In the article Printing the reader will find that the invention of the art of type-founding was a very early consequence of the discovery of the rude art of taking impressions from laboriously excised letters of wood and metal; and that after an investigation of the statements of various authors, the honour of the invention has been given to the illustrious partnership of Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoeffer, the larger share being allowed to the latter, as having had practice in the design and proportioning of letters in his original employment of an illuminator; that the place of the invention was the city of Mentz, and that the time was about the year 1457. Nor, upon examination, will it appear that any other can dispute the honour with these worthies, insomuch as they indisputably used cast metal types before parts of the kingdom, found it necessary for secrecy to cut their fonts themselves. The decree seems to have been in some degree a revival of one of the same nature, 28 Elizabeth, limiting the number of printers to twenty. By the first-mentioned decree it was ordered,
That there shall be four founders of letters for printing; and no more.
That the archbishop of Canterbury, or the bishop of London, with six other high commissioners, shall supply the places of those four as they shall become void.
That no master founder shall keep above two apprentices at one time.
That all journeymen founders be employed by the masters of the trade, and that idle journeymen be compelled to work upon pain of imprisonment; and such other punishment as the court shall think fit.
That no master founder of letters shall employ any other person in any work belonging to the casting and founding of letters than freemen or apprentices to the trade, save only in pulling off the knots of metal hanging at the end of the letters when they are first cast, in which work every master founder may employ one boy only not bound to the trade.
The four founders appointed by this decree to serve the whole kingdom were John Grismand, Thomas Wright, Arthur Nicholas, and Alexander Fifield.
This decree was revived 14th Charles II., renewed 16th Charles II., and again for seven years 1st James II., at which term it expired, and was never renewed.
The fonts in use in English printing-offices may be divided into two kinds; those used for book, and those for job printing, that is, hand and posting bills, &c. Of book types there are twelve regular bodies, viz. Great Primer, English, Pica, Small Pica, Long Primer, Bourgeois, Brevier, Minion, Nonpareil, Ruby, Pearl, and Diamond. Besides these, Minion-Nonpareil is a good deal used; and some founders have introduced intermediate fonts, as Emerald.
It is much to be regretted that no uniform standard has been adopted by letter-founders for their fonts of the same-named letter; they vary not only from those of other founders, but even from their own, owing to which it seldom happens that any two fonts stand together. This is the cause of much inconvenience, as in the instance of capitals and small capitals; accented letters, signs, and other sorts introduced into common matter; the printer being obliged to purchase a small quantity of each with every font, whereas, were there any uniformity, he might have a considerable quantity to be used with any font as occasion required.
Great Primer (Fr. Gros Romain; Ger. Tertia) is the largest type in use in book printing, being chiefly for large Bibles, on which account it is sometimes called Bible Text; but it is very seldom employed. There are about 51½ ms to a foot: it is double the body of Bourgeois.
English (Fr. Saint Augustin; Ger. Mittel) is much used for church Bibles, and for works in folio and quarto. The French name is probably derived from its being first used to print the works of St Augustin; the German from its being the middle of seven standard fonts used by the early German printers. There are about 64 ms to a foot: its body is equal to two Minions.
Pica (Fr. and Ger. Cicero, from its having been first used for Cicero's Epistles) is the font which is used as the general standard of measurement in casting leads, quotations, cutting rule, and regulating the price of press-work, &c. It is in very extensive use for works of a standard
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A copy of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis, in the library of the late duke of Marlborough, presents probably the earliest specimen of types; twenty-five of its leaves being printed from solid wooden blocks, or perhaps from wooden blocks on which the designs have been cut so that the scrolls, cut upon other blocks, were inserted in spaces left for them; while, in thirty-eight leaves, the scrolls are in cast type, set in the designs in lieu of the engraved scrolls. character, history, art, and other library works; it is sufficiently large for weak eyes, and not too great for moderately sized 8vo pages, being in fact the just medium. There are 71 ms to a foot, and it is equal to two Nonpareils.
Small Pica (Fr. Philosophie; Ger. Brevier) is perhaps the most extensively used of all the fonts, being a very useful and well-proportioned letter. Novels are almost always printed in this body. 83 ms to a foot; equal to two Rubies.
Long Primer (Fr. Petit Roman; Ger. Corpus) is likewise much used, being very well adapted for works in 12mo, dictionaries, and other works in which much matter is to be got into a small space: it is the type of the Waverley Novels and of this Encyclopedia. 89 ms to a foot; two Pearls.
Bourgeois (Fr. Gaillerde; the Germans have none to correspond) is much used for the same purposes as Long Primer, and in solid matter is difficult to distinguish by the eye from that body. 102 ms to a foot; two Diamonds.
Brevier (Fr. Petite Texte; Ger. Petit or Jungfer) is so called from its having been much used for printing breviaries. It is much employed for small works, and for notes. 112½ ms = 1 foot.
Minion (Fr. Mignonne; Ger. Colonel) is chiefly in use for newspaper advertisements; it is a very pretty font, and well adapted for pocket editions, Prayer-books, and Bibles; it is perhaps the smallest of readable sizes. 128 ms = 1 foot; half English.
Nonpareil (Fr. and Ger. Nompareille), used for the same purposes as Minion. 143 ms = 1 foot; half Pica.
Ruby (no body to correspond in France or Germany), used for pocket dictionaries, prayer-books, &c.; but it is too small for any but the strongest sight. 163 ms = 1 foot; half Small Pica.
Pearl (Fr. Parisienne; Ger. Perl), used for the same purposes. 178 ms = 1 foot; half Long Primer.
