t/ 
 
 University of California Berkeley 
 
A A 
 
 | OTHER WORKS BY CHAS. T. JACOBI, 
 
 X Manager of the Chisivick Prefs, and Ex- X 
 
 .J aminer in Typography [1892-97] to the City 
 
 and Guilds of London Institute. 
 
 f PRINTING. A Pradlical Treatise on the Art of 
 
 X Typography as applied more particularly to the Printing of 3 
 
 V Books. With upwards of 150 Illustrations, and a Glofsarial >? 
 
 V Index of Technical Terms and Phrases. Small Post 8vo, X 
 
 V cloth. [Price 55. ^ 
 
 THE PRINTERS' HANDBOOK of Trade Recipes, 
 
 V Hints, and Suggestions relating to Letterprefs and Lithographic v 
 
 y Printing, Bookbinding, Stationery, Engraving, etc. With 'v 
 
 many useful Tables and an Index. Second Edition, Enlarged y 
 
 y' and Clafsified. Crown 8vo, cloth. [Price 5*. 
 
 | THE PRINTERS' VOCABULARY. A Collec- X 
 
 \) tion of some z,5oo Technical Terms, Phrases, Abbreviations, and 5 
 
 other Exprefsions, relating to Letterprefs Printing. Useful book -f) 
 
 () for Authors and Publishers. Crown 8vo, cloth. [Price 35. 6d. (> 
 
 X ON THE MAKING AND ISSUING OF X 
 
 g BOOKS. Fcap. 8vo. [Out of print. X 
 
 | THE PRINTING OF MODERN BOOKS. A t 
 
 S. paper read before the Bibliographical Society. Pot 8vo, X. 
 X, sewed. [Printed for presentation. X 
 
 V SOME NOTES ON BOOKS AND PRINTING. 
 
 ;< A Guide for Authors and others. This work is an amplification X 
 X of the previous volume. Demy 8vo. [Price 55. net. V. 
 
 V N.B. These volumes, where in print, are supplied post free on 'y 
 \l receipt of postal order at the Chiswick Prefs, ZO, Took; Court. 
 
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GESTA 
 TYPOGRAPHICA 
 
 OR A MEDLEY FOR 
 PRINTERS AND OTHERS 
 
 LONDON: ELKIN MATHEWS 
 IN VIGO STREET w. 
 
 MDCCCXCVII 
 
CHISWICK PRESS: 
 
 PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. 
 
 TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, 
 
 LONDON. 
 

 APOLOGIA 
 
 cr* 
 
 little volume of cuttings and 
 notes, which has no pretension to 
 completenejs, has been considered worthy 
 of publication, especially for Readers 
 interested in, but not actually connected 
 with, the art of Printing. 
 
 It was not pojsible to give proper 
 acknowledgment^ because, in a collection 
 spread over some years, there were many 
 repetitions, and the original sources 
 could not be identified. 
 
 'The seftion relating to Errata pre- 
 sented a difficulty ; for, whilst many of 
 the items are true errors of the prejs, 
 
Gesta Typo- and others obviously invented for the 
 ' r& ^ C sake of the joke, there are some which 
 Apologia ma y fe O f either clafs. As it was not pos- 
 sible to discriminate in all cases , / have 
 ventured to put a qualifying sub-title. 
 
 'The borders and ornaments more 
 curious than beautiful employed in the 
 decoration of this book, have been more 
 or lejs in use during the fast two cen- 
 turies^ and some may be found in Smith's 
 "Printer's Grammar" 1755; Luckombes 
 "History of Printing" 1771; and 
 Stowers "Printers Grammar" 1808. 
 That on the title and facing page is 
 interesting from the fatt that Johnson 
 used it in the large paper editions of his 
 " Typographia" ifsued in 1824. 
 
 c. r. j. 
 
CONTENTA 
 
 PAG. 
 
 vii 
 
 APOLOGIA 
 
 MEMORABILIA i 
 
 NARRATIONES 41 
 
 ERRATA (CUM GRAND SALIS) ... 65 
 
 FACETLE 91 
 
 GLOSSARIUM 123 
 
MEMORABILIA 
 
u Thou bast caused 
 printing to be used." 
 
MEMORABILIA 
 
 64 The Printers' Devil. This trade term origi- 
 nated in Italy. Aldus Manutius was a printer 
 in Venice. He owned a negro boy, who helped 
 him in his office ; and some of his customers 
 were superstitious enough to believe that the 
 boy was an emifeary of Satan. He was known 
 all over the city as " the little black devil " 
 from his dirty appearance, as his face and 
 hands were generally well smudged with print- 
 ing ink. Desiring to satisfy the curiosity ot 
 his patrons, Manutius one day exhibited the 
 boy in the streets, and proclaimed as follows : 
 44 1, Aldus Manutius, Printer to the Holy Church 
 and the Doge, have this day made public ex- 
 posure of the Printers' Devil. All who think 
 he is not flesh and blood may come and prick 
 him ! " 
 
 ** The decree of the Star Chamber, limiting 
 the number of printers in England to twenty 
 was made in 1637. 
 
 3 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 fi rst book produced in England was 
 printed by William Caxton, in the Almonry, 
 at Westminster, in the year 1477, and was en- 
 Memorabilia titled " Dicles and Sayings of the Philosophers." 
 It is a small folio volume, very beautifully 
 printed on ash-gray paper, with red initial 
 letters, and is remarkable for its evennefe of 
 colour and distin&nefe of type. 
 
 <t Early Printing. When the art of printing 
 was first applied in Europe to the production 
 of books, they were in imitation of, and sold as, 
 manuscripts ; and blanks were left at the com- 
 mencement of the respective divisions of the 
 work, for the illuminator to fill in with the proper 
 letters and ornaments, as was usual in manu- 
 scripts, and so close was the imitation that, even 
 in our own time, it has required the afsistance 
 of a chemical test to ascertain which was manu- 
 script and which was printed. When the 
 secret of printing was divulged, and the decep- 
 tion could not be continued, ornamental letters 
 of a large size were introduced, and printed 
 with two colours, generally red and blue, the 
 letter being of one colour, and flourishes, 
 extending the whole length of the page, in the 
 other, so as to have the appearance of being 
 done with a pen ; then succeeded various 
 grotesque figures, in attitudes to resemble 
 letters ; afterwards small Roman capital letters, 
 with ornaments round them forming a square 
 design ; subsequently the block was pierced 
 so that any letter could be introduced, and the 
 4 
 
ornamented part could be used for any initial ; Gesta Typo- 
 the next descent was for the letter-founders to graphica 
 
 cast the ornament in type metal, and pierce it 
 
 r , j i: r Memorabilia 
 
 for general use, and these cast ornaments for 
 
 letters were called Facs, as an abbreviation, it 
 is believed, for facsimile. The last descent 
 was to the extreme, to put a plain Roman 
 capital letter, frequently extending four or five 
 lines in depth ; and this is the substitute for a 
 beautiful coloured drawing. 
 
 * Wayzgoose. The origin of this word is not 
 generally known. On the authority of Bailey 
 the signification of the term is a " stubble- 
 goose." Moxon, writing in 1683, gives an 
 early example of its use in connection with 
 the annual dinners of the printers of that time. 
 He says : " It is also customary for all the 
 Journeymen to make every Year new Paper 
 Windows, whether the old ones will serve 
 again or no ; Because, that day they make 
 them the Master Printer gives them a Way- 
 goose ; that is, he makes them a good Feast, 
 and not only entertains them at his own 
 House, but, besides, gives them money to 
 spend at the Alehouse or Tavern at Night ; 
 and to this Feast they invite the Corrector, 
 Founder, Smith, Joyner, and Inkmaker, who 
 all of them severally (except the Corrector in 
 his own Civility) open their Purse-strings and 
 add their Benevolence (which Workmen ac- 
 count their duty, because they generally chuse 
 these Workmen) to the Master Printer's : But 
 5 
 
Memorabilia 
 
 Gesta Typo- f rom tne Corrector they expert nothing, be- 
 cause, the Master Printer chusing him, the 
 Workmen can do him no kindnefs. These 
 Way-goose are always kept about Bartholo- 
 mew-tide. And till the Master Printer hath 
 given this Way-goose the journeymen do not 
 chuse to work by Candle Light." Other 
 authors have quoted Moxon on the above, 
 adding, however, riders of their own composi- 
 tion, more fully explaining the meaning of 
 the term. Thus Timperley, writing in 1839, 
 in a footnote, says : " The derivation of this 
 term is not generally known. It is from an 
 old English word Wayz, stubble. A stubble- 
 goose is a known dainty in our days. A wayz- 
 goose was the head dish at the annual feasts 
 of the forefathers of our fraternity." From 
 this it would appear that the original deriva- 
 tion was from the goose which occupied the 
 place of honour at the dinner, and not, as 
 some have striven to show, from the excursion 
 which usually forms part of their festival. 
 
 * Opistho graphic. The first productions of 
 the prefe were printed on one side of the paper 
 only ; as the art improved among the early 
 printers they imprefeed both sides : and those 
 early productions, when they are printed on 
 both sides of the paper, are styled Opistho- 
 graphic. 
 
 * The first newspaper in England was the 
 "News out of Holland," published in 1619. 
 6 
 
<t Abbreviations. A very great inconvenience 
 of the Gothic imprefsions of the latter half of 
 the fifteenth century arose from the numerous 
 and continual abbreviations in which a great 
 part of them abound. But this disadvantage 
 is not chargeable exclusively to Gothic, but is 
 sometimes found in early editions of the Roman 
 character. Chevillier particularizes a folio 
 edition of the " Logic " of Ockham, printed in 
 1488 at Paris, in a handsome letter; but in 
 which scarcely a single word is found unab- 
 breviated. He adduces, for instance, two lines 
 taken at hazard from folio 121. They are 
 printed in the following manner : " Sic hie e 
 fat im qd ad simplr a e pducibile a Deo g a e 
 y silr bic a n e g a n e pducibile a Deo" At 
 length thus : " Sicut bic estfallacia secundum 
 quid ad simpliciter. A est producibile a Deo. 
 Ergo A est Et similiter bic. A non est. Ergo A 
 non est producibile a Deo" 
 
 6 Etienne Dolet. This author, bookseller, 
 printer, and publisher was born at Orleans in 
 1509, and died in Paris in 1546. A "martyr of 
 the Renaifeance," he was compelled for his 
 heresy to carry a bundle of his publications to 
 the market-place, where he and his books 
 were burned together. Dolet was the author 
 of twenty-four separate works. At the stake 
 he uttered the line, Non dolet ipse Doletj sed 
 pia turba dolet (It is not Dolet who grieves, but 
 a pious crowd). Dolet established his prefe at 
 Lyons, and printed his first book in 1538. 
 7 
 
 Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 '^C. 
 
 Memorabilia 
 
Gesta Typo- * Chapel. This word has a highly romantic 
 graphica origin. It is afeociated with the story of St. 
 Martin's sharing his cloak with a beggar. 
 1 "Cloak," in late Latin, is cappella, a little 
 cloak, or cape, from cappa, cloak, cape, cope. 
 The Prankish kings preserved St. Martin's 
 cloak as a sacred relic. They had it carried 
 before them into battle, and used it to give 
 sanctity to oaths. It was preserved in a 
 sanctuary, under the care of special ministers 
 called cappellani, or chaplains, and from the 
 ministers the name came to be attached to the 
 building, in old Norse French capele, Provencal 
 capella, Italian cappella, and thence to any 
 .sanctuary containing relics, and so to any 
 private sanctuary or holy place. The title of 
 44 Chapel " to the internal regulations of a 
 printing-office, originated in Caxton's exercis- 
 ing the profeftion in one of the chapels in 
 Westminster Abbey, and may be considered 
 as an additional proof, from the antiquity of 
 the custom, of his being the first English 
 printer. 
 
 * Catchwords. Catchwords are found in a 
 work entitled " Lilium Medicinae," printed at 
 Ferrara, in 1486. 
 
 **The first cylinder printing-machine 
 made by Kcenig, in London, in 1812. 
 
 63 The first steam printing was done at the 
 " Times" office, in 1814. 
 8 
 
 was 
 
<t Capitals and leads. Capitals and distances Gesta Typo- 
 between the lines were first used at Naples, graphica 
 
 about 1472. 
 
 Memorabilia 
 
 <t* About the Letters J and W. It is a facl, 
 not so well known but that it may be said to 
 be curious, that the letters j and w are modern 
 additions to our alphabet. The letter j only 
 came into general use during the time of the 
 Commonwealth, say between 1649 and 1658. 
 From 1630 to 1646 its use is exceedingly 
 rare, and we have never as yet seen a book 
 printed prior to 1652 in which it appeared. 
 In the century immediately preceding the 
 seventeenth, it became the fashion to tail the 
 last i when Roman numerals were used, as in 
 this example: viij for 8 or xij in place of 12. 
 This fashion still lingers, but only in physi- 
 cians' prescriptions, we believe. Where the 
 French use j it has the power of s as we use 
 it in the word " vision." What nation was 
 the first to use it as a new letter is an 
 interesting, but perhaps unanswerable, query. 
 In a like manner, the printers and language- 
 makers of the latter part of the sixteenth 
 century began to recognize the facl that there 
 was a sound in spoken English which was 
 without a representative in the shape of an 
 alphabetical sign or character, as the first 
 sound in the word " wet." Prior to that time 
 it had always been spelled as "vet," the v 
 having the long sound of u or of two u's 
 together. In order to convey an idea of the 
 9 
 
Gesta Typo new sound they began to spell such words as 
 graphica wet," " weather," " web," etc., with two u's, 
 and as the u of that date was a typical v, the 
 three words above looked like this: "wet," 
 " weather," " web." After a while the type- 
 founders recognized the fact that the double u 
 had come to stay, so they joined the two u's 
 together, and made the character now so well 
 known as the w. One book is extant in which 
 three forms of the w are given. The first is 
 the old double v (w), the next is one in which 
 the last stroke of the first v crofses the first 
 stroke of the second, and the third is the 
 common w we use to-day. 
 
 <t The Scriptures were first written on skins, 
 linen cloth, or papyrus, and rolled up as we do 
 engravings. The Old Testament was written 
 in the old Hebrew character an offshoot of 
 the Phoenician. It was a symbol language as 
 written, and the vowel sound supplied by the 
 voice. The words ran together in a continuous 
 line. After the Hebrew became a dead lan- 
 guage, vowels were supplied to preserve usage, 
 which was pacing away. After the Babylonish 
 captivity, the written Hebrew was modified by 
 the Aramaic, and schools of reading taught 
 the accent and emphasis. Then came the 
 separation of words from each other, then 
 division into verses. 
 
 * The first iron printing-prefe was made by 
 Earl Stanhope, in 1800. 
 10 
 
64 Signatures. The ancient printers, or at Gesta Typo- 
 least those of the fifteenth century, had only graphica 
 very small prefses, and two folio pages, little 
 larger than two pages of foolscap, formed the ' 
 largest surface they could print. It is probable, 
 also, that the system of laying down pages, or 
 " imposing" them, that we now have was not 
 then known. Their mode of procedure was 
 as follows : They took a certain number of 
 sheets of paper three, four, five, or more 
 and folded them in the middle, the quantity 
 forming a section. Three sheets thus folded 
 or " quired " are called a ternion ; four sheets 
 a quaternion, and so on. Hence the first sheet 
 would contain the first two pages of a ternion 
 and the last two pages that is, pages l and 
 2, and 11 and 12. The second sheet, lying 
 inside the first, would contain pages 3 and 4, 
 and 9 and 10; the third sheet having pages 5 
 and 6, and 7 and 8. If the reader will take 
 three slips of paper and fold them in the same 
 manner, marking the number of the pages, 
 the procefe will be easily understood. It is 
 obvious that when a system of this kind was 
 adopted, there was danger lest the loose sheets 
 should become disarranged, and not follow in 
 their proper order. To obviate such an acci- 
 dent there was written at the bottom of the 
 first page of each leaf a Roman numeral, as j, 
 ij, iij (l, 2, 3), and so on. This plan was 
 originally adopted by the scribes, and the 
 printers merely imitated it. But the book 
 being made up of a number of quires, there 
 1 1 
 
Gesta Typo- W as a danger lest the quires themselves should 
 graphica become disarranged. To prevent this there 
 was at the foot of each page written a letter of 
 a the alphabet. The first sheet would bear the 
 letter a, the second b, and so on. When these 
 two indications were present the binder could 
 never be in doubt as to the order of the dif- 
 ferent sheets. The first page of the book was 
 marked a j, the third page a ij, the fifth page 
 a iij, and so forth. The next quire presented 
 the letters b j, b ij, b iij, and so on. These 
 indications at the feet of the pages are known 
 as signatures. When the page bears one of 
 them it is said to be " signed," and where 
 there is no mark of the kind it is said to be 
 u unsigned." In the earliest books the signa- 
 tures were written with a pen, and the facl: 
 that many copies that have been preserved do 
 not now bear signatures is because they were 
 written so close to the margin that they have 
 since been cut off while the book was being 
 rebound. It was many years after the invention 
 of typography that signatures were printed 
 along with the matter of the pages. The 
 earliest instance we have of the use of printed 
 signatures is the " Praeceptorium Divinae Legis" 
 of Johannes Nider, printed at Cologne, by 
 Johann Koelhof, in 1472. 
 
 * Gothic Letters. The ancient Goths were 
 converted to Christianity by the Greek priests, 
 and they probably introduced their letters 
 with their religion, about the reign of Galienus. 
 12 
 
Towards the middle of the third century, Qesta Typo- 
 Ascholius, Bishop of Thefsalonica, and a Greek graphica 
 priest named Audius, spread Christianity among <^& 
 
 the Goths; the former of these is much extolled Memorabilia 
 by Basil the Great, and the latter by Epiphanius. 
 The ancient Gothic alphabet consisted of six- 
 teen letters ; they are so similar to the Greek 
 that their derivation cannot be doubted. Those 
 writers are certainly mistaken who attribute 
 the invention of the Gothic letters to Ulphilas, 
 Bishop of Mo3sia, who lived in the fourth 
 century. The gospels translated by him into 
 the Gothic language, and written in ancient 
 Gothic characters about the year 370, were 
 formerly kept in the library of the monastery 
 of Werden ; but this MS. is now preserved in 
 the library of Upsal, and is known among the 
 learned by the title of the "Silver Book of 
 Ulphilas," because it is bound in maisive silver. 
 Several editions of this MS. have been printed. 
 See a specimen of it in Hickes's " Thesaurus," 
 vol. i., pref. p. 8. Dr. Hickes positively disallows 
 this translation to be Ulphilas', but says it was 
 made by some Teuton or German, either as 
 old, or perhaps older than Ulphilas; but whether 
 this was so or not, the characters are apparently 
 of Greek original. 
 
 * Type Founding in Europe. For a long 
 period after the discovery of printing, it seems 
 that type-founding, printing, and binding went 
 under the general term of Printing ; printers 
 cast the types used by them, and printed and 
 13 
 
Gesta Typo- bound the works executed in their establish- 
 
 graphica ments. Type-founding became a distinct call- 
 
 ^* ing early in the seventeenth century. A decree 
 
 Memorabilia o f the Star Chamber, made July 1 1th, 1637, 
 ordained the following regulations concerning 
 English founders : " That there shall be four 
 founders of letters for printing, and no more : 
 That the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the 
 Bishop of London, with six other high com- 
 mifeioners, shall supply the places of those 
 four as they shall become void: That no 
 master-founder shall keep above two appren- 
 tices at one time. That all journeyman- 
 founders be employed by the masters of the 
 trade, and idle journeymen be compelled to 
 work, upon pain of imprisonment and such 
 other punishment as the court shall think fit. 
 That no master-founder of letters shall employ 
 any other person in any work belonging to the 
 casting or founding of letters than freemen or 
 apprentices to the trade, save only in pulling 
 off the knots of metal hanging at the end of 
 the letters when they are first cast ; in which 
 work every master-founder may employ one 
 boy only, not bound to the trade." By the 
 same decree, the number of master-printers in 
 England was limited to twenty. Regulations 
 like the above were in force till 1693. The 
 "polyglot founders," as they have been called, 
 were succeeded by Joseph Moxon and others. 
 But the English were unable to compete with 
 the superior productions of the Dutch founders 
 until the advent of William Caslon. 
 14 
 
<t Pica Type. The Rev. E. Mores Rowe, a Gesta Typo- 
 great literary author and antiquarian, born in graphica 
 Kent in l 729, in his " Difeertation upon English 
 Typographical Founders," says, " The Pie was Memorabilia 
 a table showing the course of the service in 
 the Church in the times of darknefe, and was 
 written in narrow columns of black and red. 
 There were some Friars in England called 
 Friars de Pie, so called from their party- 
 coloured raiment, black and white striped (like 
 the plumage of a magpie). Another definition 
 is from Pie, an old Roman Catholic service- 
 book, so called from the manner of its printing, 
 presenting an appearance like the colours of 
 a magpie." An old placard of Caxton's pre- 
 served at Oxford reads thus, " If it please any 
 man spirituelle or temporal to buy any pyes, 
 two or three, let him come to Westminster 
 and he shall have them good and chepe." 
 The French and Germans call it " Cicero," so 
 pofeibly the writings of that philosopher were 
 printed in it. 
 
