^ little * GO vj- 23 O Q-i cji> CO as: CL- - ^Tg “ro- ;-t; r.rj .^i 04 cr> #Tr» 'Xt 1 'Si vH C3 :3E^ (J (iUk SONS, The Deansgate Press. London: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, dr' Co. 1887. For a considerable portion of the opening chapters of this little Work, the cAuthor is indebted to the late Charles Knight’s charming biography of The First English Frinter.” ‘*Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school ' and whereas before our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and, contrary to the King, his crown and dignity, thou hast built a paper mill." — 2nd Henry VI., Act IV., Sc. 7. Uttk 0 3 4 we are absorbed in its educational influences, the source from which this divine blessing has sprung! A few moments, therefore, spent in the retrospection of the Art may not be out of place, in this the Jubilee Year of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. Previous to the introduction of the Art of Printing into England, the method of reproducing books was necessarily by manuscript, to which occupation the monks devoted very considerable portions of their time. The material employed, both for leaves and covers, was vellum, and it was the habit of the monastic order to embellish the text with illuminated letters in gold and colours. The books were written in Latin, and were entirely of a disquisitional nature, principally upon religious matters. The amount of time expended was exceedingly great, and it speaks well for the handiwork of the ancient transcribers that our present designers, when seeking inspiration, are only too eager to copy, or at best adapt, the magnificent initial letters which appear upon the precious volumes preserved in the British Museum and elsewhere. This occupation of time, and the costly nature of the materials employed, made the possession of books a luxury known only to the richest ; but the invention of paper in the- thirteenth century gave a highly-desirable impetus to their production, though necessarily the wearisome labour of fashioning each individual letter by hand still made the issue of a volume, no matter whether vellum or paper were adopted for its leaves, a work of considerable expense. 5 The demand for books now brought the use of the stencil-plate into existence, and it is conclusively proved that many volumes, which for years were believed to have been in manuscript, were entirely produced by this method, the gaps left by the stencil being filled in afterwards by hand. At a subsequent period there was a natural development of this tedious process, in the shape of books prepared from impressions taken from rude wood engravings, to which were added verbal descriptions of the cuts, and, by periodical transitions, it must have occurred to the early authors of these illustrations that further use could be made of them, if the wording could be alterable. The first person who seized upon the idea that the text or legend might be composed of separate letters, capable of re- arrangement after the Impressions were taken off, so as to be applied, without new cutting, to other texts and legends, had therefore secured the principle upon which the printing art was to depend. It was easy to extend the principle from a few lines to a whole page, and from one page to many, so as to form a book ; but then were seen the great labour and expense of cutting so many separate letters upon small pieces of wood or metal, and another step was required to be made before the principle was thoroughly worked out. This step consisted in the ready multiplication of the separate letters by casting metal in moulds. Lastly, instead of using the old Chinese mode of friction to produce impressions, a press was to be perfected. All these gradations were undoubtedly the result of long and patient experiments carried on by several 6 individuals, who each saw the importance of the notion they were labouring to work out. It is this circumstance which has given rise to interminable controversies as to the inventors of printing, some claiming ,the honour for Coster, of Haarlem, and some for Guttenberg, of Mentz ; and, as is usual in all such disputes, it was represented that the man to whom public opinion had assigned the credit of the invention had stolen it from another, .who, as is also usual in these cases, thought of it in a dream, or received it by some other mysterious revelation. The general consent of Europe now assigns the chief honour to Guttenberg. About the middle of the fifteenth century then, we find William Caxton, the first English printer, supposed to have been born in the year 1410, and now a man of capacity and wealth, occupied in translating in the City of Bruges the “ Recuyell of the Histories of Troye,” that marvellous forerunner of all our present literature — the first English book ever printed ! This volume does not bear upon the face of it when and where it was printed. That it was printed by Caxton we can have no doubt, because he says, “ I have practised and learned, at my great charge and dispense, to ordain this said book in print.” He tells us, too, in the title-page, that the translation was finished at Cologne, in September 1471. That Caxton printed at Cologne we have tolerably clear evidence. There is a most curious book of Natural History, originally written in Latin by 7 Bartholomew Glanvill, a Franciscan friar of the fourteenth century, commonly known as Bartholomseus. A translation of this book, which is called “ De Proprietatibus Rerum,” was printed in England by Wynkyn de Worde, who was an assistant to Caxton in