Title-pages, folios, running head-lines, catch-lines, signatures, and imprints with dates and names, were matters about which the Fathers of Typography did not at first much concern themselves. Their orthography, as well as their divisions of words, was arbitrary; their abbreviations abominable, and their punctuation absurd; the comma and the semicolon were unknown, the points made use of being an oblique dash (/) the colon (:) and the full point (.); these were occasionally varied as follows, ./ /. /˙ ./˙ ˙/. // ∴ .:. ∴:∴ &c. A straight dash | supplied the place of a hyphen, and a parallel || indicated the end of a paragraph. The first leaf of a book was generally left a blank, and a blank space was left at the head of the commencing chapter of a work, to be filled up with a vignette or an illuminated scroll. Spaces were also left for initial capitals, and for capitals commencing sentences, when small letters were not used instead. These were so left in order to be filled in by the rubricator, who sometimes carelessly inserted a wrong letter. Names of persons and places were printed indifferently with or without capitals.[143] But in all these matters the printers merely followed bad examples—that of the scribes whose downfall they were effecting. One feature is especially characteristic of the oldest books, viz. the irregularity of the lines on the right hand margin of the columns or pages, particularly when the larger kinds of type were used. This arose from the mode of composing, which interfered with the spacing out of the words to the ends of the lines. When however that ingenious implement, the metal composing stick—the printer’s space-compelling gauge,—was invented, this defect was remedied; and before the first generation of printers passed away, all the blemishes above recounted had disappeared from the works of those who deserve to be distinguished as Masters in their Art. The engraving given below will explain the nature of this implement better than any written description. The slide, running parallel with the head, with its slotted foot into which was inserted the nut for the screw which passed through and fastened it down to the ledge on which the types rested, enabled the compositor to ‘set’ his types with accuracy to any measure required, and to space out the words to the right hand, so as to make them line in the margin as straight and even as the commencing letters on the left hand. With the aid of the useful adjunct to the ‘stick,’ the ‘setting-rule,’—(a strip of brass the height and length of the line, with a projecting neb at the top right hand corner)—he could compose line after line with ease and speed. The special use of the ‘rule’ was to prevent the letters as they were lifted into the ‘stick,’ catching on those of the line below, which, without the interposition of the polished strip of brass, they were liable to do from the nicks in their shanks. When the ‘stick’ was full, he could also with the assistance of the ‘rule’ empt out its number of lines into his ‘galley,’ where, when a sufficient number was collected, they would be made into pages, ready for the forme. The inventor of the composing stick is not known; but as it appears in the hands of the compositor in the engraving facing page 116, and the original of that engraving was first printed about 1498, and the ‘stick’ must have then been in use for some time; and as the principle of the slide is analogous to that which would be adopted in regulating the width of the chamber in the moulds for casting types, it is highly probable that the credit of its invention is due to Schœffer, who had previously immortalized himself by inventing the art of type-founding.
Besides the appearance of the insides of early printed books, their ordinary outside bindings demand attention here. Many of the finer specimens were cased in sumptuous covers, in which the art of the goldsmith and jeweller was richly displayed; but for common use a stiff sheet of parchment generally sufficed, the edges of which were folded in, a blank leaf being pasted over them. Others, somewhat superior, had boards of beech or oak for their sides, over which was pasted a sheep-skin leather, on which figures were stamped or embossed;[144] while others again had stiff covers made of waste sheets, or remnants of unsaleable copies, cut down and pasted together. These last have furnished many unique specimens of the works of the earliest printers; and whenever any such are suspected to lie beneath an ancient book-cover, the cover is carefully removed and subjected to a variety of processes to separate its parts, and compel it to give up to the ardent gaze of the palæotypographist, its possible treasure of an invaluable unique specimen of the work of a Gutenberg, a Schœffer, a Zell, a Jenson, a Martens, a Caxton, or some other worthy of the olden time.