 * Long Primer. The Rev. E. Mores Rowe 
 suggests that long means that religious works 
 first set in it were in long lines acrofs the page 
 instead of double columns as previously. It is 
 called Corpus in German, pofsibly because their 
 " Corpus Juris " was printed in it, a custom 
 still continued. It is also called Garamond, 
 doubtlefe in honour of the name either of the 
 punch-cutter or founder. The French call it 
 petit Romain and Great Primer gros Romain. 
 15 
 
Gesta Typo ** Brevier. Said to derive its name from 
 
 graphica extensive use in printing Roman Catholic 
 
 ^^ Breviaries or prayer books, although this 
 
 Memorabilia definition is now questioned. We know that 
 our trade owes many of its restrictions to 
 clerical influence as well as some of its privi- 
 leges to their aftistance, and of course we have 
 used some technical names as tokens of remem- 
 brance. For instance, chapel, justify, monks, 
 friars, etc. In Germany it is called " jungfer," 
 signifying " maiden letter/' on account of its 
 comelinefe. 
 
 * Machines. An account by Savage, in his 
 " Dictionary of Printing," 1841, says : " Cylin- 
 drical printing, or, as it is generally termed, 
 Machine printing, is a new mode of obtaining 
 imprefeions from types, the introduction of 
 which took place in the year 1814. It has 
 caused a great revolution in the art, from the 
 facilities which it affords for printing sheets of 
 paper of a size of which no prefs worked by 
 manual labour is capable, nor, were it capable, 
 is the strength of one man equal to the exertion 
 requisite for the prefeure necefeary to produce a 
 respectable imprefsion. In addition to this ad- 
 vantage of printing sheets of such larger dimen- 
 sions, it pofeetees the power of multiplying im- 
 prefsions so rapidly as to appear like the work 
 of magic. This may seem hyperbolical ; but 
 the average rate of working at a prefs for 
 common work, that is, the general run of book 
 work, with two men, one to ink the types, and 
 16 
 
the other to work the prefs, is but 250 copies an Gesta Typo- 
 hour, while a machine will produce 1 ,250 copies graphica 
 in the same time ; and considerably more might 
 be obtained, were not its powers restrained by ^ 
 the limited human means of feeding it with 
 paper, it being found by experience that the 
 number stated is the extent to which one person 
 could supply it, he having regard to laying on 
 the sheets evenly, so as to preserve a regular 
 margin : but this speed was not deemed suffi- 
 cient to meet the wants that were felt, and the 
 4 Times ' newspaper is now printed at a machine 
 where the paper is laid on at four places, one 
 forme of which, consisting of four pages, is 
 printed at the astonishing rate of 4,320 an 
 hour at its ordinary rate of working, a facl 
 which I have seen and ascertained myself, by 
 counting its motions with a seconds watch in 
 my hand. Mr. Richard Taylor has also a 
 similar machine at which the i Weekly Dis- 
 patch ' is printed. Considering what has been 
 done, I cannot see a reason why the paper 
 should not be supplied at six or eight places, 
 if found necefsary, so as to increase the number 
 printed to 6,000 or 8,000 in an hour ; as the 
 wonder ceases when we remember that steam 
 is the moving power." A comparison of these 
 fa&s with the methods employed and the results 
 attained nowadays is very curious. 
 
 * Newspapers were first printed in Venice, 
 1556; in England, 1619; United States, at 
 Boston, 1690. 
 
 17 c 
 
Gesta Typo- *t It is not generally known that the Vatican 
 graphica pofteftes one of the finest printing establish- 
 ments in the world. It was founded in 1626, 
 
 Memorabilia an( j on ly one year after its foundation already 
 pofsefsed the characters of twenty-three dif- 
 ferent languages. In 1811, when Pius VII. 
 was Napoleon's prisoner at Fontainebleau, the 
 Propaganda Preft was abolished, and its imple- 
 ments were carried off to Paris. It was re- 
 stored under Louis XVIII., and is now one of 
 the marvels of Rome. 
 
 * Benvenue. According to Moxon, 1683, this 
 was " Half a crown paid by a new workman 
 to the chapel when he commences, which 
 is always spent. If a journeyman wrought 
 formerly in the same printing house, and 
 comes again to work in it, he pays but half a 
 benvenue. If a journeyman smout more or 
 left on another printing house, he pays half a 
 benvenue." This custom, somewhat modified, 
 is still retained in printing-offices, and the 
 amount generally paid is the same as it was in 
 the seventeenth century, though the value of 
 half a crown then was considerably more than 
 it is now. Under particular circumstances the 
 chapel sometimes takes lefs ; and the work- 
 men always add something each, so as to be 
 able to provide bread and cheese and a draught 
 of porter to welcome the new comer. The 
 word is now pronounced bevenue ; it is evidently 
 a corruption of the French bien venu, or wel- 
 come. 
 
 18 
 
<t Richard Pynson. This printer was born in Gesta Typo 
 
 Normandy, but was naturalized in England by graphica 
 
 letters patent. He was also appointed king's 
 
 printer, and was the first that introduced the Memorabilia 
 
 Roman letter into this country. He chiefly 
 
 printed law books, which were at that time in 
 
 Norman French. He died about 1529. 
 
 * Some Numerals. Some of these Roman 
 numerals used in old titles and colophons are 
 difficult to read : 
 
 Arabic. 
 
 100 
 
 200 
 300 
 
 4OO 
 500 
 600 
 700 
 800 
 9OO 
 1,000 
 
 2,000 
 3,000 
 4,000 
 5,000 
 10,000 
 50,000 
 100,000 
 500,000 
 
 CCCCI3333 or M 1,000,000 
 
 If the lefeer number be placed before the 
 
 19 
 
 Roman. 
 C 
 
 cc 
 
 ccc 
 
 cccc 
 
 lOorD 
 
 DC 
 
 DCC 
 
 DCCC 
 
 DCCCC or CM 
 
 M or CIo 
 
 MM 
 
 MMM 
 
 MMMM_ 
 
 133 or V 
 
Gesta Typo- greater, the lefser is to be deduced from the 
 
 graphica greater ; thus IV signifies one left than five, 
 
 i.e. four ; IX, nine ; XC, ninety. If the lefter 
 
 Memorabilia num ber be placed after the greater, the lefter 
 is to be added to the greater ; thus VI signifies 
 one more than five, i.e. six ; XI, eleven ; CX, 
 one hundred and ten. An horizontal stroke 
 over a numeral denotes a thousand : thus V 
 signifies five thousand ; L, fifty thousand ; M, 
 a thousand times a thousand, or a million. 
 IQ or D signifies five hundred, the half of CI^. 
 M or CI^, a thousand, from mille. The latter 
 figures joined at the top (T), formed the ancient 
 M. 
 
 * John Gutenberg. He was born near Mentz, 
 !397> an d was bred a merchant, which pro- 
 feftion he followed at Strasburg and Mentz 
 alternately. He is believed to have discovered 
 the art of printing with movable types about 
 *439 5 an d it is certain that he entered into 
 partnership with Fust, for the prosecution of 
 the art, before 1455, in which year the cele- 
 brated Bible was executed by them. Gutenberg 
 died February 24, 1468. 
 
 * Stereotyping was invented, in 1725, by W. 
 Ged. 
 
 * The first work printed in Germany in the 
 Roman characters was " Isodori Episcopi His- 
 palensis Etymologia," ifeued by Gunther Za- 
 nier in 1472. 
 
 20 
 
63 John Fust, or Faust. A goldsmith of Mentz, Gesta Typo- 
 
 who is said by some to have been the inventor graphica 
 
 of printing by means of movable metal types. 
 
 Others, however, are of opinion that he only Memorabilia 
 
 afsisted Gutenberg and his son-in-law, Schoeflfer, 
 
 in bringing the discovery to perfection. He 
 
 was living at Paris in 1466, and is supposed to 
 
 have died soon afterwards. 
 
 (93 The first work in the English language was 
 Caxton's "Game of Chefse," ifeued in 1474. 
 
 <t* The Length of Literary Copyright. The 
 United States gives twenty-eight years, with 
 the right of extension for fourteen more ; in 
 all, forty-two years. Mexico, Guatemala, and 
 Venezuela, in perpetuity. Colombia and Spain, 
 author's life and eighty years after. Belgium, 
 Ecuador, Norway, Peru, Rufeia, and Tunis, 
 author's life and fifty years after. Italy, author's 
 life and forty years after ; the full term to be 
 eighty years in any event. France, Germany, 
 Austria, and Switzerland, author's life and 
 thirty years after. Hayti, author's life, widow's 
 life, childrens' lives, and twenty years after the 
 close of the latest period. Brazil, Sweden, and 
 Roumania, author's life and ten years after. 
 Great Britain, author's life and seven years after 
 his decease ; to be forty-two years in any event. 
 Bolivia, full term of author's life. Denmark 
 and Holland, fifty years. Japan, author's life 
 and five years after. South Africa, author's 
 life ; fifty years in any event. 
 21 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 "VC 
 
 Memorabilia 
 
 <t The letters in the alphabets of the different 
 nations vary in number from 12 to 2O2. 
 The Sandwich Islanders have the first named 
 number, the Burmese 19, Italian 2O, Ben- 
 galese 21, Hebrew, Syrian, Chaldean, and 
 Samaritan 22 each, Latin 26, Greek 24, Ger- 
 man, Dutch, and English 26 each, Spanish and 
 Slavonic 27 each, Arabian 28, Persian and 
 Coptic 32, Georgian 35, Armenian 38, Rufsian 
 41, old Muscovite 43, and Sanskrit and many 
 other Oriental languages have 50 each. Ethio- 
 pian and Tartarian have 202 each. 
 
 * Henry Stephens, Stepbanus, or Etienne. A 
 learned printer, who was born at Paris in 1470. 
 He began businefe about 1503, and the first 
 production of his prefe was the " Arithmetic " 
 of Boethius. He died in 1 520. 
 
 * Robert Stephens. The second son of Henry ; 
 he was born at Paris in 1 503. After his father's 
 death he carried on the businefe with De 
 Colines, who married his mother. During 
 that connection, Robert published, in 1522, an 
 edition of the Greek Testament, which drew 
 upon him the enmity of the doctors of the 
 Sorbonne. He married the daughter of Badius, 
 the printer. In 1526 Stephens difsolved part- 
 nership with De Colines, and set up a printing- 
 office of his own. In 1539 he was appointed 
 king's printer of Latin and Hebrew ; but on 
 the death of his royal protector Robert removed 
 to Geneva, where he died in 1559- 
 
 22 
 
<t Charles Stephens. The brother of Robert ; Gesta Typo- 
 he was brought up to medicine, in which graphica 
 faculty he took his doctor's degree at Paris ; 
 but in 1551 he also set up as a printer. His 7 
 speculations, particularly the " Thesaurus 
 Ciceronis," proved his ruin, and he died in 
 prison in 1564. 
 
 * Henry Stephens. Robert's eldest son ; he 
 was born at Paris in 1528. At twenty he 
 published notes on Horace. In 1 557 he printed 
 at Paris several works, the expense of which 
 was borne by Ulric Fugger ; and Henry, out of 
 gratitude, subscribed himself his printer. He 
 now began the " Greek Thesaurus," which 
 great work was completed by him in twelve 
 years, but proved his ruin, and after leading a 
 wandering life, he died in a hospital at Lyons 
 in 1598. 
 
 &* Robert Stephens. He was a brother of the 
 second Henry. He adhered to the Catholic 
 religion, for which his father disinherited him. 
 He became king's printer, and died in 1571. 
 He had a son of both his names, who was also 
 king's printer; he died in 1629. 
 
 * Francis Stephens. Another son of the first 
 Robert. He went with his father to Geneva, 
 where he carried on businefe with Perrin. 
 
 * Balls. As much good printing was done 
 with these, a short account may not be unin- 
 teresting. They consisted of two circular pieces 
 of felt, leather, or canvas covered with com- 
 23 
 
Gesta Typo- position, stuffed with wool and nailed to the 
 
 graphica ball stocks, used to cover the surface of the 
 
 article to be printed with ink, in order to obtain 
 
 a an impreftion from it. Moxon says they were 
 
 occasionally stuffed with hair ; and that if the 
 
 ball stocks were six inches in diameter the 
 
 ball leathers were cut about nine inches and a 
 
 half in diameter. They were made larger, 
 
 according to the work they were required for ; 
 
 those used for newspapers were the largest. 
 
 * The Stationers' Company. In 1403, by the 
 authority of the Lord Mayor and Court of 
 Aldermen of the City of London, the stationers 
 were formed into a guild or fraternity, and had 
 their ordinances made for the good government 
 of their fellowship. Thus constituted, they 
 regularly afsembled, under the government of 
 a master and two wardens. Their first hall 
 was in Milk Street ; but, notwithstanding all 
 the endeavours that have been made, no privi- 
 lege or charter has yet been discovered under 
 which they acled as a corporate body. It 
 appears from the most authentic records that 
 the Company of Stationers, or text-writers who 
 wrote and sold all sorts of books then in use, 
 namely, A. B. C. with the Paternoster, Ave, 
 Creed, Grace, etc., to large portions of the 
 Bible, even to the whole Bible itself, dwelt in 
 and about Paternoster Row. Hence we have, 
 in that neighbourhood, Creed Lane, Amen 
 Corner, Ave Maria Lane, etc,, all places named 
 after some Scripture allusions. 
 24 
 
<t Benjamin Franklin. This most prominent 
 American philosopher and statesman was born 
 at Boston, New England, January 6, 1 706. He 
 was well educated under his father, who was a 
 tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, and after being 
 engaged in that busineft he was bound to his 
 father's elder brother, a printer. A difference 
 with his uncle removed him from New York to 
 Philadelphia, where he was noticed by the 
 governor, Keith, and encouraged to set up in 
 businefe for himself. With this view he came 
 to London ; but soon discovered that the 
 promises of his patron were the unmeaning 
 profefeions of polished life, and, after working 
 as a journeyman printer, he, in l 726, returned 
 to Philadelphia. He began businefs, and pub- 
 lished a periodical paper, which was read with 
 avidity. He was married in 1730, and the 
 next year he began the public library of 
 Philadelphia. After this he devoted himself to 
 the interests of his country, being instrumental 
 in bringing about the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. He died April 1 7, 1 790, and his country- 
 men ordered, on this occasion, a public mourn- 
 ing for two months. 
 
 paper duty was abolished in 1861. 
 
 first book printed in Europe from 
 movable types was the Bible, printed by 
 Gutenberg, at Strasburg, in 1455. This work 
 is sometimes described as the Mazarine Bible, 
 and occasionally as the " forty-two line " Bible. 
 25 
 
 Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 'X-s 
 Memorabilia 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 'W 
 Memorabilia 
 
 <t The Stanhope Prejl. This was the invention 
 of the patriotic nobleman whose name it bears, 
 and which will be handed down to posterity. 
 After many expensive and laborious experi- 
 ments he succeeded, with the afsistance of a 
 very ingenious mechanist (the late Mr. Walker) 
 in bringing it to a state of perfection. The first 
 prefe was finished in 1 800, and its powers 
 were tried at the office of William Bulmer 
 (the Shakespeare Prefs) in Cleveland Row, St. 
 James's, London. In the formation of his iron 
 prefe Earl Stanhope must have found many 
 useful hints in M. Anifeon's " Premier Memoire 
 sur rimprefeion en Lettres, suivi de la Descrip- 
 tion d'une Nouvelle Prefse executee pour le 
 Service du Roi," in which he says : " Je me 
 suis attache principalement a rendre son action 
 et ses mouvemens les plus independans qu'il 
 m'a etc pofeible du maniement deregle des 
 ouvriers auxquels elle est confiee." This has 
 been particularly attended to in the Stanhope 
 prefs, and nothing is left to the judgment of 
 the prefeman but the colouring. 
 
 63 Laurence Coster or Laurent Janszoon Koster. 
 A native of Haerlem, who died about 1440. 
 The Dutch affirm that he invented block- 
 printing in 1430, of which, they say, he caught 
 the idea by cutting letters upon the bark of a 
 tree, and then imprefeing the same upon paper. 
 This, however, is now generally treated as a 
 fable, and given up by all who have considered 
 the subject. 
 
 26 
 
* John Baskerville. This celebrated printer Gesta Typo- 
 was born at Wolverley, Worcestershire, in l 706. graphica 
 In 1 726 he kept a writing school at Birmingham, 
 but in 1745 he engaged in the japanning busi- r 
 nefe, to which in 1750 he added the profefsion 
 of type-founding. After expending a consider- 
 able sum in this pursuit he succeeded, and the 
 works printed by him obtained celebrity. The 
 first of these was Virgil, in l 756, which answered 
 so well that he reprinted it in 1758. In the 
 latter year he was employed by the University 
 of Oxford on a new-faced Greek type, and soon 
 afterwards he obtained leave from the syndicate 
 of Cambridge to print a Bible and two editions 
 of the Common Prayer. The other productions 
 of his preis were, Newton's " Milton," 2 vols. 
 4to ; Dodsley's " Fables," 8vo ; Juvenal and 
 Persius, 8vo ; Congreve's Works, 3 vols. 8vo ; 
 Horace, 8vo ; Addison's Works, 4 vols. 4to ; 
 a Pocket Dictionary, 1 2mo ; " Jennings on 
 Medals," 8vo. He also printed editions of 
 Terence, Catullus, Lucretius, Sallust, and 
 Florus, in 4to. Mr. Baskerville died at Bir- 
 mingham, January 8, 1775, and his types were 
 sold to a society at Paris, by whom they were 
 used in printing the works of Voltaire. 
 
 * Foolscap. Everybody knows what " fools- 
 cap " paper is, but everybody does not know 
 how it came to bear that name. In order to 
 increase his revenues, Charles I. granted cer- 
 tain privileges, amounting to monopolies, and 
 among these was the manufacture of paper, 
 27 
 
Gesta Typo the exclusive right of which was sold to certain 
 graphica parties, who grew rich, and enriched the 
 government at the expense of those who were 
 a obliged to use paper. At that time all English 
 paper bore the royal arms in water-marks. 
 The Parliament under Cromwell made sport 
 of this law in every poftible manner, and, 
 among other indignities to the memory of 
 Charles, it was ordered that the royal arms be 
 removed from the paper, and that the fool's 
 cap and bells should be used as a substitute. 
 When the Rump Parliament was prorogued, 
 these were also removed ; but paper of the 
 size of the parliamentary journals, which are 
 usually about seventeen by fourteen inches, 
 still bears the name of " foolscap." 
 
