Such are some of the chief points of interest to be observed in these venerable relics of the old typographers. It is to be hoped that M. Claudin may before long favour the world with a full and detailed account of their many peculiarities. Yet, curious as they are, they prove that the types of the fifteenth century differed in no essential particular from those of the nineteenth. Ruder and rougher, and less durable they might be, but in substance and form, and in the mechanical principles of their manufacture, they claim kinship with the newest types of our most modern foundry. {24}

The old Lyonnaise relics are not the only guide we have as to the form and nature of the fifteenth century types.

M. Madden, in 1875, made a most valuable discovery in a book printed by Conrad Hamborch, at Cologne, in 1476, and entitled La Lèpre Morale, by John Nider, of the accidental impression of a type, pulled up from its place in the course of printing by the ink-ball, and laid at length upon the face of the forme, thus leaving its exact profile indented upon the page. We reproduce in facsimile M. Madden’s illustration of this type, which accompanies his own interesting letter on the subject.[44]

[Μ] 5. From M. Madden’s Lettres d’un Bibliographe. Ser. iv, p. 231.

[Μ] 6. From Liber de Laudibus ac Festis Gloriosæ Virginis. Cologne(?), 1468(?). Fol. 4 verso. (From the original.)

A similar discovery, equally valuable and interesting, was made not many months ago by the late Mr. Henry Bradshaw, of Cambridge, in a copy of a work entitled De Laudibus Gloriosæ Virginis Mariæ, sine notâ, but printed probably about 1468 at Cologne.[45] We are indebted to Mr. Bradshaw for the present opportunity of presenting for the first time the annexed facsimile of this curious relic, {25} photographed direct from the page on which it occurs.[46] These two impressions are particularly interesting in the light of the old Lyonnaise types still in existence. Like them, it will be seen they are without nick, and tapered off at the face. They are also without the jet-break. The height of both types (which is identical) is above the English standard, and more nearly approaches that of No. 2 of the Lyons letters; and M. Madden points out as remarkable that this height (24 millimètres) is exactly that fixed as the standard “height to paper” by the “réglement de la libraire” of 1723. The body of the types (assuming the letter to be laid sideways, of which there can be little doubt) is about the modern English, and so corresponds exactly to the body of the text on which it lies.

The chief point of interest, however, is in the small circle appearing in both near the top, which M. Madden (as regards the type of the Nider) thus explains: “This circle, the contour of which is exactly formed, shows that the letter was pierced laterally by a circular hole. This hole did not penetrate the whole thickness of the letter, and served, like the nick of our days, to enable the compositor to tell by touch which way to set the letter in his stick, so as to be right in the printed page. If the letter had been laid on its other side, the existence of this little circle would have been lost to us for ever.” It would, however, be quite possible for a perforated type, with the end of the hole slightly clogged with ink, to present precisely the same appearance as this, which M. Madden concludes was only slightly pierced; and were it not for the fact that the pulling-up of the letter from the forme is itself evidence that the line could not have been threaded, we should hesitate to affirm that either of the types shown was not perforated. The sharp edge of the circumference in the type of the De laudibus, leaving, as it does, in the original page, a clearly embossed circle in the paper, makes it evident that the depression was not the result of a mere flaw in the casting, although it is possible (as we have satisfied ourselves by experiment) for the surface of the side of a roughly-cast type to be depressed by air-holes, some of which assume a circular form, and may even perforate a thin type. Indeed, at the present day it is next to impossible to cast by hand a type which is not a little sunk on some part of its sides; and this roughness of surface we can imagine to have been far more apparent on the types {26} cast by the earliest printers. We doubt, therefore, whether, in types liable to these accidental depressions of surface, a small artificial hole thus easily simulated would be of any service as a guide to the compositor. A more probable explanation of the appearance seems to be that the head of a small screw or pin, used to fix the side-piece of the mould, projecting slightly on the surface of the piece it fixed, left its mark on the side of the types as they were cast, and thus caused the circular depression observable in the illustrations.[47]

Before leaving this subject it may be remarked that the clear impression of the printed matter, despite the laid-on types, which must in either case have been a thin sort, is strong evidence of the softness of the metal in which the fount was cast. The press appears to have crushed the truant types down into the letters on which it lay, and, unimpeded by the obstacle, to have taken as good an impression of the remainder of the forme as if that obstacle had never existed.