Such is Lambinet's hypothesis. Were it not for the fact that it was endorsed by the authority of M. Firmin Didot, the renowned typefounder and printer of Lambinet's day, we should hardly be disposed to admit its claim to serious attention. The supposition that the Mentz Psalter, which these writers point to as a specimen of this mode of execution, is the impression, not of type at all, but of a collection of "casts" mounted on wood, is too fanciful. M. Didot, it must be remembered, was the enthusiastic French improver of Stereotype, and his enthusiasm appears to have led him to see in his method not only a revolution in the art of printing as it existed in his day, but also a solution of the mystery which had shrouded the early history of that art for upwards of three centuries.

It may be well, before quitting this subject, to take note of a certain phrase which has given rise to a considerable amount of conjecture and controversy in connection with the early methods of typography. The expression “getté en molle" occurred as early as the year 1446, in a record kept by Jean le Robert of Cambray, who stated that in January of that year he paid 20 sous for a printed Doctrinale, "getté en molle." Bernard has assumed this expression to refer to the use of types cast from a mould, and cites a large number of instances where, being used in contradistinction to writing by hand, it is taken to signify typography.1

Dr. Van der Linde, on the other hand, considers the term to mean, printed from a wooden form, i.e., a xylographic production, and nothing more, quoting similar instances of the use of the words to support his opinion; and Dr. Van Meurs, whose remarks are quoted in full in Mr. Hessel's introduction to Dr. Van der Linde's Coster Legend, declines to apply the phrase to the methods by which the Doctrinale was printed at all; but dwelling on the distinction drawn in various documents between "en molle" and "en papier," concludes that the reference is to the binding of the book, and nothing more; a bound book being "brought together in a form or binding," while an unbound one is "in paper."

1 Origine de l'Imprimerie, i, 99, etc. The following are the citations :-"Escriture en molle," used in the letters of naturalisation to the first Paris printers, 1474. "Escrits en moule," applied to two Horæ in vellum, bought by the Duke of Orleans, 1496. "Mettre en molle," applied to the printing of Savonarola's sermons, 1498. "Tant en parchemin que en papier, à la main et en molle," applied to the books in a library, 1498. "Mettre en molle," applied to the printing of a book by Marchand, 1499. "En molle et à la main," applied to printed books and manuscripts in the Duke of Bourbon's library, 1523. "Pièces officielles moulées par ordre de l'Assemblée." Procès verbaux des Etats Généraux, 1593.

2 Coster Legend, p. 6.

3 Ibid., p. viii.

It is difficult to reconcile these conflicting interpretations, to which may be added as a fourth that of Mr. Skeen, who considers the phrase to refer to the indented appearance of the paper of a book after being printed. In the three last cases the expression is valueless as regards our present inquiry; but if we accept M. Bernard's interpretation, which seems at least to have the weight of simplicity and reasonable testimony on its side, then it would be necessary to conclude that type-casting, either by a primitive or a finished process (but having regard to the date and the place, almost certainly the former), was practised in Flanders prior to January 1446. None of the illustrations, however, which M. Bernard cites points definitely to the use of cast type, but to printing in the abstract, irrespective of method or process. "Moulées par ordre de l'Assemblée" might equally well apply to a set of playing-cards or a broadside proclamation; "mettre en molle" does not necessarily mean anything more than put into "print"; while the recurring expressions "en molle" and "à la main,” point to nothing beyond the general distinction between manuscript and printed matter. In fact, the lack of definiteness in all the quotations given by M. Bernard weakens his own argument: for if we are to translate the word moulé throughout in the narrow sense in which he reads it, we must then believe that in every instance he cites, figurative language was employed where conventional would have answered equally well, and that the natural antithesis to the general term, "by hand," must in all cases be assumed to be the particular term, "printed in cast metal types." For ourselves, we see no justification for taxing the phrase beyond its broad interpretation of "print"; and in this light it appears possible to reconcile most of the conjectures to which the words have given rise.