 * John Baptist Bodoni. This celebrated printer 
 of Parma was, no doubt, the most distinguished 
 in his profefeion during the eighteenth century. 
 He was born at Saluzzo in the Sardinian states, 
 February 16, 1740, of a respectable but humble 
 family. He learned the rudiments of his art 
 in the office of his father. At eighteen years 
 of age a desire to improve his condition induced 
 him to undertake a journey to Rome. There 
 he visited the printing house of the Propaganda. 
 His general demeanour and vivacity attracted 
 the notice of the abbate Ruggieri, the super- 
 intendent of that establishment, and he was 
 engaged there as a workman. In 1766 the 
 suicide of Ruggieri rendered Bodoni's longer 
 stay at Rome insupportable from regret. He 
 28 
 
accepted an offer, made by the Marquis de Gesta Typo- 
 
 Felino, whereby he was placed at the head of graphica 
 
 the prete intended to be established at Parma, 
 
 and settled there in 1768. Hence he ifeued Memorabilia 
 
 some beautiful specimens of his art. His most 
 
 sumptuous work was his Homer, in three 
 
 volumes folio, printed in 1808. He was a 
 
 sufferer from gout, to which a fever was at last 
 
 superadded, which terminated the life of this 
 
 eminent typographer in 1813. 
 
 * The Mazarine Bible. The first important 
 specimen of printing was the celebrated Bible 
 of 637 leaves, with large cut metal types, 
 which was executed between Gutenberg and 
 Fust. It is known by the number of its leaves 
 to distinguish it more accurately from other 
 editions without date. This Bible is an edition 
 of the Latin Vulgate, and was executed between 
 the years 1450 and 1455. It forms two volumes 
 in folio, is printed in large Gothic or German 
 character, and is a remarkable specimen of 
 beautiful printing. A copy at Lord Ashburn- 
 ham's sale recently fetched ^4,000. This 
 particular edition is sometimes called the 
 " forty-two line " Bible. 
 
 * John Bagford. An antiquarian collector, 
 who had a mania for mutilating all the books 
 he could lay hands on, in order to collect 
 title-pages, old types, printers' colophons, etc. 
 Bagford was born at London in October, 1675. 
 He was bred a shoemaker, but afterwards 
 29 
 
Gesta Typo- became a bookseller, and a great collector of 
 
 graphica curiosities. He was employed by Moore, Bishop 
 
 <*&, of Norwich, and the Earl of Oxford, to enrich 
 
 Memorabilia their libraries with scarce books and MSS. 
 For his services the bishop placed him in the 
 Charterhouse. He died May 15, 1716. His 
 collections respecting the history of typography 
 are preserved among the Harleian MSS., and 
 there are two volumes by him in the University 
 Library at Cambridge (Dd. x. 56, 57). The 
 title of one of the latter will give a fair idea of 
 the extent of Bagford's orthographical acquire- 
 ments. It is as follows : u The Hihstory of 
 Tipography, its Originall and prograse from 
 athentick recordes, maniscriptes, and printed 
 bookes, collected with grate paynes, by Jo. 
 Bagford." 
 
 * Printing was introduced into Scotland by 
 Chepman in 1507. 
 
 * William Caxton. He was the first English 
 printer, and was born in the Weald of Kent, 
 probably in 141 2. At the age of fifteen he was 
 apprenticed to a mercer in London, and on the 
 death of his master travelled in the Low 
 Countries for a short time. While abroad he 
 was employed to continue and confirm a treaty 
 of trade and commerce between Edward IV. 
 and Philip, Duke of Burgundy. During his 
 residence in Flanders he acquired a knowledge 
 of the new invention of printing, and the first 
 book he executed was the " Recueil des Histoires 
 30 
 
de Troyes," by Raoul le Fevre, 1465-67. In Gesta Typo- 
 1472 he published his own translation of the graphica 
 same work. The time of his return to his 
 native country is not known with certainty, Memorabilia 
 but the usual supposition has been that he 
 brought the art of printing into England in 
 1 474. Shortly afterwards he was residing near 
 Westminster Abbey, where he set up his prefe. 
 A list of the works printed by him, sixty-seven 
 in number, is given in Lowndes's " Biblio- 
 grapher's Manual," ed. Bohn. Caxton died 
 either in 1491 or 1492. 
 
 it* The First Edition of the New Testament in 
 Greek. This was published in 1516 by John 
 Froben, at Basle. The design of publishing 
 this edition originated with Froben, who en- 
 gaged Erasmus as the editor ; for Beatus 
 Rhenanus, who was for some time one of the 
 correctors of Froben's prefs,in a letter addrefeed 
 to Erasmus, dated April 17th, 1515, makes 
 the proposal, in the following terms: "Petit 
 Frobenius abs te 4 Novum Testamentum ' pro 
 quo tantum se daturum pollicetur, quantum 
 alius quisquam " : " Froben requests you to 
 undertake the 4 New Testament/ for which he 
 promises to give you as much as any other 
 person." During the time he was employed 
 upon it, Erasmus lodged in the house of 
 Froben, as appears from the subscription at 
 the end of the first edition, which is, " Basiliae, 
 in aedibus Johannis Frobenii Hammelburgensis, 
 Mense Februario, anno MDXVI." 
 31 
 
Gesta Typo- <t Aldus Manutius. This celebrated printer 
 graphica was born in 1449, at Bafsiano, in the duchy of 
 "** Sermonetta. He received a liberal education, 
 
 tmorabilia and on t h e completion of his studies became 
 preceptor to the Prince of Carpi, nephew of 
 Picus of Mirandola. In 1488 he set up a 
 printing-office at Venice, and the first book 
 that ifsued from his prefe was the Greek poem 
 of Musaeus, with a Latin version in 410. This 
 was followed by a number of valuable works, and 
 the house of Aldus was the resort of learned men 
 from all parts of Europe, among whom was 
 Erasmus, who resided there a considerable time, 
 while publishing his " Adagia." Aldus died Feb- 
 ruary 3, 1515. He was the author of a Latin 
 grammar ; a treatise, "De Metris Horatianis ; " 
 and a Greek dictionary. 
 
 * Italic Type. We are indebted to the above- 
 named printer for the invention of this beau- 
 tiful type. It was at his printing-office in 
 Venice that he introduced the particular letter 
 which is known to most of the nations in 
 Europe as " Italic." By the Germans it is called 
 " Cursiv." It was dedicated to the State of 
 Italy to prevent any dispute that might arise 
 from other nations claiming a priority, as was 
 the case concerning the first inventor of print- 
 ing. As soon as Aldus perfected this fount, he 
 obtained a privilege from three several popes 
 for the sole use of it during the space of fifteen 
 years ; and these pontiffs give him great en- 
 comiums on the invention. 
 32 
 
** Vignette. This word, literally " little vine," Gesta Typo- 
 was originally applied to small copperplate graphica 
 
 engravings used to embellish title-pages, it _ 
 
 u ru- r^ui? u Memorabilia 
 
 being a fashion of the trench engravers to 
 
 surround such designs with a running border 
 of vine leaves. The word is still specifically 
 applied to the small engraving on a title-page, 
 though the vine-leaf border in such a position 
 has long since been discarded. Generally, it 
 includes any kind of engraving or ornament 
 not enclosed in a definite border. This limita- 
 tion of meaning is not, however, observed in 
 typography. An ornament is none the left a 
 vignette because it takes the form of a shield 
 or a medallion or any other figure. The word 
 " vignette " should not be applied to diagrams 
 or illustrative designs or initial ornaments 
 but to a picture introduced solely for decorative 
 purposes. 
 
 * Wynkyn de Worde was the first afsistant, and 
 succeftor of Caxton. He was born in the duke- 
 dom of Lorraine, and became a denizen of 
 England in 1496. Throughout the whole 
 range of our ancient typographers, there is 
 scarcely one whose memory beams with greater 
 effulgence than that of Wynkyn de Worde : 
 he gained this high distinction not only from 
 the number of his publications, but also from 
 the typographical excellence which they ex- 
 hibit. On the death of Caxton, he successfully 
 practised the art of printing on his own account 
 in his master's house. In this office he appears 
 33 D 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 ^^ 
 Memorabilia 
 
 to have continued until the year 1499, when 
 he removed to the " sign of the Golden Sun, 
 in the parish of St. Bride, in the Fletestrete, 
 London." He does not appear to have left 
 this neighbourhood, as in his will he directs 
 his body to be buried in the parochial church 
 of St. Bride, Fleet Street, before the high altar 
 of St. Katharine. He died in 1534. 
 
 * Clajlical Names of Towns 
 are some of the left obvious 
 
 and Cities. These 
 names one meets 
 
 with on old title-pages : 
 Abbatis Villa 
 
 Abbeville. 
 
 Albani Fanum 
 
 St. Albans. 
 
 Argentina 
 Augusta Tiberii 
 Aurelia 
 
 Strasburg. 
 Ratisbon. 
 Orleans. 
 
 Boruftia 
 
 Pruftia. 
 
 Cantabrigia 
 Cantuaria 
 Cestria 
 
 Cambridge. 
 Canterbury. 
 Chester. 
 
 Cicestria 
 
 Chichester. 
 
 Divio 
 Duacum 
 Dunelmum 
 
 Dijon. 
 Douay. 
 Durham. 
 
 Eboracum 
 
 York. 
 
 Exonia 
 
 Exeter. 
 
 Glascua 
 Haga Comitum 
 Lipsiae 
 Londinium ( 
 Londinum $ 
 
 Glasgow. 
 The Hague. 
 Leipsic. 
 
 London. 
 
 Lugduni 
 
 Lyons. 
 
 34 
 
 
Lugdunum Batavorum 
 
 Leyden. 
 
 Lutetia |_ 
 Lut. Par. / 
 
 Paris. 
 
 Manilla 
 
 Marseilles. 
 
 Mediolanum 
 
 Milan. 
 
 Moguntiae 
 
 Mayence. 
 
 Nicaea 
 
 Nice. 
 
 Noriberga ) 
 Norica 1 
 
 Nuremberg. 
 
 Oxonia 
 
 Oxford. 
 
 Padova ) 
 Patavium f 
 
 Padua. 
 
 Petriburgum 
 
 Peterborough. 
 
 Remi 
 
 Rheims. 
 
 Roflfa 
 
 Rochester. 
 
 Roma 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Rothomagus 
 
 Rouen. 
 
 Rupella 
 
 Rochelle. 
 
 Sarum 
 
 Salisbury. 
 
 Sestiae 
 
 Aix, Provence. 
 
 Tridentum 
 
 Trent. 
 
 Varsovia ) 
 Warsovia j 
 
 Warsaw. 
 
 Venetiae 1 
 Vinegia j 
 
 Venice. 
 
 Vincentia 
 
 Vicenza. 
 
 Vindobona 
 
 Vienna. 
 
 Westmonasterium 
 
 Westminster. 
 
 Wintonia 
 
 Winchester. 
 
 Wormacia 
 
 Worms. 
 
 Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 '^ 
 Memorabilia 
 
 * The first almanack was printed by George 
 Van Purbach, in 1460. 
 35 
 
Gesta Typo- ^ Thomas Bowdler. To " Bowdlerize " is an 
 exprefsion applied to the acl of expurgating 
 
 editions of the claries. Bowdler was born at 
 Memorabilia . t , , T , , . . 
 
 Ashley, near Bath, July 11, 1754, and being 
 
 intended for the medical profefeion, received a 
 suitable education at St. Andrews and Edin- 
 burgh. He then made a tour through a con- 
 siderable part of Europe, and on his return 
 renounced his profefsion, and fixed his residence 
 in London, where he became a Fellow of the 
 Royal and Antiquarian Societies. Subsequently 
 he removed to St. Boniface, in the Isle of Wight, 
 and finally to the Rhyddings, near Swansea, 
 where he died February 24, 1825. Mr. 
 Bowdler published " The Family Shakespeare/' 
 in which edition the offensive pafeages have 
 been removed with great judgment ; and he 
 performed the same work of expurgation to 
 Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman 
 Empire." He was also author of " Letters 
 written in Holland in September and October, 
 1787"; a Memoir of Lieutenant-General 
 Villettes ; and some other works. 
 
 * Cbristopbe Plantin. A printer who was 
 born near Tours in 1514. He was brought up 
 under Robert Mace at Caen, after which he 
 went to Antwerp, where he established one of 
 the first printing houses in Europe. The King 
 of Spain gave him a pension and a patent for 
 the exclusive printing of particular works. 
 Plantin had also an office at Leyden, and 
 another at Paris. He died July l, 1589. 
 36 
 
63 Exclamation and Interrogation Points. Ac- Qesta Typo- 
 cording to Bilderjik, a Dutch writer, the note graphica 
 of interrogation is an abbreviation of the Latin ^^ 
 
 word questio, and consists of the letter Q with Memorabilia 
 the o written under it, which o, afterwards 
 filled up, becomes a full point, thus : ^ then ? 
 The exclamation point is the Latin lo (an 
 interjection of joy) written in the same way : 
 J then ! The latter point was first used in the 
 Catechism set forth by Edward VI., and printed 
 by John Day, in 1553, and is found only once 
 in that work. It is said that the interrogation 
 point was first used by SchoefFer in the Psautier, 
 but it is not found in his " Art Grammatical " 
 of 1466. This statement, however, must be 
 taken with a grain of salt, for it is known that 
 the early printers had no punctuation marks 
 except the virgule, or comma ; even the semi- 
 colon was unknown till the time of Aldus 
 Manutius. 
 
 <t John Froben, or Frobenius. This eminent 
 and learned German printer was a native of 
 Hammelburg, but settled at Basle, where he 
 acquired the reputation of being uncommonly 
 learned. With a view of promoting useful 
 learning, for which he was very zealous, he 
 applied himself to the art of printing. He was 
 the first of the German printers who brought 
 the art to any perfection. The great reputation 
 and character of this printer was the principal 
 motive which led Erasmus to fix his residence 
 at Basle, in order to have his own works printed 
 37 
 
Gesta Typo- by him. He would never suffer libels, or any 
 graphica thing that might hurt the reputation of another, 
 
 .- ^ ... to go through his prefe for the sake of profit ; 
 and being a man of great probity and piety, as 
 well as skill, he was particularly choice in the 
 authors he printed. It is said of him, that he 
 exposed his proof-sheets to public view, and 
 offered a reward to any person that should 
 discover an error. In his preface to " Celius 
 Rodiginus," he advises the learned against 
 purchasing incorrect editions of books for the 
 sake of their cheapnefe, and calls the printers 
 of them pests of learning. He says u Such 
 wretched works cannot but be dearly bought, 
 how cheap soever they are sold ; whereas he 
 that buys a correct copy, always buys it cheap, 
 how much soever he gives for it." Froben 
 died in 1527. 
 
 6 Elzevir. There were five famous printers 
 at Amsterdam and Leyden who bore this name, 
 Lewis, Bonaventure, Abraham, Lewis, and 
 Daniel. Lewis began to be known at Leyden 
 m I 595i an d was the first who made the 
 distinction between the v consonant and the u 
 vowel. Daniel died 1680 or 1681. He pub- 
 lished a catalogue of books printed by his 
 family. 
 
 * Old Style Printing. In 1 843 the revival 
 took place under the following circumstances, 
 which, as they initiated a new fashion in 
 the trade generally, call for reference here. 
 
 38 
 
In the year 1843, Mr. Whittingham, of the Gesta Typo- 
 Chiswick Prefe, called upon Mr. Caslon to ask graphica 
 his aid in carrying out the then new idea of 
 printing in appropriate type "The Diary of 
 Lady Willoughby," a work of fiction, the period 
 and diclion of which were supposed to be of 
 the reign of Charles I. The original matrices 
 of the first William Caslon having been for- 
 tunately preserved, Mr. Caslon undertook to 
 supply a small fount of Great Primer. So 
 well was Mr. Whittingham satisfied with the 
 result of his experiment, that he determined 
 on printing other volumes in the same style, 
 and eventually he was supplied with the com- 
 plete series of all the old founts. Then followed 
 a demand for old faces, which has continued 
 up to the present time. 
 
NARRATIONES 
 
" Nothing extenuate, nor 
 set down aught in malice." 
 

 NARRATIONES 
 
 <t* The First Printer and bis Troubles. When 
 Faustus had printed, in 1460, a number of 
 copies of the Bible, he undertook the sale of 
 them in Paris, where printing was then un- 
 known. As he sold his copies for 60 crowns, 
 while the scribes demanded 500 for their 
 manuscripts, he created universal astonish- 
 ment ; but when he produced copies as fast 
 as they were wanted, and lowered the price to 
 30 crowns, all Paris was in agitation. The 
 uniformity of the copies greatly increased the 
 wonder ; information was given to the police 
 against him as a magician ; his lodgings being 
 consequently searched and a great number of 
 copies being found, they were seized. The 
 red ink with which they were embellished was 
 supposed to be his blood, and it was seriously 
 adjudged that he was in league with the devil, 
 and had he not fled he would have shared the 
 fate of those whom superstitious judges in 
 those days condemned for witchcraft. 
 43 
 
Gesta Typo- <t The Devil from the Pit. A good story is 
 graphica told in connexion with the well-known Cam- 
 bridge Pitt Press. The Master of Trinity, 
 rrationes respe( fti n g w hom the word " decorous " but ill 
 describes his outward orthodoxy, was lately 
 entertaining at dinner at Trinity Lodge a 
 number of friends, and before the guests had 
 begun to thaw out, a servant opened the door 
 and, in a voice sufficiently loud for everyone to 
 hear, said : " If you please, sir, the devil from 
 the pit is waiting outside for you ! " 
 
 * Mr. John Murray recalled a good story of 
 Dean Stanley, whose books were published by 
 his firm. The Dean was so bad a writer that 
 when his MSS. were sent to the printers, 
 they refused to set them up except for speci- 
 ally high terms. Once the Dean wrote a 
 letter to Mr. Murray, sen., which, in spite 
 of all endeavours, no one could decipher. 
 At last it was sent back to him, with the 
 illegible parts underlined, and a request to 
 know what they meant. Stanley's reply was 
 characteristic : " If you cannot read my writ- 
 ing, I am sure I cannot do so." 
 
 <tDean Stanley's handwriting in the later 
 years of his life was notoriously bad, often 
 quite unreadable. Some one received a post- 
 card from him, of which he could not decipher 
 the purport ; but he had a happy thought. 
 Hailing a cab, he went to Westminster, and, 
 being ushered into the presence of the Dean, 
 44 
 
said that, having had the pleasure of receiving Gesta Typo- 
 his postcard, he had come to consult him graphica 
 about it, and thus learnt what the nature of 
 the busineft was. Apropos of the Dean's fail- l 
 ing, nearly twenty years ago a writer in 
 " Eraser's Magazine " stated that among hun- 
 dreds of couples of plain working folk whom 
 he had married, he could not remember half 
 a dozen instances in which they could not sign 
 the needful document much better than the 
 Dean of Westminster. The reader, having 
 queried whether this were not too personal, 
 received the following reply : " Oh, dear, no ! 
 The Dean is one of my best friends, and is 
 quite accustomed to being upbraided for his 
 awful handwriting." 
 
 <t A weekly paper tells a story in connection 
 with Lord Rosebery's speech at Edinburgh in 
 which he gave his reasons for resigning the 
 Liberal leadership. In Glasgow, the report 
 came through very slowly, as an enormous 
 amount of " copy " was handed in practically 
 all at once. The Telegraph Department 
 worked at high prefeure, but even then the 
 last "flimsy" was not delivered to the paper 
 in question until nearly two a.m. The proof- 
 reader was, in consequence, more than usually 
 bustled. When he came to the last proof he, 
 it is said, although we can scarcely believe it, 
 wrote the words, "Thank God." The com- 
 positor, when correcting this proof, made it 
 read, " Lord Rosebery then left for the South. 
 45 
 
Gesta Typo- Thank God." The compositor, it is added, 
 graphica did not suffer this time, but the proof-reader 
 
 lost his place. 
 Narrationes 
 
 ** John Bell, the founder of "Bell's Weekly 
 Meteenger" and "Bell's 'Life in London," is 
 said to have been the first printer who confined 
 the lower case " s " to its present shape, and 
 rejected altogether the older form " f." This 
 change did not please everybody, as is shown 
 by the following instance of conservative ten- 
 dency. It is recorded that Meters. Rivington 
 had got as far as three sheets on a work of a 
 late Bishop of Durham, in which the new plan 
 was adopted, and that the bishop sent back 
 the sheets in order to have the old letter 
 restored, which compelled the printers to get 
 a new supply from the type foundry, the fount 
 containing the venerable "f" having been 
 thrown away. 
 
