English printers' ornaments

by Henry R. Plomer

Specially designed decorative head and tail pieces began to make their appearance in English books about the year 1570. One of the earliest I have met with is a head-piece found in the hands of Thomas Vautrollier, whose printing office was one of the best equipped in England. It appears on sig. A of Chaloner’s De Rep. Anglorum instauranda libri decem, a quarto printed in 1579. [B.M. 1070, m. 31.]

The block measures 102 by 22 mm. The design is an elaborate one, the main feature being two spirals that look like capital A’s. On these are resting two naked boys with a bowl between them containing fruit and flowers. Below is a grotesque head. From these large spirals issue smaller ones with a squirrel on one side and a rabbit at the other, and two filials of grotesque animals at each of the bottom corners.

This may be a metal block, but it was light and graceful in treatment, and was in every way suitable to the beautifully printed book in which it is found. In another book, M. T. Ciceronis Epistolæ, printed at the same press in the same year, is found Vautrollier’s well-known tail-piece of the Gorgon’s head, with his initials T. V. on either side.

There were, no doubt, similar blocks in use in folio books before 1580, but the earliest I have met with is the artistic head-piece seen in sig. A of Bynneman’s edition of Morelius’ Verborum Latinorum, printed in 1583. In the centre we see a figure holding in each hand a bird with long tail feathers. On either side is an archer with a drawn bow and arrow, with rabbits sitting behind him, while at each of the lower corners is an animal with very long and curving horns. This block measures 139 by 34 mm. It was afterwards in the hands of the Eliots Court Press, and can be traced in use until about 1650.

Before the close of the sixteenth century specially designed head and tail pieces of all sizes were in general use, and continued so throughout the following century. When I add that every good block was immediately copied, and frequently copied so faithfully that it needs almost microscopical examination to discover the difference, some idea will be gained of the wide field of illustration thrown open in this branch of our subject. In the dainty little devotional works of Abraham Fleming, already alluded to in my chapter on Borders, are found several delightful little head and tail pieces, all of which passed into the hands of Henry Bynneman, and from him to the Eliots Court Press.

Holinshed’s Chronicles, first printed in 1577, also contain some very fine examples. At the head of the Dedication to the first volume is seen the block with a bear sitting on his haunches holding spirals of foliage. Two dogs, two men with staves, and two serpents are also parts of this design. It seems possible that these large folio head-pieces were lent by one printer to another, as this one is found in many books. Again, at the head of the “First Booke of the Historie of England,” in these Chronicles, is a semi-architectural head-piece with the Royal Arms in the centre. At the head of sig. K 6 in the “Chronicles of Ireland” is another good decorative block, which is sufficiently like that at the head of the Dedication to the first volume to suggest a common origin, as indeed do those in use by the Eliots Court Press. Another good example of these blocks is that found at the head of Geoffrey Fenton’s History of Guicciardini, printed by Richard Field in 1599. The same spirit seems to run through them all, and they deserve more notice than they have hitherto received. The charming little tail-piece, showing a boy playing two drums, is also from the Chronicles, and is found at the end of the Preface to the “Chronicles of Ireland” in the third volume. In some respects it is reminiscent of the eighteenth rather than the sixteenth century. At the opening of the seventeenth century the decorative blocks used by the Eliots Court printers call for special notice, and by the kind permission of the Bibliographical Society one or two of those that appeared in my article in The Library a short time ago are here shown. It was not possible at that time to illustrate any of the head-pieces that appeared in books printed in folio. No such restriction bars us now, and consequently three of these characteristic head-pieces from an edition of the Workes of Homer, printed at that press, are here shown. The first, which measures 142 by 36 mm., consists of spirals of flowers, radiating from a central stem, with caterpillars and various winged insects dotted all over it. This was also used in the folio edition of Bishop Jewell’s Works, published by John Norton in 1609, and two years later M. Bradwood, who succeeded Arnold Hatfield in the management of the office, used it in Queen Anne’s New World of Words, and as late as 1639 it was in the hands of Edward Griffin the second.

The second of these large head-pieces has as its design the sun in glory and four horsemen between sprays of flowers and foliage. It is found again in the folio edition of Montaigne, printed by Bradwood, and was in constant use down to the year 1638.

The third, in which the principal features are two large cornucopiæ and two lions holding shields, was also used by all the Eliots Court printers down to 1640, and there was also another block something like it in the hands of other printers.

Passing to the smaller blocks of this press, one of the most artistic is that of the two cherubs blowing horns, used as head-piece in A Copy of a Letter written by E. D., a pamphlet printed in 1606 by M. Bradwood. It was of Continental origin, and it has served as a model for printers down to our own day, a variation of it being amongst those in use by the Chiswick Press.

In the same book is found the ‘fleur-de-lys’ head-piece. It was used by all the Eliots Court printers without exception; but Felix Kingston, another London printer, had a block so similar that it is almost impossible to tell one from the other. It makes a very handsome head-piece.