his printing-office at Westminster, and there succeeded him. In some quaint stanzas which occur in this edition, and which appear to be written either by or in the name of the printer, are these lines, which we copy, in the first instance, exactly following the orthography and non-punctuation of the original : — “And also of your charyte call to remembraunce The soule of William Caxton first pryter of this boke Jn laten tonge at Coleyn hyself to auauce That euery well disposyd man may theron loke.” That we are asked to call to remembrance the soul of William Caxton is perfectly clear ; but how are we to read the subsequent members of the sentence ? The most obvious meaning appears to be that William Caxton was the first printer of “ this book ” in the Latin tongue ; that he printed it at Cologne ; and that his object in printing it was to advance or profit himself, in addition to his desire that every well-disposed man might look upon it. But there is another interpretation of these words, which is certainly not a forced one, viz., that William Caxton was the first printer of this English book, and that the object of his printing it was to advance himself in the Latin tongue at Cologne. “This book” would appear then to be, this English book, this same book. If a copy of the work, whether in Latin or English, printed at Cologne 8 at so early a period, could be found, the question would be set at rest. There is a Latin edition printed at Cologne, in 1481, by John Koelhoff, and there is an edition in Latin without date or place. The first English edition known is that by Wynkyn de Worde, and the translation was made much earlier than the time of Caxton, by John de Trevisa. Caxton could scarcely have been said to have desired to have advanced himself in the Latin tongue, unless he had translated the book as well as printed it. The mere fact of superintending workmen who set up the types in Latin would have done little to advance his knowledge of the language. We believe, there- fore — says Mr. Charles Knight, — that we must receive the obscure lines of Wynkyn de Worde as evidence that Caxton did print at Cologne, and that he undertook the Latin edition of Bartholomaeus as a commercial speculation, “ himself to advance,” or profit. CHAPTER II. ©nalnal anb pressc0, HEN we look at the state of England after the return of Edward IV. from his exile, — the “great divisions” of which Caxton himself speaks, — we may consider that he acted with discretion in conducting his first printing operations in a German city. It must be also borne in mind that this was by far the readiest mode of obtaining a competent knowledge in the new art. Had he come over to England with types and presses, and even with the most skilful workmen, the 10 probability is that the man of letters who, two or three years before, had little or nothing to do in his attendance upon the Burgundian court, would have ill succeeded in so com- plicated and difficult a commercial enterprise. Lambinet, a French biographical writer, tells us that Melchior de Stamham, wishing to establish a printing-office at Augsburg, engaged a skilful workman of the same town, of the name of Sauerloch, He employed a whole year in making the necessary preparations for his office. He bought five presses, of the materials of which he constructed five other presses. He cast pewter types, and, having spent a large sum, seven hundred and two florins, in establishing his office, began working in 1473. He died before he had completed one book, heartbroken, probably at the amount of capital he had sunk, for his unfinished book was sold off at a mere trifle, and his office broken up. This statement, which rests upon some ancient testimony, shows us something of the difficulties which had to be encountered by the early printers. They had to do everything for themselves; to construct the materials of their art, types, presses, and every other instrument and appliance. When Caxton began to print at Cologne, he probably had the means of obtaining a set of moulds from some previous printer, — what are called strikes from the punches that form the original matrices. The writers upon typography seem to assume the necessity of every one of the old printers cutting his punches anew, and shaping his letters according to his own notions of proportionate II beauty. That the great masters of their art, the first inventors, the Italian printers, the Alduses, the Stephenses, pursued this course is perfectly clear. But when printing ceased to be a mystery, about 1462, it is more than probable that those who tried to set up a press, especially in Germany, either bought a few types of the more established printers, or obtained a readier means of casting types than that of cutting new punches, — a difficult and expensive operation. Thus we believe the attempts to assign a book without a printer’s name to some printer whose types that book resembles can be little relied upon. Caxton’s types are held to be like the type of this printer and the type of that ; and it is said that he copied the types, with the objection added that he did not copy the best models. What should have prevented him buying the types from the continent, as every English printer did until the middle of the last century ? or at any rate what should have prevented him buying copies of the moulds which other printers were using ? The bas-relief upon Thorwalsden’s statue of Guttenberg exhibits the first printer examining a matrice. But all the difficulties in the formation of the first matrice overcome, we may readily see that, at