FOOTNOTES:
[132] “The early printers generally marked their publications by some monogram or cipher peculiar to themselves, and containing their initials, their arms, or some curious device. These are all well known to the initiated bibliopole, and their presence on a title-page is received as evidence of the genuineness of a scarce copy. The oldest of them is that of Faust and Schœffer, annexed to their first Psalter, and consisting of two shields tied together and hanging from a branch. Raphelengius, of Leyden, adopted the anchor; Sporinus of Basle, chose the arion; Jansen of Amsterdam, the sphere; the Elzevirs exhibited the olive tree, and the celebrated Aldus had for a device, the anchor and dolphin.”—(“History of Printing,” published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge). Gotfridus de Os, of Gouda, had for his device an elephant and castle, combined with the arms of the city.
[133] In the colophon to the second edition of this Psalter, printed in 1459, the word ‘spalmorum’ is corrected to ‘psalmorum,’ and instead of the words “ad eusebiam Dei industrie est consummatus” etc., the following occur:—“ad laudem Dei ac honorem sancti Jacobi est consummatus per Johannem Fust, civem moguntinem et Petrum Schoiffer de Gernszheim clericum. Anno Domini millesimo CCCCLIX, XXIX die mensis Augusti.”
[134] “Essai sur les Monumens Typographiques de Jean Gutenberg, à Mayence, l’an X.” [1801.]
[135] Among the works referred to was a Donatus. Mr. Humphreys, remarking upon these letters, says:—“If these initials, of which M. Fischer gives admirable fac-similes, were really executed under the direction of Gutenberg, they must of necessity greatly enhance the wonder and admiration felt for the author of the marvellously perfect workmanship of the first Bible; and also detract, to an equal extent, from the repute long held by Schoiffher as the Printer of the famous Psalter, with its fine coloured initials vaunted as the work of the press alone, and not produced by the illuminator’s pencil; for if M. Fischer be correct in attributing the work in question to Gutenberg, then the credit of the initials printed in colours in the Psalter must also be given to Gutenberg, as all the lesser initials in that noble specimen of the printer’s art, are the identical letters found by M. Fischer illustrating the ‘Donatus’ attributed by him without hesitation to the press of Gutenberg, as being printed with the same type as the first Bible. The fine free style of these letters, and their perfect execution, is very remarkable.... That the ‘Donatus’ in question was printed, not only before Schoiffher’s Psalter, but also before the Bible, appears incontrovertibly proved by the fact, that the five leaves in question of this ‘Donatus,’ were found in the cover of a book of accounts dated 1451. The testimony of M. Fischer is above suspicion; but it is to be regretted, that this most important and interesting monument of the labours of Gutenberg is now no longer to be found. At the time that M. Fischer’s examination and description were made, it was in the public library of Mayence; but at that time several national monuments were removed to Paris, and others lost in the general ransacking that took place, and the interesting ‘Donatus’ described by M. Fischer is among the documents now no longer to be found either at Paris or Mayence. Although it would thus appear that the credit of the letters in question is due to Gutenberg, I shall have some further remarks to make on the subject in describing the famous Psalter of Schoiffher. The Bibliothèque Nationale possesses two leaves of a ‘Donatus’ printed with Gutenberg’s Bible type.”—Hist. of Art of Printing, p. 77.
[136] Wetter, p. 527; but Humphreys, p. 88, says “twenty-eight leaves.” Not being in a position to make a reference to any copy of the work itself, I am unable to say which of these authorities is right. One of the finest specimens of this work extant, is that in the celebrated Astor Library at New York. The paper is as clean and the ink as fresh as the day on which it was printed. There are also in this Library several other Typographical treasures. Amongst them will be found the “Catholicon” of John of Genoa, printed at Augsburg in 1469; two specimens of Caxton, one of them a few leaves of the “Recuyell des Histories de Troye,” printed in 1471, and the other, Higden’s “Polychronicon,” printed in London, 1482. Glanville’s “De Proprietatibus Rerum,” printed by Wynken de Worde, the successor of Caxton, in 1494, is also a handsome specimen.