Turning now from the conjectured primitive processes of the ruder school of early Typography, we come to consider the practice of that more mature school which, as has already been said, appears to have arrived at once at the secret of the punch, matrix and adjustable mould. We should be loth to assert that they arrived at once at the most perfect mechanism of these appliances; indeed, an examination of the earliest productions of the Mentz press, beautiful as they are, convinces one that the first printers were not finished typefounders. But even if their first punches were wood or copper, their first matrices lead, and their first mould no more than a clumsy adaptation of the composing-stick, they yet had the secret of the art; to perfect it was a mere matter of time.

Experiments have proved conclusively that the face of a wood-cut type may be without injury impressed into lead in a state of semi-fusion, and thus produce in creur an inverted image of itself in the matrix. It has also been shown that a lead matrix so formed is capable, after being squared and justified,

of being adapted to a mould, and producing a certain number of types in soft lead or pewter before yielding to the heat of the operation.1 It has also been demonstrated that similar matrices formed in clay or plaster, by the application of the wood or metal models while the substance is moist, are capable of similar

use.

Dr. Franklin, in a well-known passage of his Autobiography, gives the following account of his experiences as a casual letter-founder in 1727. "Our press," he says, "was frequently in want of the necessary quantity of letter; and there was no such trade as that of letter-founder in America. I had seen the practice of this art at the house of James, in London; but had at the time paid it very little attention. I, however, contrived to fabricate a mould. I made use of such letters as we had for punches, founded new letters of lead in matrices of clay, and thus supplied in a tolerable manner the wants that were most pressing." M. Bernard states that in his day the Chinese characters in the Imperial printing-office in Paris were cast by a somewhat similar process. The original wooden letters were moulded in plaster. Into the plaster mould types of a hard metal were cast, and these hard-metal types served as punches to strike matrices with in a softer metal.1

In the Enschedé foundry at Haarlem there exists to this day a set of matrices said to be nearly four hundred years old, which are described as leaden matrices from punches of copper, "suivant l'habitude des anciens fondeurs dans les premiers temps après l'invention de l'imprimerie." By

1 A calculation given in the Magazin Encyclopédique of 1806, i, 299, shows that from such matrices 120 to 150 letters can be cast before they are rendered useless, and from 50 to 60 letters before any marked deterioration is apparent in the fine strokes of the types.

* Several writers account for the alleged perforated wooden and metal types reputed to have been used by the first printers, and described by Specklin, Pater, Roccha and others, by supposing that they were model types used for forming matrices, and threaded together for safety and convenience of storage.

• Works of the late Dr. Benjamin Franklin, consisting of his Life, written by himself, in 2 vols. London, 1793, 8vo, i, 143. It is a very singular fact that in a later corrected edition of the same work, edited by John Bigelow, and published in Philadelphia in 1875, the passage above quoted reads as follows: "I contrived a mould, made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all deficiencies." Whichever reading be correct, the illustration is apt, as proving the possibility of producing type from matrices either of clay or lead in a makeshift mould.

4 Origine de l'Imprimerie, i, 144.

From this method of forming the matrices (says a note to the Enschedé specimen) has arisen the name Chalcographia, which Bergellanus, among others, applies to printing.

the kindness of Messrs. Enschede, we are able to show a few letters from types cast in these venerable matrices.

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1. Types cast from leaden matrices (circ. 1500?) now in the Enschedé foundry, Haarlem.

Lead matrices are frequently mentioned as having been in regular use in some of the early foundries of this country. A set of them in four-line pica was sold at the breaking up of James's foundry in 1782, and in the oldest of the existing foundries to this day may be found relics of the same practice.

At Lubeck, Smith informs us in 1755,1 a printer cast for his own use, "not only large-sized letters for titles, but also a sufficient quantity of two-lined. English, after a peculiar manner, by cutting his punches on wood, and sinking them afterwards into leaden matrices; yet were the letters cast in them deeper than the French generally are."

