It will be well to familiarize the eye with these different Sizes of Type, which may easily be done by a little practice, as it will greatly facilitate the understanding of the various technical details connected with the Press.
Next to the Size of the Type, the Size of the Page will have to be decided upon. Though both these points are in a great degree regulated by custom, they are yet in practice sufficiently open to variation, to meet the case of each particular Work. Thus by the Size of the Type, and Number of Lines, a Work may be either expanded, or compressed, as may be desired.
Pica is the type usually employed in Printing works of History, Biography, Travels, &c., in the Demy octavo size; Small Pica, in Novels, Romances, &c., in the Post octavo size; and Long Primer, Poetry, in the Foolscap octavo size.
To take for an example, the Novel, or Romance size. The ordinary Page employed in Works of this kind, contains twenty-two Lines, each Line containing, on an average, eight Words. Three hundred such Pages are considered the proper quantity for an ordinary size Volume. If a Manuscript, therefore, should contain about two hundred Pages, each Page containing about thirty-three Lines of eight Words, it would occupy about three hundred Pages in Print. Should the Manuscript, however, contain but one hundred and eighty such Pages, then in order to form three hundred Printed Pages, each Page would have to consist of but twenty, instead of twenty-two Lines.
On the above principle, it will not be difficult for an Author to form a tolerably correct idea of the extent of a Work—that is, sufficiently so for all general purposes; and the comparison may be extended to any Work of any kind thus—having first selected a Work in Print, which it is desired that in Manuscript should resemble, the Number of Words in a Line, and of Lines in a Page of each, being ascertained, if the disparity between them shall be in any specific ratio, as in the instance above, a Page of Manuscript being equal to a Page and a half of Print, the result will be immediately apparent; but should it be otherwise, a different process may be necessary: should the Manuscript contain but twenty-five, instead of thirty Lines, then the most direct mode of Calculation would be to take the three Lines per Page, by which the Manuscript would exceed the Print, and multiply the Manuscript Pages by three—this would give six hundred; these six hundred lines divided by twenty-two, the number of Lines in the Printed Page, give twenty-seven and a fraction; the whole would therefore, on this supposition, make about two hundred and twenty-seven Printed Pages, of twenty-two Lines each. There are, however, other circumstances which may affect such Calculations—as the Breaks in Chapters, Paragraphs, Conversations, &c., where the Work may have been written in Manuscript continuously. These points would, where desired, be best ascertained by having a number of Pages set up, and by then comparing them in the aggregate with the Manuscript.
The next point in order, will be
CORRECTING THE PRESS;
and this should invariably, when possible, be done by the Author; no one can so thoroughly enter into the train of thought and expression, and to no one could the disturbance of either prove so annoying: where this cannot be done, and the task must be deputed, the Manuscript should, in all cases, be considered the Authority, and no departure be made from it, except as may have been directed, or in extreme cases.
Corrections of the Press should be marked clearly; and this can never be done so satisfactorily, both to the Corrector and Printer, as by employing those Typographical Marks, which, from having been universally adopted, are, in consequence, understood by all persons connected with the Press.—The following Pages will exemplify these: First, the Proof corrected; Secondly, the Proof Revised.