 * Authors and Their Methods. Interviews 
 with various authors show that each has 
 his or her own method of work, and as a rule 
 can only produce satisfactory " copy " under 
 certain conditions peculiar to themselves. An 
 interviewer in the " Strand " gives some par- 
 ticulars concerning Jules Verne which will 
 interest compositors. The popular writer con- 
 siders that the real labour of composition 
 begins with his first set of proofs, for he says 
 that not only does he correct something in 
 every sentence, but he rewrites whole chap- 
 
 46 .. 
 
ters. " I do not seem," he says, " to have a Gesta Typo- 
 grip of my subject till I see my work in print ; graphica 
 fortunately, my kind publisher allows me every 
 latitude as regards corrections, and I have 
 often as many as eight or nine revises." Of 
 another great French writer we learn that 
 he was probably unrivalled in making correc- 
 tions in his proofs. It is said that by the time 
 he had made his sixteenth revise not a sentence 
 remained as it was originally written. His 
 " Pierrette " was not sent to prefe until he had 
 returned his twenty-seventh set of proofs ! 
 The margins of his proof-sheets were never 
 broad enough for him, and his lines were 
 crofted and re-crofsed, interlined and re-inter- 
 lined, and embellished with carets, arrows, 
 stars, and riders to a most bewildering extent. 
 Such methods of work are, however, confined 
 to the wealthy writer, and where a printer 
 humours the little ways of a genius he re- 
 quires solid compensation for the time and 
 trouble expended in making alterations. 
 
 6 A Medley. This is a clever sketch, which 
 may serve as a memoria tecbnica of the prin- 
 cipal London journals : In the early part of 
 this the " Nineteenth Century " of the " Chris- 
 tian Era," a citizen of the " World " strolled at 
 night along " Pall Mall " on his way from 
 " Belgravia " to " Whitehall," accompanied only 
 by the "Echo" of his footsteps. An old 
 " Engineer " and soldier of the " Queen," he 
 had traversed by " Land and Water " the 
 47 
 
Gesta Typo- greater part of the " Globe," and had since 
 graphica his u Broad Arrow " days fought under more 
 than one " Standard." Taking out his " Tablet " 
 he stood and wrote as follows : The study of 
 1 Public Opinion ' offers a wide e Field ' for the 
 intelligent ' Spectator ' and ' Examiner ' of the 
 'Times/" At this moment a " Watchman," 
 who had been a close " Observer " of his 
 movements, approached and said, " Come, my 
 noble ' Sportsman,' you must move on ! " " And 
 what if I refuse ? " demanded the other, stand- 
 ing like a " Rock " with his back against a 
 " Post," immovable as " Temple Bar " ; " To 
 be ' Brief with you, my friend, I shall in 
 4 Truth ' stay here a ' Week ' if I think proper." 
 " Well," rejoined " Civilian," " I am appointed 
 ' Guardian ' of this thoroughfare ' All the Year 
 Round/ and I protest against your making 
 any 'Sketch' or 'Record' here. Are you a 
 ' Builder ' ? " Instantly a grasp of " Iron " was 
 laid on his arm. " Do you wish me to ' Punch ' 
 your head?" asked the "Traveller." "Oh, 
 no," replied the other, all of a " Quiver, " pray 
 don't, I was only in ' Fun/ " 
 
 64 One of the old " Quarterly" reviewers, the 
 late Canon James Craigie Robertson, belied a 
 proverbial characteristic of his countrymen : 
 " for surely," says Mr. John Murray, the 
 publisher, " never was anyone more ready to 
 make or detect or enjoy a good joke. I 
 remember him coming to see my father on 
 one occasion, with a delightful twinkle in his 
 
eye, and an open book in his hand. It was @ esta T 
 an ecclesiastical history, in which the Bishop graphica 
 of Cremona had been misprinted as the Bishop 
 of Cremorne ! I can never forget the burst of Narrationes 
 laughter with which he began to twit my father 
 for demoralizing the theological students." 
 Cremorne, it may be remembered, was at that 
 time a byword for all that was difeolute. 
 
 * A pleasant little story is being told, says 
 the " Scottish Typographical Circular," of " Ian 
 Maclaren." On the completion of his book, 
 " Kate Carnegie and Some Ministers," the 
 author wrote in the following terms to the 
 manager of the office : " As this (batch of 
 proofs returned) completes the tale, would you 
 kindly convey to the compositors my sincere 
 appreciation of their skill ? Would you also 
 distribute the enclosed trifle among the men 
 who do my work, that they may smoke a pipe 
 extra to soothe their nerves after deciphering 
 my handwriting?" 
 
 * A " Perfeti " Book. The difficulty of insur- 
 ing typographical accuracy in a book is illus- 
 trated in the following story: kk A London 
 publisher once made up his mind to publish a 
 book that should have no typographical errors 
 whatever. He had his proofs corrected by his 
 own proof-readers, until they all aftured him 
 that there were no longer any errors in the 
 text. Then he sent proofs to the universities 
 .and to other publishing houses offering a prize 
 49 E 
 
Gesta Typo of several pounds sterling in cash for every 
 
 graphica typographical mistake that could be found. 
 
 Hundreds of proofs were sent out in this 
 
 Narrationes way, and many skilled proof-readers ex- 
 amined the pages in the hope of earning a 
 prize. A few errors were discovered. Then 
 all the proof-sheets having been returned, the 
 publisher felt afeured that his book would 
 appear before the public an absolutely perfect 
 piece of composition. He had the plates cast, 
 the edition printed and bound between expen- 
 sive covers because, as a specimen of the 
 printer's art, it was, of course, unique in 
 literature and exceedingly valuable to biblio- 
 philes. The edition sold well, and was spread 
 all over the country. The publisher was very 
 much pleased with himself for having done 
 something that had hitherto been considered 
 an impofeibility. Then his pride had a fall, 
 for six or eight months later he received a letter 
 calling his attention to an error in a certain 
 line on a certain page. Then came another 
 letter announcing the discovery of a second 
 error in this perfect book, and before the year 
 was out four or five mistakes were found." 
 
 it Early Printing. In the twenty-second year 
 of the reign of Henry VIIL, the " City Prete " 
 says, there was printed a royal proclamation 
 " for ordering and punishing of sundry beggars 
 and vagabonds, and damning books containing 
 certain errors." The king's printer, Thomas 
 Bartlet, was paid at the rate of a penny a leaf 
 50 
 
for printing 1,600 papers and books of the Gesta Typo- 
 proclamation. His bill amounted to -S 6s. 8d., graphica 
 which would probably represent about $o 
 or ^60 of our money. 
 
 <* As an illustration of what some hand- 
 writing is like, the late Dr. McLeod once told 
 a good story of himself, whilst he was editor 
 of the " Edinburgh Christian Magazine." He 
 was present one night at the annual soiree of 
 the workers in the establishment where the 
 magazine was printed. In the course of a 
 speech he said : " We all like to pry into the 
 mysterious, and there is one mystery I would 
 like to see cleared up for me this night. 
 Where is the man or men who set up from my 
 manuscript? I would like to see and shake 
 hands with them." 
 
 * The master-printers of the metropolis for- 
 merly dined together annually at some good 
 coffee-house or tea-gardens in London, and one 
 of the regular toasts after dinner was, " The 
 well-staining of paper." 
 
 is difficult for our times to realize the 
 awed surprise with which the invention of 
 printing was regarded by the contemporaries 
 of Gutenberg and even of Caxton. People 
 considered it a black art and believed those in 
 the secret to be the creatures of the devil. 
 The following story will probably interest some 
 of our readers : " When printing was intro- 
 51 
 
Gesta Typo- duced into Paris, one of the earliest works 
 graphica printed was * Euclid's Elements.' The work- 
 man, perceiving that he had to intercale circles, 
 3 squares, triangles, etc., into the text, believed 
 that the book treated of sorcery, and was 
 calculated to evoke the devil, who would carry 
 him off in the midst of his work. The employer 
 insisted, and the printer, concluding that his 
 ruin was contemplated, died of fright a few 
 days later." 
 
 <t Prophetic. When Isaiah Thomas, the printer 
 of Massachusetts, was printing his Almanack 
 for the year 1780, one of his boys asked him 
 what he should put opposite the 13th of July. 
 Mr. Thomas being engaged, replied, " Any- 
 thing, anything ! " The boy returned to the 
 office and set, " Rain, hail, and snow." The 
 country was all amazement when the day 
 arrived, for it actually rained, hailed, and 
 snowed violently. From that time Thomas's 
 Almanack was in great demand. 
 
 *C Cobbett and his Publisher. This furious 
 politician and writer of splendid English was 
 at one period of his career engaged in farming 
 at Botley, in Hampshire, and the office where, 
 in addition to " Cobbett's Register," he pub- 
 lished innumerable tracts and pamphlets, was 
 in Bolt Court, Fleet Street. One morning the 
 publisher, who had only been recently engaged 
 by Cobbett's manager, was accosted from the 
 other side of the counter by a stout, elderly 
 52 
 
gentleman in a scarlet waistcoat. " I want a Gesta Typo- 
 copy of ' Paper against Gold,' published last graphica 
 Monday," said the old gentleman. " How is it 
 going ? " u Going ! " replied the newly-engaged Narrationes 
 publisher, " why, it 's going like a Congreve 
 rocket ! We went to prefs with 1 50,000 copies, 
 and we expect to sell 2OO,OOO before the week 
 is over." To his astonishment and consterna- 
 tion he suddenly found himself collared and 
 violently shaken by the elderly gentleman on 
 the other side of the counter. " You lying 
 rascal ! " gasped the old man in the red waist- 
 coat. " I am Mr. Cobbett. I only went to 
 preft, hound, with 30,000 copies ! " and he 
 released his hold, and glared at the too ima- 
 ginative publisher, who, re-arranging his neck- 
 cloth, said meekly, " Pm sure Pm very sorry, 
 sir; I only wished to serve my employer." The 
 author of " Paper against Gold" was silent 
 for a few minutes, and then said : " What are 
 your wages ? " " Five-and-twenty shillings a 
 week, sir." " Pll raise them to two pounds, " 
 rejoined the farmer of Botley, "you're some- 
 thing like a publisher ! " 
 
 * The Mi/ling Link. The following was taken 
 from the " Scottish Typographical " as being 
 decidedly worthy of reproduction : " It has 
 been reserved for an Edinburgh lawyer to make 
 the discovery that the printer is nothing left 
 than the miiling link. Shade of Darwin ! Mr. 
 Hope Finlay, in giving evidence before a 
 committee of the House of Commons in support 
 53 
 
Narrationes 
 
 Gesta Typo- of the extension of the Register House, Edin- 
 graphica burgh, said that the present building i was 
 really intended for the storage of documents 
 and was unsuitable for offices. The rooms 
 were small. They were more like cellars on 
 the basement floor. They could hardly put 
 human beings in them. In fact, they could 
 only use it for printers. 1 With full appreciation, 
 notwithstanding our northern origin, of Mr. 
 Finlay's joke, however, we are painfully aware 
 he struck a note that will vibrate in the ears 
 of many printers who are compelled to spend 
 laborious days in dens that are not fit for 
 cattle, far lefs clerks or printers, where the 
 inspector cometh not, neither is the Factory 
 Act known." 
 
 * In an obituary notice of the late Mr. Robert 
 Blackie, the eminent Glasgow publisher and 
 printer, which appeared in a Scotch news- 
 paper, the following anecdote is given : The 
 " Efeay on the Life and Writings of Robert 
 Burns," by Profefsor John Wilson, better known 
 as "Christopher North," promised for "The 
 Book of Scottish Song," of which Blackies were 
 the publishers, was not forthcoming when the 
 work was drawing to completion. Mr. John 
 Blackie, jun., had often written to the Profefsor 
 reminding him of the delay and its disastrous 
 effects upon the sale of the book of which it 
 was to form a part. At length, despairing of 
 succefe by letter-writing, he went to Edinburgh, 
 and called upon Wilson, who, upon recognizing 
 54 
 
his visitor, at once fled to the opposite side of Gesta Typo- 
 
 the table as if to escape from the righteous graphica 
 
 wrath of his injured publisher. But when Mr. 
 
 Blackie announced his intention to remain l 
 
 where he was and not leave the Profefsor till 
 
 the MS. was completed and safely secured in 
 
 his pocket, he came forth from his stronghold, 
 
 remarking, " That ? s capital ! Mrs. Wilson will 
 
 prepare a bed for you on the sofa and make 
 
 you comfortable, and I'll set about writing the 
 
 eftay." However, a better arrangement was 
 
 soon agreed upon. The Profefsor promised 
 
 copy without further delay, and this time kept 
 
 his promise. The MS. began to flow in upon 
 
 the printer in detached portions by several 
 
 posts each day. It was written on backs of 
 
 funeral letters, remnants of grocers' bags, and, 
 
 in facl, on any kind of scraps of paper that 
 
 would carry ink, and on some that carried it 
 
 very imperfectly. When the efeay was about 
 
 half-way completed the Profefsor asked the 
 
 printer to send him proof of all that preceded. 
 
 The printer took what was handiest to himself 
 
 and sent the author back his MS. This, 
 
 however, did not satisfy the Profefeor, for he 
 
 immediately wrote, " Send me proof; for 
 
 though you can read my MS., / cannot." 
 
 * Early Printing in China. The art of print- 
 ing, according to Du Halde and the mifsionaries, 
 was practised in China nearly fifty years before 
 the Christian era. In the time of Confucius, 
 B.C. 500, books were formed of slips of bamboo, 
 55 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 ^e. 
 Narrationes 
 
 and about 150 years after Christ paper was 
 first made ; A.D. 745, books were bound into 
 leaves ; A.D. 900, printing was in general 
 use. The procefs of printing is simple. The 
 materials consist of a graver, blocks of wood, 
 and a brush. Without wheel, wedge, or screw, 
 a printer will print as many as 2,500 impres- 
 sions in a day. The paper is very thin, and 
 costs only one-fourth as much as here. The 
 works of Confucius, consisting of six volumes, 
 each of 400 pages, can be bought for sixpence. 
 
 * Dr. Johnson finished his Dictionary on April 
 15th, 1755, and Andrew Millar thus acknow- 
 ledged the receipt of the final pages : " Andrew 
 Millar sends his compliments to Mr. Samuel 
 Johnson with the money for the last sheet of 
 the copy of the t Dictionary/ and thanks God 
 he has done with him." Dr. Johnson replied : 
 " Samuel Johnson returns his compliments to 
 Mr. Andrew Millar, and is very glad to find 
 (as he does by this sheet) that Andrew Millar 
 has the grace to thank God for anything." 
 
 * An American journalist tells a curious story 
 of Horace Greeley. He once wrote a note to 
 a brother editor in New York whose writing 
 was equally illegible with his own. The re- 
 cipient of the note, not being able to read it, 
 sent it back by the same mefsenger to Mr. 
 Greeley for elucidation. Supposing it to be 
 the answer to his own note, Mr. Greeley 
 looked over it, but likewise was unable to read 
 
 56 
 
it, and said to the boy : " Go, take it back. Gesta Typo- 
 What does the - fool mean?" " Yes, sir," graphica 
 said the boy, " that is just what be says of 
 
 " 
 
 vou 
 
 Scotch paper told a good story about 
 Dr. Wallace. The editor of a local newspaper 
 asked him if he would kindly furnish an article 
 on a " light theological topic." The doctor 
 responded with one bearing the title, " The 
 Relations between the Presbyterian Churches 
 and Modern Thought." When set up it made 
 forty columns, and became a puzzle to editor 
 and printer as to how to get rid of it. They 
 began by using it in pieces, and whenever the 
 printer said to the editor, " We have got no 
 leader," the reply was, " Eh, mon, just sneck 
 off aboot a column and a quarter o' Wallace." 
 In this way the contribution is being used, 
 first working down from the beginning, then 
 upwards from the end. And, as the story 
 goes, "they are at it still." 
 
 * Giving the Devil bis Due. A printer's devil 
 was actually instrumental in altering the 
 course of history. The story, as reported in 
 a London daily paper, which, however, dif- 
 fered somewhat from that in other papers, was 
 as follows : " Lord Beaconsfield, meeting Lord 
 Redesdale, on the evening of Wednesday, 
 August 25th, 1880, gave to him, as Chairman of 
 Committees, a MS. copy of an amendment to 
 the Employers' Liability Bill. Lord Redesdale 
 57 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphic a 
 
 '^tf 
 Narrationes 
 
 gave the MS. to his secretary, his secretary 
 gave it direct to the Queen's printer, and the 
 Queen's printer gave it to his familiar to give 
 to the compositors. In the usual course the 
 amendment would have appeared in the notices 
 of motion in the House of Lords. On the 
 following day, the notice-paper came out with- 
 out the ex-premier's amendment, and the 
 measure was discufeed as though no amend- 
 ment had ever been suggested. Inquiry was 
 instantly made by the Chairman of Committees, 
 and then, mirabile diftu, it was discovered that 
 the printer's devil, instead of delivering the MS. 
 to the foreman of the compositors, had put it 
 in his pocket and forgotten all about it. Lord 
 Granville humorously suggested that the boy's 
 intelligence had prompted him to so dispose of 
 the notice for the public benefit ; but only think 
 what might have been the consequences of that 
 young demon's forgetfulnefs ! If Helen had 
 not run off with Paris, there would have been 
 no siege of Troy. If that carelete young 
 ' devil ' had not put Earl Beaconsfield's amend- 
 ment in his pocket, we might have had another 
 change of government ! " 
 
 <t* Blue-Tinted Paper. The pale blue-tinted 
 paper, still largely used for commercial pur- 
 poses, and which was more in vogue some 
 years ago than it is now, had its origin in a 
 rather singular manner. It chanced that about 
 the year 1790, on one domestic wash-day, the 
 wife of an English paper manufacturer left her 
 
 58 
 
tubs and went into the factory with an old- Gesta Typo- 
 fashioned blue bag in her hand. This she graphica 
 accidentally let fall into a vat of pulp, and 
 thought no more about it and never mentioned ^ 
 it. Great, then, was the astonishment of the 
 workmen when the paper came out a peculiar 
 blue colour. The master was vexed enough 
 with what he considered the carelefenefe of his 
 employees, while his good dame kept her own 
 counsel. The lot of paper was considered 
 unsalable, and was stored away for four whole 
 years. At length, however, the manufacturer 
 consigned it to his London agent with instruc- 
 tions to sell it for whatever it would bring. As 
 luck would have it, the blue sheets were 
 accepted as a happily-designed novelty and 
 quickly disposed of at a high price, and an 
 order was sent for another large invoice of the 
 same. This was, however, somewhat of a 
 dilemma ! He had no idea in what way the 
 paper had become blue, and in his perplexity 
 mentioned the matter to his wife. She must 
 have laughed heartily, but she promptly en- 
 lightened her bewildered lord, who, in his turn, 
 kept the simple procefs secret, and was for 
 many years sole manufacturer of the blue 
 commercial paper, and doubtlefe reaped a rich 
 harvest thereby. By such accidents are inven- 
 tions often made and fortunes fall within one's 
 grasp. 
 
 * To see a Japanese compositor setting type 
 
 is curious, if not interesting. As there are 
 
 59 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 '^ 
 Narrationes 
 
 4,000 characters in the language in common 
 use, and others left frequently, he cannot reach 
 them all. Instead, he sits at a desk containing 
 the characters called kana, or connections, of 
 which there are forty-seven. He cuts up his 
 copy into small pieces, giving each to a boy, 
 who goes trotting about the alley singing the 
 names of the characters he seeks until he has 
 found them all, when he carries them to the 
 type-setter, who puts the letters together with 
 the kana. As all the boys sing at once, and 
 the proof-reader sings to his copyholder, the 
 noise is terrific. 
 
