Spanish devices are in some cases adapted from the French or Italian, in others rather dull and uninteresting. Of those which belong to neither of these classes, by far the finest as a piece of decorative work is that of Diego de Gumiel, of Valladolid (see page 236), the effect of which is as rich as that of the best of William Morris's initial letters.
Next in interest to this we may perhaps rank the rather elaborate device (see page 230) of Arnold Guillem de Brocar, the printer of the Complutensian Polyglot, who at different times in his career had presses also at four other places. The motto upon it, 'Inimici hominis domestici ejus,' though it has been made the basis of some theories as to Brocar's career, is still unexplained. If the 'domestici,' the 'those of his own household,' could be extended to Brocar's workpeople, we should have here a fine example of an early grumble by a master printer, but the suggestion is perhaps more pleasing than probable. Cryptic mottoes seem to have run in Brocar's family. His son Juan adopted an extraordinary device of a knight seizing a lady by the hair, with an inscription 'Legitime certanti,' which must be taken as sarcastic.
DEVICE OF JOHN WIGHT
The history of printers' marks in England begins with that used by Caxton for the first time as late in his career as 1487. Out of respect for his master, Wynkyn de Worde adopted the essential parts of this, i.e. the initials 'W.C.' and the interlacement between them in all his fifteen different devices, thus conferring on them a rather painful monotony. English printers, indeed, seem to have set little store on originality in these matters, the earliest device of Pynson being adapted from that of Le Talleur, of Rouen, that of Richard Faques from Thielmann Kerver's, the 'wild men' of Peter Treveris from those of Pigouchet, and John Byddell's unprepossessing figure of Virtue from that used by Jacques Sacon, of Lyons. Nevertheless, English devices at once interesting and original are not lacking. That used by Pynson at the end of Lord Berner's translation of 'Froissart' (see page 232) is one of the largest and not the least fine of armorial marks, the interlaced triangles of William Faques make a singularly neat device, and John Day's picture of two men gazing on a skeleton, with the motto, 'Etsi mors indies accelerat vivet tamen post funera virtus,' has its own merits. England also contributes two of the very small number of portrait marks, a large one of Day and a smaller one (here reproduced) of John Wight,[26] a bookseller of St. Paul's Churchyard, who published a few books between 1551 and 1589. It seemed permissible to come down as late as this in the case of our own country, but to speak of the French and German devices of the middle of the sixteenth century would open up too large a field. All that has been attempted here is to give a few characteristic examples of comparatively early date, so as to exhibit the different styles of printers' marks, used in different countries by one generation of printers. I hope that any of my readers who had not hitherto made the acquaintance of these little designs will have been convinced that they are worthy of further study.
Any one who desires to take up the subject more or less seriously will find a considerable literature ready to his hand. To Messrs. Bell and Co.'s 'Ex Libris' series Mr. William Roberts has contributed a pleasant volume, which offers an easy introduction for beginners. More serious students will find an almost exhaustive series of woodcut copies of French devices in Silvestre's 'Marques typographiques,' and much prettier facsimiles abound in M. Claudin's great 'Histoire de l'Imprimerie en France,' though this as yet treats only of Paris printers of the fifteenth century. For Italy, Dr. Kristeller's 'Die Italienischen Buchdrucker und Verlegerzeichen bis 1525' is excellent, and its publishers (Heitz and Mündel) have brought out similar monographs on the marks used at Strasburg, Basel, Frankfort, and Cologne, and also in Spain and Portugal. The earlier Low Country marks will be found in Holtrop's 'Monumens typographiques des Pays-Bas'; the earlier English ones in the 'Handlists of English Printers' issued by the Bibliographical Society.
As to collecting, it is certainly a little alarming to have to buy a whole book for the sake of a single device in it, or at most two. On the other hand, the books are pleasant things in themselves, and there is an alleviation in the fact that the devices only begin to abound a little before 1490, and that books of this date can be acquired, even now, at prices which seem reasonable compared with those fetched by the real first-fruits of the press. Many very pretty devices will be found in the thin volumes of Latin verse published at Paris in the early parts of the sixteenth century, and a bookman who meets a 'tract-volume' containing several of these bound together, will probably find sufficient devices among them to start his collection.
DEVICE OF ANTOINE CAILLAUT