[65] “Most of the punch-cutters at present belonging to the type-founding trade are English, and their earnings depend in a great measure upon the abilities they display in the work. A first-rate cutter will earn from £5. to £6. weekly, and even more. ‘When I first came to the trade,’ said a man to Mr. Mayhew, ‘the punch-maker who worked for my old master, had £5. a week for producing two punches a day. This was all he was expected to do for his wages; but for every punch he turned out over and above that number he had his regular premiums.’”—Mayhew’s Trades and Manufactories of Great Britain, p. 250.
[66] “I shall use my best endeavours to detect and expose false or exaggerated statements and deceitful arguments, come from whom they may; leaving such good proofs and reasonable grounds of belief, on the one side or the other as may then remain, to be incorporated afterwards with such further proofs as have resulted from my own researches. Lastly ... I shall strive to merit the praise of not overstating the evidence one way or the other, and of not pressing an argument further than it will fairly go; it being my sole object to come if possible, at the truth, in this long disputed question.”—Inquiry concerning the Invention of Printing, p. 5.
[67] Inquiry, pp. 49–51.
[68] In a book of notes, left with one Gerlach, and afterwards purchased by Johan Rot, the brother in all probability of Berthold Rot, the first printer at Basle, there occurs the following memorandum, in Schœffer’s own handwriting:—“Hic est finis omnium librorum tam veteris quam nove logice, completi per me Petrum de Gernszheim, alias Moguncia, anno M.CCCC.XLIX, in gloriosissima Universitate Parisiensi.”—(Humphreys, p. 84.) His name, variously spelt as Schöffer, Schœffer, Schoiffer, and Schoiffher, and signifying in English, Shepherd, is sometimes printed in its Latin form, Opilio.
[69] “Petrus autem memoratus Opilio ... homo ingeniosus et prudens, faciliorem modum fundendi caracteres excogitavit, et artem ut nunc est complevit.”
[70] “John Schœffer says, at the conclusion of the Historia Francorum, printed in 1515, that the inventor did indeed commence the art of printing in 1450; but did not perfect and bring it to the stage when the use of the press was required until 1452.”—vide Wetter, p. 350. Referring the date 1450 to the original contract with Faust, this statement shews that at least two years, possibly nearly three, were spent in the preparatory arrangements, casting and cutting the letters, &c. before a single page of the Latin Bible was printed.
[71] Letters made of copper or tin alone would scarcely be hard enough to use as punches, except for plaster moulds; but a mixture of metals forming brass, of which several writers say the first cut metal types were made, would answer the purpose, and could be struck into blocks of soft copper or tin without the slightest difficulty. At a pinch, however, Benjamin Franklin has shewn that even with ordinary types, matrices of lead can be made and used with success: “Our printing house,” he writes, “often wanted sorts, and there was no letter-foundry in America; I had seen types cast at James’s in London, but without much of attention to the manner; however, I contrived a mould, and made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way the deficiencies.”
[72] The word fount, here used to indicate a complete set of types, was originally fund, and signified a casting or founding of type. Hence also the terms founder and foundry, derived, like the former, from the Latin fundo.
[73] This Faust, whose ancestors came from Mentz, was a son of the councillor and judge of the imperial tribunal at Frankfort, who died in 1619. Writing from family papers and traditions, J. F. Faust (inheriting the jealousy against Gutenberg which was engendered by the lawsuit, his opposite politics, and the honours bestowed upon him by the Elector-Archbishop) attributes the origin of Typography to Faust of Mentz, but admits that Gutenberg was his assistant. With the exception of this change of persons, the account he gives of the origin of the art accords in its main facts with the statements made by Trithemius, Zell, Wimpheling, Arnold de Bergel, and other early writers on the subject. He mentions the block Alphabet and Donatus, and the separate wooden types made by cutting the engraved tablets into single letters,—which were all for a long time preserved in Faust’s house at Mentz; where his grandfather Dr. Johan Faust, had seen them. This Dr. Faust also left with the family a written description of these first beginnings of the art. J. F. Faust’s account, taken from Wetter, with some remarks by that author, will be found in the Appendix.
[74] Various metals were used in the manufacture of types. Mr. Blades, at pages xx. and xxiv. of his second volume of the Life and Typography of Caxton, gives extracts from the “Cost Book” of the Directors of the Ripoli Press at Florence, 1474–1483, a document still extant in the Magliabechi library at Florence, and printed in the “Notizie Storiche sopra la Stamperia di Ripoli, la quali possono servire all’ illustrazione della Storia Tipografica Fiorentina. Raccolta e pubblicate dal P. Vincezio Fineschi. 8vo. In Firenze MDCCLXXXI.” From this it seems that for the steel required (probably for punches) the price paid per lb. was equivalent to 9s. of present current money; for metal (not otherwise described) 2s. 0¾d.; brass, 2s. 3d.; copper, 1s. 3d.; tin, 1s. 6d.; lead, 5¼d.; and iron wire, 1s. 6d.