in which a part of the central upright stroke was broken in the middle, by supposing that some of the punches had been continued in use after they had received small injuries.
On the supposition that the types of the Speculum really were of cast metal, Koning’s idea is much more reasonable than that of Ottley; but he is wrong in his notion that matrices could be struck in lead or pewter, from punches of hard wood on which letters of the size and character of those used in the Speculum had been engraved. A few indifferent matrices might indeed be struck from some of the larger letters, say the letter
, but of the smaller ones, and those which had fine hair strokes, both capitals and minuscules, the fine strokes and faces of the letters would invariably be crushed. That, at any rate, is the result of a series of experiments made by the writer, with the view of ascertaining whether with letters so engraved on wood and with the softest procurable sheet lead, matrices could be struck from which types might be cast; and in which he was not successful in a single instance.
Admitting, however, for the moment, that the printer of the Speculum succeeded in striking a complete set of matrices; it has been proved by experiments, that from matrices of soft lead as many as from 120 to 150 letters can be cast,[120] before they are rendered useless; only after 50 or 60 had been made, the fine strokes would begin to thicken. Now it has already been shewn, that the oldest printers did not put to press more than a single page, or at most two pages, at a time, in their earliest attempts in the new art. This is a fact, acknowledged by every one who has made the Incunabula of the Fifteenth century a subject of special study. Admitting then that two pages of the Speculum were printed together, what amount of type, and how many of each letter would be required for those two pages?
An analysis of the fac-simile given in Mr. Humphreys’ work yields the following results. About 1430 separate types in the one page gives 2860 as the number required for two. The following figures (twice the number occurring in the specimen page) shew the numbers required of each of the letters most commonly used, a 44, e 122, i 182, o 146, u 74, d 44, h 28, m 60, n 100, s 84, t 82; there are, besides, the following duplicate and triplicate characters, of which no other printed work shews so large a number,—an, ca, cā, cc, ce, ch, ci, cī, co, cō, ct, cti, cu, cū, cp, cy, da, dā, de, dē, do, du, dū, eē, et, ect, fa, fā, fe, ff, fi, fl, fo, fr, fu, ga, ge, gē, gi, go, gu, gū, gp, gr, gy, ii, ib, in, la, le, lē, li, ll, lle, llz, œ, ori, no, nō, nu, pe, pp, ra, rā, re, rē, ri, ro, rō, ru, rū, ria, sa, se, si, so, ss, st, ssi, ssz, ste, ta, tā, te, tē, ti, to, tu, tū, tri,—varying in the frequency of their occurrence from twice to twenty-two times, leaving but 1082 other letters for the rest of the alphabet, including the capitals: and of these last from 6 to say 40 would be the utmost of each required. It is thus shewn, that out of the whole number of matrices, upwards of 300, which would be required for a complete fount, not more than eight would be used up to or beyond the point where the fine strokes (supposing the matrices to have been of soft lead) would begun to thicken; and of these it would be a most easy matter to provide duplicates or triplicates, in order to preserve the uniformity of character aimed at by the first printers, in imitation of the manuscripts they intended their works to supersede. All the letters thus cast, would moreover, be fac-similes of each other, and would not, nay could not, present those dissimilarities of appearance observable in specimens of the same letter occurring in every line of the Speculum. Koning’s idea is thus proved to be erroneous.
