[184] The index-letters following each part refer to Moxon’s illustration of a mould in the Mechanick Exercises, a reduced copy of which is placed by the artist of the Universal Magazine, 1750, at the foot of his View of the Interior of Caslon’s Foundry, of which we give a facsimile in the frontispiece.

[185] Iron does not appear to have continued much longer as a staple ingredient of English type-metal. There was, however, no rule as to the composition of the alloy. The French type-metal at the beginning of the eighteenth century was notoriously bad, and drove many printers to Frankfort for their types, where they used a very hard composition of steel, iron, copper, brass, tin and lead.

[186] See post, chapter ix.

[187] See post, chapter x.

[188] Psalmanazar, in referring to Samuel Palmer’s projected second part to his History of Printing, which should describe all the branches of the trade, says that this project, “though but then as it were in embryo, met with such early and strenuous opposition from the respective bodies of letter-founders, printers and bookbinders, under an ill-grounded apprehension that the discovery of the mystery of those arts, especially the two first, would render them cheap and contemptible . . . that he was forced to set it aside” (Timperley, p. 647).

[189] Typographiæ Excellentia. Carmen notis Gallicis illustratum à C. L. Thiboust, Fusore-Typographo-Bibliopôlâ. Paris, 1718. 8vo.

[190]

“LIQUATOR.

[191] Fonderie en caractères de l’Imprimerie. 4 pp., and 4 pp. of plates. Fol. No date.