every stage, the art of making fusile types would become easier and simpler, till at length the division of labour should be perfectly applied to type-making, and the mere casting of a letter, as each letter is cast singly, exhibit one of the most rapid and beautiful pieces of handiwork that the arts can show. 12 But the type obtained, Caxton would still have much to do before his office was furnished. We have seen how Melchior of Augsburg set about getting his presses : “ He bought of John Schuesseler five presses, which cost him seventy-three Rhenish florins : he constructed with these materials five other smaller presses.” To those who know what a well-adjusted machine the commonest printing-press now in use is, it is not easy at first to conceive what is meant by saying that Melchior bought five presses, and made five other presses out of the materials. The solution is this : in all probability this printer of Augsburg bought five old wine-presses, and, using the screws, cut them down and adapted them to the special purpose for which he designed them. The earliest printing-press was nothing more than a common screw-press, — such as a cheese-press, or a napkin-press, — with a contrivance for running the forme of types under the screw after the forme was inked. It is evident that this mode of obtaining an impression must have been very laborious and very slow. As the screw must have come down upon the types with a dead pull, — that is, as the table upon which the types were placed was solid and unyielding, — great care must have been required to prevent the pressure being so hard as to injure the face of the letters. A famous printer, Jodocus Radius Ascensianus, has exhibited his press in the 13 title-page of a book printed by him in 1498. Up to the middle of the last century this rude press was in use in England ; although the press of an ingenious Dutch mechanic, Blaew, — in which the pressure was rapidly communicated from the screw to the types, and all the parts of the press were yielding so as to produce a sharp but not a crushing impression, — was gradually superseding it. The early printers manufactured their own ink, so that Caxton had to learn the art of ink- making. The ink was applied to the types by balls, or dabbers, such as one of the men holds who is working the press of Badius. Such dabbers were universally used in printing forty years ago. As the ancient weaver was expected to make his own loom, so, even this short time since, the division of labour was so imperfectly applied to printing, that the pressman was expected to make his own balls. A very 14 rude and nasty process this was. The sheep-skins, called pelts, were prepared in the printing-office, where the wool with which they were stuffed was also carded ; and these balls, thus manufactured by a man whose general work was entirely of a different nature, required the expenditure of at least half an hour’s labour every day in a very disagreeable operation, by which they were kept soft. There were many other little niceties in the home construction of the materials for printing which Caxton would necessarily have to learn. But in the earlier stages of an art requiring such nice arrangement, both in the departments of the compositor, or setter-up of the type, and of the pressman, it is quite clear that many things which, by the habit of four centuries, have become familiar and easy in a printing-office, would be exceedingly difficult to be acquired by the first printers. Rapidity in the work was probably out of the question. Accidents must constantly have occurred in wedging up the single letters tightly in pages and sheets ; and when one looks at the regularity of the inking of these old books, and the beautiful accuracy with which the line on one side of a page falls on the corresponding line on the other side (called by printers “register”), we may be sure that with very imperfect mechanical means an amount of care was taken in working off the sheets which would appear ludicrous to a modern pressman. The higher operation of a printing-office, which consists in reading the proofs, must have been in the first instance full of embarrassment and difficulty. A scholar was doubtless employed to test the accuracy of the proofs ; probably some 15 one who had been previously employed to overlook the labours of the transcribers. Fierce must have been the indignation of such a one during a course of painful ex- perience, when he found one letter presented for another, letters and even syllables and words omitted, letters topsy-turvy, and even actual substitutions of one word for another. These are almost unavoidable consequences of the mechanical operation of arranging movable types, so entirely different from the work of the transcriber. The corrector of the press would not understand this ; and his life would not be a pleasant one. Caxton was no doubt the corrector of his own press, and well for him it was that he brought to his task the patience, industry, and good temper which are manifest in his writings. But the ancient printer had something more to do before his manufacture was complete. He was a bookbinder as well as a printer. The antique books, manuscripts as well as printed, are wonderful specimens of patient labour.