or FONT, among printers, &c. a fet or quantity of characters or letters of each kind, caft by a letter-founder, and foorted.—We fay, a founder has caft a fount of pica, of english, of pearl, &c. meaning that he has caft a fet of characters of thofe kinds.

A complete fount not only includes the running letters, but alfo large and small capitals, fingle letters, double letters, points, commas, lines, and numeral characters.

Founts are large or fmall, according to the demand of the printer, who orders them by the hundred weight, or by sheets. When the printer orders a fount of 500, he means that the fount fhouid weigh 500lb. When he demands a fount of 10 sheets, it is underflood, that with that fount he fhall be able to compofe 10 sheets, or 20 forms, without being obliged to diftribute. The founder takes his meafures accordingly; he reckons 120 pounds for a sheet, including the quadrates, &c. or 60 pounds for a form, which is half a sheet: not that the sheet always weighs 120 pounds, or the form 60 pounds; on the contrary, it varies according to the fize of the form; befides, it is always fuppoſed that there are letters left in the cafes.

The letter-founders have a kind of lift, or tariff, whereby they regulate their founts: the occasion thereof is, that fome letters being in much more ufe, and oftener repeated than others, their cells or cafes fhould be better filled and stored than thofe of the letters which do not return fo frequently. Thus the o and i, for inftance, are always in greater quantity than the k or z.

This difference will be best perceived from a proportional comparifon of thofe letters with themfelves, or fome others. Suppoſe a fount of 100,000 characters, which is a common fount; here the a fhould have 5000, the e 3000, the e 11,000, the i 6000, the m 3000, the k only 30, and the x, y and x, not many more. But this is only to be understood of the letters of the lower cafe; thofe of the upper having other proportions, which it would be, here, too long to infift on.