays, slabs and cylinders were
stamped; seals, even signatures, by which personal authority was
transferred, were engraved on wood or metal; vases preserved the name
of the artist who formed them, and even the common clay lamps of the
Greeks and Romans showed the names of their makers, printed with a
stamp in bold relief upon the under surface.
[Illustration: LETTERS STAMPED ON GREEK LAMP.]
[Illustration: LETTERS STAMPED ON ROMAN LAMP.]
The _style_, which marked the waxen tablets, the _pen_ or _brush_, with
which words were formed on the papyrus sheet, and the pointed _reed_ or
quill which was used on parchment or paper were simply improvements,
all leading on to still further developments.
As ages rolled on and learning increased, book-writing and book-binding
became important trades, and were subdivided into special branches,
such as the calligraphers, who wrote luxuriously for the libraries of
the rich, and the scriveners, who supplied the wants of poor scholars
and priests.
The Chinese were probably the nation who first used vegetable fibre
to make sheets of paper. In Europe, our oldest MSS. are upon prepared
skins; and paper, the manufacture of which was not common until the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was seldom used, although specimens
derived from the Arabs are found as early as the sixth century.
[Illustration: FIFTEENTH CENTURY PLAYING CARD.
Engraved on Wood. (From _Singer_.)]
Printing from engraved blocks of wood or soft metal was practised in
the fourteenth century, when rude figures of the Virgin and other
saints, often coarsely coloured by hand, made their appearance. (_See
Frontispiece._) About the same time ornamental patterns were printed on
stuffs from engraved blocks. Cardboard was developed from paper, and
playing-cards, printed from blocks, were common in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. All these methods of Printing were so many decided
advances towards Typography; but two new processes were still necessary
to success, viz.: a thicker ink than previously used, and some kind of
press with which to make a regular and even impression.
The next step was the making of that interesting class of books called
“Block-books.” These consisted for the most part of a series of rude
woodcuts the full size of the page, representing various parts of
Scripture History, Heaven, Hell, Death, and the Judgment. The earliest
known specimens of these works are printed in a brown ink similar to
distemper drawings. Lampblack was already well known to the ancients
as a basis for writing ink, and, mixed with gum water, formed that
deep glossy hue so much admired in many old MSS.; but how to thicken
the ink so as to make it suitable for printing from a raised surface
was a discovery of great importance, made long before typography was
invented. This object was attained by prolonged boiling of oil and then
grinding it with carbon or lampblack.
After experience in printing small wood blocks, the production
of larger ones, such as are seen in the Block-books was an easy
progression. Most of these were representations of Bible History, and
a considerable variety of opinion is still held concerning their use.
They were called “Biblia Pauperum,” and have therefore been supposed
to be books for _poor people_. This idea is evidently erroneous if we
think for a moment how uncommon in those days was the ability to read,
particularly among the great mass of the people. It is more probable
that these pictorial sermons were used by the _poor friars_, many
of whom could scarcely read, and in preaching trusted to memory and
imagination. To such, the numerous suggestions of these pictures would
be invaluable.
[Illustration: FROM THE BIBLIA PAUPERUM. BLOCK-BOOK. 15TH CENTURY.]
In the later Block-books, engraved sentences and even half-pages of
explanation are seen. The dislike of wood engravers to cut letters is
the same now as it was four centuries and a-half ago, the mechanical
nature of such work being distasteful to any one with artistic feeling.
The idea, therefore, of using a second time sentences, already engraved
and printed, simply by cutting them away from the old block, was very
natural and would easily lead to the attempt to utilise the letters
separately. Thus we float along the stream of gradual development,
until we reach movable types, properly termed Typography. This was
never an invention pure and simple which suddenly enlightened the
mind of Gutenberg (as stated by Van der Linde, and echoed by Theo. De
Vinne), but an end successfully accomplished, after numerous efforts
and gradual advances.*
* The reader who has any real interest in these “firstlings” of
the Printing-press should carefully examine the glass cases in
the Grenville Library at the British Museum, where specimens of
Block Printing, from the earliest to the latest, are displayed
in chronological order.
The full meaning of the discovery of typography will be better
understood if we call to mind the intellectual state of Europe in the
middle of the fifteenth century.
[Illustration: SCRIPTORIUM MONK AT WORK. (From _Lacroix_.)]
[Illustration: BOOKBINDER.--16TH CENTURY.]
With the eclipse of literature during the Middle Ages, the Church
alone, and that in a sluggish manner, kept up the manufacture of
manuscript books, principally for ecclesiastical use. But when,
in the fourteenth century, the brain of Europe began to show
unwonted activity--when the Lollard doctrines set men thinking and
doubting--when in the fifteenth century all Europe became excited over
the discovery of new worlds--when military tactics were revolutionised
through the invention of gunpowder--when education became general, and
colleges and schools were multiplied--then the minds of men everywhere
began to long for books, more books; for Cicero and Boethius, for
Bibles, Psalters and Legends, for Chronicles, Tales of Travel and
Romances, for Donatuses, School books and Absies--at such a time the
need was urgent, the demand imperative, and the Printing-press came.
The change, however, was by no means sudden. The first effect of the
increased demand was to create a great division of labour in the
manufacture of Manuscripts, so that whereas two or three Scribes had,
in former times, been sufficient to complete a Manuscript, as many
as fifteen different trades were now employed in Paris, Bruges and
other centres to produce a single book. Long before the invention
of typography, the book-makers of Holland had their Guilds, which
included a variety of the trades concerned in the production, viz.:
parchment-makers, boss-makers, binders, etc. Amongst them we now and
then find enumerated “prenters,” that is, the printers from engraved
blocks, who had already discovered the use of the press and a thick
ink. The most numerous craft, however, was that of the Scribes, who
wrote only the running text; and in this portion of the work it was,
where speed and accuracy were most wanted, that the Printing-press was
destined to make its earliest triumphs.
[Illustration: COVER OF A BOOK. 15TH CENTURY.]
The foundation of many colleges and schools in the fifteenth century
led to an extensive demand for school books and grammars, the most
popular of which were the “Donatus,” a grammar so called from the name
of its author, and “Catho,” a kind of delectus in Latin. These were
sold at a cheap price, and, to lessen the cost of their production,
were often engraved on blocks of wood, from which the pages were
printed. These and the Block-books already described were contemporary,
and the immediate forerunners of separate types.
Think of the numerous editions of the Eton and Valpy Latin Grammar,
which, two generations ago, were used throughout the kingdom, and you
may well wonder how it is that there is extreme difficulty in getting a
single copy now. They have nearly all perished. It is the same with the
school books of all ages; and we can, therefore, hardly wonder that the
fifteenth century school books, manuscript, or printed from engraved
blocks, are now amongst the most scarce of bibliographical rarities.
[Illustration: FRAGMENT OF A XYLOGRAPHIC DONATUS.
(From _Holtrop_.)]
The process of cutting letters and sentences on wood is much more
trying work than engraving figures; the Block-books generally show some
approach to artistic feeling in the pose and drapery of the figures,
but the engraver was very careless over the letters. Doubtless the
tedium of the operation would suggest the idea of separating the
letters, so as to use them again in a different combination for other
sentences. We have indeed direct evidence of such attempts having
been made; for (as noticed by Mr. Bradshaw in his “Memoranda No. 3,”
pp. 5 and 6) a Block-book edition of the “Biblia Pauperum,” printed
at Zwolle, was cut up, and the pieces used afterwards in a different
combination. The same operation took place with the blocks of the
“Speculum nostræ Salvationis,” which were cut up, and the pieces
used again for an edition printed at Utrecht in 1481. This could not
be successfully accomplished with separate letters, on account of
their small size, but the attempt would be most natural. There is no
known instance of separate wooden types having been used by any early
printers, but in certain editions of the “Speculum” we distinctly find
metal movable types, with the woodcuts printed in one coloured ink, and
the text in another. The types bear plain evidence that they were cast,
but in an extremely rude way, showing a much more imperfect method of
casting than appears in the German Indulgence of 1454 (which is the
earliest known date of any printed piece), or the first books of the
Mayence printers. There are also numerous fragments of the Donatus, of
the Doctrinale, and of Catho, in various editions, and in cast types.
The language of some, as well as the shape of the letters in all, show
that these were, without doubt, produced in the Low Countries, although
they are all, as was natural for such unimportant books, without any
printer’s name and without the year of production, thus rendering it
difficult to assign to them an unimpeachable date.
[Illustration: “IMAGE OF PITY.” (WOOD BLOCK AND TYPE.)]
After much study I cannot help thinking that Holland was not only the
birthplace of these Donatuses, etc., but that they gave the starting
idea to the Mayence school of printers. The notice of the invention
of Printing written at Cologne from the mouth of the earliest printer
in that city, one who had learnt his art from the first printers at
Mayence, seems decisive. The Chronicler, who wrote in 1499, states that
Ulric Zell told him as follows:--
(1) “_Item_: This most revered Art was discovered first of all
at Mentz in Germany, and it is a great honour to the German
nation that men so ingenious were there found. This was in the
year of our Lord 1440. From that time until the year 1450 the
Art and the things pertaining to it were greatly improved, and
in this year men began to print, and the first book so printed
was the Bible in Latin, the character of which was larger than
that now in use for mass-books.
(2) “_Item_: Although this Art was discovered at Mentz in the
manner now commonly used, yet its first prefiguration was found
in Holland, in the Donatuses which had been already printed
there. From these Donatuses was derived the origin of this Art,
which is now more masterly and clever than before, and far more
ingenious.... The first inventor of Printing was a citizen of
Mentz, born in Strasbourg, and called John Gutenberg.
(3) “_Item_: From Mentz the Art was first taken to Cologne,
thence to Strasbourg, and thence to Venice. This beginning and
progress of the Art was told me by that worthy man, Master
Ulric Zell, of Hainault, Printer, of Cologne, in this present
year, 1499, by whom indeed the Art was first brought into that
city.”
Similar evidence is given by Mariangelus Accursius, an Italian writer
of the fifteenth century, who, while attributing the invention of types
as then used to Fust and Schœffer at Mayence, says that the idea was
certainly taken originally from the Donatuses printed in Holland.
Now these “Items” are quite distinct in idea. The first tells us that
Printing was invented at Mayence, and goes on to particularise what
the writer means by Printing, viz.: a Latin Bible in large type. The
second qualifies the first by saying that “_this_ Art,” which, of
course, means the same art as was used for the Bible, was prefigured by
Donatuses printed in Holland, but that John Gutenberg’s invention was
more masterly and skilful than the Dutch method. The third tells us
how the Art spread, and the writer’s authority for his statements. We
are here face to face with a plain statement which, to my mind, settles
the point. The Dutch had already types cast in that rough and ready
manner familiar to all of us who have studied the wonderful fac-simile
plates in Holtrop’s “Monuments Typographiques,” or the “Principia
Typographica” of Sotheby. Gutenberg, according to this account,
commenced his study of typography in 1440, but it was 1450 before he
had so far improved in his method of casting letters that he could
venture to _begin_ upon his great Bible.
How these ten years were spent, and how near to 1450 it was before the
sight of Dutch Donatuses gave the final impulse to his genius, we shall
probably never know.
Dr. Van der Linde and other writers who agree with him maintain that
the Cologne Chronicler must have referred to xylographic, _i.e._,
block-book, Donatuses, and that the sight of such works developed in
the mind of Gutenberg the idea of movable types. Unfortunately for
this argument there is not a single Dutch block-book Donatus known,
while there are nineteen different editions of early type-printed Dutch
Donatuses already catalogued--a number which is being increased every
year. Why, too, if Gutenberg derived his inspiration from the sight of
a Donatus cut in wood, did he ignore those of his own country, which
were before his eyes, in order to gain his impulse from non-existent
Dutch ones?
It is an important bibliographical fact that forty-seven different
books, or fragments of books, exist, printed with eight different
founts of type, all Dutch in origin, all without any name, date, or
place, nearly all discovered in the bindings of fifteenth century
manuscript or printed books, thirty-three of them on vellum, and
four of them printed on one side only. What can we do with this
interesting regiment of incunabula? To make them later than, or
even contemporaneous with, the earliest _dated_ Dutch books seems
impossible: we might as well attribute the language of the Canterbury
Tales to the reign of good Queen Bess; but place them about 1450 and
onwards, and they take rank naturally.
We will here notice one of the chief causes of the many and
contradictory accounts of the origin of printing. It is the natural
tendency of all writers to Hero-worship. The value of a central
figure around which may be grouped the features of a story is fully
appreciated by all authors: it strengthens the weak and adds vigour to
the strong. This bias is recognised in the world’s earliest records.
Honour and glory, often semi-divine, are attributed to the inventor.
For the discovery of letters we must have a Cadmus; Apollo first made
harmony; Moses, according to Vergil, originated trumpets; Vulcan,
iron weapons; Noah, ships--and so on. And so, Dutchmen who claimed
the invention of printing for Holland found the embodiment of it in
Coster; Germans, for a similar reason, revere Gutenberg; and Italians,
their countryman Castaldi. The Hero obtained, definite records and
historical particulars group themselves around him, and thus with a few
personal details an impression of truthfulness is given to the story
which carries conviction to the reader’s mind, while at the same time
artistic requirements are satisfied.
The duty of the historian and critic is to separate judiciously the
kernel of truth from the husk, by which in the course of time it is
sure to be surrounded--to preserve carefully the one and reject the
other.
Although I think we must look to Holland for the earliest specimens of
typography, it does not follow that we must believe all the story as
given by Junius. There is no reason to doubt he gave the account of
Coster as he received and believed it; and his was not an age in which
criticism was expected, or was able to separate husk from kernel.
[Illustration: STATUE OF COSTER. (From _Zeiz_.)]
