4. Profile tracings from M. Claudin’s Types. October 1883.
It has been our good fortune, by the kindness of M. Claudin, to have an opportunity of inspecting these precious relics. The following outline profile-sketches will give a good idea of the various forms and sizes represented in the collection. There is little doubt that they were all cast in a mould. The metal used is lead, slightly alloyed with some harder substance, which in the case of a few of the types seems to be iron. The chief point which strikes the observer is the variety in the “height to paper” of the different founts. Taking the six specimens shown in the illustration, it will be seen that no two of the types correspond in this particular. No. 4 corresponds as nearly as possible to our English standard height. No. 3 is considerably lower than an ordinary space height. No. 2 approaches some of the continental heights still to be met with, while Nos. 1, 5, and 6 are higher than any known standard. It is easy to imagine that an early printer who cast his own types would trouble himself very little as to the heights of his neighbours’ and rivals’ moulds, so that in a city like Lyons there might have been as many “heights to paper” as there were printers. It is even possible that a printer using one style and size of letter exclusively for one description of work, and another size and style for another description, might not be particular to assimilate the heights in his own office; and so, foreshadowing the improvidence of some of his modern followers, lay in founts of letter which would not work with any other, but which, as time went on, could hardly be dispensed with. Then, when the days of the itinerant typesellers and the type-markets began, he might still further add to his “heights” by the purchase of a German fount from one merchant, a Dutch from another, and so on.
The type No. 3, though lower than all the rest, has yet a letter upon its {22} end. But it seems likely that the old printers cut down their worn-out letters for spaces, not by ploughing off the face, but by shortening the type at the foot. So that No. 3 (presuming the bodies to have corresponded) might stand as a space to No. 4, or No. 4 to No. 1. At the same time, the collection includes a good number of plain spaces and quadrats (the latter generally about a square body), which may either have been cast as they now appear, or be old letters of which the face and shoulder have been cut off.
The small hole appearing in the side of type No. 4 is a perforation, and the collection contains several types, both letters and spaces, having the same peculiarity. Whether this hole was formed at the time of or after casting; whether the letters so perforated were originally model-types only, or types in actual use; whether the hole was intended for a thread or wire to hold the letters in their places during impression; or whether, for want of a type-case, it was used for stringing the types together for safety when not in use, it is as easy to conjecture as it is impossible to determine. The perforated types which we examined certainly did not appear to be older, and in most cases appeared less old than those not perforated,—the outline of type No. 4 itself shows it to be fairer and squarer than any of its companions.
Another peculiarity to be noted is the “shamfer,” or cutting away of one of the corners of the feet of types 2, 5, and 6. This appears to have been intentional, and may have served the same purpose as our nick, to guide the compositor in setting. None of the types have a nick, and types 1 and 3 have no distinguishing mark whatever. The two small indentations in the side of type 2 are air-holes produced in the casting.
With regard to the faces of the types, there are traces in most of the letters of the “shoulders” of the body having been tapered off by a knife or graver after casting, so as to leave the letter quite clear on the body. In most cases the letter stands in the centre of the body, which is, as a rule, larger than the size of the character actually requires. In point of thickness, however, the old printers appear to have been very sparing; and a great many of the letters, though possessing ample room “body-way,” actually overhang the sides, and are what we should style in modern terminology “kerned” letters. The difficulty, however, which would be experienced by printers to-day with these overhanging sorts, was obviated to a large extent in the case of the old printers by the numerous ligatures, contractions, and double letters with which their founts abounded, and which gave almost all the combinations in which an overhanging letter would be likely to clash with its neighbour.
One last peculiarity to be observed is the absence of what is known as the “break” at the foot of the type. The contrivance in the mould whereby the {23} foot of the type is cast square, and the “jet,” or superfluous metal left by the casting, is attached, not to the whole of the foot, but to a narrow ridge across the centre, from which it is easily detached, was probably unknown to the fifteenth century typefounders. Their types appear to have come out of the mould with a “jet” attaching to the entire foot, from which it could only be detached by a saw or cutter. The “shamfer” already pointed out in types 2, 5, 6, if produced in the mould, may indicate an early attempt to reduce the size of the jet, which, if attaching to the entire square of the foot of a type the size of No. 2, would involve both time and labour in removal. M. Duverger, in his clever essay to the invention of printing,[43] gives an illustration of the manner in which he imagines the old types would be detached from their jets; and considers that in the three points only of the want of a breaking “jet,” the want of a spring to hold the matrix to the mould, and the absence of a nick, the mould of the first printer differed essentially from that of the printer of his day.
3. Type Mould of Claude Garamond. Paris, 1540. (From Duverger.)