^ The boards, literally wooden boards, between which the leaves were fastened, were as thick as the panel of a door. These were covered with leather, sometimes embossed with the most ingenious devices. There were large brass nails, with ornamented heads, on the outside of these covers, with magnificent corners to the lids. In addition, there were clasps. The back was rendered solid with paste and glue, so as to last for centuries. Erasmus says of such a book, “ As for Thomas Aquinas’s Secunda Secundae, no man can carry it about, much less get it into his head.” An old woodcut shows us the binder hammering i6 at the leaves to make them flat, and a lad sewing the leaves in a frame very like that still in use. Above are the books flying in the air in all their solid glory. But the most difficult labour of the ancient printer, and that which would necessarily constitute the great distinction between one printer and another, was yet to come. He had to sell his books when he had manufactured them, for there was no division of the labour of publisher and printer in those days. His success would of course much depend upon the quality of his books ; upon their adaptation to the nature of the demand for books, upon their accuracy, upon their approach to the beauty of the old manuscripts. But he had to incur the risk common to all copying processes, whether the thing produced be a medal or a book, of expending a large certain sum before a single copy could be produced. The process of printing, compared with that of writing, is a cheap process as ordinarily conducted ; but the condition of cheapness is this — that a sufficient number of copies of any particular book may be reckoned upon as saleable, so as to render the proportion of the first expense upon a single copy inconsiderable. If it were required even at the present time to print a single copy, or even three or four copies only, of any literary work, the cost of printing would be greater than the cost of transcribing. It is when hundreds, and especially thousands, of the same work are demanded, that the great value of the printing-press in making knowledge cheap is particularly shown. It is probable that the first printers did not take off more than two or three hundred, if so many, of their 17 works; and, therefore, the earliest printed books must have been still dear, on account I of the limited number of their readers. i Caxton, as it appears by a passage in one of his books, was a cautious printer; and required something like an assurance that he should sell enough of any particular book to repay the cost of producing it. In his “Legend of Saints” he says, “I have submysed [submitted] myself to translate into English the ‘Legend of Saints,’ called ‘Legenda aurea’ in Latin; and William, Earl of Arundel, desired me — and promised to take a reasonable quantity of them — and sent me a worshipful gentleman, promising that my said lord should during my life give and grant to me a yearly fee, that is to note, a buck in summer and a doe in winter.” For some years after the invention of printing, many of the ingenious, learned, and enterprising men who devoted themselves to the new I art which was to change the face of society were ruined, because they could not sell cheaply unless they printed a considerable number of a book, and there were not readers enough to take off the stock which they thus accumulated. In time, however, as the facilities for acquiring knowledge which printing afforded created many readers, the trade of printing books became one of less general risk, and dealers in literature could afford more and more to dispense with individual patronage, and rely upon the public demand. CHAPTER III. (Tayton’0 Morlie anb 3nu6trat(on0. F the sixty-four works attributed to the press of Caxton, and printed from movable types, the fourth in order comes “ The Game and Play of the Chesse, trans- lated out of the French, fynyshid the last day of Marche 1474,” in the reign of 19 Edward the IV., a facsimile of an engraving of a Knight appearing therein is here given; and on the 17th December 1886, just four hundred and twelve years after its issue, a copy of this remarkable book (ioj4 by was sold to Mr. Quaritch, the man above all others who should know the worth of such a volume, for the extraordinary sum of £645, or about ten times its weight in gold! Concerning this sale, the editor of the Standard said : — “This unprecedented price affords additional evidence that the love for buying rare books is far from having attained its zenith. Every reader of the ‘Antiquary’ re- members Jonathan Oldbuck’s famous story of how a copy of this work was picked up at a bookstall in Holland, for the sum of two groschen, and how, after passing from hand to hand at ever-increasing prices, it was redeemed for the Royal Library for one hundred 20 and seventy pounds sterling. Caxton collectors are so lynx-eyed that every scrap which he ever printed has had its history recorded. Yet, unquestionably, the six hundred and forty -five pounds which Mr. Quaritch paid for his copy would have amazed even the most ardent bibliophile. It is, probably, the largest sum which a Caxton ever brought. When Mr. Blades wrote his ‘ Life of the first English Printer,’ he knew of only ten copies of the first edition of the ‘Chesse’ being in existence. But in 1880 an eleventh copy turned up. Since that date there have been no more discoveries, and it is almost safe to say that this number exhausts the edition. In 1682 a perfect copy brought thirteen shillings and twopence. In 1773 George III. bought one for thirty-two pounds and sixpence. Alchorne’s imperfect copy fetched fifty-four pounds twelve shillings, and in 1855 it passed into the Cunliffe Library for sixty pounds ten shillings; while Mr. Holford’s was bought at the Mainwaring sale for one hundred and one pounds. In 1872 Mr. Quaritch offered a specimen for sale