If we suppose the Cologne Chronicler of 1499 to have misunderstood his
informant as to the Dutch “prefiguration”; or if the Laurens Janszoon
Coster of Junius and the Haarlem Archives was perfectly innocent of
any typographical proclivities, it still leaves the Costeriana to be
accounted for; and it is these silent witnesses, dug out from the
earliest strata of typographical deposits, which by their evidence
should determine the vexed question.
It is, however, necessary to know the story which was current when
Junius wrote, and we therefore give it as the accepted truth in his
time:--
“There lived, about 1440, at Haarlem, in the market-place
opposite the Town Hall, in a respectable house, still in
existence, a man named Laurens Janszoon Coster, _i.e._,
Laurence, son of John Coster. The family name was derived from
the hereditary office of Sacristan or Coster of the Church--a
post both honourable and lucrative. The town archives give
evidence of this, his name appearing therein many times, and
in the Town Hall are preserved his seal and signature to
various documents. To this man belongs the honour of inventing
Printing--an honour of which he was unjustly robbed, and which
afterwards was ascribed to another. The said Laurence Coster,
one day after dinner, took a walk in the wood near Haarlem.
While there, to amuse himself, he began to cut letters out
of some beech-bark. The idea struck him to ink some of these
letters and use them as stamps. This he did to amuse his
grand-children, cutting them in reverse. He thus formed two
or three sentences on paper. The idea germinated, and soon,
with the assistance of his son-in-law, and by using a thick
ink, he began to print whole pages, and to add lines of print
to the Block-books, the text of which was the most difficult
part to engrave. Junius had such a book, called ‘Spieghel
onzer Behoudenisse.’ It should have been said that Coster was
descended from the noble house of Brederode, and that his
son-in-law was also of noble descent. Coster’s first efforts
were of course very rude, and to hide the impressions of the
letters on the back, they pasted the leaves, which had one
side not printed, together. His letters at first were made of
lead, which he afterwards changed for tin. Upon his death these
letters were melted down and made into wine-pots, which at the
time when Junius wrote were still preserved in the house of
Gerrit Thomaszoon, the grandson of Coster. Public curiosity
was greatly excited by Coster’s discovery, and he gained much
profit from his new process. His trade, indeed, so increased
that he was obliged to employ several workmen, one of whom was
named John. Some say this was John Faust, afterwards a partner
with Gutenberg, and others say he was Gutenberg’s brother.
This man when he had learnt the Art in all its branches, took
the opportunity one Christmas eve, when all good people are
accustomed to attend Church, to break into the rooms used for
printing, and to pack up and steal all the tools and appliances
which his master, with so much care and ingenuity, had made.
He went off by Amsterdam and Cologne to Mayence, where he at
once opened a workshop and reaped rich fruit from this theft,
producing several printed books. The accuracy of this story was
attested by a respectable bookbinder, of great age but clear
memory, named Cornelis, who had been a fellow servant with the
culprit in the house of Coster, and indeed had occupied the
same bed for several months, and who could never talk of such
baseness without shedding tears and cursing the thief.”
[Illustration: COSTER COMMEMORATION MEDAL, 1856. (_From a Medal in the
Author’s Collection._)]
While giving Junius all credit for recounting this story as he found
it handed down by tradition, we must be careful not to take it too
literally. Stories of this kind although founded on fact, always grow
by repetition. The central truths illuminated by the Cologne Chronicle
seem to be: (1.) The discovery of movable letters was a growth from
small beginnings. (2.) The country was Holland and the place probably
Haarlem. (3.) Gutenberg derived his ideas of printing from Holland.
Let us now expound the claims of Gutenberg as gathered from undoubted
evidence and facts.
John Gutenberg is a real man in history. He was born at Mentz in 1399,
and some members of his family are known. Several documents testify
to his existence, but the first which by possibility connects him
with printing is an action at law brought against him by a man named
Dritzehen in 1439 to recover a loan of money. The original text of this
document, unfortunately, cannot be verified, having been destroyed at
the siege of Strasbourg.
Numerous witnesses gave evidence which showed Gutenberg as practising
several arts by which he made money, one of which was a great secret
carried on by him in a ruined convent near Strasbourg. Here he was
surprised at his work by his creditors, to whom at last he divulged
his secret, making partners of them. Some curious particulars of tools
and four pieces of wood to form a press are given in the depositions,
and apparently refer to experiments connected with printing. The want
of capital to carry on his experiments is also very evident. Andrew
Dritzehen had helped him for some time, but died before success crowned
their efforts. Gutenberg then tried to obtain possession of all the
materials which Andrew Dritzehen had left, but his partners stepped in
and took them, although they were not sufficiently instructed to make
any use of them. This action went against Gutenberg, who, now much
impoverished, sold the last remaining portion of his paternal estate.
Again and again he had to borrow money, and in 1450 entered into a
five-years’ partnership with John Fust, each to have half the profits
of the business.
As time rolled on and nothing satisfactory resulted, Fust took
advantage of his legal powers, and by a lawsuit to recover his loan
compelled Gutenberg, in November, 1455, to give up all the printing
plant, which he conveyed away, and with the assistance of Peter
Schœffer, who married Fust’s daughter, started a printing-office on his
own account. Gutenberg, deprived of all his material and without money,
but not disheartened, now found a new friend in Conrad Homery, Syndic
of Mentz, with whose help new types and presses were made. Misfortune
and debt still pursued him, and had not the materials been the property
of Homery, he would have been again deprived of them. In 1460 the book
known as the “Catholicon” was printed, and several other small books.
The city of Mentz was sacked in 1462 and its trade entirely destroyed.
The next we hear of Gutenberg is his appointment in 1465 to be one of
the gentlemen of the Court to Adolphus II, in whose service he remained
till his death, about 1468. Gutenberg’s types were removed to Eltville,
where his relatives, Henry and Nicholas Bechtermunze, printed with them
in 1467.
The weak part of Gutenberg’s case is that only in the year 1462 do we
first meet with any mention of him as a printer, and that mention not
in Germany but in Paris. This interesting reference was discovered
by the Librarian of the Basle City Library, who examining a copy
of “Gasparini Pergamensis Orthographia” preserved in the Heynlin
collection found a unique Prologue from the pen of Heynlin the donor.
The book, as is well known, was printed at the Sorbonne Press, Paris,
in 1470, and the portion of the Prologue which is of most interest to
us reads thus:--
“... I imagine that the friends of literature will receive
great benefit from the Art invented by the new sort of
Printers, who in these our days have (like the warriors from
the Trojan Horse) issued from the womb of Germany and scattered
themselves abroad.
“In this country (France) the story is, that a certain John
Gutenberg, not far from Mayence, was the first inventor of the
printing art, by means of which books are made, not with a
reed as of old, nor with a pen, as in our days, but with metal
letters, and that rapidly, evenly, and elegantly.”
Then after noticing the divine honours bestowed upon Bacchus and Ceres
for endowing mankind with the kindly fruits of the earth, he adds:--
“Gutenberg has made a discovery still more fruitful and more
divine for he has discovered a way by which letters may be
engraved and by their means all that can be thought and spoken
is at once reproduced and so passed on to posterity.”
The remainder, though in praise of the new art, adds nothing to this
testimony.
Here then we may leave the vexed problem of the Genesis of Printing.
It requires but a slight examination of the early Donatuses, whether
Dutch or German, to be convinced that whatever the means adopted to
make the types, they were quite dissimilar to those adopted at a later
date. We shall probably never know the slow degrees by which the punch,
matrix and type-mould were brought to perfection. The old types,
apparently 15th century, described later in our chapter on “Leviticus,”
prove that in a most essential particular, viz., the regular height
of each letter, there was great inferiority. But, although the crude
method of casting in the 15th century was undoubtedly perfected
by later generations, one thing is certain that the whole dispute
concerning the invention of Typography as a development of, though
distinct from, Printing, would be settled by a reply to the simple
question: Where and by whom were the first movable types cast?
This question has become very involved, and has evoked so much bad
feeling, been darkened by so many forgeries on all sides, and has
roused such fierce national jealousy, that the necessary labour of
sifting the true from the untrue is a thankless and wearisome task.
[Illustration]
EXODUS.
“_Their sound is gone out into all lands._”
[Illustration]
EXODUS.
In these days of rapid inter-communication every good invention becomes
public property in a very short time. Not so in the fifteenth century.
Typography did not spread rapidly for many years after its birth.
The workmen were probably bound to secrecy, and the Press itself had
to create work for itself by educating a public up to the reading
point. Indeed, so restricted was the sale of books at first, that in a
commercial sense the profits were very poor.
In October, 1462, one printing-house at Mayence was at work, under
Fust and Schœffer, who are supposed to have had many workmen in their
service. It is not known for certain that Gutenberg, who a little later
was printing at Eltville, had at that time a press in the same city:
probably he had. Pfister at the same time was printing in Bamberg, and
Mentelin and Eggestein at Strasbourg. Besides these we know no other
presses then existing, and not much had yet been issued from these four
put together. Bernard, indeed, says that several neighbouring towns
had established printing-presses, although of this there is really no
proof. But the captivity of the young giant was soon to end, for, in
the month and year just stated, the famous city of Mayence, which had
become the battlefield for two opposing archbishops, was captured by
Adolphus of Nassau and given up to pillage. From a nourishing city it
became a half-burnt, forsaken ruin, and all who could, deserted it.
Schaab gives a fearful account of the devastation and fire which befel
this once populous city. Fust and Schœffer’s printing-office was burnt
down, masters and workmen were driven away. This Exodus of practical
Printers formed an epoch in the history of the Art. Presses were soon
established by the fugitives in Cologne, Rome, Augsburg, Nuremberg,
and other places. In Cologne, especially, typography took deep root
and flourished. Here Ulric Zell, who had learnt the art under Peter
Schœffer, established a press, which proved very prolific. It was one
of Zell’s workmen who, in 1499, penned the remarkable statement about
Germany having taken the first idea of printing from the Donatuses of
Holland. Zell’s first dated book bears the year 1466; but as nearly
all his books were issued without any date, it is more than probable
he began two or three years earlier. His types are bold and easily
recognised; they are of three sizes, and all of the same style. A few
years later several other printers were at work in the same city,
which, by the end of the century, boasted of a considerable number of
presses, that of Arnold Therhoernen being the best known.
In 1469 printing found its way to Nuremberg, where Henri Keffer,
one of the original Mentz printers, joined in partnership with Jean
Sensenschmidt, and published many books. Friedrich Creussner was
another Nuremberg printer of whose works many have survived; but the
most celebrated was Anton Koburger, one of the greatest and most
artistic printers of the fifteenth century, who kept twenty-four
presses going in this city, besides branch establishments at Basle
and Lyons. In this town, too, was produced, in 1517, a piece of work,
the technical peculiarities of which it has puzzled even printers and
typefounders to understand. This was the celebrated “Theurdanck,” a
beautifully illustrated book printed for the Emperor Maximilian, by
Melchior Pfinzig, in which the flourishes and ornamentation rise or
fall from one line to another in a manner apparently irreconcilable
with types which must be cast in a mould. The typographical curiosities
of this book are indeed most interesting, and afford evidence of
skill in typefounding, which could only have been developed where
Imperial funds were used for the education of both punch-cutters and
typefounders. From that time until lately, no such work has issued
from any printing-office. In Germany, however, and in America, the
modern typefounders have in the last few years shown capabilities
of combination in well devised types, which prove that were the
“Theurdanck” to be placed in their hands today for reproduction, they
could not only equal, but even excel that wonderful effort of the
sixteenth century.
Berthold Rot, of Hanau, one of Gutenberg’s workmen, carried the art to
Basle, and set up his press before 1468; and six years later there were
three printing-houses at work in that city.
A press was established in Augsburg, about 1469, by Gunther Zainer, who
came from Strasbourg, and had the credit of being among the first to
introduce the Roman character into Germany.
The City of Spire received printing in 1471, and speedily became
famous, sending out in her turn several pioneer printers.
* * * * *
In ITALY the first press was erected in the monastery of Subiaco, a
few miles from Rome, by two workmen, Sweynheym and Pannartz, whose
earliest work bears the date 1465. In 1467 the same printers moved to
Rome, where they soon became famous for their editions of the classics,
which were published with remarkable speed one after another. Here, of
course, the types used were Roman; that shape being as natural to Italy
as the Gothic types to other countries. Had the sale of their books
been at all commensurate with the rapidity of their production, all
would have been well, but at the end of five years the two printers
found themselves burdened with heavy stocks of unsold books, and with
empty purses, while several rival printers had erected presses in the
same city. They appealed to the Pope for assistance, but with what
success is unknown. Neither of them battled much longer with the ills
of this life, Death claiming both printers in 1477, just as our Caxton
was starting in his typographical career.
After Rome, the Printing-press travelled to Venice, where Jean de
Spire introduced the new art in 1469. His name, however, was soon
overshadowed by the renown of two celebrated typographers, Nicholas
Jenson and Christopher Valdarfer, whose beautiful Roman types were much
admired. Vendelin of Spire, brother of Jean, also was a famous printer
in the same city.
Lucca, Foligno, Milan, and Florence received printing early, but there
is no space to add particulars.
* * * * *
Considering the pre-eminent position held by Paris and its celebrated
University in the fifteenth century, it is somewhat remarkable that
printing did not take root in FRANCE until the year 1471. Printed books
from other cities, however, were not uncommon, having been sold there
continuously for nine years from the time that Fust brought the first
printed Bible to Paris in 1462, and when Schœffer in 1468 sold there an
edition of Cicero.
