At the conclusion of the section devoted to “the ordering of Inscriptions”, Moxon says (p. 11), “But of this and several other Observations of this Nature, I have written more at large in a book I intend to publish on the whole Art of Printing.” From this it is evident that, as early as 1676, his treatises on Typography, which formed the second volume of the Mechanick Exercises and were published in 1683, were already written.
To this highly interesting work[339]—the first work on the mechanics and practice of printing and letter-founding—we have already alluded in a previous chapter. It is impossible here to give more than a brief summary of its contents. Its publication commenced in 1677, with a series of monthly “Exercises” devoted to the Smith’s, Joiner’s, Carpenter’s and Turner’s trades. These formed the first volume. Moxon himself informs us that their publication was interrupted by the excitement of Oates’ plot, “which took off the minds of his few {184} customers from buying them, as formerly.” It was not till 1683 that the work was resumed. The second volume (which appeared in twenty-four monthly parts), treating wholly of the Art of Printing, commences with a brief account of the Invention of the Art (in which the reader is left to decide between the titles of Haarlem and Mentz), and with a claim on behalf of Typography equally with Architecture to be regarded as a Mathematical Science.[340] “A scientifick man,” says Moxon, “was doubtless he who was the first Inventor of Typographie; but I think few have succeeded him in Science, though the number of Founders and Printers be grown very many: Insomuch that for the more easie managing of Typographie, the Operators have found it necessary to devide it into several Trades. . . . The several devisions that are made are—1. The Master Printer. 2. The Letter Cutter. 3. The Letter Caster. 4. The Letter Dresser. 5. The Compositer. 6. The Correcter. 7. The Press Man. 8. The Inck-Maker. Besides several other Trades they take in to their Assistance, as the Smith, the Joyner, etc.”
These divisions he proceeds to treat of seriatim and in detail. We have elsewhere quoted freely from this work, with a view to illustrate the condition of letter-founding as a mechanical trade in his time.[341] But we notice here, that in the advice which he gives to the Master Printer on the choice of letter for his office, he takes the opportunity to reiterate his admiration of the Dutch form of letter, particularly that adopted by Christoffel Van Dijk, and his conviction that as the Roman letters were originally made to consist of circles, arcs of circles and straight lines, the cutting of those letters should invariably be according to strict mathematical rule of form and proportion. His advice on the choice of letter is fourfold.
- 1. “That the Letter have a true shape.”
- 2. “That they be deep cut” (i.e., in the punch).
- 3. “That they be deep sunck in the Matrices” (with a good “beard”).
- 4. “That his Letter be cast upon good Mettal.”
He then proceeds to indicate the quantities of each body of letter with which the printer should provide himself; and from that proceeds to notice in turn every possible requisite for a well-ordered printing office, from the “ball-nails” to the press.
His “Exercises on Letter Founding” may be best introduced in his own language: “Having shown you the Master Printers Office,” he says, “I account {185} it suitable to proper Method to let you know how the Letter Founder Cuts the Punches, how the Molds are made, the Matrices sunck, and the Letter Cast and Drest. . . . Wherefore the next Exercises shall be (God willing) upon Cutting of Steel Punches.”
The minuteness with which he enters into every detail connected with this mysterious art, and his familiarity with the terminology of the craft, prove that Moxon, although he professed to have learned it not from any master, but “of his own genuine inclination,” was an experienced and even enthusiastic punch-cutter. He devotes considerable attention to the tools and gauges necessary for the work, and returns once more to the charge on behalf of geometry as the foundation of typography.
Anyone acquainted with the modern practice of punch-cutting, cannot but be struck, on reading the directions laid down in the Mechanick Exercises, with the slightness of the change which the manual processes of that art have undergone during the last two centuries. Indeed, allowing for improvements in tools, and the greater variety of gauges, we might almost assert that the punch-cutter of Moxon’s day knew scarcely less than the punch-cutter of our day, with the accumulated experience of two hundred years, could teach him.
Moxon’s observations, as in the Regulæ Trium Ordinum, apply only to the Roman, Italic and Black-letter, and these he illustrates by a series of plates devised on the same method as in his former work, showing each letter in a magnified form on a square subdivided into forty-two parts, with the proportions for the various parts of each letter minutely laid down. He imagines an objection that it may be deemed impossible in the case of a small letter to divide the square of the body into forty-two equal parts. “But yet,” he says, “it is possible with curious working,” and proceeds, evidently to his own satisfaction, to demonstrate the fact in a very curious way, by suggesting a series of graduations in the rubbing of spaces and points, whereby a thin[342] space may be enlarged by sixths until a series of 42nd parts of each body is arrived at.
Impracticable as such a system appears, it is consistently carried out in the enlarged letters which illustrate the Exercises. The result is not more successful than that produced in the Regulæ Trium Ordinum; and we venture to think that if any proof were needed that geometry is not, and cannot be, the Alpha and Omega of typographical beauty, these reductions into practice of Moxon’s ingenious theories will supply it.