De Worde introduced a larger variety in body than Caxton, and in some of {91} his works, as in the Whitintoni Lucubrationes, in 1527, used a very small Black-letter, apparently, as Herbert remarks, because he had no Roman or Italic small enough. In his Black founts he used a large number of abbreviations, though not so many as were at that time used by printers abroad. He has been erroneously credited by some writers with having been the first to introduce the Roman letter into this country. It appears, however, that he closely followed Pynson in this innovation[157]; and, in his later works, made considerable use of that character, both for printing entire books, and for distinguishing remarkable words or quotations in his Black-letter text.
Although characterised as a better printer than scholar, he was the first to introduce letters of some of the learned languages into his books. In 1519, in Whitintonus de concinitate grammatices, he used some Greek words, the first in England, cut in wood. Later, in 1524, in Wakefield’s Oratio,[158] printed in Roman characters with marginal notes in Italic,[159] he printed some Greek words in movable types, and showed Arabic and Hebrew cut in wood, the first used in this country. The Hebrew is Rabbinical, and the author complains that he has been obliged to omit a third part, because the printer lacked Hebrew types. As early as 1495, moreover, De Worde, as we have elsewhere noted, in his edition of the Polychronicon, used the first music-types known in typography.
He died in 1534, after printing upwards of 400 books.
His contemporary,
PYNSON,
In 1518 he printed his first work in Roman type, the Oratio in Pace nuperrimâ,[161] by Richard Pace. Only one fount is used throughout this interesting little work, of which we here reproduce the colophon.
18. From the Oratio in Pace nuperrimâ. Printed by Pynson, 1518.
A document still preserved in the Record Office, dated June 28, 1519, contains an interesting mention of Pynson’s types. It is an indenture between Wm. Horman, Clerk and Fellow of the King’s College at Eton, and Pynson, for printing 800 copies of such Vulgars as be contained in the copy delivered to him, “in suffycient and suyng stuff of papyr, after thre dyverse letters, on for the englysh, an other for the laten, and a thyrde of great romayne letter for the tytyllys of the booke.” {93}