Diamond (Fr. and Ger. Diamond) is the smallest body cut; it is distressingly small, and is used mostly for notes to works in Nonpareil and the descending bodies. The French have succeeded in cutting the face so small as to be illegible, and an annual lately sold in London in this letter is accompanied with a magnifying glass. 205 ms = 1 foot; half Bourgeois.
The principal apparatus in the casting of type are the punch, the matrix, and the mould. The punch (or pancheon) is a piece of steel bearing upon one end a single letter, which is formed by hammering, filing, and other processes, and differs in no other respect from ordinary punches than the unusual care and accuracy with which it is worked. It must be remembered, that as each letter is but one of a large number with which it is to harmonize, the height must be obtained with the greatest precision, the breadth both of the heavy and the fine strokes must be carefully proportioned, the turns graceful. This general harmony is not very difficult to attain in the coarser fancy type, there being in this, as in other arts, little merit in imitating the vulgar or the grotesque; but the elegant and symmetrical face of book type is as difficult to attain as the exquisite grace of the higher productions of the arts; and yet, to such perfection have modern artists attained, that the practised eye has little difficulty in assigning an individual letter to its proper font, and even, if the printer has turned his attention to the particulars of his art, to the foundry and the artist, the punch-cutter of a foundery of character having a professional reputation, like a painter or engraver. Mr Moxon, a mechanician of great ingenuity, in his Mechanical Exercises, has the credit of first assigning rules for the shaping of letters, laying down geometrical rules for the angles of inclination, the curves, and for adjusting the base from which the shoulders of the letter should rise to obtain the greatest strength. From this the modern artists have varied, obtaining great sharpness of appearance combined with strength and durability. Although beyond a doubt Mr Moxon's formula have been of great advantage to subsequent punch-cutters, he was by no means a successful artist himself; his type, cut upon the most philosophical principles, being uglier than that of his contemporaries. The matrix is a small piece of copper into which the punch is struck. Much care is also requisite in doing this, although, provided it be struck sufficiently deep, the surface of the copper may be filed down so as to leave the impress of the exact depth. It has been explained in the article PRINTING, that to obtain equality of impression the face of the composed type must be in an exact plane, from which it will be easily understood that the just depth of the impression in the matrix is a matter of much importance. The copper must now be carefully dressed at the ends and sides, in order that when adjusted in the mould, the character, when cast, may be so placed upon its body that it shall stand exactly even with its brother characters: the nicety required in this is surprising.
The mould is a very simple but very ingenious apparatus, consisting of two parts, so contrived that, being properly placed together (viz. a 2 in a 1, b 1 in b 2, c 2 in c 1, and d 1 on d 2), they form, in the centre e, a space, which is geometrically described as a parallelopiped, being, in fact, the mould in which the type is formed; the matrix f is placed at the bottom; the metal is poured in at the orifice formed by the closing of the upper parts. It will be seen that the two parts which form the mould slide upon each other, and that the extent to which they close is regulated by the width of the matrix; and that therefore all types of one font, whether the broad 4-m quadrant or the narrow i or l, may be cast in the same mould. The spring at the bottom of figure 2 retains the matrix in its place, and without removing it the new letter cannot be disengaged; the hooks at the top are used to remove the letter from the mould. f is an enlarged drawing of the matrix.
The caster, with this apparatus, stations himself by the side of a furnace containing the melting pot and the fluid metal, of which he takes a portion with a very small ladle, and having poured in a sufficient quantity, jerks the mould into the air with his left hand (a very singular movement), which has the effect of expelling the air and forcing the metal into the finest strokes of the matrix. He then with one finger releases the spring, separates the mould, and hooks out the letter with one of the pieces of bent wire represented at the top of the mould; and so proceeds with considerable rapidity, casting about 500 letters in the hour, of ordinary sized type, although the smaller and the larger The types are now removed from the caster's table by a boy, who strikes off the knob at the bottom, caused by the superfluous metal at the orifice of the mould. A workman next rubs the sides of each letter upon a slab of very gritty stone (his fingers being guarded by a piece of leather), which removes any small mounds or globules attached to the sides or edges. This is done with great rapidity, from 1500 to 2000 letters being rubbed in an hour. The letters are then set up in a long stick, and again pressed, and the bottom grooved, by which exact height is insured; and the foundry being then proportioned, is tied up, and is ready for the printer.
The matrix for very large type is differently prepared, the nicety of the punch-cutter's art not being required. The letter having been accurately shaped out by rule and compass upon a piece of copper or brass, the part so marked out is cut away, care being taken to cut the back somewhat wider than the front, the sloping edge forming the shoulder of the future type. The piece of brass now very much resembles the plates used for stencilling the large headings of legal forms; it is next riveted upon a smooth surface of brass, which forms the face of the letter.
There is a peculiarity in script type which is deserving of mention. Script being an imitation of hand-writing, it is necessary that the fine strokes at the beginning and end of each letter should be in close contact with those of the preceding and succeeding letters. This M. Didot endeavoured to achieve by a very curious shape in the type, which each should so lock in with the other that the required contact should not fail; but he carried his invention beyond the power of practice, for having resolved the characters into their component parts, he cast a series of signs exactly resembling the "pothooks and hangers" of a schoolboy's copy-book, so that not only was every word composed, but every letter:
The English founders soon improved upon this idea, casting each letter complete. This however requires several letters to be cast in several forms, the initial, medial, and final letters not being always quite alike. The following will give an idea of how script is cast and composed:
In the infancy of the art of Printing.
Most of the English type-founders, aware of the practical effects of this method, have, by a careful adjustment of the fine strokes at the beginning and end of each letter, cut out upon the ordinary square body, which answer every purpose. From the nature of the metal, however, and its ability to wear and become battered, script is an expensive font.