 * Catnacb. In the days when his sensational 
 Old Bailey sheets had a tremendous sale, there 
 was nothing else of the same sort in existence, 
 and he made a large fortune by the sale of 
 them. His yard of songs for a farthing was a 
 marvel, and these were all set in pearl and 
 nonpareil, and worked at preft. There was 
 upwards of ^5 worth of type-setting in every 
 yard sold at the above price, but then they 
 went off by the million. As to the copyright 
 of the words and music in them there is nothing 
 on record ; every hawker adopted his own tune, 
 if the songs were not written to a popular air. 
 Several other printers took up the trade after 
 Catnach died, but they only did a little in it. 
 
 it* Going to the Wool-Hole. What is the deri- 
 vation of this term as applied to distrefted 
 printers being in a condition to apply for work- 
 bo 
 
house relief? Formerly, before we had compo- Gesta Typo- 
 sition rollers, prefsmen used balls made by graphica 
 themselves, which were stuffed with w&ol, and 
 then covered with composition. Whenever these 
 required re-making-up, the wool used to be 
 cast aside in a lumber-hole in the prefs-room, 
 and it has often happened that an intoxicated 
 member of the bar has resorted to the wool- 
 hole for a quiet " mike " or slumber. This 
 caused the " wool-hole " to be spoken of as a 
 refuge for the destitute or unfortunate in the 
 same way as the workhouse is alluded to. 
 
 * The Proof- Reader's Troubles. Speaking of 
 contributors to the newspapers, a writer says : 
 u There is the minister, who sends in a mere 
 skeleton of a sermon, a page of which looks 
 like the top of a tea-box covered with Chinese 
 hieroglyphics, all disconnected, with Scripture 
 proper names written in dots and dashes, and 
 the whole affair a complete enigma. However, 
 he knows it will be all right, and that the 
 printers and proof-reader will unravel it, no 
 matter if they are fit subjects for the madhouse 
 before they get through with it. Then there 
 is the local reporter. Well, he is a good fellow, 
 and means well ; he has troubles of his own ; 
 but if he spells a man's name four different 
 ways in an item three inches long, he knows 
 the proof-reader will drop everything, rush 
 around, find a directory or something else, and 
 fix it all right before it goes into the paper. 
 Also comes the statistical fiend, with his figures 
 6l 
 
Gesta Typo- all presenting the same appearance, but not 
 
 graphica having time to cast up his columns for totals, 
 
 knowing the proof-reader is bound to fix them 
 
 Narrationes U p There are also country correspondents, 
 the young poet, the scientist, and the lin- 
 guistical Smart Aleck, who cannot write five 
 lines without scattering in bits of French, 
 Latin, and Spanish, to show that he has been 
 there ; it matters not whether he gets his 
 foreign words right or not, the proof-reader 
 must scratch around and get everything right 
 somehow, or the next day he will hear from 
 the powers in the sanctum. In facl, to be a 
 succefe, the proof-reader should be an animate 
 cyclopaedia, with the patience of Job and the 
 endurance of adamant but he is not, hence 
 his troubles." 
 
 * Mark Twain. Amid surroundings, said 
 Charles Miner Thompson in his article on 
 Mark Twain in the "'Atlantic," which were 
 curiously American, if not especially apt to 
 nourish genius, Mark Twain, " a good-hearted 
 boy," says his mother, but one who, although 
 " a great boy for history," could never be 
 persuaded to go to school, spent a boyhood 
 which, it appears, was " a series of mischievous 
 adventures." When he was twelve years old 
 his father died, and the circumstances of his 
 mother were such that he had to go to work 
 as printer's apprentice in the office of the 
 " Hannibal Weekly Courier." " I can see," he 
 said once at a printer's banquet in New York, 
 62 
 
" that printing-office of prehistoric times yet, Gesta Typo 
 with its horse-bills on the walls ; its 4 d' boxes graphica 
 clogged with tallow, because we always stood 
 the candle in the < k ' box at nights ; its towel, r 
 which was never considered soiled until it 
 could stand alone." 
 
 rather good story of the repeal of the 
 paper duty in 1861 has just been brought up. 
 The Budget speech was preceded by a rumour 
 that the basis of the scheme would be repeal 
 of the tea duty, and that this would upset the 
 Government. Just before Mr. Gladstone rose 
 to make his statement, there was handed to 
 Lord Palmerston, on the Treasury Bench, the 
 following note from Lord Derby : " My dear 
 Pam, What is to be the great proposal to- 
 night ? Is it to be tea and turn out ? " u My 
 dear Derby," wrote the Premier in reply, " it 
 is not tea and turn out. It is to be paper and 
 stationery." 
 
ERRATA 
 
 [CUM GRAND SALIS] 
 
" Ob, let him alone 
 For making a blunder or picking a bone." 
 
ERRATA 
 
 * Origin of Errata. In works of the remotest 
 dates, tables of errata are seldom, perhaps 
 never found ; but the faults of the imprefeion 
 were corrected with the pen previously to the 
 dispersion of the work. This is exemplified in 
 the earliest editions of Gering, Caxton, and 
 several others. A similar mode of correction 
 appears to have been adopted, so late as the 
 year 1 534, by the editor of the " Discourses of 
 Clictou." But the labour of manual correction 
 was of short duration. Through the ignorance 
 of sordid printers, errors of the prefs soon 
 became very numerous, and to correct them 
 with the pen was but in other words to disfigure 
 the volume throughout, and make a disgusting 
 display of its imperfections. The custom was 
 consequently adopted of affixing the most im- 
 portant corrections, under the title of errata, at 
 the end of the volume. 
 
 compositor who set up ; 10,000 to 
 read one thousand, might have prevented his 
 mistake by a little fourth-ought. 
 
 6? 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 ^<e 
 Errata 
 
 <t Besides the ordinary errata, which happen 
 in printing a work, others have been purposely 
 committed that the errata may contain what 
 is not permitted to appear in the body of the 
 work. Wherever the Inquisition had any power, 
 particularly at Rome, it was not allowed to 
 employ the word fatum, or fata, in any book. 
 An author, desirous of using the latter word, 
 adroitly invented this scheme : he had printed 
 in his book fafta, and, in the errata, he put, 
 u for '/atfa'read 'fata.'" 
 
 * The Baron de Grimm, in his " Memoirs," 
 mentions the extraordinary circumstance of an 
 irritable French author having died in a fit of 
 anger, in consequence of a favourite work, 
 which he had himself revised with great care, 
 having been printed off with upwards of three 
 hundred typographical errors, half of which 
 had been made by the corrector of the prefe. 
 
 * In the version of the Epistles of St. Paul 
 into the Ethiopic language, which proved to be 
 full of errors, the editors allege a good-humoured 
 reason : " They who printed the work could 
 not read, and we could not print ; they helped 
 us, and we helped them, as the blind help the 
 blind." 
 
 * A young lady wrote some verses for a paper 
 about her birthday, and headed them " May 
 3Oth." It almost made her hair turn gray 
 when it appeared in print " My 3<Dth." 
 68 
 
* A printer's widow in Germany, while a new Q esta Typo- 
 edition of the Bible was printing at her house, graphica 
 one night took an opportunity of stealing into ^^ 
 
 the office, to alter that sentence of subjection Errata 
 to her husband, pronounced upon Eve in 
 Genesis, chapter iii., v. 16. She took out the 
 first two letters of the word " herr," and sub- 
 stituted " na " in their place, thus altering the 
 sentence from " and he shall be thy lord "(berr) 
 to " and he shall be thy fool " (narr). It is said 
 her life paid for this intentional erratum ; and 
 that some secreted copies of this edition have 
 been bought up at enormous prices. 
 
 *g The omifeion of a letter gave a singular 
 effecl to an advertisement in a Midland paper 
 lately. The announcement should have read, 
 
 " Mefsrs. 's preserves cannot be beaten " ; 
 
 but the letter " b " in the last word was left 
 out. 
 
 * " Reliefs of John Wesley for sale " appeared 
 in the shop window of a small printing-office 
 some years ago, making one wonder what age 
 John Wesley's widows might be, and why such 
 a sale should be allowed in this land of freedom. 
 
 * Owing to a ridiculous error in printing, 
 what should have been " A sailor, going to 
 sea, his wife desires the prayers of the con- 
 gregation," appeared " A sailor going to see 
 his wife, desires the prayers of the congrega- 
 tion." 
 
 69 
 
Gesta Typo- <t In the year 1561 was printed a work 
 graphica entitled " The Anatomy of the Mate." It is a 
 thin octavo, of 1 7 2 pages, and it is accompanied 
 by a list of errata of fifteen pages ! The editor, 
 a pious monk, informs his readers that a very 
 serious reason induced him to undertake this 
 task ; for it is, says he, to forestall the artifices 
 of Satan. He supposes that the devil, to ruin 
 the fruit of this work, employed two very 
 malicious frauds ; the first, before it was 
 printed, by drenching the manuscript in a 
 kennel, and having reduced it to a most 
 pitiable state, rendered several parts illegible ; 
 the second, in obliging the printers to commit 
 such numerous blunders, never yet equalled in 
 so small a work. To combat this double 
 machination of Satan he was obliged carefully 
 to reperuse the work, and to form this singular 
 list of the blunders of printers under the 
 influence of the devil. All this he relates in 
 an advertisement prefixed to the errata. 
 
 ( The vagaries of the compositor are never 
 more inconvenient than when they affect 
 theological matter. The editor of a magazine 
 published in London sent to his printers the 
 " copy " of a sermon. The handwriting of the 
 author is succinctly described as horrible. 
 But that hardly seems sufficient excuse for 
 the fact that an eloquent pafeage ending with 
 the words, " No crofs, no crown ! " appeared 
 in proof with the moving exclamation, " No 
 cows, no cream ! " 
 
 70 
 
* The book which is distinguished by the Gesta Typo- 
 greatest number of errata on record, is that graphica 
 containing the works of Pica Mirandula, 
 printed at Strasburg in 1507 by a printer of 
 the name of Knoblench. The errata of this 
 volume occupy no left than fifteen folio pages. 
 The subject might be very far extended, and 
 many curious anecdotes might be introduced. 
 These errors proceeded as often from ignorance 
 as mistake. 
 
 * One of the most remarkable complaints on 
 errata is that of Edward Leigh, appended to 
 his curious treatise " On Religion and Learn- 
 ing." It consists of two folio pages, in a very 
 minute character, and exhibits an incalculable 
 number of printer's blunders. " We have not," 
 he says, " Plantin nor Stephens amongst us ; 
 and it is no easy task to specify the chiefest 
 errata ; false interpun&ions there are too many ; 
 here a letter wanting, there a letter too much ; 
 a syllable too much ; one letter for another ; 
 words parted where they should be joined ; 
 words joined which should be severed ; words 
 misplaced ; chronological mistakes, etc." This 
 unfortunate folio was printed in 1656. Are 
 we to infer by such frequent complaints of 
 the authors of that day, that either they did 
 not receive proofs from the printers, or that 
 the printers never attended to the corrected 
 proofs ? Each single erratum seems to have 
 been felt as a stab to the literary feelings of 
 the poor author. 
 
 71 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 '^C 
 
 Errata 
 
 <tThe editor meant well. He was writing up 
 a local theatrical entertainment recently, and 
 he wanted to be particularly nice about it, so 
 he mentioned the names of several young 
 ladies of the town, and wrote, " they all filled 
 their parts to perfection." Then he went 
 home. When the paper appeared it was found 
 that the printer had put an " n " in place of the 
 44 r " in the word " parts." 
 
 * Bible Errors. A number of very strange 
 mistakes have been made from time to time 
 by printers of the English Bible, a few speci- 
 mens of which we append. In Tyndal, 1 2mo, 
 of 1536, it reads in 2nd Corinthians, chapter 
 x., "Let him that is soche thinke on 4 his 
 wyfe,' " instead of 4 " this wise." The quarto of 
 1548 has the same droll blunder, and has in 
 Luke, chapter xii., this : " Beware of the 
 4 eleven ' of the Pharyseis," for the " leaven." 
 In Revelation, chapter v., "and about the 
 prestes " for " about the beasts." The first 
 English Testament was printed in 1526, but 
 there is a Bible the Testament of which is 
 dated 1495! This has startled many; the 
 printer in this case having transposed 1594, 
 the date of the Bible. There is no end of 
 blunders and omiteions in the 1613 folio ; but 
 of all blunders that in the 1631 oclavo edition 
 is the copestone. In the commandments is 
 44 Thou shalt commit adultery." Hence the 
 name of the 44 Wicked Bible " is given to it. A 
 copy is in the British Museum. 
 72 
 
<t That printers are often unconscious humor- Gesta Typo- 
 ists is a fact which receives almost daily exem- graphica 
 plification. In a recent number of " The 
 Monthly Packet " there are several odd mis- Errata 
 takes, due, no doubt, to the facetious compositor. 
 That popular novel, " The Heavenly Twins," 
 we learn, was written by Sarah TYand, and it 
 is stated that " Alan Buck alone " would be 
 sufficient to place Stevenson's masterpiece 
 beside the Waverleys. That Alan Breck was 
 a gallant buck no reader of fiction would deny, 
 yet if consulted on the point the man who 
 prided himself so much upon bearing a king's 
 name would hardly relish the variation intro- 
 duced by the printers of "The Monthly Packet." 
 Stevenson's initials, too, it may be noted, are 
 given as R. S., and Thackeray is disguised as 
 Thackery. 
 
 *C The man who did the wedding reported 
 that the bride's costume was of the " tastiest " 
 description, but the man who put it together 
 got in an " n " in place of the first " t." For 
 two weeks somebody connected with that paper 
 carried the marks of finger-nails all down both 
 sides of his face. Unfortunately the bride got 
 hold of the wrong somebody. 
 
 * A compositor, in setting up the toast 
 " Woman without her, man would be a 
 savage,' 7 got the punctuation in the wrong 
 place, which made it read: "Woman without 
 her man, would be a savage." 
 73 
 
Gesta Typo * Editor Dear me. dear me! Discharge 
 every proof-reader in the place. Printer 
 What 's the matter ? Editor This little para- 
 graph I sent up for the personal column about 
 Mrs. Burlington. I said she was perfectly 
 intoxicating as Lady Angeline in the " Fatal 
 Bond," and it's printed " perfectly intoxicated." 
 What's the matter with this establishment, 
 anyhow ? 
 
 * A Comedy of Errors. Were compositors 
 to make no mistakes, the reader's errand or 
 mifeion would be a fruitlefe one. The blunders 
 of the printer have often formed the theme for 
 an interesting magazine article, for which the 
 heading to this paragraph has probably and 
 appropriately been used ; but what shall be 
 said of the napping reader who, in a recent 
 ifsue of the London evening " Globe/ 1 allowed 
 the heading to a smartly written article to 
 stand " A Comedy of Errands " ? 
 
 + An Ingenious Catalogue. The French are 
 fond very fond of emphasizing our national 
 ignorance of their language, but no specimen 
 of English can ever have been excelled by that 
 which now comes to us from Paris. For the 
 benefit of English visitors who may not be 
 acquainted with the native idiom it has been 
 sought to render into English the titles of the 
 pictures exhibited at the Societe Nationale des 
 Beaux Arts. If the experiment cannot be 
 said to be altogether succefeful from the point 
 74 
 
Errata 
 
 of view intended, it will neverthelefs contribute Gesta Typo- 
 largely to the entertainment of those for whose graphica 
 instruction it is made. Here are some illustra- 
 tions of "English as she is spoke" in Paris: 
 Bellenger's "Marchandes de Pots" is translated 
 as " Pot's Tradeswomen/' and " Jeune Fille en 
 Blanc " as " Joung Girl in Wight." " La Pen- 
 see qui s'eveille " is rendered " The Taught 
 Awehening," and " Le Vainqueur du Tir " 
 "The Conqueror of Gunshot." "Jeune Baig- 
 neuse" becomes "Young Batting Girl." " Dans 
 les Pares aux Huitres " appears as " In the 
 Park of Oysters ; " " La Pudeur " as " The 
 Maidenhood ; " " Au Soleil " as " At Sun ; " 
 " Noel des Vieux " as " Old People Christmas ; " 
 " Portrait Cycliste " as " Portrait of a Cycles ; " 
 a poor u Gamin " as a " Blaguard ; " " Cre- 
 puscule " as " Shadowy." " Tricoteuse " is 
 rendered "Treeing Maiden" and "En Au- 
 tomne" " In Falls." " Avril (peinture a fresque 
 reconstitute selon la tradition des primitifs) " 
 is translated " April (fresh paintings reconsti- 
 tuted as the primitive tradition)." 
 
 * A Likely Forecast. An amusing printer's 
 error occurred in a recent ifeue of the " Times." 
 In announcing the marriage of a young City 
 man to the daughter of a naval constructor at 
 Sheernefe, a few words of a telegram which 
 apparently belonged to some notes from China 
 or from Armenia were printed after the inter- 
 esting intelligence. They read as follows : 
 " Trouble is expected." 
 75 
 
Gesta Typo- * A contributor wrote the heading, " Proper 
 graphica Angles for Tools." His handwriting was so 
 bad that the compositor made it " Proper 
 Errata Angels for Fools." 
 
 good story, told by Mr. S. C. Hall, in 
 his " Retrospect of a Long Life," deserves to 
 find a place here. While Mr. Hall was Par- 
 liamentary reporter on the " New Times," Lord 
 Eldon denied one day, in Parliament, the 
 truth of the afeertion frequently made that 
 he received annually a large sum from pro- 
 ceeds in cases of bankruptcy. "The noble 
 lord/' wrote Mr. Hall, " said that he had never 
 received three-fourths of that amount." In 
 the " New Times," to his horror, the next 
 morning, he found himself made to say, " The 
 noble lord solemnly declared that during no 
 one year of his life had his income from that 
 source exceeded three shillings and four- 
 pence ! " 
 
 * An amusing printer's error deserves to be 
 recorded. A very expensive and elaborate 
 mifsal was published some time ago by a 
 Paris firm. Among the directions for the 
 celebration of the mafe is one which should be 
 u lci le pretre ote sa calotte " (Here the priest 
 takes off his skull-cap or biretta), but by the 
 unfortunate change of a letter it was found, 
 when most of the edition had been bound, to 
 the publisher's horror, to read " Id le pretre 
 ote sa culotte " (breeches) ! 
 
** Cardinal Moran, Archbishop of Sydney, has Gesta Typo- 
 brought to light a funny printer's error in the graphica 
 course of an attack which he has been making 
 on Protestant mifsions. In one of a series of 
 lectures he quoted a local newspaper, amid 
 the merriment of his audience, giving what 
 was described as the bill of lading of the 
 miftionary ship " John Williams," lately arrived 
 at Sydney, viz., one case of wine, one case of 
 port, two cases of ale and stout, one case of 
 schnapps, five cases of wine, sixty-five casks of 
 stout, twenty-five cases of claret, twenty-five 
 casks of whisky, and sixty-five casks of beer. 
 " This is a spiritual cargo, indeed ! " cried the 
 cardinal amidst loud laughter. But next day 
 it turned out that a compositor was to blame, 
 for he had mixed up the manifests of two ships, 
 and had credited the inoffensive mifeionary 
 schooner with the pofsefsion of creature com- 
 forts which it could not lay claim to. 
 
 * " That fool printer set up my article on 
 woman's garb as woman's 4 grab,' " complained 
 the unmarried editor. " It all amounts to the 
 same thing," said the married editor, gazing 
 sadly into the cavernous depths of his empty 
 pocket-book. 
 
 * Errata. The first errata known appeared 
 in a "Juvenal," printed at Venice in 1478, 
 with the notes of Merula, by Gabrielis Petrus. 
 In this book the errata occupy two entire 
 pages. 
 
 77 
 
Gesta Typo- * Every now and again some good old chest- 
 graphica nuts of " Printers' Errors " come to visit us, 
 and it is not often that we come acrofs a mis- 
 take which, in addition to being good, is not 
 a manufactured one. In the " Artist," that 
 well-known art critic, Mr. Ernest Radford, 
 bewails the cruel fate that made him say, 
 " two splendidly showy etchings by D. Y. 
 Cameron," whereas the italicized word was 
 written " strong " ; and adds the tale of an 
 earlier blunder which is so excellent, that one 
 is glad the first occurred to cause the narration 
 of the second. Mr. Radford says that he once 
 wrote most enthusiastically of a very good 
 etcher, Mr. C. H. Storm Van Gravesande by 
 name, and was horrified to read that, " A Storm 
 off Gravesend, by C. H., was especially worthy 
 of praise." 
 
 <t*Mr. R. A. Proclor said in " Knowledge," 
 that the line, " He kifeed her under the 
 silent stars," was altered by a cruel com- 
 positor into " He kicked her under the cellar 
 stairs," and that the words, " Lines, bands, 
 and striae near the violet end of spectra," were 
 altered into " Links, bonds, and stripes for the 
 violent kind of spectres." 
 