At last Guillaume Fichet, who was Rector of the Sorbonne, and, although
by birth a German, was anxious to see some of his own writings printed
by the new method, joining with Jean Heynlin, a Swiss, and professor
at the same University, sent to Switzerland for workmen to start a
printing-office in Paris. Three men, Ulric Gering, Michael Friburger,
and Martin Cranz, all of Basle, answered to the call, and after
occupying a year in preparation, completed the first book ever printed
on French soil, in the precincts of the famous Sorbonne. It was
entitled “Gasparini Pergamensis Epistolæ,” a work celebrated for the
classical beauty of its style, to which Fichet added an introductory
chapter. After an edition of “Sallust” and the “Orationes Bessarionis”
came Fichet’s own work, “Rhetoricæ Ficheti.” Of this he appears to have
been very proud. He took great pains to have several copies carefully
printed on vellum for presents, which were splendidly illuminated,
and to each he added a specially printed preface written by himself,
and suited to some particular recipient, so that in this respect each
copy was unique. These copies were presented to the French King, to
the Pope, to Edward IV of England, and a few other distinguished
personages, whose names are all detailed in the interesting history of
Parisian printing lately issued by M. J. Philippe.
[Illustration: Portrait of Ulric Gering. (From _Philippe_.)]
After nearly three years’ work, and when thirty books had been
published, half in quarto and half in folio, with an average of
seventy-two pages to each, the expense was found too heavy, and in
December, 1472, the Sorbonne Press was relinquished.
It is curious to notice with reference to the earliest press of France,
that the first Printers there were not Frenchmen, and that they printed
their earliest books in Roman type; that the first twelve books printed
in France were not in the French tongue; and the very first book issued
in the French tongue was not printed in France. The first book, indeed,
printed in English, and the first book printed in French, issued from
the same press, that of Colard Mansion of Bruges. The English book was
“The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye” and the French, “Le Recueil
des Histoires de Troye.” Both are undated, but were probably printed in
1474.
The Sorbonne Press having ceased work in 1472, Gering with his
associates, started a fresh printing-house on their own account, two
of their workmen doing the same. These men, by adapting themselves to
the times, and printing, not classics in Roman type for a few scholars,
but works popular with all who could read, succeeded well. These books
were printed in a picturesque Gothic type made in imitation of the
manuscript books to which French readers were accustomed. About 1477
Gering’s associates retired, and he was joined by a printer named
Maynyal. To Englishmen this is a fact of some interest, as it was to
this same Maynyal that William Caxton applied when he wanted help
to print a Sarum Missal in 1484. In this missal Caxton’s trade mark
appeared for the first time.
* * * * *
The NETHERLANDS did not receive the new art until 1473; and, as if to
make up for lost time, presses were erected at Alost, Utrecht, and
Louvain, all in the same year. There is a beautiful statue in the city
of Alost to Thierry Martens, who first printed there. In Louvain the
well-known typefounder and printer, John Veldener, began work in 1473,
and in consequence of the great similarity of his types to those of
Caxton he is supposed by some bibliographers to have supplied England
with the first printing materials used there. Veldener left Louvain in
1478 to print at Utrecht.
In Brussels the press was erected in a monastery, where “The Brothers
of Common Life” printed from 1476 to 1487. The city of Bruges has a
special interest for English bibliographers, as it was there that for
thirty years William Caxton resided. Here Colard Mansion started a
press about 1473, although the earliest date in any of his books is
1475. More particulars of this printer and his connection with the
first English press will be given when narrating the story of Caxton’s
life. In Gouda, Gerard Leeu, also a friend of William Caxton, began to
print in 1477. Antwerp did not see a printing-press until 1482, while
Leyden and Ghent waited until 1483. Haarlem itself cannot show a book
with a printed date earlier than 1483, but, as shown in the previous
chapter, the probability is that printing was practised there much
earlier.
In forming opinions upon debatable points in early printed books, much
caution is necessary, and the more one studies the earliest specimens
the greater becomes the conviction that all dogmatic assertion not
founded on positive dates should be avoided. Yet, before leaving the
Netherlands, it may be well to draw attention to some points which
ought to receive consideration with reference to the source from which
the Netherland printers obtained their typographical knowledge. In a
book intended for popular reading, technical peculiarities would be
tedious; but to anyone practically acquainted with type-printing it
is very difficult to believe that the early Netherland books, say the
Colard Mansions and the Veldeners, could have been produced by men who
had learnt to print from disciples of the Gutenberg School.
The books of Ulric Zell of Cologne show, typographically speaking,
ways of working superior to and differing from the books of Caxton
and Mansion; and it is against all probability that the Netherland
printers, after learning their art in such a school would, upon
returning to their own country, have adopted customs and habits of
printing belonging to an early and imperfect state of the art, which
they could never have seen in the workshops of their instructors.
That the early specimens of Dutch printing shown with such wonderful
accuracy in Holtrop’s “Monuments Typographiques” could have been
true descendants of the Mayence Psalter and Gutenberg Bible, is
more difficult to believe than the origination of a Dutch school of
typography which was improved by and merged into the German school.
* * * * *
The Exodus of the Press and its journeyings through the principal
cities of Europe having been thus recorded, we have now especially to
narrate the circumstances in which it took root and flourished in GREAT
BRITAIN.
Although some of the older writers throw doubt upon the priority of
William Caxton’s press in England, there is now a general consensus of
opinion that the claims of Oxford to have had a Press in 1468 cannot
be sustained. To state and refute these claims, which are founded
entirely on a typographical blunder in the printing of a date, would
occupy too much space. It will therefore be better at once to trace the
career of the Westminster Press.
[Illustration: MANUSCRIPT, WRITTEN AT BRUGES, CIRC. 1472.]
William Caxton was not born in 1412, as nearly all his biographers
assert, but about ten or twelve years later, as we learn from the
records preserved at Mercers’ Hall, Cheapside. His name is there
inscribed as having been apprenticed in the year 1438. His birthplace
was somewhere in the Weald of Kent, perhaps at a place called
Caustons, near Hadlow. His father sent him to school--by no means a
usual experience for lads in the fifteenth century--for which in his
after-age he was deeply grateful. He was apprenticed at the age of
twelve or fourteen to a wealthy mercer, a fact which, at a time when
class prejudices were very strong, shows that his family were connected
with the merchant princes of London. After a few years his master,
Robert Large, died, and as Caxton’s name, when he issued from his
apprenticeship, does not appear in the Mercers’ books, there is little
doubt that he went abroad. In 1446 we find his name mentioned in the
town records preserved at Bruges, where he was considered sufficient
security for a sum equal to £110. In 1453 he paid a visit to London,
and took up his livery in the Mercers’ Company. Ten years later he
had raised himself to the highest honour an English merchant could
attain abroad--that of Governor of the Merchant Adventurers in the
Low Countries. Here he had great responsibilities, and was consulted
and employed by the English Government in various matters connected
with trade in those parts. In 1468 the Princess Margaret, sister of
our Edward IV, was married to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, at
Bruges. Here Caxton would be brought into friendly intercourse with
the nobles of the English Court, many of whom took refuge there when
King Edward, in 1470, was driven from his kingdom. Several treaties
about trade between England and the Burgundian dominions were ratified
about this time, in which Caxton took a leading part. In Bruges
at this period there were magnificent libraries, consisting almost
entirely of illuminated manuscripts; and no doubt a few books from the
German presses, which we know were selling at Paris, were to be had at
Bruges also. In these literary treasure-houses Caxton would be able
to indulge that taste for books which was a prominent feature in his
character. He became known to the Duchess, and from some cause which
at present has not been discovered, resigned his post of Governor, and
entered into her service. Whatever were the duties he undertook for
the Duchess, his position was one of honour and trust, requiring his
personal attendance upon her. Two causes may have influenced Caxton in
retiring from his post of Governor. Reckoning from a lawsuit in which
his married daughter was engaged in 1496, she would then have been
twenty-six years of age, had her father married in 1469. As a married
man he could not be a merchant in a foreign city, foreigners abroad as
well as in England living a monastic life. Thus marriage may have been
the moving cause. Added to this, the duties of Governor compelled him
to make frequent journeys to other cities, and the occupation of so
arduous a post for many years would naturally make him wish for relief
and quietude.
[Illustration: SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF CAXTON. (From _Lewis_.)]
Whatever the cause, his retirement gave him leisure to indulge his
literary tastes, and he set to work to translate into English a French
novel, which was then (1469) much admired in the Burgundian Court.
It was a medley of Roman mythology mixed with Gothic knight-errantry
and love adventures. Its title was “The Recuyell (collection) of the
Histories of Troy,” and the fact that it held its place in the popular
esteem for at least two centuries later, shows us that it stood high
in public opinion. After translating a few sheets, Caxton put it on
one side, but “on a time,” when conversing with the Duchess, he showed
his attempt to her. This was in 1469. She commanded him at once to
finish the translation, which he appears to have taken two years to
accomplish, continuing it, as he himself tells us, in Ghent, and
finishing it at Cologne. And here it is important to notice that in
both those cities there is no question of his learning printing. All he
mentions about himself refers to the translation alone. This brings us
to 1472-3. The new book, patronised by the Duchess and the Court, was
soon in greater demand among the courtiers than Caxton could possibly
supply by manuscript. He was tired of so much writing, and naturally
his mind turned to the new Art of Printing, specimens of which he had
probably examined. Just at this time Colard Mansion, a citizen of
Bruges, had erected a printing-press in a large room over the church
porch of St. Donatus, and to him went Caxton. Colard Mansion set to
work, Caxton helping him with money, and learning at the same time the
new art and mystery. So it was that about 1474-5 the book was completed
and a copy presented to the Duchess.
[Illustration: FROM “THE RECUYELL OF THE HISTORIES OF TROYE,” 1474.
(_Caxton’s Type. No. 1._)]
This was the turning point in Caxton’s career; for although he did not
immediately leave his Royal mistress’s service, he spent some time
in mastering the new art, and then, with a quantity of newly-cast
types, made his way to England. There seems to have been no special
reason why Caxton should choose Westminster as the locality of his
printing-office. There was no Scriptorium in the Abbey, and the Abbot
does not seem to have held towards him any other relationship than that
of landlord, leasing to him a tenement in the Almonry, just where the
Guards’ Memorial now stands. Here Caxton settled down and worked for at
least fifteen years. His first book which bears a date is “The Dictes
and Sayinges of the Philosophers,” finished in November, 1477. Upon the
strength of this date the Caxton Quarcentenary Festival was held in
1877; but there can be no doubt that he printed many books of which no
copies remain, some of which were doubtless earlier than the “Dictes.”
Unlike some of the French and Italian printers who ruined themselves by
printing classical books, Caxton began with small pamphlets, and short
pieces of poetry by Lydgate and Chaucer. These were soon followed by
books of greater pretence, historical, poetical, and religious. The
most imposing book from Caxton’s press was “The Golden Legend,” a thick
and large folio volume, full of rude woodcuts, and narrating the lives
of all the Saints in the English calendar. In translating, editing, and
printing, Caxton spent the remaining years of his life, and at a ripe
old age was buried in St. Margaret’s, Westminster, in the year 1491.
His character was that of a pious, diligent, and educated man, who,
without aiming very high, led the life of an honest and useful
merchant. He never foresaw, any more than his contemporaries, the
wonderful capabilities and future strength of that printing-press which
was to bring so many blessings to his native country. His successor
was Wynken de Worde, one of the founders of the Stationers’ Company,
a workman who, while quite young, came over with Caxton, and was a
prolific printer for years after his master’s death. The well-known
printers, Pynson and Machlinia, had also worked under Caxton.
[Illustration: BAS-RELIEF FROM THE ENTABLATURE, JERUSALEM CHAMBER,
WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
The city of Oxford was the next after Westminster in which the
printing-press was erected in England. The first book printed there,
the “Exposicio sancti Hieronymi,” is, indeed, dated 1468, but it
is not worth while producing the reasons which have led all modern
bibliographers to agree that an “x” has been omitted in the date, and
that the real year was 1478. Rood and Hunte, who were the first Oxford
printers, were Germans, and their books are very different from those
of the Bruges and Westminster presses.
Cambridge, the sister University, had no press until 1521, when John
Siberch printed there.
The only other press in England to be noticed in the fifteenth century
is that of St. Albans, where a schoolmaster turned typographer in 1480,
and printed for a few years. His most noted work was “The Boke of
Hawking and Huntyng, and Cote armor.”
Considering the close connection of Scotland with France, it is rather
surprising that printing did not reach that country earlier than 1504.
In that year Androw Millar began to print some ballads.
Ireland did not receive printing until the year 1551, when Humphrey
Powell printed a prayer book.
* * * * *
In the New World the first City to receive a Printing-press was Mexico,
where Cromberger worked in 1540. In the North, Stephen Daye erected a
Press at Cambridge, Mass., in 1638.
* * * * *
The Latin names of towns are frequently seen on the title-pages
of early books; and as these are extremely puzzling to young
bibliographers, the following short list of those most likely to be met
with may be found useful:--
Alta Villa Eltville
Amstelædamum Amsterdam
Antverpia Antwerp
Argentina } Strasbourg
Argentoratum }
Athenæ Rauracæ Basle
Augusta Vindelicorum Augsburg
Bononia Bologna
Brixia Breschia
Bruxellæ Brussels
Cantabrigia Cambridge
Colonia Agrippina Cologne
Daventria Deventer
Delphi Delft
Duacum Douay
Eblana Dublin
Erfordia Erfuhrt
Florentia } Florence
Firenze }
Francofurtum Frankfort
Gandavum } Ghent
Gand }
Hafnia Copenhagen
Haga Comitum The Hague
Hispalis Seville
Holmia Stockholm
Leida Leyden
Lipsia Leipzig
Lovanium Louvain
Lugdunum Lyons
Lugdunum Batavorum Leyden
Lutetia Paris
Mediolanum Milan
Moguntia Mayence
Moscua Moscow
Nannetes Nantes
Neapolis Naples
Norimberga Nuremberg
Oxonia Oxford
Patavium Padua
Rostochium Rostock
Roterodamum Rotterdam
Rothomagum Rouen
Sublacense Monasterium Subiaco
Taurinum Turin
Toletum Toledo
Trajectum ad Rhenum Utrecht
Treviri Treves
Tridentum Trent
Turones Tours
Venetiæ Venice
Vlma Ulm
Vlyssipo Lisbon
Vratislavia Breslau
The cities and towns the names of which are the same, or nearly the
same, in the Latin and native spelling have been omitted purposely.
