Is it not, in truth, a striking fact that Tory chose the letter G to place his mark upon? He was not withheld by the consideration that that letter, not being in very common use, especially at the beginning of words, appeared rather infrequently in books.[337] As always, logic prevailed with him over every other consideration. Let us see how far it carried him.
Later, he engraved a Greek alphabet, in the same style, for Robert Estienne; as he could not put his mark on the gamma, which bears no resemblance to the G, he put it on no letter, but on one of the friezes executed to accompany those beautiful floriated letters.[338] See the frieze in question at the beginning of the second volume of the Works of Eusebius, three volumes, folio, 1544.[339]
II. Besides these two alphabets of capital letters, Tory engraved for Robert Estienne about the same time, six different marks for his typographical sign, the 'Olive-Tree,' of which a description will be found later on, in section 3.
III. Tory also engraved, about the same time, for Simon de Colines, a border in the criblé style, at the foot of which is a sun which certain centaurs, incited thereto by women, are trying to seize. (Silvestre, no. 523). This border is probably of 1526, when Colines turned over to Robert Estienne his father's establishment and set up for himself at the 'Soleil d'Or,' opposite the Collège de Beauvais. It appears, to my knowledge, in two octavo volumes of 1529: 'Compendium Grammaticæ græcæ Jacobi Ceporini,' and 'Liber de opificio Dei.'
1526-1528
This whole period was, in all probability, absorbed by the labour of engraving and editing 'Champ fleury.' For one of the first engravings in that book is dated 1526, and it was finished early in 1529. Although the majority of these engravings are not signed, they must all belong to Tory, at all events so far as the designs are concerned.[340] I cannot attempt to enumerate them all here, for there are more than five hundred, counting as one each of the letters in the various alphabets; but I propose to mention the more important ones. For historical information concerning the book, I refer the reader back to what I have said thereon in the first and second parts of this volume.