 *Not long ago the leading London daily 
 paper, in reporting a sermon of the Arch- 
 bishop of York, made his grace say something 
 about " post-office telegraphs ; " it should 
 have been " poets laureate." 
 
 78 
 
*C In news columns a droll effect is often Gesta Typo- 
 produced unintentionally by the running to- graphica 
 gether of items that should have commenced 
 a new line. In one of the leading papers Errata 
 
 in Paris the following paragraphs, printed 
 without a break, must have read ominously : 
 " Dr. X. has been appointed head physician to 
 the Hospital de la Charite. Orders have been 
 ifsued by the authorities for the immediate 
 extension of the Cemetery de Parnafse." 
 
 * The keen eye of the searcher for blunders 
 detected one in an important London daily the 
 other day, when that paper was made to say 
 that Mr. du Maurier had written and illustrated 
 a book entitled " Peter Robinson." What was 
 meant was, of course, " Peter Ibbetson." 
 
 * Horace Greeley was noted for his illegible 
 manuscript. On one occasion he quoted the 
 lines from "Hamlet," " Tis true 'tis pity, and 
 pity 'tis 'tis true." The following day, however, 
 the quotation appeared in print as, u 'Tis five 
 'tis fifty, and fifty 'tis 'tis five." 
 
 * An editor who wrote an obituary notice of 
 a man of some celebrity said : " He began life 
 as a legal practitioner, but was diverted from 
 it by a love of letters." He did not see the 
 printer's proof, and was confronted the next 
 morning with this : " He began life as a legal 
 politician, but was diverted from it by a love 
 of bitters." 
 
 79 
 
Gesta Typo- <t " Deuced unpleasant typographical error in 
 graphica those invitations to the wedding/' said a young 
 bridegroom. " How so?" anxiously inquired 
 the bride. " Why, instead of ' Your presence 
 is requested/ the confounded printer made it 
 read, " Your presents are requested.' " 
 
 * " I wish to say to the congregation," said 
 the minister, " that the pulpit is not responsible 
 for the error of the printer on the tickets for 
 the concert in the Sunday-school room. The 
 concert is for the benefit of the Arch Fund, 
 not the Arch Fiend. We will now sing hymn 
 six, 'To err is human, to forgive divine/" 
 
 * Mr. William Black, the novelist, said that 
 after going through them three times, the 
 printers still persisted in making his heroine in 
 his best novel die of " opinion " instead of 
 " opium." 
 
 * Here is another contribution to the humours 
 of the printing-office. A recent Patent Office 
 specification profefses to set forth a plan for the 
 " improvement of shop widows ! " Could any- 
 thing be more ungallant than the insinuation 
 thus conveyed ? 
 
 * It is well that heaven knows where commas 
 are wanting, or the poor soldier's scrap to his 
 wife, " May heaven cherish and keep you from 
 
 yours affectionately John D ," might have 
 
 led to unwished-for consequences. 
 80 
 
intelligent compositor came acrofe the Gesta Typo- 
 
 words " Cricket on the Hearth. 7 ' With his 
 usual perception, he saw that " cricket on the 
 hearth " was nonsense. " Of course," he 
 thought, " it is impofsible to play cricket on 
 the hearth ; evidently it should be heath. 
 Cricket on the heath means something." He 
 made the emendation, and another gray hair 
 was added to the editor's whitening head. 
 
 ** A writer in one of the weeklies, in attempt- 
 ing to compliment Baker Pasha as a " battle- 
 scarred veteran," was made by the compositor 
 to call him a " battle-scared veteran." In the 
 next iteue the mistake was corrected by styling 
 the gallant officer a " bottle-scarred veteran." 
 
 provincial newspaper once innocently 
 informed its readers that a railway train had 
 knocked down a cow and cut it, not into 
 halves, but into "calves." And a London 
 paper, which ought to have known better, 
 once startled its readers by saying that a 
 certain lady had died of " her marriage," 
 instead of haemorrhage. 
 
 * Max Adeler relates that one of his sentences, 
 " Filiation is sometimes accomplished with the 
 afeistance of albumen," was transformed into 
 " Flirtation is sometimes accomplished with 
 the resistance of aldermen ; " and on one 
 occasion he was made to inquire, "Where 
 are the dead, the varnished dead ? " 
 
 81 G 
 
 graphica 
 Errata 
 
Gesta Typo- <t Editor [to printer] You've ruined me. In 
 
 graphica describing the great ball, I wrote that the 
 
 <*&> famous lecturer on drefe wore nothing that 
 
 Errata was remarkable. You've printed it, " Mrs. B. 
 
 wore nothing. That was remarkable." Get 
 
 your money and go. We've no use for a man 
 
 like you here. 
 
 * Even Homer sometimes nods, as witnefe 
 the leading literary weekly, which, in noticing 
 a reprint of Landor's " Imaginary Conversa- 
 tions/' asks, " Is Landor really going to dine 
 after all ? " The pertinency of the question 
 is not very obvious, seeing that Landor died 
 in 1864. Did the writer wish metaphorically 
 to allude to Landor's dining with the Immor- 
 tals? or, which seems the more likely, did the 
 compositor misread the word " live" for " dine "? 
 
 <t It was in the report of a political meeting 
 that the word " snouts " was so ludicrously 
 misprinted as to make the blunder famous. 
 " The snouts of ten thousand Democrats rent 
 the air," read the report. 
 
 <t Owing to defective punctuation, the follow- 
 ing pafsage appeared in a German paper : 
 " Next to him Prince Bismarck walked in on 
 his head, the well-known military cap on his 
 feet, large but well-polished top-boots on his 
 forehead, a dark cloud in his hand, the in- 
 evitable walking cane in his eye, a menacing 
 glance in gloomy silence.' 7 
 82 
 
Errata 
 
 "largest circulation" once made a Gesta Typo- 
 curious mistake at the time of the Rufeian graphica 
 war. In speaking of a certain district, it stated 
 that it had been placed under " marital " 
 instead of martial law. The compositor had 
 only misplaced one letter, but what a vast 
 difference it made ! 
 
 *3 A couple of items in the " Births " column 
 of a daily newspaper recently got mixed 
 
 and announced that the Duchefs of had 
 
 given birth to four officers, seven sergeants, 
 and two hundred and fifty rank and file, while 
 the 4th Regiment was credited with a son ! 
 
 * " In our obituary notice of the late Mr. 
 Emery, in yesterday's ifeue, for the phrase, 
 1 He was a noble and pig-headed man/ read, 
 ' He was a noble and big-hearted man.' " 
 
 * The other day a Mr. Avery was married to 
 a Mife Small. A sub-editor headed the report 
 of the ceremony, " Avery Small Wedding." 
 But the compositor knew better than that, and 
 set it up as " A Very Small Wedding," which 
 appeared. 
 
 <t Mrs. Barnett, writing about flowers in 
 Whitechapel, wrote : " Flowers are a link with 
 heaven." The printer thought otherwise, and 
 made it read : " Flowers are a link with Dar- 
 win " ! The " Ladies' Review " asks, " Is Dar- 
 win to have all the links ? " 
 
 83 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 <^?e. 
 Errata 
 
 <tThe late Profefsor Nichol once referred, in 
 one of his lectures, to an edition of the Bible 
 in which the glorious prediction (in 1 Cor. xv.), 
 44 We shall all be changed," was, by the unfor- 
 tunate omifsion of a single letter the " c " 
 in " changed " printed, u We shall all be 
 hanged!" Not at all the inspiring prospect 
 that the apostle intended. 
 
 enthusiastic editor wrote during an 
 election : " The battle is now opened ; " but, 
 alas ! the intelligent compositor spelt " battle " 
 with an " o," and his readers say they have 
 suspected it all along. 
 
 *C Once upon a time a reverend gentleman 
 announced that on a certain date he hoped to 
 addrefk his younger hearers on the subject of 
 harvesting wild oats. Somehow, " those com- 
 positors " got hold of the paragraph sent in to 
 the local paper, and the result was that the 
 pastor found, not a little to his surprise, that 
 he had promised to deliver a discourse on 
 harvesting wild cats ! 
 
 <t In a popular monthly a contributor gave 
 the following list of members of the South 
 African Inquiry Committee, as set out in 
 the Paris " Gil Bias " : " Sir milord William 
 Hardtcourte, Sir H. Campell Bamnermard, Sir 
 Michae Chicks Black, Sir Richard Webster, 
 Lydney Bluxtone, H. Lebouchere, Bigham, Sir 
 Hart-Dyki, and Mr. Chamtertain." 
 
* A funny mistake occurred lately in printing Gesta Typo- 
 
 labels for a meat-preserving company. The 
 printer had been in the habit of labelling tins 
 of beef or mutton, as the case might be, with 
 the words " without bone " prominently dis- 
 played. The company having added kidney- 
 soup to its list, the new article was duly 
 ticketed as " Kidney Soup without bone." 
 
 Bishop recently presided over a Church 
 Congrefs. His lordship's opening speech was 
 telegraphed to London. He was reported to 
 have said that the world was in a dreadful con- 
 dition, but that " the Church, like her Divine 
 Master, would ride on a donkey through the 
 storm." What his lordship really said was 
 that " the Church would ride on tranquilly 
 through the storm." 
 
 * A printer's error is amusing the Queens- 
 landers. Their leading newspaper reviewing 
 a work prognosticating the wonders of science, 
 remarked : " There need be demand no longer 
 for Jules Verne's and other blackguards' works 
 of imagination." The correction appeared in 
 the ifeue of the following week, as follows : 
 " For 4 other blackguards' ' please read ' R - 
 H -- V " 
 
 * A compositor with a great prophetic soul, 
 while putting into type a wedding notice, 
 instead of the " contracting parties," made it 
 read, "the contradicting parties." 
 
 85 
 
 graphica 
 
 /^e 
 Errata 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 'V^ 
 
 Errata 
 
 <t The orthographical curiosity of the record 
 reign is the circular ifeued by the mayor of a 
 certain town in New Zealand. His worship 
 informed the citizens that it had been decided 
 to " comemerate " the great 44 occasion," that 
 the hour of starting the procefeion had not been 
 44 defmately " fixed, and that he would be glad 
 of an "earily" reply. Pofeibly the printers 
 and proof-readers had prematurely commenced 
 the celebration of the 44 occafsion." 
 
 * Apropos of the census, a sermon was 
 preached by a country curate from the words : 
 44 And Satan stood up against Israel, and pro- 
 voked David to number the people" (l Chron. 
 xxi. l); but he was astonished to read the 
 latter clause in a report of the discourse thus: 
 44 And provoked David to murder the people ! " 
 
 * The story is told that Ernest Renan once 
 had occasion to telegraph acrofe the English 
 Channel the subject of a proposed lecture of 
 his in Westminster Abbey. The subject as 
 written by him was " The Influence of Rome 
 on the Formation of Christianity." It was 
 published in England as " The Influence of 
 Rum on the Digestion of Humanity." 
 
 6 An editor wrote " An Evening with Saturn," 
 and it came out in the paper "An Evening 
 with Satan." It was mighty rough, but the 
 foreman said it was the work of the 44 devil." 
 And it looked that way. 
 86 
 
* Between forty and fifty years ago a weekly Gcsta Typo- 
 publication of the " London Journal " type gave graphica 
 a sketch of the life of Charlotte Corday, in 
 which it was intended to state that her virtues 
 were such as to place her on a level with Cato 
 and Brutus ; but, alas ! somebody blundered, 
 and the public were told that " her virtues 
 placed her on a level with cats and brutes. 1 ' 
 
 * Chevillier tells a facetious story of Robert 
 Gaguin, who, having printed his first edition 
 of the " History of France," was so disgusted 
 with the number of typographical errors which 
 appeared, that he determined to print his 
 second edition at Lyons, and accordingly did 
 so. But the second edition was also so de- 
 formed by errata that he exprefsed a wish 
 to have the whole five hundred copies in 
 his chamber, to burn or otherwise destroy 
 them. 
 
 * Some forty odd years back the editor of 
 one of the Court papers spilt some ink over 
 the MS. of a leading article, and to show that 
 the part blotted was not to be omitted, wrote 
 at the side, " accidental blots," with the result 
 that the proof came to him thus :**... the 
 East India Company's Government of acci- 
 dental blots " ! 
 
 * Bacon's well-known saying, " Reading 
 maketh a full man," was once rendered " Read- 
 ing Macbeth a full man" ! 
 
Gesta Typo- it^That editors are occasionally deaf alike to 
 graphica the blandishments and threats of their corre- 
 spondents we all know ; but it is something 
 new to find a letter to one of their number 
 superscribed " Deaf sir/' as was the case in 
 the "Sherborne Journal." However, there 
 can hardly be a doubt that it was the com- 
 positor, and not the correspondent, who in- 
 dulged in such scandalum magnatum. 
 
 <t On the occasion of some Jubilee pageant, 
 the would-be sightseers crowded every build- 
 ing, so that "the roofs and towers were groaning 
 with their weight." But the compositor's 
 version was " the wife and twins were groaning 
 all the night." 
 
 <t " Ah ! what is this ? " exclaimed the intelli- 
 gent compositor, " ' Sermons in stones, books 
 in the running brooks ! ' That can't be right. 
 I have it ! He means sermons in books, stones 
 in the running brooks. That 's sense." And 
 that is how the writer found it. 
 
 copy of " Plutarch's Lives" was wanted 
 by a bookseller, but, not being written clearly, 
 it was transformed into " Pharaoh's Liver." 
 
 6 The latest printer's error. In a new book, 
 dealing with Roman history, the hero should 
 have said, " Bring me my toga," but the 
 printer brought it up to date by the substitu- 
 tion of a wrong letter, and made him say, 
 " Bring me my togs." 
 
"Times," speaking of a sitting in Gesta Typo- 
 Parliament which lasted " from four in the graphica 
 afternoon till six the next morning," said, " If 
 it be asked what pafeed in this long interval, 
 the answer must be twenty-six hours." An- 
 other morning paper astounded its readers by 
 saying that the Lord Chancellor was "left 
 accustomed to palsy and fever " than the Prime 
 Minister, the actual words of the writer being 
 " parry and tierce." 
 
 * A sporting writer once included in his notes 
 an item saying that " the young salmon are 
 beginning to run." It appeared in print, " the 
 young salmon are beginning to swim." When 
 the writer asked for an explanation, the proof- 
 reader cheerily remarked : " That J s all right. 
 You had that mixed up with your turf stuff, 
 but I straightened it out for you." "Why 
 didn't you let it go as I wrote it ? " "I couldn't. 
 Who ever heard of a fish running? " 
 
FACETI/E 
 
" Trifles light as air.' 
 
FACETI/E 
 
 * " Job printing," exclaimed an old woman 
 the other day, as she peered over her spectacles 
 at the advertising page of a country newspaper. 
 " Poor Job ! They've kept him printing, week 
 after week, ever since I first learned to read ; 
 and if he wasn't the most patient man that 
 ever was he never could have stood it so long, 
 nohow." 
 
 * A patron of a certain newspaper once said, 
 " Mr. Printer, how is it you never call on me 
 for pay for your paper ? " " Oh ! " said the 
 man of types, "we never ask a gentleman 
 for money." " Indeed ! " the patron replied. 
 " How do you manage to get along when they 
 don't pay ? " " Why," said the type-sticker, 
 " after a certain time we conclude he is not a 
 gentleman, and we ask him." 
 
 ** Titled Printers. M.P.'s, master printers ; 
 J.P.'s, journeymen printers. 
 93 
 
Facetiae 
 
 Gesta Typo- <t " Do you work miracles here ? " said a 
 graphica sceptical printer, who had come in to break 
 up a meeting. " No," said the leader, as he 
 collared the rascal, " but we cast out devils ! " 
 
 * South African proof-readers die young. 
 The last one succumbed to the description of 
 a fight between the Unabelinijiji and Amas- 
 wazlezzi tribes. 
 
 * " Mamma/' asked a little girl, peering in 
 between two uncut leaves of the magazine, 
 " how did they ever get the printing in 
 there?" 
 
 <t " We are making a little collection," re- 
 marked the man with the little account book and 
 a bottle dangling about his wrist. "May we 
 hope -er-er ? " " Not to-day," replied the com- 
 placent compositor, " don't care for collections ; 
 distributing is more in my line." 
 
 * A lady, in whose pronunciation of English 
 the letter " h " is a rather uncertain quantity, 
 went to a stationer and ordered a number of 
 invitation cards that she proposed to ifeue for 
 an evening party. She particularly instructed 
 the stationer to print " 'igh tea " in the left- 
 hand corner. When the cards came home 
 they all bore the letters " I. T." in that corner. 
 The printer had concluded that his customer 
 had invented some new contraction after the 
 manner of " R.S.V.P." 
 
 94 
 
* A certain worthy typo was not very well, so Gesta Typo 
 
 his better half persuaded him to consult a graphica 
 
 medicine-man, when the following conversation 
 
 took place : Doctor Been rather out of sorts 
 
 lately, eh? Typo Yes, doctor. I am often 
 
 that way, worse luck. Doftor Quite out of 
 
 form, I see. Typo That 's it, doctor ; I can 
 
 hardly lift my stick, much lefs manage a 
 
 forme. Doftor Schoolmaster, then, I reckon, 
 
 eh? Typo No such luck, doctor. And I 
 
 feel that feverish and restlefe. Do6ior Yes, 
 
 yes ; of course you do. What you want is a 
 
 nice composing draught. Typo Afraid that 
 
 will not be much good, doctor. Doctor 
 
 Oh ! well, if you know better than the doctor, 
 
 young fellow you know the rest of it, eh? 
 
 Typo No offence, doctor, but I have had a 
 
 pretty strong composing draught already. I 
 
 have been setting type all the last week while 
 
 standing between a draughty door and a 
 
 broken window. That's the composing draught 
 
 which has knocked me out of time. Do6ior 
 
 Printer-man, eh ? Typo That 's my doom, 
 
 doctor. Do6ior Sorry I cannot help you, 
 
 but the faculty have thrown up printer-men 
 
 long ago, as beyond understanding. Better 
 
 turn schoolmaster. Good-day. 
 
 * Some men never lose their presence of mind- 
 A printer threw his mother-in-law out of a 
 window in the fifth storey of a burning building 
 and carried a feather bed down the stairs in 
 his arms. 
 
 95 
 
-^* 
 
 Facetiae 
 
 Gesta Typo- 6 " Are you well acquainted with your mother- 
 graphica tongue, my boy ? " asked the reader of the new 
 boy. "Yes, sir," answered he, "mother jaws 
 me a good deal, sir." 
 
 * " How 's businefe ? " said the tramp printer, 
 as he walked into the news-room and addrefsed 
 the foreman. " Picking up," replied that 
 worthy, as he kept working on. 
 
 *C A new comic opera of a pronounced type is 
 called "A Thousand Ems." It must be a 
 sequel to "The Galley Slave." 
 
 * A great admirer of " Avon's Bard " asked 
 where the following passage is to be found : 
 "Is that a f that I C B 4 me?" and was 
 informed that it might be found in " Macbeth," 
 whose murderous ^^ put a . to 1 Duncan. 
 
 * An American paper says that the girls in 
 some parts are so hard up for husbands that 
 they sometimes take up with printers and 
 lawyers. 
 
 Ml The religious prete : Hugging a Sunday- 
 school teacher. 
 
 *G The Champion Mean Man has once more 
 turned up. He was married at 1 1 a.m., and 
 spent the rest of the day in calling with his 
 bride on no less than seven printing-houses, 
 getting tenders for twenty-five wedding-cards. 
 96 
 
<t A young printer fell in love with a clergy- Gesta Typo- 
 man's daughter who did not seem to recipro- graphica 
 cate his affections. The next time he went to 
 church he was rather taken aback when the Facetiae 
 minister announced the text : " My daughter 
 is grievously tormented with a devil." 
 
 * A correspondent wants to know how long 
 compositors (genus printerman vulgaris) live ? 
 About the same as short compositors, we 
 suppose. 
 
 * " I know," said the devil, " that I swear a 
 great deal, but you see I've such a flow of 
 language that I'm compelled to put a dam in 
 now and then to steady the current." 
 