[Illustration]
LEVITICUS.
“_Here order in variety we see,
And here, though all things differ, all agree._”--
POPE.
[Illustration]
LEVITICUS.
[Illustration]
The Laws of Printing, that is, the rules by which artisans in the
various branches of this Art do their work, are the theme of this
chapter.
In the first place, the laws by which the _Typefounder_ is governed in
making good and true types, are explained. Then, the laws by knowledge
of which the _Compositor_ combines those types ready for printing.
And lastly, the rules by which the _Pressman_ is guided in obtaining
impressions from the types.
From the extensive scope of this chapter it will be seen at once that
it is only possible to describe the bare principles of each section,
without attempting explanatory details.
THE TYPEFOUNDER.
Of the processes by which the first printers made their types very
little is known. In none of the early colophons* is any allusion
made to them; we are therefore confined to the internal evidence of
manufacture discoverable in the types themselves.
* Bibliographers call the final sentence, which in many old
books contains the printer’s name, place, and date, the
“colophon.” It answered to the modern imprint, but was more
full, and frequently contained important information.
The page of any early book shows a number of lines of type, all of them
running from left to right beneath each other in straight lines.
It will be seen from the following diagram that each stamp stands on
its own particular piece of metal, and the fact here to be noted is the
exact regularity of _all_ the letters: for although a capital “E” seems
to the eye much taller than a small letter “a,” it will be at once seen
by looking at the illustration, that in one direction, viz., from top
to bottom, these and all the other letters are identical as to size.
Each of the divisions here marked shows the size of the shank upon
which every separate letter is cast, measuring this way |, and that
measurement, which by printers is called the “body,” must be identical
for each and every letter, or else unevenness would be the result.
[Illustration]
In the following specimen, a single letter in each line is made
slightly larger in body than its fellows, the uneven effect being very
apparent.
[Illustration]
To obtain exact regularity was the great difficulty of the early
printers. Letters of wood soon became unmanageable from warping or
shrinkage, being affected even by change of weather. No doubt the
experiment was made of cutting a quantity of letters upon metal shanks,
suited to their width.
Concerning the Mayence Psalter of 1454, the first printed book with
a plain date, we find opinions, even of experts, very various and
contradictory. Some writers, devoid of practical knowledge, declare
all the letters to be separately cut in wood; others, whose opinions
deserve respect, imagine the types to have been (as already suggested)
cut separately, each on a cube of metal. Others, again, while admitting
that these early types were cast in metal, consider that the original
punches, or models, may have been cut in wood, and that matrices were
produced by dabbing these into metal while in a semi-congealed state.
No writers in the infancy of printing deign to notice typefounding,
although in 1508 we meet with the representation of a typefounder at
work, which, however, is far too rude to teach us anything. Whichever
way we turn, perplexity accompanies us, and the wisest course, perhaps,
is to acknowledge that in reality we know very little about the methods
of the _first_ typefounders.
By careful examination of the types themselves, however, a few
facts are ascertained, which, without revealing method, are full
of significance. For instance, Colard Mansion, of Bruges, began to
print with a fine, bold letter, called “bâtarde,” shaped like that
known in England as “German text.” But when his first fount was worn
he made another, every letter of which is slightly thinner in face
than that used in the first printing, owing evidently to the fact
that a single type of each sort had been chosen out, and, after being
trimmed carefully by a graving tool, had been used as a punch to form
a matrix of some sort for the second fount. The same thing exactly
appears in the second casting of Caxton’s No. 2 Type; and here, in
many instances, the matrix has actually reproduced some slight slips
made by the graver in trimming his pattern letters. These facts are
interesting, and as yet indications of no similar process have been
observed among the German printers. But we are as far off as ever from
the knowledge of how the types were cast. From what has been said it is
evident that the early printers had some method of casting types from a
mould which was adjustable as to width; so that while the same mould
would cast a letter as thick as an “M,” or as thin as an “i,” it would
make the “body” of each letter identical. This is the whole secret of
typefounding; that this result was obtained we know, but how, we know
not.
While in all probability we shall never know for certain the processes
used to produce the earliest types, we have nevertheless some few data
from which we may learn something. Mr. Madden in 1875 gave a fac-simile
of a curious accident which he had noticed in a book printed by Conrad
Hamborch, at Cologne, in 1476. A single letter had by some means been
left lying sideways on the face of a page of type, and when the sheet
of paper was pulled, an extensive “batter” took place by the truant
letter being squeezed into the face of the type, the whole shape
of the shank showing very accurately in the impression. Curiously
enough, an identical occurrence was noticed about the same time by
Mr. Bradshaw, in another early printed German book of about the same
date. Again, M. Claudin of Paris possesses a number of actual 15th
century types, which were found during a very dry summer in the bed of
the Saône, opposite to where an old Printing-office is known to have
existed.
We give fac-simile representations of these three instances, and from
them draw several conclusions.
[Illustration: IMPRESSION OF A type IN 1476. (From _Madden_.)]
[Illustration: IMPRESSION OF A TYPE, CIRC. 1470, DISCOVERED BY BRADSHAW.
(From _Reed’s “Old English Letter Foundries.”_)]
[Illustration: PROFILE TRACINGS FROM M. CLAUDIN’S TYPES. OCTOBER, 1883.
(From _Reed’s “Old English Letter Foundries.”_)]
1. We see that there was no standard height for the types. In the types
of M. Claudin hardly any two agree, nor do the types of the two German
books. It would be a necessity that the types of one fount should
all be of one height, and if no other founts were used for the work
there would be no difficulty. This indeed seems the reason why, in the
earliest books, we find little or no mixture of types.
[Illustration]
2. We see that none of the types have any _feet_, and that therefore
the “mould” as invented shortly after was then unknown. The great
improvement by which, in a sliding mould, every letter must be of the
same height has often been attributed to Schœffer--an improvement
of which he now appears to have been utterly ignorant. Unless every
separate letter is made exactly the same height, the result would be
that some would be battered because they stood too high, while others
would not print at all, because they stood too low. To obtain an even
measure for all, the mould was made to give the height in a very
ingenious manner. The diagram shows a type as it appears when thrown
from the mould. _a_ is the top containing the letter which prints in
relief; _b b_ are the “feet” of the type, and _c_ is the superfluous
metal. Now when the piece _c_ is broken off, it will leave _b b_
untouched; these are the feet upon which the perfect type will stand.
To look at a type it does not at first strike one as so very difficult
to make, and yet a good punch-cutter must be a born artist, and a good
mould-maker a model of skilfulness. Without attempting to describe
the modern improvements in casting type by machinery, whereby the
molten lead is pumped up into the moulds, and types ready for use come
streaming out by thousands, we will try to explain the method used in
1689 by Moxon, who was the first English writer to describe the process
with any exactitude. The same methods have been in all probability used
by Caxton’s successors in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries, and are still resorted to now when any letters have to be
cast by hand.
The four principal requisites in a type foundry are: 1. The Punch. 2.
The Matrix. 3. The Mould. 4. Good Type-metal.
[Illustration: A PUNCH]
1. The Punch. The punch-cutter, with the help of several tools,
engraves each letter upon the end of a short piece of steel. Upon the
beauty, congruity, and accuracy of this operation depends the success
of the type. The art of engraving, reverse-way, a series of punches,
all varying in shape, and yet all agreeing in the thickness and curves
of the various down and up strokes--called by the Dutch “fats” and
“leans”--is very difficult, and when successfully accomplished, the
engraver may truly lay claim to that greatly misused word “artist.” If
in the humour, he can cut two single or one double letter per diem.
[Illustration: A MATRIX.]
2. The Matrix. The steel punch being engraved and hardened, it is held
face downwards upon a small cube of copper, and then with a steady,
an even, and a strong blow from a mallet, the punch is driven some
distance into the softer metal, leaving a sunken impression. This,
after due trimming and adjusting--called “justifying,”--is a matrix
ready for use in the mould.
3. The Mould is a complicated instrument made in two distinct halves,
which fit accurately, or rather lock into each other, leaving an
opening between, into which the melted type-metal is poured. The matrix
which only gives the “face” to a type, is kept close to the bottom of
this cavity in the mould by a spring. The mould, which is imbedded in
wood to prevent the heat reaching the workman’s hand, is held in the
left hand. A small ladleful of melted metal is then poured in, the
workman at the same time giving his hand a jerk upwards, a movement
which drives the metal into the finest parts of the matrix. The workman
then slides the mould open, and the type falls out, only requiring the
superfluous metal to be broken off, and the burr on the edges rubbed
down, to become fit for use. About 5,000 types can be cast in this
manner per day by a skilful workman.
4. The Metal of which type is made consists of Lead, Tin, and Antimony,
in various proportions. The alloy, however, varies considerably in
different foundries. We will only mention in conclusion that the
Antimony is used not so much for the hardness it imparts to the alloy,
as for the anomaly, which belongs also to freezing water, that it
expands in the act of solidifying.
THE COMPOSITOR.
The work of a Compositor in the fifteenth century did not differ in any
essential particular from that performed at present. He received the
types from the founder, placed each sort in its own assigned place in
the “case,” ready for use, and within easy reach. The “case” was an
arrangement of small wooden boxes placed on the slant for convenience
of reaching, each box being appropriated to its own letter. Standing
in front of the case, the compositor held in his left hand a wooden
“composing stick,” in which a rectangular trench had been cut to
receive the letters. Reading and keeping in his mind a few words of his
manuscript, he picked up the types letter by letter and placed them
side by side until first words, and then sentences, were composed. When
the end of a line was reached, and there was no room for more words
and yet some space left, the compositor by placing a little extra space
between the words made the line fill out the stick. This was called
“justifying” the line. Each line was lifted out of the stick and placed
on a wooden board; thus line after line was added until there were
enough for a page.
[Illustration: THE “LAY” OF A PAIR OF TYPE CASES.]
When two or four pages were ready, they were placed upon a flat surface
within an iron frame called a “chase,” the proper distance between each
page being regulated by small blocks of wood suited to the size of
the paper on which they were to be printed. The pages being properly
arranged, were all bound together tightly by means of screws, or by
small wedges of wood called “quoins.” When all was secure, the whole,
now styled a “form,” was lifted up in one piece, and taken to the
press, where a first proof was pulled for the “Reader.” The necessary
corrections having been made by the Compositor, the “form” was ready
for the Pressman.
[Illustration: OLD IRON COMPOSING STICK.]
[Illustration: A FIFTEENTH CENTURY WOODEN COMPOSING STICK.]
[Illustration: A LINE OF COMPOSED TYPE.]
THE PRESSMAN.
[Illustration: OLD WOODEN PRESS. 1508.]
The first printers had but small presses made entirely of wood. Their
power was also slight, and they printed, as a rule, but one page at a
time. The screw was of wood, and worked by a “bar,” much the same as
a modern napkin press. The chief thing was to obtain an even surface
on the “bed” upon which the page of type rested; and, secondly, an
even surface for the “platen,” which was lowered as the “bar” turned
the “screw,” and thus pressed the paper upon the face of the type. The
evenness of impression, as well as of colour, in many old books, shows
that this object was accomplished with great success, and proves what
good mechanicians they were four hundred years ago. It is a task which
we could not now accomplish so successfully were our modern tools and
appliances withdrawn.
The ink was doubtless a sore trial to the early fathers of the press.
It was only by long experience upon block-books and wood engravings
that the working together of boiled oil and lampblack was found to give
that consistency which would be stiff enough not to spue over the sides
of the letters when pressed, and yet not so thin as to run away into
unevenness of surface or want of colour.
There were nearly always two workmen to one press. One “beat” the
“form,” that is, he dabbed two big, soft balls covered with ink over
all the type; the other placed the white paper on the “tympan,” and ran
the whole, by means of a winch, beneath the “platen,” and then made a
strong pull at the bar.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A 17TH CENTURY PRINTING OFFICE. (From
_Mallinkrot_.)]
Modern pressmen know nothing of the skill and experience requisite in
olden times to beat a “form” properly. First the balls, which were made
of prepared skins padded with wool, and fastened on to a “stock,” had
to undergo peculiar treatment requiring both experience and sagacity.
Extremes of heat and cold, of dampness and dryness, called out all
the resources of the pressman in order to keep the skins of his balls
in the proper state to receive and distribute the ink evenly. The
distribution was effected by taking a small portion of the ink upon one
ball; then began a series of twists and twirls, and punching of the
balls together, worthy of an acrobat, until the ink, by an elaborate
manipulation of one ball against the other, was evenly spread over
the surface of the “form.” Whilst the “man at the bar” was placing the
sheet of paper in such a position that it should be printed with the
proper amount of margin all round, his fellow or “partner” was dabbing
the ink over the face of the pages. In this he had to be very careful
not to miss any part; if missed, the impression appeared very pale,
and the blunder was called a “friar”; but if blotched with too much
ink, and the face of the type filled up, it was a “monk.” This race of
antiquated pressmen is now almost extinct. One of the last worked in
jacket and hose at an old wooden press at the “Caxton Celebration” in
London, in 1877, where he attracted great notice.
