English printers' ornaments

by Henry R. Plomer

Some of the small initials in the sixteenth century are equally as good as the large ones. Hundreds of them call for illustration, but there is only room here to include one of two exquisite little examples that were amongst Denham’s stock, and which he used in The Footepath to Felicitie in 1581. These are two T’s, both the same size but differing in design.

Passing on into the seventeenth century we come at once upon the work of the Eliots Court Press. Many of their large stock of decorative initials came to them through Henry Bynneman, and can be traced back to the presses of Henry Denham, Reginald Wolf, and Richard Jugge. But there was one alphabet that I have called the Apostle series, as each letter showed a figure round whose head was a nimbus, some of which have the emblems of the apostles, but other personages, such as King David, are now and again substituted. These initials were enclosed in a frame each side of which shows a certain number of circles, or they may be intended for studs. This alphabet made its first appearance in books printed at the Eliots Court Press in 1603, when it was used in the folio Plutarch, which bears Arnold Hatfield’s imprint; but both George Robinson and Henry Middleton had previously used a similar alphabet. In fact, there is no doubt that here we see the copyist at work, and it seems probable that the Eliots Court ‘Apostle’ alphabet was a direct copy from that used by Henry Middleton; but there was one feature of the Middleton letters that, fortunately for the bibliographer of modern times, the copyist did not consider it necessary to follow strictly, and that was the number of circles that were to appear in each section of the frame. So when copying the letter F, instead of putting twelve circles at the top and thirteen at the bottom, as shown in the Middleton letter, he only put nine at the top and ten at the bottom, and it is only by noting this difference in the number of circles in the frame that one can tell the difference between the Eliots Court letters and those of Robinson, Middleton, and various other printers of the seventeenth century who used similar alphabets. By the kindness of Professor A. W. Pollard I am enabled to show two of these Apostle letters which appeared in my article; also two other decorative letters that are found in books issuing from that press. Probably the I was designed to commemorate the accession of King James, in honour of the king of that name, as it embodies the rose and thistle crowned.

Mr Sayle, in a footnote to his paper mentioned above, calls attention to the heraldic initials found in Thos. Fuller’s Church History, 1655, each section of which was dedicated to a nobleman, whose arms are shown in the initial of the opening paragraph.

The work of the University presses at this time also provide some good initial letters. M. Burghers of Oxford designed some very fine ones for the Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, and Buck and Daniel at Cambridge used a somewhat ornate but very decorative alphabet, examples of which are reproduced in Bowes’ Catalogue of Cambridge Books. In the Lucretius of 1713, already referred to in the section on head and tail pieces, the initials carry on the unity of design and are in every way suitable. Though small in size they fit in with the type admirably and add to the charm of what was undoubtedly one of the best productions of the eighteenth century press, as may be seen from the two examples here reproduced.

Of another character altogether is the initial A taken from a tract written by the Rev. Elisha Smith in 1719, and the T found in a sermon printed at Edinburgh in 1740.

Factotums

Where a printer had but a small stock of decorative initial letters he frequently made use of an ornamental frame, in the centre of which he placed an ordinary capital. This practice seems to have arisen about the middle of the sixteenth century, and it probably had its origin on the Continent.

These borders for initials have come to be known as ‘factotums,’ because they were called to do duty on all occasions, and they have been heartily condemned as destructive of all artistic feeling. When, as they often do, they occur throughout a book, they become monotonous. On the other hand, these factotums, to give them their modern name, are not without merit, and in the case of large ones they could be made artistic or decorative. They were made both in metal and wood, and certain patterns were apparently turned out by the foundries in large numbers and supplied to all printers alike. Two of the commonest and perhaps the earliest forms were small frames measuring 22 × 21 mm. and were of classic design, in one case the filials rising from two cornucopiæ apparently fastened together with bows and ends of rope (?). In the other instance the cornucopiæ are more floral in treatment. In one the filials consist of a female head at the end of an elongated and curved neck and are both alike, but in the other the upper portions of a male and female are seen. Another feature of these two factotums is some kind of drapery and they were enclosed within single rules. Both of them are found in the hands of many printers in London and of those at Oxford and Cambridge at the same time.

Equally familiar in books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are two larger forms, one of which shows a man and woman plucking thistles and tufts of thistles in the foreground. Needless to say this was of Scottish origin, and is first found in the books of Waldegrave when he was printing in Scotland. It afterwards was used by the Eliots Court Press and other printers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The smaller of the two represents the story of Salome.

A series of factotums found in Grover’s printing office in 1679 and used by him in the folio Herodotus are evidently woodcuts and are not without merit. A very similar factotum which may possibly have migrated from Grover’s foundry was in use by the Clarendon Press in 1759.[10] They are evidently by the same hand that cut the tail-piece seen in the same volume.