But Ottley’s is much more so. Types of the size of those used in the Speculum could no doubt be cast in the way he describes, either in plaster, or in the fine prepared sand or earth used by workers in metal. The original letter cut by hand would be the pattern type, from which every mould for that description of letter would be made; but the mould so made would suffice for but one specimen of that one letter; for after it had dried, and the fused metal had been poured in and cooled, the cast letter could only be extracted by breaking away the earth or plaster in which it had been moulded; and if the mould had been made with ordinary care by an expert workman, the letter would turn out an exact fac-simile of the pattern on which the mould had been made. There would not be the slightest necessity for clearing off particles of sand or plaster adhering to the face of the letter, so as to leave upon it marks of the graving tool, nor yet of continually re-casting new types in moulds made from others so disfigured. From the one pattern type first made of each letter, as many moulds as were wanted for the whole supply of every letter could be made, before the operation of casting a single type was commenced; and whatever defect was observed in any of the types after the casting, could be much more satisfactorily remedied by a fresh cast in a mould from the original pattern, than by graving the face of the letter and so altering its appearance. The main object of casting the types was to make every letter the exact counterpart of its fellow; and if the mode of casting was so imperfect, that each one had to be touched up and cleared out with a graver, before it could be used, that object was defeated. But for so complicated a process there was no need, for wooden types can be cut and completed in much less time than would be occupied by the moulding, drying, casting, clearing and touching up, necessitated by the Ottley-method of producing metal types. This has also been proved by actual experiment: and my previous conviction that the separable letters used in the Speculum were, and could only be, hand-cut wooden types, was thus still further confirmed. The marks of the graver, which, as Mr. Ottley points out, “are very clearly to be perceived in the type of the Speculum,” are just those that were produced by the “letter-snyder” in the course of cutting out his letters, which, as they were finished, were sent direct from his hands to those of the printers.[121]
The extraordinary number of duplicate and triplicate (logographs) as well as ligatured letters, that are made use of in the Speculum, has already been referred to. Mr. Ottley considers that they are a proof of the antiquity of that work; but in that direction they only exhibit a peculiarity which is not observable in other works: they furnish however a strong argument in proof of the types of the Speculum having been cut in wood. For, taking into account the limited number of letters required for that work (printed but two pages at a time), to cut ninety separate punches, and to strike the same number of matrices, when one-third of that number would suffice, was a gratuitous waste of labour; whereas, in cutting wooden types sufficient for the composition of two pages, a great saving of time would be effected by duplicating and triplicating as many characters as possible; and not only would time and labour be thus saved, but the types themselves, by being double or treble the thickness of single letters, would be so much the stronger and more durable.
But, say certain writers, amongst whom is Wetter: “It is impossible to print with such small wooden types” as those used in the Speculum.[122] Now Wetter’s object was to shew that the Speculum was of a much later date than is attributed to it by Dutch authorities,[123] and he argues that the types used must have been metal, although Meerman insists upon it that they were of wood. It is singular that Wetter should have committed himself to such a statement, when in Tab. II. of his work he has printed a whole column from wooden-types, some of which are of the same size as those in the Speculum. Possibly he considered that the numerous hair strokes, and particularly those which front the capital A and the minuscule t, (peculiarities found only in letters of the Speculum school) were too fragile to withstand the pressure of printing.
Baron Heinecken,[124] from whom Wetter in all probability borrowed some of his ideas, is of opinion that all the separable letters used in the four folio editions of the Speculum were of cast metal, and that they were printed by Germans who imitated the Gothic style of type first used by Gutenberg at Mentz. In one place he writes:—“It is almost certain that the Speculum Salvationis in Latin was first printed in Germany; and that it was afterwards translated and printed in the Low Countries.” Elsewhere he says, “I come at last to the new edition of the Speculum, which the printer Johan Veldener published in 1483, with his name, in the Flemish language. The vignettes which are placed at the head of each discourse, are the same as those we see in the ancient editions. He cut the engraved blocks, which represented always two sacred or historical subjects, sawing through the middle of the central pillar which divided them, so as to make them into two pieces, in order to insert them in this new edition, which is in small 4to.” “It was probably Theodore Martens,” he remarks further on, “that brought these vignettes with him from Germany, or from France.... We may also conjecture that Johan of Westphalia was the printer of the first Flemish editions, and that Veldener received the blocks from him.... Veldener, after having learned Typography at Cologne, went to live at Louvain, where he printed in 1476, among other books, the Fasciculus Temporum in Latin, with figures engraved in wood. This same printer afterward went to Utrecht, where in 1480, he published the same work in Flemish, introducing also the same cuts which he had brought with him from Louvain.... Nothing seems more natural than that he should have brought with him from Cologne the ancient moulds or matrices, from which the rude type of the two first Flemish editions of the Speculum already spoken of was cast; nothing more reasonable, than that he should afterward abandon that type at Louvain or at Utrecht, or rather at Culemborch, after having made better; for he was certainly a man of enterprise and genius.”