[Illustration: IMPROVED WOODEN PRESS. 1640.]
As a matter of convenience many of the early printers made their pages
just of the size to agree with one page of the MS. The advantage
of this plan was that they had no occasion to compose straight on,
but might print page 8 with page 1, and page 7 with page 2, without
noticing the intermediate pages, thus getting the first sheet of a
quaternion out of the way.
_Signatures_, which are of great use to the binder, were letters and
figures at the foot of certain pages, which served as signs to show
the sequence of the various sheets. They are by no means peculiar to
printed books, nor were they, as some writers assume, invented by the
early printers. The manuscript-writers knew their use long before
Gutenberg, and where a MS. is still intact, nothing having been cut off
the bottom edges, the manuscript signatures may often be recognised at
the extreme edge of the sheet. Sometimes the signature was put in the
back, and so, when bound, became invisible.
_Catchwords_ were the first word from the top of a page repeated below
the bottom line of the previous page, thus assuring the correctness of
the collation.
After a time the pages, especially if small, were arranged so that
four or eight might be printed at a time. A sheet of quarto required
four pages on one side, and four pages on the other side of the sheet.
Octavo had eight pages on one side and eight pages on the other; and
these had so to be placed that when the sheet was folded the pages came
in proper order.
Some of the earliest books were issued without any Title-page, in this
respect agreeing with MS. books.
The omission of head lines to the pages was common among the first
Printers.
The numbering of pages was a development of numbering the leaves, which
last custom is also a peculiarity of early printed books; as is the
custom of manuscript initials at the beginning of Chapters.
Thus in a very imperfect manner the outlines of the laws upon which
the old printers worked have been given; but ten minutes in a
printing-office would explain more than ten chapters of ear-knowledge,
and there is no difficulty nowadays in obtaining permission to see any
of the great printing-offices.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
NUMBERS.
“_Who, departing, left behind them_
_Footprints on the sands of time._”
LONGFELLOW.
[Illustration]
NUMBERS.
It is always a pleasant task to any one who realizes the magnitude of
the debt under which the whole world lies to the printing-press to
enumerate the many great and noble men who have served God and their
country as printers. The biographical difficulty is in the selection,
for every country has its typographical roll of fame, upon which
are inscribed numbers of names of heroes of the Press, who, instead
of courting fortune, have spent laborious and self-denying lives
with the sole object of diffusing that knowledge by which ignorance
is dispelled, and man raised above the beast. Such names should be
household words. An account, necessarily brief, of a few of them is
here attempted.
[Illustration: PORTRAITS OF COSTER, GUTENBERG, FUST, ALDUS AND FROBEN.
(From _Maittaire_)]
HOLLAND.
I believe this to have been the premier country in typographical
development. Some one printed those old Dutch fragments which carry
with them their own certificates of birth; and even if it is difficult
to prove the printer to have been LAURENS JANSZOON COSTER, his works
remain, and “Costeriana” is a well understood and convenient term by
which to designate them.
GERMANY.
Of the celebrated trio, GUTENBERG, FUST and SCHŒFFER, who invented
what Fichet, Rector of the Sorbonne (who also was their contemporary),
calls “a _new_ sort of printing,” Schœffer alone was left after 1468.
Other Germans were however at work then or soon after. PFISTER and
SENSENSCHMIDT were printers at Bamberg; ZAINER was hard at work at
Augsburg; EGGESTEIN and MENTELIN at Strasbourg; and VENDELIN at Spire.
These are well known names; but still better known is that prolific
typographer, ULRIC ZELL, of Cologne, whose workshops seem to have been
a training college for young printers all over Europe, and whose works
are so numerous that no writer has yet mastered their bibliography. So
little cared he for worldly fame that he scarcely ever put his name
to a book printed by him, although the individuality of his types and
the “get up” of his works announce their parentage as plainly as if
certified in a Colophon “Per me Ulric Zell.” Before leaving Cologne,
we will only mention P. DE OLPE, THERHOERNEN and KOELHOFF, all famous
printers. After the first two generations, however, Germany pursued the
new art in a sober manner, no name appearing of surpassing merit until
the middle of the sixteenth century.
“Optime meritus” was the description attached by Rothscholtz
to the portrait of SIGISMUND FEYERABEND (1527-1587), of
Frankfort-on-the-Maine. A learned and able man, with great artistic
taste, he employed the best engravers of the day to illustrate his
books, which became famous throughout all Europe, and are now held in
great esteem by bibliographers.
JOHN PETREIUS, of Nuremberg (1497-1550), is a name which should not
pass unrecorded. He was an excellent typographer, and especially noted
for the correctness with which he printed in Greek and Latin. He was a
practical printer in a very real sense, for he made his own presses,
cast his own types, and manufactured the ink with which he printed.
His extensive correspondence shows that the most celebrated scholars
of the age were in constant communication with him, on terms of close
friendship. When he died they wrote, as was then customary among
Scholars, many classical epitaphs to his memory.
ANTON KOBURGER, too, was very famous, and perhaps the most prolific of
all Germany’s fertile printers. He worked at Nuremberg, where he kept
twenty-four presses employed. All his books are of great excellence,
and he is specially noted for his Bibles, of which he issued twelve
editions.
In the same city ALBERT DÜRER erected a press, at which he printed the
text to his own wonderful engravings. After his death his widow carried
on the business for some years.
In modern times Germany has given us EMMANUEL BREITKOPF, who, about
1750, improved greatly the hand-press, and invented a new set of music
types; while H. BROCKHAUS, at Leipzig, has a European renown as printer
and typefounder.
ITALY.
In this country the printing-press originated, as we have seen, with
SWEYNHEYM and PANNARTZ, first at Subiaco and then at Rome, who from
1465 to 1474 issued many editions of the Classics. In addition to
the famous names already recorded when noticing the introduction of
the art into Italy, ULRIC HAHN, PHILIP DE LIGNAMINE, SILBER, PLANCK
and RIESSINGER, noted typographers of the fifteenth century, deserve
mention. But the lustre of all fades before the fame of the celebrated
ALDUS PIUS MANUTIUS ROMANUS. This great printer was born at Bassanio,
in the Roman States, in 1449. He studied for many years in Rome, and
from that fact assumed the name of Romanus. In 1482 he lived in the
same house as Picus Mirandulus, and afterwards abode with Prince
Alberto Pio, who allowed him to adopt the name “Pius.” Being strongly
impressed with the potentialities latent in the printing-press,
he determined, about 1489, to devote his whole attention to the
publication of classical literature. After organising in Venice the
most complete printing-office hitherto seen, he began his typographical
career by the issue of the Greek Grammar of Lascaris. This was in
1494. In the prologue to that book Aldus declares the determination
of himself and his co-workers in the following noble words:--“We have
determined henceforth to devote all our lives to this good work. I
call God to witness that my sincere desire is to do good to mankind,
as indeed I hope has already been shown by my past life. I will indeed
labour continuously to make constant progress; for although we might
have chosen a tranquil country life, we have preferred a life busy and
full of hard work. A good and learned man will not give himself up to
base pleasures, but to work and to do something worthy. Cato has said
truly, ‘Man’s life may be compared to a sword; use it and it keeps
bright; neglect it and rust will soon be its destruction.’ Therefore
if work seem sometimes irksome to a man, let him be sure of this--that
sloth would be much more detrimental to him than the hardest kind of
labour.”
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ALDUS.]
These were words from the heart of Aldus, and in this conviction he
worked until his death. In 1501 he established an academy of learned
men and scholars. Constantinople had just fallen into the hands of the
Turks, and among the Christian refugees were many scholars of fame and
repute. To these Aldus offered a safe and quiet asylum, asking from
them in return that a portion of their time should be devoted to the
collation of manuscript copies of the classics, which in the course of
time had become very erroneous through the carelessness of successive
copyists. He also employed them in reading his printed proofs and
revising them for the press. In this way many good scholars lived on
terms of great friendship with Aldus, and were entirely supported by
him. Surely modern lovers of literature owe an incalculable debt of
gratitude to Aldus for preserving by these means an accurate text of
the great classical writers of antiquity.
The expense of this great undertaking was of course very great; and
partly to reduce the cost of production, and partly to place copies of
the books he printed within the reach of poor scholars, Aldus employed
the artist Giovanni de Bologna to design for him a new and compressed
type which would enable him to print nearly two pages in the same space
as one. From the country of its birth this letter has ever since been
known as _Italic_. Its elegant shape has been much, perhaps too much,
admired. The appearance is somewhat marred by the invariable use of
Roman capitals, which, throughout a page of Italic, is certainly not
agreeable to the eye.
[Illustration: THE MEDAL OF ALDUS.]
The fame of Aldus’s printing-office soon spread throughout Europe,
and his little pocket editions of the Greek and Latin classics were
esteemed as much for the beauty of their dress as for the accuracy
of their text. The visits of the curious, as well as of the learned,
became at last so troublesome that Aldus placed the following notice
over the chief entrance: “Whoever you are that wish to see Aldus, be
brief; and when business is finished go away; unless indeed you are
able and willing to assist him as Hercules did Atlas in his need: and
even then remember that whoever gains here a footing must work hard and
with perseverance.”
Aldus himself took no relaxation; scarcely would he afford himself any
sleep until fatigue compelled him to rest. He died in 1515, the King of
Printers, with an immortal halo surrounding him.
Aldus adopted for his device an anchor, with a dolphin twisted round
it. This emblem is justly celebrated in the annals of typography under
the name of the Aldine anchor, and is very appropriate to the work of
a Printer. The dolphin is the emblem of swiftness, on account of the
rapidity with which it cleaves the waves. The anchor is the emblem of
stability and reliance. So the printer should be speedy at his work,
but consider his plans carefully and soberly. This was admirably
summarised in the motto adopted by Aldus--“Festina lente” (Hasten
slowly). On a rare contemporary medal the motto appears in Greek,
“ΣΠΕΥΔΕ ΒΡΑΔΕΩΣ.”
Another great Italian Printer was GIAMBATTISTA BODONI, whose name
certainly stands next to that of Aldus. He was the son of a Piedmontese
printer, and was born in 1740, the year when all Europe celebrated
the Jubilee of Printing. At the age of eighteen he was working as a
compositor at the Propaganda Printing-office, Rome, where he did good
service by studying hard to learn the Oriental languages, and then
restoring to a proper condition for use the fine collection of Oriental
types in that office, which had long been in a state of confusion.
It was about this time that he turned his attention to the art of
engraving new types, in which he soon showed great talent. In 1768 he
was placed by the Duke of Parma at the head of his new printing-office,
which he soon rendered the most famous in Europe. He devoted great
attention to the shape of his Greek types, for which he took as a model
the most beautiful manuscripts obtainable. His “Homer” is perhaps
the work which gained him more renown among scholars than any other.
In his “Manuale Tipografico,” which is a specimen book of all his
types, some copies of which were printed on pure vellum, the lover
of typographical excellence as presented by elegantly-shaped letters,
glossy ink, and faultless press-work, may revel to his heart’s content.
Bodoni died in 1813.
As a curious freak of fickle fashion, we must notice the recent fate
of a most interesting collection of books, all from the press of
Bodoni, collected during many years by the Marquis Saporiti della
Sforzesca. These were sent to London and sold publicly in December,
1886. The number of separate works was over 500, including, with hardly
an exception, specimens of the whole produce of the Parmese Press.
No such a collection has ever before been brought to the hammer, and
had it been sold in Dr. Dibdin’s time, when Bodoni’s fame was at its
height, there can be little doubt that £2,000 at least would have been
realised. Today, when “black-letter” governs the market, and sentiment
rules over taste, Bodoni’s master-pieces of typography are of less
money-value than a Seven Dials ballad. The whole of the Marquis’s
collection realised in the gross but £50 7_s._, a sum far below the
prime cost of two or three volumes, and hardly enough to pay for
printing the sale catalogue.
Italy may well be proud of still another typographical son. G.
VIESSIEUX, of Milan, who lived 1779 to 1863, if not remarkable for
excellence of workmanship, was successful, notwithstanding great
opposition from the ruling classes, in obtaining for his native country
that inestimable boon--freedom of the press.
FRANCE.
We have already noticed the introduction of the art to Paris, where
it spread with rapidity even in the lifetime of Ulric Gering. ANTOINE
VERARD is celebrated for beautiful editions, many of them with splendid
illuminations; but space would fail to speak of SIMON VOSTRE, of
PIGOUCHET, of DUPRÉ, of the artistic and learned GEOFFREY TORY, of the
martyred DOLET, MOEL, and many other worthy printers.
But of all the great printers that France has produced, there are none
of whom their countrymen may feel more proud than the family of the
ESTIENNES, who flourished from 1502-1664. The two most celebrated were
Robert I and Henri I, father and son. They both printed, not for lucre,
but from real love of their work and classic literature. So intimately
indeed is the biography of these two great men associated with the
mental growth of the nation that, as Feugère says, “it rises to the
dignity of history.”
HENRI I was the founder of the family. He printed and published at
Paris for twenty years, and laid the foundation of the family fame
during the period 1502-1522.
ROBERT I, his eldest son, succeeded in 1526 to his father’s
printing-office, placing over his door a printer’s mark, afterwards
of world-wide fame. It was an olive-tree, with the motto “_Noli altum
sapere sed time_” (“Be not high-minded, but fear”). He married a
daughter of another famous Parisian printer, BADIUS ASCENSIUS, he
whose printer’s mark--a printing-press, two pressmen, and a woman
composing types--is well known to all lovers of old books. (_See_ p.