When, therefore, the printer of the Catholicon, in 1460, says of his book, "non calami styli aut pennæ suffragio, sed mirâ patronarum formarumque concordiâ proportione ac modulo impressus atque confectus est," we have not necessarily to conclude that the types were produced in the modern way from copper matrices struck by steel punches. Indeed, probability seems to point to a gradual progress in the durability of the materials employed. In the first instance, the punches may have been of wood, and the matrices soft lead or clay2; then the attempt might be made to strike hard lead into soft; that failing, copper punches3 might be used to form leaden matrices; then, when the necessity for a more durable substance than lead for the letter became urgent, copper would be used for the matrix, and brass, and finally steel, for the punch. Of whatever substance the matrices were made, the first printers appear early to have mastered the art of justifying them, so that when cast in the mould they should not only stand, each letter true in itself, but all true to one another. Nothing amazes one more in examining these earliest printed works than the wonderful regularity of the type in body, height, and line; and if anything could be considered as evidence that those types were produced from matrices in

1 Printer's Grammar. Lond., 1755, p. 10.

It has been suggested by some that wood could be struck into lead or pewter; but the possibility of producing a successful matrix in this manner is, we consider, out of the question. In 1816 Robert Clayton proposed to cast types in metal out of wooden matrices punched in wood with a cross grain, which has been previously slightly charred or baked.

3 In the specimen of "Ancienne Typographie" of the Imprimerie Royale of Paris, 1819, several of the old oriental founts are thus noted: "les poinçons sont en cuivre."

moulds, and not by the rude method of casting from matrices which comprehended body and face in the same moulding, this feature alone is conclusive. We may go further, and assert that not only must the matrices have been harmoniously justified, but the mould employed, whatever its form, must have had its adjustable parts finished with a near approach to mathematical accuracy, which left little to be accomplished in the way of further improvement.

Respecting this mould we have scarcely more material for conjecture than with regard to the first punches and matrices. The principle of the bipartite mould was, of course, well known already. The importance of absolute squareness in the body and height of the type would demand an appliance of greater precision than the uncertain hollowed cube of sand or clay; the heat of the molten lead would point to the use of a hard metal like iron or steel and the varying widths of the sunk letters in the matrices would suggest the adoption of some system of slides whereby the mould could be expanded or contracted laterally, without prejudice to the invariable regularity of its body and height. By what crude methods the first typefounder contrived to combine these essential qualities, we have no means of judging1; but were they ever so crude, to him is due the honour of the culminating achievement of the invention of typography. "His type mould," Mr. De Vinne remarks, "was not merely the first; it is the only practical mechanism for making types. For more than four hundred years this mould has been under critical examination, and many

1 In the 2nd edition of Isaiah Thomas' History of Printing in America, Albany, 1874, i, 288, an anecdote is given of Peter Miller, the German who printed at Ephrata in the United States in 1749, which we think is suggestive of the possible expedients of the first printers with regard to the mould. During the time that a certain work of Miller was in the press, says Francis Bailey, a former apprentice of Miller's, "particular sorts of the fonts of type on which it was printed ran short. To overcome this difficulty, one of the workmen constructed a mold that could be moved so as to suit the body of any type not smaller than brevier nor larger than double-pica. The mold consisted of four quadrangular pieces of brass, two of them with mortices to shift to a suitable body, and secured by screws. The best type they could select from the sort wanted was then placed in the mold, and after a slight corrosion of the surface of the letter with aquafortis to prevent soldering or adhesion, a leaden matrix was cast on the face of the type, from which, after a slight stroke of a hammer on the type in the matrix, we cast the letters which were wanted. Types thus cast answer tolerably well. I have often adopted a method somewhat like this to obtain sorts which were short; but instead of four pieces of brass, made use of an even and accurate composing-stick, and one piece of iron or copper having an even surface on the sides; and instead of a leaden matrix, have substituted one of clay, especially for letters with a bold face." De Vinne describes an old mould preserved among the relics in Bruce's foundry at New York, composed (with the matrix) of four pieces, and adjustable both as to body and thickness. Bernard also mentions a similar mould in use in 1853.

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