T will be convenient, now that we have reached a point at

which letter-founding enters upon a new stage as a distinct trade, to take a brief survey of its progress as a mechanical industry; availing ourselves of such records and illustrations as may be met with, to trace its development and improved appliances during the period covered by this narrative.

As has already been stated, the reticence of our first printers leaves us almost entirely in the dark as to the particular processes by which they produced their earliest types. Mr. Blades leans to the opinion that Caxton, in his first attempts at typefounding, adopted the methods of the rude Flemish or Dutch School, of whose conjectured appliances we have spoken in the introductory chapter. “The English printers," he says, “whose practice seems to have been derived from the Flemish School, were far behind their contemporaries in the art. Their types show that a very rude process of founding was practised ; and the use . . . of old types as patterns for new, evinces more of commercial expediency than of artistic ambition."

At the same time, there seems reasonable ground for inferring, from the peculiarities attending the re-casting of Caxton's Type 4 as 4*, to which allusion has already been made, that at least as early as 1480 Caxton was possessed of the secret of the punch, and matrix and adjustable mould; while the

excellent works of De Worde and his contemporaries demonstrate that, however rudely, the art may have begun, England was, in the early years of the sixteenth century, abreast of many of her rivals, both as to the design and workmanship of her founts.

The frequent indications to be met with of the transmission of founts from one printer to another, as well as the passing on of worn types from the presses of the metropolis to those of the provinces, are suggestive of the existence (very limited, indeed) of some sort of home trade in type even at that early date. For a considerable time, moreover, after the perfection of the art in England, the trade in foreign types, which dated back as early as the establishment of printing in Westminster and Oxford, continued to flourish. With Normandy, especially, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a brisk commerce was maintained. Not only were many of the English liturgical and law books printed abroad by Norman artists, but Norman type found its way in considerable quantities into English presses. M. Claudin, whose researches in the history of the early provincial presses of France entitles him to be considered an authority on the matter, states that Rouen, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, was the great typographical market which furnished type not to England only, but to other cities in France and to Switzerland. “It evidently had special typographical foundries,” he observes. “Richard Pynson, a London printer, was a Norman ; Will Faques learned typography from J. le Bourgeois, a printer at Rouen. These two printers had types cast expressly for themselves in Normandy. Wynkyn de Worde must have bought types in Normandy also, and very likely from Peter Olivier and Jean de Lorraine, printers in partnership at Rouen.” And with regard to the first printer of Scotland, M. Claudin has no doubt that Myllar learned his art in Normandy, and that the types with which his earliest work was printed were those of the Rouen printer, Hostingue.

It is reasonable to suppose that English printers would endeavour, if possible, to provide themselves, not with types merely, but with matrices of the founts of their selections; and, indeed, we imagine some explanation of the marked superiority of our national typography at the close of the fifteenth century over that of half a century later, is to be found in the fact that, whereas many of the first printers used types wholly cut and cast for them by expert foreign artists, their successors began first to cast for themselves from hired or purchased matrices, and finally to cut their own punches and justify their own matrices. Printing entered on a gloomy stage of its career in England after Day's time, gradually hemmed it in, crushing by its monopolies --- Sealousy foreign succour, every printer became

ZSE he would, but because he must, and the art

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Der on the metto i Handwerker. Frankfurt, 1568. In With century letter-foundry, we are fortunately

viie quaint engraving preserved to us by Jost

Amman in his Book of Tradesi in 1568, and reproduced here. The picture represents the Frankfort founder seated at his small brick furnace, casting type in a mould. This mould differs from the modern hand-moulds in being pyramidical in shape, and holding the matrix as a fixture in its interior. One of the moulds on the shelf shows a hole in the side, into which the matrix was probably inserted. From the manner in which the caster is grasping the mould, it would seem that it was bipartite, and needed the two halves holding together during casting The cast types lying in the bowl have "breaks" attached to them, which at that date were in all probability cast so as to be easily detached. Behind the caster are some drawers, probably intended to contain matrices, of which one or two lie on the top waiting their turn for use. On the lower of the two shelves above the furnace are some crucibles, in which the metals would be mixed before filling up the casting-pan. On the upper shelf, besides three more moulds, are some sieves, suggestive of the use of sand, either for moulding large letters, or, as Mr. Blades suggests, for running the small ingots of metal into for use in the melting-pot. The small room in which this caster is operating in all probability formed part of a printing-office; and another interesting engraving

of perhaps a still earlier date, which we here reproduce from the original in the British Museum, shows the two departments of the typographer's art going on in

1

Eygentliche Beschreibung aller Stände und ... Handwerker. Frankfurt, 1568. 4to. Der Schrifftgiesser.

2 Harleian MS. 5915, No. 201. The cut is undated. The following sentence from Mr. T. C. Hansard's Treatises on Printing and Typefounding, Edinburgh, 1841, 8vo, p. 223, may possibly refer to the same device. “This evidence” (of the process employed by the early

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