54.) It is curious to note that all three of the daughters of Badius
married printers. For thirty-three years Robert Estienne worked hard as
author, collator, corrector, printer, and publisher, producing volumes
which for beauty of workmanship and accuracy of text may vie with the
productions of any other press. So important were the Greek authors
which he for the first time collated and printed, that the publication
of those classics may be almost said to have begun with him. It was to
some extent the same with Latin authors. Thus with Greek, with Latin,
with Bibles, with dictionaries and grammars, Robert Estienne was the
father of such a series of works as have never been equalled before or
since. Patronised and favoured by Francis I, it was the high opinion
of his capabilities, added to the desire to outshine the efforts of
other countries, which induced the King to defray out of the public
purse the expenses of a new series of specially cast Greek types. With
this view Angelo Vergecio, the most artistic penman of his time, was
engaged to design the models for the letters; and the cutting of the
punches was entrusted to Garamond, one of the most skilful engravers of
his day, who himself was a good scholar, and had taught Greek to Henri
Estienne when a boy.
The production of beautiful and correct editions of the Bible formed a
special feature of the labours of Robert Estienne; and this, thanks to
the hatred of the priests, whose stronghold was in Sorbonne, brought
upon him the bitterest persecution. To print the Latin Vulgate for
every one to read was bad enough, but when Robert Estienne published
his three-column Polyglot, with Hebrew on one side and Greek on the
other--Christ between two thieves, as they called it--their rage
knew no bounds. So fierce was the persecution that had our printer
stayed in Paris, he would probably have been, like Dolet, burnt
alive. So in 1551, having under various pretences sent away his
family, he despatched his types also, and quietly followed to Geneva,
where, although subjected to many annoyances, chiefly due to his own
ill-considered opposition to the civil government, he was allowed to
print without hindrance. Here he embraced the Protestant faith; and
in 1559, after a life of manly and unselfish labour, embittered by
the persecution of those who ought to have been his best friends, but
sweetened by the knowledge that his toils and sufferings were for the
benefit of mankind, he died.
HENRI II succeeded his father at an early age, and followed in his
footsteps. He travelled extensively in all the chief countries of
Europe, returning laden with new MSS. and new ideas, which were soon
apparent in his books. At one time he worked for about a year in the
printing-office of Paulus Manutius, after which he returned to Geneva,
devoting himself with fresh energy to his work. His father left him
the Genevan printing-office on condition of his carrying it on in
that city. This restriction was very irksome to him, and what with
quarrelling with the authorities and constant journeyings, his business
greatly declined, and in 1570 he was insolvent, dying some years later.
The work he got through in his prime was immense, and often prolonged
for so many hours at a time as seriously to injure both mind and body.
His mental attainments and general knowledge were very great, but
employed fitfully.
The old typographical fame of France has been well maintained in
more modern times by the Didot family, whose history from 1713 to
the present time is the history of French printing for that period.
PIERRE DIDOT (1761-1853) not only emulated Bodoni in the beauty
of his workmanship, but took extreme care--more, indeed, than the
great Italian Printer--to have accuracy of text. He was an excellent
classical scholar, and himself read for press the works of which he was
most proud.
Nor must we omit to mention his nephew, AMBROSE FIRMIN DIDOT, who, in
addition to his intimate knowledge of classic literature, was a good
antiquarian, learned in bibliography, a first-rate connoisseur of old
engravings, and a weighty writer upon all subjects connected with his
own art.
France indeed may well be proud of her position in typographical
history. Other cities may boast of individual celebrities, an Aldus,
or the Elseviers, a Plantin, a Bodoni, or a Baskerville. But at Paris,
from Gering, through Verard, Badius, Ascensius, Kerver, the Estiennes,
Dolet, the great Didot family, and numerous others, there has been such
an unbroken succession of great and famous printers as must always
command the wonder and admiration of posterity.
It should be added that several French printers, in modern times, have
laboured for the mental improvement of the men and boys employed by
them, and with considerable success. The efforts of M. A. CHAIX, of
Paris, in this direction have received emphatic acknowledgment from the
State and all philanthropists.
SEBASTIAN CRAMOISY, who by the order of Louis XIII founded the Royal
Printing-office, must not be overlooked; nor must ANTOINE VITRÉ, who
combined excellence of typefounding with excellence of printing. He was
the first in all France to print with Syriac types. His famous Polyglot
Bible of 1645 keeps his memory green among bibliophiles.
SWITZERLAND
May justly pride herself on being the mother of Parisian, and therefore
of French, typography. To one of her sons, ULRIC GERING, who, with two
companions left Basle, and began printing at the Sorbonne, France owes
her first press. At Basle, too, JEAN AMERBACH gained great reputation
in the beginning of the sixteenth century, as also did OPERINUS. But
the most famous printer was JOHN FROBEN, of Basle, who was justly
proud of his accuracy. Competition, and consequent reduction in price,
were evils strongly felt and resented by Froben. In his Preface to the
Concordance of 1525 appears the following dialogue, which is somewhat
curtailed from the original:--
“CUSTOMER.--Well, Froben, what book have you there?
FROBEN.--One which is equally your interest to buy as mine to
sell.
CUSTOMER.--Something quite new, then?
FROBEN.--Neither new nor old, for it is both.
CUSTOMER.--You talk in riddles.
FROBEN.--It is a book called ‘The Concordance to the Sacred
Scriptures.’
CUSTOMER.--Why, that has been printed ever so many times.
FROBEN.--True! but if I have reprinted it, it is for the good
of all. The sun itself does not appear every day, when it
does shine it is just the same sun, while my book here is a
decided improvement on the usual text.
CUSTOMER.--You can assure me of its correctness.
FROBEN.--You know that it is almost an impossibility to ensure
positive freedom from error, but if the care I have
bestowed upon it has not been thrown away you will find it
very correct. Moreover, there is more in it than in the
previous edition.
CUSTOMER.--I congratulate you, but I fear you will get but
little credit for all your labour; besides, do you not find
so much toil hastens old age?
FROBEN.--What matters it? ’Tis my destiny. And if she does
bring me old age and its troubles, you have the power to
ease them.
CUSTOMER.--Indeed, how?
FROBEN.--By purchasing this volume at once, and thanking me for
offering it to you.
CUSTOMER.--But have you no compunction in thus selling your own
child?
FROBEN.--Not the least. It was for you and not myself that I
begot it.
CUSTOMER.--What is its price?
FROBEN.--Stoop, and I will whisper it in your ear.
CUSTOMER.--Oh! goodness; much too dear.
FROBEN.--There! take it home and look at it. If you then repent
your bargain I will return your money.
CUSTOMER.--You could not say fairer.
FROBEN.--Everyone can be prodigal of words, but Froben holds to
what he promises.
CUSTOMER.--Here, then, is the purchase-money in full tale.
FROBEN.--And here is the book in good condition, and I hope we
shall both be pleased.”
THE NETHERLANDS.
J. BELLAERT, of Haarlem, 1483, is the first printer whose name we find
in Dutch typographical annals; and of the numerous other names in the
fifteenth and sixteenth century, but few call for special notice.
Perhaps the most celebrated printer who flourished in Holland was
ABRAHAM ELSEVIER, who was born at Leyden in 1592. Baillet calls him
“the Prince of Printers, not only in Holland, but throughout all
Europe,” and no doubt for many years that character was true. The
family flourished for more than one hundred and thirty years as
printers, and to this day some of the books which issued from their
presses are among the chief treasures of the bibliophile.
W. J. BLAEU, in the early part of the seventeenth century, was not
only remarkable for the excellence and diminutive size of the books he
issued, but deserves honourable mention for greatly improving the old
wooden presses used in his day.
The “Pensioners” of Holland and the “Doges” of Venice were important
persons in their day; that day has passed, and now who thinks much
about them? But our Elseviers and Aldines live still, not in name only,
but as vital realities; and their books continue to be prized not only
for their beauty and rarity, but for the standard accuracy of the text.
BELGIUM.
After the printers who first brought the art to Belgium we meet with no
one of special note until the time of CHRISTOPHER PLANTIN, (_Portrait
on_ p. 76.) who founded a family of printers of world-wide fame. His
great Polyglot Bible of eight folio volumes, published in 1569-72, is
a wonder of erudition and good workmanship. The last descendant of the
family, ED. MORETUS, has lately disposed of the old house and all its
contents to the town of Antwerp, who have opened it to the public as
a museum, where may be seen five portraits of the family painted by
Rubens, and many other noteworthy objects of art and typography. No one
should visit Antwerp without paying a visit to this most interesting
museum.
[Illustration: THE PLANTIN MUSEUM, AT ANTWERP.]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CHRISTOPHER PLANTIN.]
SPAIN.
The only name of great repute in this country is that of IBARRA, who
printed some excellent books at Madrid in the Bodoni style. He died in
1785.
ENGLAND.
After the death of Caxton, in 1491, his workmen set up for themselves.
WYNKEN DE WORDE, who succeeded his master, was the most celebrated,
and issued many hundreds of books. Dibdin, some seventy years ago,
quoted over 400, and there are probably now more than 600 known to
bibliographers, the whole sadly in want of an enthusiast who would
devote a few years to their study. PYNSON and WOLFFE were prolific
typographers, and JOHN DAY, the printer of the Reformation, gave
to the world over 350 books. In the 16th century, however, the
Government interfered and placed the Press under severe restrictions,
upon pretence of stopping treasonable and heretical publications. A
series of barbarous enactments soon reduced printing to a dangerous
and unremunerative employment. The effects were seen at once by the
degraded condition to which both master printers and their workmen were
reduced; ignorance and incapacity being the leading characteristics of
the craft, instead of learning and intelligence. Thus, while in France
and Germany the printer held an honourable position, above that of
the trader, in England he was a mere slave to the Stationers, to whom
Government deputed tyrannical powers of oppression and suppression.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF JOHN DAY. 1562.]
[Illustration: JOHN DAY’S TRADE MARK.]
With the restoration of freedom a great improvement took place; and
the names of JOHN CAVE, who originated the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, the
WOODFALLS, JOHN NICHOLS, BENSLEY, BASKERVILLE, and others, raised the
fame of English printers to a great height. The SPOTTISWOODE family are
also celebrated in our typographical annals, and none more so than
the philosopher, the antiquarian, the great man of science, the hard
working printer, and the warm friend, WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE, F.S.A.,
F.R.S., who died in 1881.
[Illustration: WILLIAM SPOTTISWOODE.]
AMERICA.
In the New World, the most famous name in the annals of printing is
that of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, who, as a lad, learned his trade in the
printing-office of Samuel Palmer, in London, in 1724. On his return
to his native country two years later, he entered into business as
a printer in Philadelphia. His literary and scientific tastes soon
made him a man of mark, and America to this day claims few more
distinguished sons than the philosopher and statesman, one of whose
chief boasts it was that he had served his time at the press. The
actual press at which he worked in London is still in existence, and is
preserved by his countrymen, as a precious relic, in the Smithsonian
Institute, at Washington. (_See a cut of this press on_ p. 56.)
In our own days, America has, in the person of THEO. L. DE VINNE, of
New York, a worthy type of the enlightened and artistic printer.
[Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Letter of Benjamin Franklin.]
[Illustration: STATIONERS’ HALL.]
[Illustration]
DEUTERONOMY.
“_They have sought out many inventions._”--
ECCLES.
[Illustration]
DEUTERONOMY.
In Leviticus we traced the laws which governed the earliest stage
of the printing-press. In Deuteronomy--which is the repetition and
development of the law--we see an expansion and a second birth of the
press, almost equal in importance to the first--viz., the invention
of the Steam Printing Machine. The advance then made towards rapid
and cheap printing has had almost as revolutionary an effect on the
education and opinions of the nineteenth century masses as had the
original invention of printing upon the sixteenth century middle-class.
And as at first the art of printing was developed and improved both in
excellence and speed for many a year after Gutenberg, so the modern
machine, which started in 1814, is still developing its wonderful
capacity for improvement and speed until the mind wonders if any limit
can be assigned to its powers.
In 1790 all printing was effected by hand-labour. The types were
hand-cast--the compositors’ hands were employed in arranging them--the
paper was hand-made--the pressman’s muscles were called into play to
handle the bar. Sheet by sheet he took up the paper and placed it
in position upon the tympan, brought down the frisket to keep it in
place, turned it over upon the ready-inked type, ran the whole by means
of a winch under the press, pulled the bar or lever which gave the
impression, turned the winch again, raised the tympan and frisket, and
released the now-printed sheet. This series of movements, all requisite
to print one side only, took really a shorter time in action than is
here taken in the description; but the strongest workman, with muscles
indurated by years of labour, could, with the help of a “fly-boy” to
take off the sheets, and a “partner” to beat the form, scarcely exceed
250 pulls per hour, and that only on one side of a sheet--a snail-pace
at which all _cheap_ printing was impossible.
In this same year, 1790, the shadow of a great change soon to be
effected in printing was thrown upon the scene. John Nicholson, a
clever mechanician, took out a patent for printing by machinery, in
which he specified those very principles of action which have been
the basis of every successful printing machine since made. Nicholson,
although clever in many ways, had none of the qualities which
ensure success in life. Improvident, without tenacity of purpose or
perseverance, his brains benefited others but not himself, and he died
in 1815 without seeing the success of any of his numerous inventions.
Until the year 1811, when Kœnig succeeded in the attempt, the
possibility of a machine being invented which could successfully
perform all the varied operations just described was considered by
all master printers as a scheme fit only for Utopia. Thus it happened
that Nicholson, bankrupt and disheartened by misfortune, let his plans
slumber in the Patent Office neglected and unnoticed, simply because no
one had sufficient faith in him to advance capital for the purposes of
experiment.
[Illustration: CENTENARY MEDAL OF THE WALTERS, OF “THE TIMES.” 1885.]