 * A contemporary says : " The first printers 
 were Titans." There are a great many " tight 
 uns " among them still. 
 
 * A news compositor making even on a rush 
 ended his take thus : " Engl& " (England). 
 
 * A compositor setting a job, on being asked 
 by a customer to put in something striking, 
 complied by sticking a whacking big fist in 
 the centre ! 
 
 * A printer apologizes for the deficiency of 
 the first edition of his paper by saying that he 
 was detained at home by a second edition in 
 his family. 
 
 97 H 
 
Gesta Typo- * Former Resident Well, everything in the 
 
 graphica old town seems the same. But what became 
 
 of the widow Smith's boys ? They always 
 
 Facetiae seemed such bright lads. Native (with a 
 
 sigh) They both turned out bad. John has 
 
 been sent to the reformatory, and Bill is learning 
 
 the printing trade. 
 
 * " There 's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the 
 lip," as the thirsty compositor remarked sadly 
 as a new batch of copy came up, just as he 
 was on the point of going out to irrigate the 
 parched receives of his inward man. 
 
 * It makes one shudder to read the advertise- 
 ment of a printer for a boy of " good moral 
 character," when it is well known that he means 
 to make a " devil " of him. 
 
 *% " I am told," said the caller, " that your 
 husband is engaged on a work of profane 
 history." "Yes," replied the author's wife, 
 " it certainly sounded that way when I heard 
 him correcting the proofs." 
 
 Printers must be the greatest rogues in 
 existence : they are daily practising imposi- 
 tion ! 
 
 <t A man never really knows the exacl " power 
 of the prefe " till he sticks his fingers in the 
 thing and leaves the ends of them there to 
 remember him by. 
 
 98 
 
country parson who put off giving the Gesta Typo- 
 order until the last minute, said to his printer, graphica 
 " You have done this job disgracefully. Why, 
 the ink is all wet and sticky, and how it smells ! 
 You certainly do not understand printing, and 
 that being so, what on earth is your aim in 
 life ? " " To print well," said the man of types, 
 doggedly. " Then why don't you take a lesson 
 in town ? " Replied the exasperated printer, 
 " And what on earth is your aim in life ? " 
 "To save souls from damnation," was the 
 answer. " Then why don't you take a lesson 
 and go to - ? " 
 
 apprentice boy, who had displeased his 
 employer, one day came in for chastisement, 
 during the administration of which his master 
 exclaimed : " How long will you serve the 
 devil ? " The boy replied, whimpering : " You 
 know best, sir. I believe my indentures will 
 be out in three months ! " 
 
 * A man in London who began life as a poor 
 printer five years ago is now a millionaire. 
 One " fat take " made him wealthy. He took 
 a rich wife weighing seventeen stone. 
 
 it Customer, to boy who is printing some " In 
 Memoriam " cards very slowly and carefully, 
 " Aren't you printing them too slowly ? Sup- 
 pose you go a trifle faster." Boy. "We always 
 print 4 In Memoriam ' cards at a funeral pace, 
 
 99 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 Facetiae 
 
 * Tit for Tat. An author addrefeed a well- 
 grown printer's devil, who was waiting in the 
 hall for proof, rather brusquely " Halloa, you 
 fellow, do you want me?" The answer was 
 neat "No, your honour, I am waiting for a 
 gentleman ! " 
 
 <t* " Do you sell type ? " " Type, sir ? No, sir. 
 This is an ironmonger's. You'll find type at 
 the linendryper's over the w'y ! " "I don't 
 mean tape, man ! Type, for printing ! " " Oh, 
 toype you mean, sir ! " 
 
 <t They say female compositors get through 
 their copy very rapidly, being anxious to get 
 the " last word." 
 
 the doctor announced to the rich 
 printer, who ardently desired a son and heir, 
 that it was a girl, the man of stamps pathetic- 
 ally implored him to mark it " wrong fount " 
 and send it back to the foundry. 
 
 <t u Darling," said a love-stricken typo to his 
 sweetheart, " do you know why I am like the 
 letter q?" "No," she answered. "Because 
 I am uselefe without u," answered he as he 
 gently placed his arm around her waist. 
 
 <t " Shall we say ' the company is,' or 4 the 
 company are ' ? " " Use whichever you choose, 
 and if anybody finds fault with it lay it to the 
 proof-reader." 
 
 100 
 
long-winded printer wrote to his whole- Gesta Typo- 
 sale stationer : " In the parcel of paper just graphica 
 received you give me short weight." Replied 
 the wholesale stationer, " I would suggest 
 mutual improvement : if I give you short 
 weight, you give me a long wait." 
 
 it* If a woman marries a proof-reader she must 
 expect to be constantly corrected. 
 
 * The compositor is a very contrary fellow 
 he sets everything against the rule. 
 
 * The printer is a patron of the art preserva- 
 tive of all arts, but he frequently has the art 
 of getting a poor writer into a pickle. The 
 printer sets while standing, and stands while 
 setting. The printer is not usually a wealthy 
 person, but generally has a quoin or two about 
 him. He sometimes does very poor work, but 
 all his work, good or bad, is justifiable. The 
 printer does not often carry a cane, but you 
 will almost always find him with a stick in his 
 hand. 
 
 <t " In consequence of a recent move," ad- 
 vertised a sharp printer, " I now do my work 
 lower than heretofore." He had moved from 
 the first to the ground floor. 
 
 <t " Oh, parson, I wish I could carry my gold 
 with me," said a rich printer who was dying. 
 " It might melt ! " was the consoling reply. 
 101 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 '^fi 
 Facetiae 
 
 * A printer who attended one of the technical 
 clafses for the study of typography pro- 
 claimed himself an arithmetician, and when 
 asked if he understood the rule of three, said 
 he thought he did, as he lived with his wife, 
 mother, and mother-in-law. 
 
 <t Editor Do you wish a position as proof- 
 reader ? Applicant Yes, sir. Editor Do you 
 understand the requirements of that respon- 
 sible position ? Applicant Perfectly, sir. 
 Whenever you make any mistakes in the 
 paper, just put the blame on me, and I will 
 never say a word. 
 
 <t A Proof of Everything. " I suppose you 
 are ready to substantiate any statement your 
 paper makes?" said an angry-looking caller 
 to the editor. " Oh, yes ; we have the com- 
 positors prove everything that is set up." 
 
 <t A compositor, who was puzzling over one 
 of Mr. Horace Greeley's manuscripts, sagely 
 and savagely observed : " If Belshazzar had 
 seen this handwriting on the wall he would 
 have been more terrified than he was ! " Some 
 of us may perhaps remember seeing some years 
 ago a facsimile reproduction of Mr. Greeley's 
 handwriting the whole very much resembling 
 a spider's web. 
 
 <t The original type-righter the proof- 
 reader. 
 
 102 
 
<t Books bound in the skins of departed friends Gesta Typo- 
 are said to be the fashion now in Paris. graphica 
 Some one suggests editions de luxe bound 
 hide bound from the lamented authors, say- 
 ing it would at least bring the reader in touch 
 with the writer. 
 
 6 Always pofkefsed of a devil a printing 
 office. 
 
 *Why is a well-drilled soldier like a page of 
 good printing ? Because it is well set up. 
 
 <t " Some men are always in luck," observed 
 a tramp printer upon reading that a man had 
 been drowned in a vat of whisky. 
 
 MS Lines that are bound to register marriage 
 lines. 
 
 * The editor wrote an article on " Rhubarb," 
 and the compositor made pie of it. 
 
 <t " I am on the preft," said John Henry, as 
 he folded his girl in one fond embrace. " Well, 
 that is no reason why you should try to pie 
 the forme/' she replied as she rearranged 
 her tumbled collar and pinned up her hair. 
 
 63 It is a mistake to suppose that compositors, 
 as a rule, are poor men. Most of them " drive 
 out " occasionally ; and the preteman who has 
 not a " carriage " is a rarity. 
 103 
 
Gesta Typo- it X-traordinary X-pedient ! A little time ago 
 graphica a country printing-office unfortunately ran 
 short of c's, k's, and s's, a state of things for 
 which the editor apologized thus : " We truzt 
 that our readerz will xquze the zhortqumingz 
 of our prezent number and overlooque all 
 defex and miztaquez. Our patronz will obzerve 
 that az brix qannot be made without ztraw, zo 
 it iz impozzible to run a paper properly when 
 our fount lax perfexion. Yet there iz one 
 redeeming point about the matter. The very 
 axident givez an opportunity to our friendz to 
 form an opinion az to the efFex of phonetix 
 upon the old plan of orthography, a reform 
 whitzh Izaak Pitman yearned to bring about. 
 We expequet that theze wordz will appear 
 both quaint and exentrique." 
 
 *C The printer is without doubt the cleanest 
 man on earth. Every time he finishes a job. 
 he invariably washes his forme. 
 
 * Printers' make-up. Male and female com- 
 positors adjusting their lovers' quarrels. 
 
 * Printer The artist has made a mistake in 
 this patent medicine cut. He has engraved 
 the haggard face of the man " after taking," 
 and the full healthy face " before taking," 
 just, the reverse of what it ought to be. 
 Enterprising Publisher No ; put it in as a 
 comic cut, and call it " Before and after taking 
 a wife." 
 
 104 
 
* There is an excellent anecdote told by the Gesta Typo- 
 
 vivacious Max O'Rell in his book, " A French- graphica 
 
 man in America/' The proprietor of the 
 
 " New York Times and Post " every morning Facetiae 
 
 selects a text from the Bible to be printed 
 
 above the leader. One morning, by some 
 
 mischance, the text got lost, and Max tells us 
 
 that the compositors might have been heard 
 
 asking in pretty loud stage whispers, " If any- 
 
 body knew where that - text was?" 
 
 <t The man who really rights a book is the 
 proof-reader. 
 
 <t A printer was recently arrested for carrying 
 concealed weapons, because he happened to 
 remark carelefsly that he had a shooting-stick 
 in his pocket. The justice of the peace^ after 
 trying in vain to cock the weapon, let the 
 printer go off, as the piece wouldn't. 
 
 better half of a printer named Ream 
 has presented him with a baby. A Ream 
 baby must be about a quire. It will probably 
 be ruled when it is older. We should say 
 that a Ream baby is a " token " of affection. 
 
 type-setter has set 2,040 ems in one 
 hour. This is not much of a feat. Another 
 type-setter, who is poor but honest, and has 
 ..been engaged to a girl for eight years, has 
 " set " with the same Em 2,040 hours, not in- 
 cluding Sunday evenings and holidays. 
 105 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 <**& 
 Facetiae 
 
 When Job made the remark, u Oh, that my 
 words were not written ! Oh, that they were 
 printed in a book; that they were graven 
 with an iron pen ; with lead in a rock for 
 ever ! " is it to be inferred that he understood 
 the arts of printing, engraving, stereotyping, 
 and lithographing ? 
 
 * Bornsterne Bornson, the Norwegian poet and 
 paper manufacturer, will soon come to London 
 to pay us a visit. ( j j j j j j j). These j's 
 belong somewhere in the name, but each of 
 our readers can distribute them to suit himself. 
 We give it up as a hopelefe task. 
 
 tool that keeps a newspaper going: 
 
 Adze. 
 
 <t Why should a printer make a good lawyer ? 
 Because he would always be sure to understand 
 the " case." 
 
 author was asked what works he had 
 in the prete, to which he answered : " A 
 History of the Bank," with notes ; "The Art 
 of Cookery," with plates ; and " The Science 
 of Singlestick," with woodcuts. 
 
 * A popular writer, who sometimes has a 
 bad " spell," wrote the name of the illustrious 
 author of " The Pilgrim's Progrete " as " John 
 Bunion." His publisher suggested that it be 
 put in a foot note. 
 
 106 
 
it* When " Ships that Pafe in the Night " was Gesta Typo- 
 first published, a young man purchased a copy, graphica 
 and then inquired if the bookseller had any 
 other new books on yachts or ships. 
 
 the printer's devil, "Whenever I open 
 my mouth, I always put my foot in it." 
 
 * " Nonpareil on a Pica body," was the remark 
 of a printer on seeing a man of large physical 
 proportions with a small head. 
 
 < Judy knows a proof-reader whose one aim 
 in life is to revise a proof of the pudding. 
 
 <t A correspondent of the " Publishers' Cir- 
 cular " says : " Whilst staying at a well-known 
 seaside town and inquiring at a bookshop 
 there for "The Autocrat of the Breakfast 
 Table," I was told they had it not, the vendor 
 being quite sure, as all the cookery books were 
 kept together." 
 
 * The compositors on the morning newspapers 
 set up all night. 
 
 <t* A " Print " Drefl ! The wife of a journalist 
 recently appeared at a London fancy ball in a 
 white satin drefe which literally bore the 
 burden of all the society tittle-tattle and gofeip 
 of the week, for before making-up it had been 
 machined from the formes of the latest edition 
 of her husband's paper. 
 107 
 
Gesta Typo- " I have here," said a solemn-looking long- 
 graphica coated individual with a roll of MS. under his 
 arm, as he entered a jobbing- newspaper office, 
 "a long poem which I should like" " My 
 dear sir," said the editor impatiently, "we're 
 bored to death with poems and cannot pofeibly 
 take anything of the kind." " In that case," 
 rejoined the solemn-looking man, turning his 
 back, " I will not trouble you further. My 
 object in coming here was to get ten thousand 
 copies of my beautiful poem in pamphlet form 
 for gratuitous distribution. I will go to the 
 printer over the way. Good morning ! " 
 
 * Though correcting his errors every day, 
 the printer may all the time be growing 
 
 * Stuck-up things Posters. 
 
 * It is a wise man who can recognize his 
 woodcut portrait in the enterprising news- 
 paper. 
 
 * " Why don't you finish the meat and potatoes 
 on your plate, Johnnie ? " said a mother to her 
 son. Replies Johnnie, catching sight of a 
 strawberry shortcake on the sideboard : " Im- 
 pofsible, mother." " Nonsense ; what is the 
 reason you cannot?" "Because it is crowded 
 out to make room for more interesting matter," 
 said Johnnie, who, by the way, has been in a 
 printing-office for some time. 
 108 
 
Versatile Editor. An editor who thinks 
 the wages demanded by compositors is an 
 imposition, has discharged his hands, and 
 intends doing his own type-setting in the 
 future. He says : " owiNG To tfce eXonbixant 
 WegEs dEmANdeD by priuteRx wE hAe Con- 
 ducted To do ouR o Wn tYpe sEtfing iN xhe 
 fuTnRe.,; AuD aLX&ouGn we never lEa^nad 
 Tqe Buslneft we dO ^ot see aNjy gReat 
 mA'sTeryery in He aR?." 
 
 * Though a perfect Jack Spratt in his fond- 
 nefs for lean meat, the printer never objects 
 to fat. 
 
 * A female contributor brought in a commu- 
 nication written on both sides of the paper. 
 The editor scowled and refused it. "Well," 
 she retorted, " Fd like to know if you don't 
 print on both sides ? " There 's no such thing 
 as arguing with a woman. 
 
 & " You say you were once a newspaper 
 man ? " inquired the kind old lady. " Yes'm," 
 said the sad-eyed tourist at the kitchen door, 
 " I once had a responsible position on a big 
 newspaper." " Then haven't you some news- 
 paper friends that could help you ? " " Friends," 
 bitterly replied the wanderer, " no, ma'am. I 
 was a proof-reader." 
 
 * The printer is a very inoffensive individual, 
 but is quite clever with the shooting-stick. 
 109 
 
 Gesta Typo- 
 
 graphica 
 
 '^ei 
 
 Facetiae 
 
Gesta Typo- ** Never " O. P." "John," said his wife, "I 
 graphica have a riddle for you." " All right. But you 
 /^^ know riddles are out of fashion." " That fact 
 Facetiae won't affe& this one a bit," she answered. 
 " Let us have it." u Why am I like a popu- 
 lar story?" "Because everybody admires 
 you." " That isn't the answer." " What is it, 
 then ? " " Because/' and she glanced at her 
 calico drefe, " I am never out of print." And 
 the next day he gave her carte blanche at the 
 drapery shop. 
 
 * The printer is a materialist. All his 
 thoughts are upon the matter. 
 
 <* Frequently out of " sorts " compositors. 
 
 * The printer is your true man of letters, 
 though he may not be a literary man. 
 
 * A provincial editor in writing up his visit to 
 a type-foundry, thus describes a type-casting 
 machine : " A type machine is no larger than 
 a sewing machine, and yet it is a curious 
 compound of a hand-organ, a cofFee-mill, a 
 hay prefe, a force pump, a flat-iron heater, and 
 a sausage stufFer. Put all these together, and 
 you would have something that looks like a 
 type-caster. To be brief about it, and not worry 
 the reader, it is impofeible to describe one of 
 the blamed things. We never understood the 
 operation until we saw it, and we do not com- 
 prehend the first thing about it now." 
 
 110 
 
* " Is that a reporter for the prete ? " asked Gesta Typo 
 a guest at an " opening lunch." The interro- graphica 
 gated party looked at the person indicated, 
 who was just getting outside of his third plate 
 of salad, and answered : " No ; I should judge 
 he was a feeder for the prefe." 
 
 <t If compositors break the rules of the office, 
 are they sent to the galleys ? Is light literature 
 printed on a machine fitted with flyers ? Are 
 the children's spelling-books usually printed 
 in primer ? Is the " Citizen " set up in bour- 
 geois ? Are milling machines used for punch- 
 ing? Are printers' devils locked up if they sit 
 on the formes? Is a printer's minion the 
 usual type of his clafe ? When you receive a 
 printed invitation to a ball, are you expected 
 to make a stereotyped reply ? Is an agreement 
 between publisher and author considered bind- 
 ing, and does the printer have the pull ? Does 
 an engraver continually die sinking? Could 
 playing cards be printed from rubber stamps ? 
 Would an artist be locked up if he were to 
 have designs on the cards at an Exhibition, 
 pocket books, and steel pens ? Are temperance 
 cards painted in water colours ? 
 
 *C If you are in doubt whether an article you 
 have written is funny or not, just watch the 
 proof-reader. If he smiles, no matter how 
 sadly, you can depend upon it that you have 
 written something that will make your readers 
 fairly howl with laughter. 
 11 1 
 
Gesta Typo- <t Websterian. Scene l . Proof-reader marks 
 graphica back a divided word in a wide-spaced line. 
 '*** With the revise comes back the first proof 
 Facetiae w ith this side-note written on it : " Webster 
 and common usage sanction this division." 
 Scene 2. Proof-reader takes revise to com- 
 posing-room, and remarks to gentlemanly com- 
 positor : " Mr. K., did you make that little 
 note about Webster?" G. C. (with the dig- 
 nity born of a Websterian backing) " Yes, sir, 
 I did." P. ft. " Ah, you've been consulting 
 Webster, have you?" G. C. (as before) " Yes, 
 sir, I have." P. R. u H'm! Does Webster say 
 anything about sanctioning the division of a 
 word when you can get it in by proper spac- 
 ing?" 
 
 *t? The following was overheard in an Irish 
 printing-office : " How often have I told you 
 that it is the duty of all apprentices to obey 
 me?" said the overseer to one of his boys. 
 " Now take this job, and set about it like a flash 
 of lightning, and don't ask me any question, 
 even if it takes you all day." 
 
 * Printer- Familias : Run and get us some 
 eggs, Polly, will you ? Polly (cetat. 7) : Yes, pa ! 
 Will you have cream-laid ones ? 
 
 * Mottoes. For compositors " Set thy words 
 in order " (Job). For machine-men " Pro- 
 duce that which makes millions think " (Don 
 Juan). 
 
 112 
 
* Editor (to foreman) Isn't the ink running Gesta Typo- 
 a little gray? Foreman That'll be all right, graphica 
 sir, after a few hundred more imprefsions. 
 The devil upset an oyster stew on the forme 
 at lunch time. 
 