Of a very different mould was Frederick Kœnig, a young German, who
about 1804, began to work out his ideas for improving the mechanism
of the old wooden press. Endowed with mechanical genius, great
perseverance, and, above all, a firm belief in himself, he worked
unceasingly to accomplish his aim, and to him, without doubt, must
be awarded the honour of making the first workable printing machine.
His early attempts were quite unsuccessful. Neglected in his native
land, and befooled in Russia, he at last came to London, where,
after a period of want and disappointment, his evident cleverness
and perseverance interested the well-known printer, J. Bensley, in
his designs. Although in after years bitter feelings existed, and
still more bitter words passed between these two, it should never be
forgotten that Bensley was Kœnig’s earliest and best friend in London.
He was the first to recognise his powers, and without his assistance,
Kœnig would, in all probability, have gone to his grave--as many other
inventors quite as clever have done--his genius unrecognised, and his
whole life embittered by disappointment. Mr. Walter, of _The Times_,
although more interested than any one in the improvement of the press,
did not see enough in Kœnig’s first machines to induce him to assist,
until success had made assistance safe; but Bensley year after year
supported him, and found funds for costly experiments, which, although
displaying great cleverness and ingenuity, led to no successful
result. From 1806, when he came to London, to 1811, Kœnig made two
complete machines (not including his first wooden trial), but both were
unsuccessful, because they were founded on the false principle of the
old hand-presses, viz., impressions from a flat surface or platen.
Disheartened by failure, and, as he himself confessed, at his wits’ end
what to do next, an accidental occurrence put him on the right road.
Bensley, his partner, by chance visited Nicholson, to obtain from him
some information concerning those patent laws with which a long and
sad experience had rendered him familiar. He found him in the debtors’
gaol, and then he heard for the first time of Nicholson’s patents.
Fluttered and anxious, Bensley took Kœnig straight off to read the
particulars. Kœnig did read them, and read them carefully, but with
great contempt for their crudeness, and immediately forgot all he had
read! (at least he declared so fifteen years later). However this may
have been, he at once set about constructing a new machine, in which
all his previous plans of impression were thrown aside, and (wonderful
coincidence!) Nicholson’s method of pressure, by means of a cylinder,
beneath which the type ran, was adopted. This was the turn in the tide
which led on to fortune, at least the magic word “success” crowned
Kœnig’s toil.
[Illustration: FLAT IMPRESSION.
_(a) Type. (b) Platen._]
John Walter, of “The Times,” now approved and adopted the new machine;
and from that time to the present improvements have been made by a
succession of clever mechanicians, until the printing machine of today
is a surprising piece of human ingenuity, which by its simplicity
excites the wonder, and by its cleverness the admiration, of every
beholder.
[Illustration: SINGLE CYLINDRICAL IMPRESSION--TYPE OR PLATES ON THE
FLAT.
_(a) Type or Plates. (b) Cylinder. (c, d) Direction of Cylinder._]
It is here only fair to state that Herr Goebel, the German biographer
of Kœnig, and all who sympathise with him, are very indignant at this
version of the story. They utterly deny that Kœnig owed _anything_ to
Nicholson, and have heaped scorn on the heads of unbelievers in their
hero. But the plain sequence of facts is against them. First, we have
Kœnig unsuccessful in his trials with a platen machine; secondly, we
find him reading Nicholson’s plans for a cylinder machine; thirdly, we
see Kœnig rejecting at once his first ideas, and successfully adopting
those of Nicholson. I adhere to my opinion that, while admitting the
great mechanical genius of Kœnig, as shown throughout his career, he
nevertheless at this critical point owed his success to the undeveloped
plans of William Nicholson.
[Illustration: DOUBLE CYLINDRICAL IMPRESSION OF A PERFECTING
MACHINE--TYPE OR PLATES ON THE FLAT.
_(a) Type or Plates. (b1, b2) Cylinders. (c, d) Direction of Cylinders.
(e) Ink Rollers._]
To consider this as derogatory to the genius of Kœnig is to take
a false view of things. No one doubts Handel’s genius because he
built some of his melodies upon the themes of previous musicians, or
thinks the worse of Shakespeare for adopting the old story of “Romeo
and Juliet,” and weaving therewith his immortal tragedy. Why, then,
should Germans resent the statement (which is simply historical) that
Nicholson supplied Kœnig with an idea which his mechanical genius at
once made his own, and successfully developed?
Kœnig’s first success was a machine which printed one side of the paper
only. He next constructed one which, by duplicating the parts, printed
both sides of the sheet. Donkin and Bacon made the great advance
of using a composition of glue and treacle for rollers, instead of
leather, which had never been satisfactory. In 1815 Cowper took out
a patent for placing curved stereotype plates round a cylinder, the
principle of which had already engaged the attention of Nicholson.
Cowper carried this plan to a great pitch of perfection in the machines
made for _The Times_, and from that time to the present every year
shows new improvements and higher efficiency. The varieties in modern
printing machines are innumerable, and their management requires great
intelligence on the part of the “minder,” who, if he understands his
duty, deserves and can command high wages.
[Illustration: CYLINDRICAL IMPRESSION FROM CURVED STEREOTYPE.
_(b) Cylinder. (c, d) Direction Of Cylinder. (c) Ink Rollers. (f)
Cylinder on which are mounted Curved Stereotypes._]
Few sights are more impressive than the machine-room of one of our
daily papers in the small hours of the morning. Suppose you have
obtained an order to see the paper put to press, the best way is to
engage rooms for the night at a neighbouring hotel. If the stage has
attractions for you, there will be plenty of time for a leisurely
supper after the play is over, and then, about two o’clock, to sally
into Fleet Street, which, even at this hour, is anything but a
neglected thoroughfare. Entering the printing-office, we visit the
foundry-room first, where the foreman explains the use of various tools
and arrangements, and has scarcely finished when the first page of the
paper comes down from the composing-room. There is no dawdling now.
The page of type is quickly placed beneath the platen of a press, and
a thick sheet of a soft material--a mixture of _papier-maché_ and
plaster of Paris, called the flong--is placed upon the face of the
type. The platen descends, and by pressure forces the type into the
soft flong, and makes a complete mould. The flong is then dried rapidly
while still adhering to the type. When taken off, it is placed in a
beautifully made steel mould. This mould is curved to a quarter-circle,
and when the flong is placed inside it, and the liquid metal poured
in, the result is a curved plate, with a cast from the type on its
outer surface. This plate is placed upon a saddle, and all excrescences
rapidly removed with great skill from the edges and various spaces;
it is ready then for the machine-room. So soon as eight pages are
fastened on the cylinder of the first machine the printing begins. At
one end of the machine is a heavy reel of paper, sufficient to make
about 6,000 complete papers. It is wound round a core like that used
for a garden-hose, and forms a solid mass, which unwinds rapidly when
the machine grips it. A knife with unerring precision cuts off each
paper as soon as printed, and delivers it onto a collecting board.
Soon after No. 1 machine gets to work, No. 2 is supplied with plates
and started; so with the other machines, until eight or nine are all
printing at once, each delivering about 12,000 complete copies an hour,
so that with eight machines the delivery would be 96,000 per hour. The
din is something awful, and entirely prevents the asking of questions.
Relays of men are always hurrying away from each machine loaded with
printed papers. These are counted into quires in the warehouse,
and at once delivered to the newsagents. A curious and interesting
circumstance attending such speedy printing is the large amount of
electricity excited by the friction of the paper in its passage, and
the storing of this electricity in the printed heaps. I have seen quite
a long spark dart out of a heap into a man’s knee; and occasionally
much inconvenience arises from electrical repulsion and attraction,
interfering with the passage of the sheets.
[Illustration: THE “HOE” NEWSPAPER PRINTING MACHINE.]
The laws of printing machinery are not the only phase of the Art in
which the original invention has been supplemented by a second.
The compositor’s work is so specially intelligent that it was thought
no machinery could ever be brought to supersede it. Early in the
present century, however, an attempt was made to economize labour by
cementing into one piece common words, or combinations of letters
of frequent recurrence. These “logotypes,” as they were styled,
were introduced by Mr. John Walter, of _The Times_, and used in the
composition of that paper, as well as in general bookwork, for some
years. But the difficulty of adapting the “case” for these numerous
additional “sorts” proved a bar to their general adoption, and in a
short time the compositor reverted to the single letters.
[Illustration: EARLY LOGOTYPES.]
Of late years the composing machine, formerly but a plaything, has made
great strides towards perfection. The help of electricity has here also
been called in, and as fast as the hand can move, the separate types
make a continuous and rapid flow into perfect lines. More wonderful
still, a distributing machine has been made, which takes the pages of
types after they have fulfilled their duty, and without the aid of
hands sends each letter down a separate channel to its own particular
destination, and that at a speed with which a compositor could never
compete.
One more marvel: Before me is a book which to the eye appears printed
as other books with types, and yet not a type has been used. It is
truly an anomaly, typography without types. The machine is worked by
means of keys something like a piano. Behind is a block of teak wood,
properly placed in its position. This block shifts and adapts itself
automatically to the various positions requisite for it to occupy.
Suppose the first word of your copy is “Print,” you touch the right
key and out darts a steel punch, on the end of which is a “P.” This
punch is driven into the wood an exact distance, and in the exact
position proper for the first word of a sentence. The blow given, the
punch retires, and leaves a beautifully clear matrix in the wood. The
punch “r” follows in the same way; the “r” key is pressed, and the
punch is driven in just by the side of the former. The other three
letters follow in due course, and so on with word after word, until a
whole line is complete, when the block automatically shifts itself,
and a fresh line just beneath the other is commenced. By a clever
arrangement, the lines are all made of one even length, and when a page
is thus completely punched, the block of wood is used as a mould from
which stereotype plates are taken, which print evenly and beautifully.
The speed and accuracy of this wonderful machine is truly astonishing,
but there are too many drawbacks to the method to commend it for
most practical purposes. Correction, for instance, entails entire
recomposition; while as regards the appearance of the matter in print,
it must be admitted that, excellent as the result is, considering the
method and material in which it is produced, it cannot for a moment
compare for delicacy and regularity with the result to be obtained
by the old-fashioned use of types, set by the compositor’s hand. The
great merit claimed for these machines and others of a similar kind
(amongst which the “Linotype” may be mentioned as mechanically the most
ingenious), is speed and cheapness,--qualities which do not always
assort with fine work, or even easy legibility.
The last invention I will mention is the method of producing printing
surfaces by photo-typography--a plan which to a great extent supersedes
stereotype plates, especially where any change of size is desirable.
A zinc plate is prepared photographically, and the drawing or page of
a book to be used is focused with a camera to the size ordered. An
image is thus taken on the metal plate, which is chemically rendered
insoluble by acids in the parts where the image has impinged. The plate
is then treated to an acid bath, when all the parts where the image is
not are eaten away, and in half an hour to an hour a raised surface,
sufficiently high to print from, is left. For work without very fine
lines this process is extremely useful.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
A CHAPTER ON JUDGES.
“_’Tis with our judgments as with our watches; none_
_Go just alike, yet each believes his own._”--
[Illustration]
A CHAPTER ON JUDGES.
This work is intended to be a popular outline only of an extensive
subject; but, in order to assist any reader who wishes to study the
question more deeply, a list of authors, who by their works are
entitled to be called Judges, is here given. Several works well known
to bibliographers, such as those of Dr. Dibdin, have been purposely
omitted, because, however pleasant to read, they carry no weight
historically or bibliographically. The titles of English works have
been preferred when the author has written with care and knowledge; but
as the subject in its entirety cannot be mastered without consulting
also the writings of French and German Judges, such of their works as
supply new facts or arguments unnoticed in English bibliography are
also admitted on the list. Full titles are not necessary and occupy
much room; and as all the works quoted ought to be in every good public
library, short titles have been considered sufficient, the name under
which they should be sought in the catalogue being printed in italics.
The bibliography of the GENESIS of Printing may be divided into two
classes--external and internal. The external, or historical, aspect has
been of late subjected to a searching scrutiny never contemplated a
generation ago. The result has been to nullify the testimony of many
witnesses whose evidence was considered unimpeachable by former judges.
One good result has been effected: the innumerable writers who have
founded their theories and arguments upon what now are acknowledged to
be spurious documents may be swept out of our path. The real judges are
now few.
1. “The Haarlem Legend,” by _Dr. Van der Linde_, was
originally published in Dutch, in 1870. Translated and
printed in English, in 1871. This work sweeps away all the
so-called historical evidence upon which the claims of
Coster to be the Inventor of Printing were founded.
2. “Gutenberg.” By _Dr. Van der Linde_. 1880. Here, in
addition to demolishing the Coster-myth, the author
narrates the invention of Printing by Gutenberg, with full
historical references.
3. “Gutenberg: Was he the Inventor of Printing?” By _Dr.
Hessels_. 1882. All the original documents concerning
Gutenberg, as quoted by Van der Linde, are here examined
critically; many are shown to be false, and the residue not
decisive as to Gutenberg’s claims to the invention.
4. “Geschichte der Erfindung der Buchdruck-kunst.” By _Dr. Van
der Linde_. 1886. The subject is treated in three immense
folio volumes, padded and watered to an unlimited extent,
no attempt being made to uphold the genuine character of
the documents disallowed by Dr. Hessels. This work is not
likely to be translated on account of its swollen bulk and
uncritical character.
The internal evidences deduced from the character of the types, the
evidence of individual workmanship often apparent, and what may
be called the “habits” of the early printers, are of the greatest
importance. They are, to some extent, noticed in works 1, 2, 3, and 4,
but may be specially noted under the names of:--
5. _Fournier, Henri_; “Traité de la Typographie.”
6. _Didot, Amb. Firmin_; “Essai sur la Typographie.”