 *3 A somewhat foppish young compositor 
 was displaying to his mate with great pride 
 what he believed to be a splendid ruby and 
 emerald ring, boasting at the same time of the 
 remarkable bargain he had picked up. The 
 old foreman, more worldly-wise than our 
 young friend, asked to be allowed to examine 
 the treasure. Having done so, he was asked 
 by the owner what he thought of it. " It is 
 very pretty and all that," said the foreman, 
 " but the stones are no more rubies and 
 emeralds than they are bread and cheese." 
 " Do you mean to say they are glass, then ? " 
 exclaimed the youngster indignantly. " I 
 will not go so far as that," replied the 
 cautious senior. " What stones are they, then?" 
 " I should say that they must be imposing 
 stones" remarked the foreman, drily, " for they 
 have evidently imposed upon you ! " 
 
 * Costly Cabinet Work. Pearl and diamond 
 " tables." 
 
 *H Why are good job printers the most in- 
 constant of men ? Because they generally fall 
 in love with every beautiful " new face " they 
 meet. 
 
 113 i 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 Facetiae 
 
 * The Printer. The printer is the most curious 
 being living. He may have a bank and quoins, 
 and not be worth a penny ; have small caps, 
 and neither wife nor children. Others may 
 run fast, but he gets along swiftest by setting 
 fast. He may be making imprefsions without 
 eloquence ; may use the lye without offending, 
 and be telling the truth ; while others cannot 
 stand when they set, he can set standing, and 
 even do both at the same time ; use furniture, 
 and yet have no dwelling ; may make and put 
 away pye, and never see a pie, much lefe eat 
 it, during his life ; be a human being and a 
 rat at the same time ; may prejl a good deal, 
 and not ask a favour ; may handle a shooting 
 iron, and know nothing about a cannon, gun, 
 or pistol. He may move the lever that moves 
 the world, and yet be as far from moving the 
 globe as a hog with his nose under a mole- 
 hill ; spread sheets without being a housewife ; 
 he may lay his forme on a bed, and yet be 
 oblige d to sleep on the floor ; he may use the 
 f without shedding blood, and from the earth 
 may handle the * * * ; he may be of a rolling 
 disposition, and yet never desire to travel ; he 
 may have a sheep 7 s foot, and not be deformed; 
 never be without a case, and know nothing of 
 law or physic ; be always correcting his errors, 
 and growing worse every day ; have em * <s 
 without ever having the arms of a lafe around 
 him ; have his forme locked up, and at the same 
 time be free from gaol, watch-house, or any 
 other confinement. 
 
 114 
 
<t The story of life may be told in a sentence, Gesta Typo 
 
 the punctuation of which runs thus : babyhood, graphica 
 
 a comma ; youth, a semicolon ; manhood, a '^c 
 
 dash at fifty, a colon ; at seventy, a period ; Facetiae 
 later, an interrogation point. 
 
 * A printer-man and a tombstone-man once 
 entered into a discufeion as to the merits of 
 their respective and highly respectable trades. 
 The advantages and drawbacks of each were 
 thoroughly sifted out, and the result, as the 
 sporting editor would put it, promised to be a 
 dead heat. The tombstone-man, however, was 
 not going to let things end thus tamely, but, 
 thoughtfully scratching his head with a carving 
 chisel, he said, with the solemnity becoming a 
 man of his grave occupation, " I tell you what 
 it is, Platen; we get the pull of you, anyhow, 
 in one thing. You printer-men publish the 
 truth about a fellow while he is living, and get 
 soundly whipped for libel in the law-courts for 
 your honesty, while we may carve out lies 
 about that man an inch deep on his granite 
 monument, calculated to last until the crack of 
 everything, and not only do his people like it, 
 but pay us handsomely for our mendacity. 
 You are no good for the front row now, 
 Platen ! " 
 
 * A notice of a recent novel says : " The 
 style is so brilliant that the printer, with the 
 copy before him, can set up the type without 
 any other light in the darkest night." 
 
Gesta Typo- 
 graphica 
 
 /^t 
 Facetiae 
 
 * Perhaps the wit of the compositor is most 
 amusing when it appeals to the eye. That is 
 when he gives rein to his fancy, and uses his 
 types for suggesting witty ideas. Here is a 
 very happy illustration of this kind of fun : 
 "TThhee ccoommppoossnttoorr wwhhoo sseett 
 tthbiiss ppaarr. hbaass hbaadd eexxaaccttllyy 
 aa ggllaassss aanndd act \\baa\lff ttoooo 
 mmuucchb, aanndd tthbiiss iiss pprreecciissee- 
 Uyy wwhbaatt hbee ffeeeellss HiikAee." 
 
 *C Pendriver I can't trust the proof-reader, 
 you see, so I have to read everything I write 
 myself after it is in type. Sympathiser 
 Have to read your own writings ? Poor 
 fellow! Your lot is indeed a hard one. 
 
 * An old printer has had a book returned to 
 him that was borrowed twenty-seven years 
 ago, and his faith in humanity is reviving. 
 
 6H A son of a goddefe a Minerva boy. 
 
 * The difference between a bakery and a 
 printing-office lies in the facl: that in the 
 former the pie is formed, while occasionally in 
 the latter the forme is pied. 
 
 * A Welsh poet has written some verses on 
 a recent wedding beginning, " Llanwer wynwes 
 hen gwoinawe a cherddoorol dan." Somehow 
 every time a Welshman writes anything it gets 
 pied in the forme. 
 
 116 
 
it* When young compositors get tired of pie, Gesta Typo- 
 we recommend them to turn their attention to graphica 
 
 batter pudding. 
 
 Facetiae 
 
 it* A story is told of an Anglo-German printer, 
 who, having worked a job for a gentleman of 
 whose financial integrity he had considerable 
 doubt, made the following reply to him when 
 he called for the article : "Der job ist not quite 
 done, but der beel ist made out." 
 
 ** The printer is an upright man, but he is 
 frequently seen about the galleys. 
 
 it* Proof-readers are a very incredulous body 
 of men. They won't take anybody's word for 
 anything, they must have the proofs. 
 
 it* A printer of a madly facetious temperament 
 lately hanged himself to spite his wife. Even 
 in death he would have his little " choke." 
 
 it* Suitable Names. For a printer's wife, Em ; 
 for a sportsman's wife, Betty ; for a lawyer's 
 wife, Sue ; for a teamster's wife, Carrie ; for a 
 fisherman's wife, Netty ; for a shoemaker's 
 wife, Peggy ; for a carpet-dealer's wife, Mattie ; 
 for an auctioneer's wife, Biddy ; for a chemist's 
 wife, Ann Eliza ; for an engineer's wife, Bridget. 
 
 <t* When an idler enters the san&um of a busy 
 printer, and the interviewed one says " Glad 
 to see you're back," what does he mean ? 
 117 
 
Gesta Typo- <t* I'd like to stay here," remarked the office 
 
 graphica boy, as he approached the editor's desk, " but 
 
 "^ de job's too heavy for me." a How too heavy? " 
 
 " Well, I take de copy into de reposing room 
 
 and dem depositors hit me on de side of de 
 
 head. Dere 's too much brain work for me." 
 
 ** Printers' Toast. " The Prefe ! " It ex- 
 prefees truth, re-prei^es errors, im-prefses 
 knowledge, op-prefees none. 
 
 * " Your visits remind me of the growth of a 
 succefeful newspaper," said Uncle Jabez, lean- 
 ing his chin on his cane and glancing at William 
 Henry, who was sweet on Angelica. " Why 
 so?" inquired William Henry. "Well, they 
 commenced weekly, grew to be tri-weekly, and 
 have become daily, with a Sunday supplement." 
 " Yes," said William Henry, bracing up, u and 
 after we are married we will ifsue an extra 
 
 Sh h," said Angelica. And they 
 
 went out for a stroll. 
 
 * Author writes to printer : " I like your 
 proof, but I hope the paper will be better, and 
 all the type larger when printed off! " 
 
 " I have called," said the captious critic, " to 
 find out what reason you can give for repre- 
 senting the new year as a nude small boy." 
 " That is done," responded the art printer, 
 " because the year does not get its close till 
 the 3 1st December." 
 
 118 
 
<t* The Ingredient of Succejl. " The principal Gcsta Typo- 
 ingredient in all these patent medicines is the graphica 
 same." " It must be a powerful drug. What 
 is it ? " " Printer's ink." 
 
 * Some one has said that it costs the London 
 " Times " $00 a year to use the superfluous 
 44 u " in the English spelling of such words as 
 favour, colour, etc. This is on a par with the 
 story told of a large mercantile house which 
 saved 500 a year in ink by ordering the 
 clerks not to dot their i's. 
 
 * The man who wanted " little here below " 
 went into the printing businefe. 
 
 * Why is a newspaper like a pretty woman ? 
 Because, to be perfect, it must be the embodi- 
 ment of many types. Its forme is made up. 
 It is always chased. It enjoys a good prefs ; 
 the more rapid the better. It has a weaknefe 
 for gofsip. Talks a good deal. Can stand 
 some praise, and it 's awful proud of a new 
 drete. 
 
 * The printer is often beside himself that is 
 to say, he frequently stands beside his frame. 
 
 * " I beg your pardon, sir," said an editor to 
 a man on whose toes he had accidentally stepped 
 in a crowd. " Oh, no matter, sir," was the 
 good-hearted reply, " it was only an error of 
 the prefe." 
 
 119 
 
Gesta Typo- <t The Chinese alphabet contains about 30,000 
 
 graphica characters, and the man who thinks of con- 
 
 ^ strucling a type-writer will have to make it the 
 
 Facetiae s j ze o f a fifty.horse power threshing machine 
 
 and run it by steam. 
 
 country paper contains the following 
 satisfactory announcement : " A number of 
 deaths are unavoidably postponed." 
 
 (Mf Old lady to printer Your Bibles are very 
 nice, but I would like one with bigger print. 
 I will go for a walk whilst you print me a 
 larger one. 
 
 printer's devil entered the editor's 
 sanctum, and, lifting up his voice, cried for 
 "copy." The editor was tired, worried, and 
 irritable. " Have you set up the latest society 
 scandal ? " " Yes, sir," said the P.D. " Are 
 the two columns of Notes in type ? " " Yes, 
 sir." " Is that report of the Potsdam murder 
 setup?" "Yes, sir." " Is the Home Circle ' 
 setup?" " Yes, sir." " Oh, plague take you !" 
 said the editor ; " have you sat up all night ? " 
 " No, sir." " Well, go and do it." 
 
 * A compositor, coming into a reading closet, 
 found two readers chatting together, and, 
 joking them as to not doing their work, one of 
 them replied, " We are not wasting our time ; 
 only doing what you compositors can't 
 ' making a break ' in order to 4 run on ' better." 
 
 120 
 
( A Noted Author. An Irishman, on seeing Gesta Typo- 
 an acquaintance reading, exclaimed, "Arrah, graphica 
 honey! an' who's the author o' that work?^ ^ 
 
 " Pat, my jewel, an' how can I tell you that Facetiae 
 same ? " u Why, my dear, look at the end o't 
 an' you'll see that." "Tis Finis," rejoined 
 the other. " Finis, is it ? A clever fellow that 
 same Finis, he writes a devil of a lot o' books." 
 
 it* Outward bound Books. 
 
 itC Much may be said of the printer. Let us 
 hope that when he becomes dead matter an 
 imposing stone may be creeled to his memory. 
 
GLOSSARIUM 
 
" When found, make 
 a note of." 
 
GLOSSARIUM 
 
 Balls. The old custom of distributing ink was 
 
 by "balls," rollers being a modern institution. 
 Bank. A wooden table or bench for placing 
 
 the sheets on as printed at handpress. 
 Batter. Broken or damaged letter or letters 
 
 through accident, wear and tear, or care- 
 
 lefenete. 
 Benvenue. A kind of entrance fee paid to the 
 
 chapel by a workman on entering a fresh 
 
 office an old custom. Derived from the 
 
 French bienvenue, welcome. 
 Brevier. A size of type one size larger than 
 
 Minion and one size smaller than Bourgeois. 
 
 Capitals. Letters other than lower case or 
 
 small capitals. 
 Carriage. The bed or coffin on which the 
 
 forme is laid and which runs under the 
 
 platen or cylinder in a printing preO> or 
 
 machine. 
 Case. The receptacle in which type is laid to 
 
 compose from. When in pairs, defined as 
 
 upper and lower respectively. 
 125 
 
Gesta Typo- Catchword. A word placed at the bottom 
 
 graphica right-hand corner of pages in old books, 
 
 ^* indicating the first word on the following 
 
 Glossarium page. 
 
 Chapels. The meetings held by the workmen 
 to consider trade affairs, appeals, and other 
 matters are thus termed. Derived, it is 
 said, from Caxton's connection with West- 
 minster Abbey. 
 
 Chase. A chase is an iron frame for holding 
 the type pages in the form in which a sheet 
 is printed. 
 
 Cicero. The German and French equivalent 
 in size of type for Pica. 
 
 Colour. This refers generally to depth or 
 shade of ink in printing. Full colour would 
 be to print an intense black. 
 
 Composing. Setting type. 
 
 Copy. The manuscript or reprint copy from 
 which the compositor composes. 
 
 Corpus. A German exprefeion for LongPrimer 
 type. 
 
 Corrector. An ancient term for a reader, now 
 called " corrt clor of the press," the term 
 used by the K aders' Association. 
 
 Cursiv. The German term for italic type. 
 
 Devil, printers'. An odd lad for errands and 
 
 other jobs sometimes the junior apprentice 
 
 is thus called. 
 Diamond. The type one size larger than Gem, 
 
 and one size smaller than Pearl equal to 
 
 half a Bourgeois in body. 
 126 
 
Distributing. Replacing the type in cases Gesta Typo- 
 after printing. graphica 
 Drive out. To widely space matter. 
 
 Glossarium 
 
 Ems. A technical term applied to the exacl: 
 depth of any type body. 
 
 Errata. A number of mistakes usually printed 
 on a small slip and pasted in by the book- 
 binder. 
 
 Facs. Abbreviation of the word "facsimile." 
 Fat take. A compositor is said to have a " fat 
 
 take " when he takes a good paying portion 
 
 of copy. " Lean " would be the reverse. 
 Flyers or Fliers. Taking-off apparatus 
 
 attached to a printing machine. 
 Folio. A sheet of paper folded in two leaves 
 
 only. 
 Foolscap. A size of printing paper, 17 x 13^ 
 
 inches; writing paper, l6|- x 13^ inches. 
 Form(e). Pages of type when imposed in a 
 
 chase constitute a " forme." 
 Frame. The wooden stand on which cases 
 
 are placed to compose from, and usually 
 
 made with racks in which to place cases. 
 Furniture. The wood used in making margin 
 
 for a printed sheet, the thinner kind being 
 
 usually called " Reglet." Sometimes metal 
 
 furniture is used. 
 
 Galley. These are wooden or zinc receptacles 
 for holding type before making-up into 
 pages. 
 
 127 
 
Gesta Typo- Garamond. Another German term for Long 
 graphica Primer type. See Corpus. 
 
 ^* Gothic. An antique character of type similar 
 
 to black letter. 
 
 Imposing. Laying pages down so that when 
 printed they fall correctly in folding. 
 
 Italic. The sloping characters distinct from 
 roman types invented by Aldus Manutius, 
 a Venetian printer. 
 
 Job printing. Applied to small miscellaneous 
 printing in contradistinction to book-printing, 
 
 Jungfer. A German equivalent for Brevier 
 type. 
 
 Justify. To space out to any given measure. 
 
 Leads. Strips of lead cast to different thick- 
 nefses and cut to various sizes. 
 
 Locked up. To have fastened up tightly the 
 quoins of a forme by means of a mallet and 
 shooting-stick. 
 
 Long Primer. A size of type one size larger 
 than Bourgeois and one size smaller than 
 Small Pica, equal to two Pearls. 
 
 Lye. The preparation used for cleansing type 
 after printing. 
 
 Make-up. To measure off matter into pages. 
 
 Matter. A term for composed type. 
 
 Mike. A printer's slang term for skulking or 
 
 playing about. 
 Minerva. A small platen jobbing machine 
 
 the original " Cropper " machine. 
 128 
 
Monks. Black patches on a printed sheet Gesta Typo- 
 
 caused through insufficient distribution or graphica 
 
 bad ink. 
 Movable types. Applied to ordinary metal 
 
 types to distinguish from stereotype or 
 
 Linotype bars. 
 
 New drejl. A newspaper is said to have a 
 
 " new drefe " when it appears for the first 
 
 time printed in a fresh fount of type. 
 Nonpareil. The size of type one size larger 
 
 than Pearl and one size smaller than Emerald 
 
 half of a Pica in depth of body. 
 Numerals. Numbering by means of Roman 
 
 numerals, i, ii, iii, iv., etc., instead of Arabic 
 
 figures, i, 2, 3, etc, 
 
 O. P. A publisher's term signifying that a 
 
 book is " out of print." 
 Opistho graphic. In olden times applied to 
 
 books written or printed on both sides of 
 
 the paper. 
 Out of sorts. When there is a run on any 
 
 particular letter or letters, and these become 
 
 scarce. 
 
 Pearl. A size of type one size larger than 
 Diamond and one size smaller than Ruby, 
 equalling half a Long Primer in depth the 
 smallest type enumerated by Moxon. 
 
 Pica. A size of type one size larger than 
 Small Pica and one size smaller than English 
 the body usually taken as a standard for 
 129 K 
 
Gesta Typo- leads, width of measures, etc. It is equal to 
 graphica two Nonpareils in body. 
 
 ^ Picking-up. A compositor is said to be "pick- 
 
 ing-up " when he is setting up types. 
 Pie or Pye. Type broken or indiscriminately 
 
 mixed. 
 
 Platen. That part of the prefe or machine 
 which comes down on the forme and gives 
 the imprefsion. 
 Printers' devil. See Devil, printers'. 
 
 Quaternions. Paper folded in sections of four 
 
 sheets, quire fashion. 
 Quire. Sections of a ream of paper, consisting 
 
 of twenty-four sheets. 
 Quoins. Small wedges of various sizes, usually 
 
 of wood, used for tightening or locking-up 
 
 formes. 
 
 Ream. Paper in parcels or bundles of a certain 
 
 size a printer's ream being 516 sheets. 
 
 Hand-made and drawing papers slightly 
 
 differ in the number of sheets, sometimes 
 
 472, 480, or 500. 
 Register. The exacl: adjustment of pages back 
 
 to back in printing the second side of a 
 
 sheet. 
 Romain, gros. The French term for Great 
 
 Primer type. 
 Romain, petit. The French term for Long 
 
 Primer type. 
 Roman. The particular kind of type in which 
 
 book and other work is composed (such as 
 130 
 
this fount), as distinguished from italic or Qesta Typo- 
 fancy types. Called " antiqua " by the graphica 
 Germans. /x>e 
 
 Rule. A technical term applied to straight Glossarium 
 lines in printing as a dash, or a plain 
 line used as a border, or line to cut off text 
 from footnotes. 
 
 Set. A recognized term for " composed " to 
 
 " set " type is to " compose " it. 
 Sbeepsfoot. An iron hammer with a claw at 
 
 the foot. 
 Shooting stick. The implement generally 
 
 made of boxwood, but sometimes of metal 
 
 used with the mallet in locking-up formes. 
 Signature. The letter or figure in the white 
 
 line of the first page of a sheet, to guide the 
 
 binder in folding also used by printers to 
 
 identify any particular sheet. 
 Small capitals. The smaller capitals laid in 
 
 the upper case, distinct from the full capitals, 
 
 thus PRINTING, and indicated in MS. by 
 
 two lines = underneath. 
 Stanhope prefe. The first iron platen hand- 
 
 prefe, invented by Earl Stanhope in the 
 
 early part of this century. 
 Stereotyping. The art of taking casts of pages 
 
 of type, etc., in metal, either by the "plaster" 
 
 or " paper " procefees. 
 Stick. A familiar exprefeion for " composing 
 
 stick." 
 
 Ternions. A bibliographical expreftion for 
 three sheets folded together in folio. 
 
Gesta Typo- Token. Two hundred and fifty impreteions 
 graphica are reckoned as a " token." 
 
 <**& 
 Glossarium Wayzgoose9 _^ e printers annual dinner. 
 
 Wool-bole. An old slang term for the work- 
 house. 
 
 Wrong fount. Letters of a different character 
 or series mixed with another fount, although 
 perhaps of the same body.