7. _Bernard, Aug._; “De l’Origine et des Débuts de
l’Imprimerie en Europe.”
8. _Dupont, Paul_; “Histoire de l’Imprimerie.”
9. _Faulman, Karl_; “Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst.”
10. _Ottley, W. T._; “Inquiry concerning the Invention of
Printing.”
11. _De Vinne, Theo_; “The Invention of Printing.”
12. _Skeen, W._; “Early Typography.”
Excellent fac-simile plates will be found in
13. _Sotheby, S. L._; “Principia Typographica.”
14. _Berjeau, J. Ph._; facsimiles of the “Biblia Pauperum,”
“Speculum,” and several other block-books, not so good.
15. _Holtrop, J. W._; “Monuments Typographiques des Pays Bas.”
16. _Weigel & Zestermann_; “Collectio Weigeliana,”--best of all.
This list by no means exhausts the books to be consulted under this
head, but will furnish the student with an ample basis for further
research.
* * * * *
The EXODUS, or spread, of Printing is treated generally in the works 1
to 9. To these must be added the following useful books:--
17. _Cotton, Rev. H._; “Typographical Gazetteer,” series 1 and
2.
18. _Panzer, G. W._; “Annales Typographici.”
19. _Hain, L._; “Repertorium Bibliographicum.”
The special works on the first Presses of the various countries are so
numerous that only a few can be noted:--
For England:
20. _Herbert’s_ Edition of Ames’ “Typographical Antiquities.”
This edition is preferable to Dibdin’s.
For Caxton and Westminster:
21. _Blades, Wm._; “Biography and Typography of William Caxton.”
For Cambridge:
22. _Bradshaw, Henry_; Introduction to reprint of “Bullocks’
Oratio.”
For St. Albans:
23. _Blades, Wm._; Introduction to reprint of the “Boke of St.
Albans.”
For York:
24. _Davis, Rob._; “Memoir of the York Press.”
For Oxford:
25. _Latham, H._; “Oxford Bibles and Printing in Oxford.”
26. _Reed, Talbot B._; “Old English Letter Foundries,” Chapter
6.
For Scotland:
27. _Watson, Jas._; “History of the Art of Printing.”
28. _Dickson, Robert_; “Introduction of the Art of Printing
into Scotland.” *
* Since the death of the Author, _Messrs. Dickson & Edmund’s_
“Annals of Scottish Printing” has appeared.
For Aberdeen:
29. _Edmund, J. P._; “The Aberdeen Printers.”
For America:
30. _Thomas, Isaiah_; “History of Printing in America.” (_See_
p. 113.) The reprint of this work, in its omissions and
careless inaccurate extracts, is a disgrace to the Society
which issued it.
Numerous monographs exist, describing the first Presses in most of the
large Cities of Europe; but our space prohibits their enumeration here.
The LEVITICUS is treated of in a large number of books on the Mechanics
and Practice of Printing; amongst others--
31. _Smith John_; “The Printers’ Grammar” is the oldest
instructor.
32. _Moxon, Jos._; “Mechanick Exercises” is the oldest
mechanical handbook. (_See_ p. 108.)
33. _Johnson, J._; “Typographia.”
34. _Hansard, T. C._; “Typographia.”
35. _Luckombe, P._; “History and Art of Printing.”
36. _Savage, W._; “Dictionary of the Art of Printing.”
For Typefounding:
37. _Mores, E. Rowe_; “Dissertation upon English Typographical
Founders and Foundries.” (_See_ p. 112.)
38. _Reed, Talbot B._; “History of the Old English Letter
Foundries.”
39. _Hansard, T. C._; “Treatises on Printing and Typefounding.”
For an account of the early mechanics of Typefounding, see _Moxon_,
(No. 32 _ante_).
The NUMBERS of Printers whose biographies exist have not been very
numerous. The best known are:--
For the first German Printers:
40. _Gessner, C. F._; “Die so nöthig ... Buchdruckerkunst.”
For the early Printers generally:
41. _Madden, J. P. A._; “Lettres d’un Bibliographe.”
For the Aldine family:
42. _Renouard, A. A._; “Annales de l’Imprimerie des Alde.”
43. _Didot, A. F._; “Alde Manuce et l’Hellénisme à Venice.”
For Jenson:
44. _Sardini, G._; “Storia Critica de Nic. Jenson.”
For the Junta:
45. _Bandini, A. M._; “De Florentina Juntarum Typographiâ.”
For Bodoni:
46. _Bernardi, Jac._; “Vita di Giambattista Bodoni.”
For the first Parisian Printers:
47. _Philippe, J._; “Origine de l’Imprimerie à Paris.”
For Geofroy Tory:
48. _Bernard, Aug._; “Geofroy Tory, Peintre et Graveur.”
For the Stephens:
49. _Bernard, A. J._; “Les Estienne.”
For the Dutch Printers:
50. _Ledeboer, A. M._; “Alfabetische Lijst der Boekdrukkers ...
in Noord-Nederland.”
For Colard Mansion:
51. _Van Praet, J. B. B._; “Notice sur Colard Mansion.”
52. _Carton, C._; “Colard Mansion.”
For Martens of Alost:
53. _Gand, M. J._; “Recherches Historiques sur ... Thierry
Martens.”
For Plantin:
54. _Rooses, Max_; “Christophe Plantin, Imprimeur Anversois.”
For the Elzevirs:
55. _Pieters, Ch._; “Annales de l’Imprimerie Elsevirienne.”
56. _Willems, A._; “Les Elzevier.”
For English Printers before 1600, consult _Herbert_ (No. 20, _ante_).
For English Printers generally:
57. _Timperley, Chas. H._; “Encyclopædia of Literary and
Typographical Anecdotes.”
For Day:
58. _Strype, J._; “Life of Parker.”
For Bowyer:
59. _Nichols, J._; “Life of William Bowyer.”
For English Printers in the 18th century:
60. _Nichols, J._; “Literary Anecdotes.”
For Baskerville, consult _Reed_ (No. 38 _ante_, Chapter 13).
For Scotch Printers:
61. _Dickson & Edmund_; “Annals of Scottish Printing.”
* * * * *
The DEUTERONOMY, and modern developments of Printing, are dealt with in
numerous current hand-books, of which the following may be named:--
62. _Wilson, F. J. F._; “Stereotyping and Electrotyping”; also
“Printing Machines and Machine Printing.”
63. _Southward, John_; “Practical Printing.”
* * * * *
Fac-simile Title-pages of a few curious works, not included in the
above list, but worthy to rank among the JUDGES, are appended.
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of the _Star Chamber Decree_,
1637.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of Atkyn’s _Original and Growth of
Printing_, 1664.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page from Wolffger’s _Format Buchlein_,
1620.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Illustration from Wolffger’s _Format
Buchlein_, 1620.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of Moxon’s _Mechanick Exercises_,
1683.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of the Elzevir Specimen Book,
1713.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of Watson’s _History of Printing_,
1713.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of Lewis’ _Life of Caxton_, 1737.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of Mores’ _Dissertation on
Founders_, 1778.]
[Illustration: Fac-simile Title-page of I. Thomas’ _History of Printing
in America_, 1810.]
INDEX.
Accursius, M., 14
Aldine Anchor, 68
Aldus, 64-68, 102
Amerbach, 73
America, Printing in, 40, 79, 100, 113
Bacon’s Rollers, 90
Badius Ascensius, 54, 70
Baskerville, J., 77, 103
Bellaert, J., 74
Belgium, Printing in, 75
Bensley, J., 77, 87, 88
_Biblia Pauperum_, 7
Blaeu, W. J., 75
Block-Books, 7, 12, 13, 99
Block Printing, 6, 9
Bodoni, G., 68, 102
Bologna, G. da, 67
Book-making, Early, 10
Bowyer, Wm., 103
Breitkopf, 64
Brockhaus, 64
Brothers of Common Life, 31
Cardboard, 6
Case for Type, 52
Catchwords, 57
Cave, John, 77
Caxton, Wm., 31, 32-40, 100
Chaix, A., 73
Chinese Printing, 6
_Cologne Chronicle_, 14, 15
Colophons, 45
Composing Machines, 92
Composing Sticks, 53
Compositors, 51
Correction, 54, 93
Coster, L. J., 16, 18, 19, 61, 98
_Costeriana_, 15, 61
Cowper’s Machine, 90
Cramoisy, 73
Cranz, M., 28
Creussner, 26
Cromberger, 40
Cylindrical Impression, 88
Day, John, 77, 103
Daye, Stephen, 40
Dibdin, T. F., 98
_Dictes and Sayinges_, 38
Didot Family, 72
Distributing Machines, 92
Dolet, E., 69
_Donatus_, 12
Donkin’s Rollers, 90
Dupré, 69
Dürer, Alb., 64
Eggestein, 25, 63
Elzevirs, Family of, 74, 102
England, Printing in, 32, 76, 100, 102
Engraving, 6, 12
Estiennes, Family of, 71, 102
Europe in the 15th century, 10
“Feet” of Type, 49
Feyerabend, 63
Fichet, G., 28, 29
“Forms” of Type, 56
France, Printing in, 28, 69, 102
Franklin, Benj., 79
Friburger, M., 28
Froben, John, 73
Fust, John, 20, 21, 25
Garamond, Cl., 71
Gering, U., 28, 30, 73
Germany, Printing in, 25, 32, 63, 101
Goebel, Th., 89
_Golden Legend_, 38
Gothic Type, 30
Greek Types, 71
Guilds, Trade, 10
Gutenberg, John, 15, 20, 21, 98
Haarlem, 13, 20, 63, 98
Hahn, Ulric, 64
Hamborch, Conrad, 48
Hero-worship, Perils of, 16
Hessels, J. H., 98
Heynlin, J., 21, 28
Holland, Claims of, 13, 20, 63
Ibarra, 75
Impression, Modes of, 5, 88
_Indulgences_, 13
Ink, 7, 54
Inking Balls, 55
Invention Controversy, 22, 98
Ireland, Printing in, 40
Italic Type, 67
Italy, Printing in, 27, 64
Jenson, Nic., 102
Junius, Had., 16, 18
Keffer, H., 26
Koburger, 26, 64
Koelhoff, 63
Kœnig, Fredk., 86-90
Lamps, Printing on, 5
Language, 5
Latin Names of Towns, 41
Leeu, Ger., 31
Lignamine, P. de, 64
Linde, Dr. Van der, 15, 98
Logotypes, 92
Machlinia, 40
Mansion, Colard, 30, 31, 37, 102
Martens, Thierry, 31, 102
Matrix, 51
Mayence, 20, 25
_Mayence Psalter_, 46
Maynyal, 31
Mentelin, 25, 63
Millar, And., 40
Moel, 69
Moretus, Ed., 75
Mould, 51
Moxon, Jos., 50, 101
Nature-printing, 5
Netherlands, Printing in, 31, 32, 74
Newspaper, Printing of a, 90
Nichols, John, 77
Nicholson, John, 86-89
Numbering of Pages, 57
Olpe, P. de, 63
Operinus, 73
Oxford, Printing at, 32, 100
Pannartz, A., 27, 64
Paper on Reels, 91
Petreius, 63
Pfister, 25, 63
Photo-typography, 93
Pigouchet, 69
Planck, 64
Plantin, Christopher, 75, 102
Playing Cards, 6
Powell, Humphrey, 40
Presses, Early, 54, 56, 81, 83
Printing, Definition of, 11
Printing by hand, 85
Printing, Laws affecting, 77
Printing, Spread of, 25, 99
Punch Cutting, 50
Pynson, 40, 76
_Recueil des Histoires de Troye_, 30
_Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_, 30, 35, 37
Reissinger, 64
Rood and Hunte, 40
Roman Type, 27
Rome, Printing at, 26
Rot, Bert., 27
St. Albans, Schoolmaster of, 40
Schœffer, P., 21, 25, 49, 63
Scotland, Printing in, 40, 100, 103
Scribes, 10
Seals, Early, 5
Sensenschmidt, 26, 63
Siberch, 40
Signatures, 56
Silber, 64
Spain, Printing in, 75
_Speculum_, 13
Spire, J. de, 28
Spottiswoodes, The, 77
Stationers’ Company, 40, 77
Steam Power and Printing, 85, 91
Steam Press invented, 88
Stereotyping, 90, 103
Stephani. (_See_ Estiennes.)
Strasbourg, 20, 25
Switzerland, Printing in, 73
Therhoernen, 63
_Theurdanck_, 26
_Times, The_, 90
Title-pages, 57
Tory, G., 69, 102
Types, Early, 13, 22, 98
Types on Wood, 47
Types, Early Specimens of, 48, 49
Type-Metal, 51
Typefounding, Early Practice of, 45, 51, 101
Typography, 3-9
Typography, Early Schools of, 32
Typography without Types, 93
Valdarfer, 27
Veldener, 31
Venice, 27, 64
Verard, Ant., 69
Viessieux, G., 69
Vinne, Theo. L. de, 81
Vitré, Ant., 73
Vostre, Simon, 69
Walter, John, 87, 89, 92
Wolffe, 77
Woodfalls, 77
Worde, Wynken de, 40, 76
Writing Material, 5, 6
Zainer, G., 27, 63
Zell, Ulric, 14, 26, 32, 63
[Illustration]
Transcriber’s Notes.
Italic text is indicated with _underscores_, bold text with =equals=.
Small/mixed capitals have been replaced with ALL CAPITALS.
Evident typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected
silently. Inconsistent spelling/hyphenation has been normalised.
Various spellings of Elsevier, Elzevier and Elzevir are the author’s.
Internal cross-references printed as footnotes have been moved into the
text.
Some illustration with no caption in the text, have been captioned from
the list of illustrations.
To improve text flow, illustrations have been relocated between
paragraphs.
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