at the price of four hundred pounds, and until the instance under review no other copy has come under the hammer. Even then, this volume, for which a perpetual annuity of over thirty pounds a year has been paid, is not quite complete, for it lacks the two blank leaves which go to make up a perfect specimen. It is, however, one of five in much the same condition. It is printed on stout paper, and has the glory of being slightly ‘taller’ than the one in the British Museum. At the same sale, a black letter tract on Virginia, written by John Brereton, and printed in London 21 in 1602, brought two hundred and sixty-five pounds, or something more than five guineas a page. Such prices are, however, considerable, even in an age which has witnessed a ‘ Psalmorum Codex ’ sold for four thousand nine hundred and fifty pounds, or a Mazarin Bible ransomed for three thousand nine hundred pounds.” Following the example of the early English Missals, the Caxtonian types were of “ black letter,” a specimen of which is reproduced, but it is to be regretted that <0 ciWge buc ofJt^Ccttmce (Btik of OttoroopK an^^ of of of iRpngc cf 0ch^ of (Bn^anbi franco / pouf mo|2 faicuant anitCwn) (C^tor) amott^c ot^er of pout femxnm nnfio f ow feoo ♦ •Jope vicfo^ VJpo\) pour (fnempeo/ he did not make use of the beautiful specimens of the Roman, Venetian, and Parisian Presses when he caused his fount of letters to be cut or purchased, as it is somewhat strange that he did not select the Roman character amongst the variety of his type. 22 A quaint illustration of a printing office, copied from an engraving of a later period than the previous cut is here given, and at the head of this chapter is shown a representa- tion of the mark of William Caxton, and further on a repre- sentation of that of Wynkyn de Worde. All historians who have written upon this subject agree that Caxton used this device to distinguish the work which he printed ; the interpretation of the monogram between the initials is construed to stand for the date of ’74 ; his first work printed in this country, the first book known in which it appeared, being the Boke of Eneydos, printed in 1489. The forerunners of the press religiously followed this custom, and their marks form subjects of great interest to the historian. There is little doubt that the origin 23 of the familiar “ trade marks ” of recent times, the source of so much litigation and legislation, and now applied to every description of manufacture, dates from this habit of the early English printers. Space will not permit us to follow the history of Wynkyn de Worde, who was a servant of William Caxton, remaining in that capacity until his death in 1491, and who successfully practised the art of printing on his own account, continuing to print in his master’s house ; or of Richard Pynson, his contemporary and successor, or the many who followed in their wake ; but it is of interest to here chronicle this custom, which is preserved to the present day by book printers, and in more recent times by publishers, of affixing a distinctive “ mark ” to the works issued from their respective establishments. Necessarily, the history of wood engraving would form an independent treatise, but reference should be made to an advancement in the art of illustration, which first appeared about the i6th century, viz., the incorporation with the text of head and tail pieces, and other illustrations, printed from copper plates, by a separate and distinct process from the printing of the letterpress or reading matter. 24 No one, except he were perfectly practically acquainted with the art of printing, could realise the extreme difficulty of uniting these two processes, produced as they are by entirely different appliances, and requiring the sheets of paper to be cut up before the copper plates could be manipulated. The difficulty of fitting in the illustrations to their proper positions must have been exceedingly great, but there is no doubt that a great impetus to the art of wood engraving was given when those who practised it must have seen their services being rapidly discounted. Hence we find, in the i8th century, this double printing abandoned, and wood engravings produced of the most exquisite fineness and touch, many equal to steel engravings, and one may be excused a sigh of regret that the present generation foster and admire a otyie of illustration which, though technically termed “wood- engraving,” is largely the result of mechanical manipulation, and much of which, though theatrical in effect, is an utter degradation of the original Art, and one glance at which would make Bewick and his coadjutors weep ! CHAPTER IV. printina preseee anC> fiDacbinea* T is a remarkable fact that for nearly three centuries little or no development occurred in the pattern of the printing press, which remained more or less of the same construction as the original Caxtonian appliances. Of this sufficient evidence is gleaned from the various illustrations of the press, which from time to time appeared in the pages of the earlier printed books, another of which is here reproduced, and it was not until the year 1800 that Charles, Earl Stanhope, a mechanician of extreme ingenuity, conceived the notion of making a printing press of iron. At the present day the “Stanhope Press” is still of service, and espe- cially in France, but its followers, the “Albion” and the “Columbian,” have almost eclipsed it. 26 In this the Jubilee Year of Queen Victoria, we find that a marvellous change has come over the printing appliances of our fathers and forefathers. The “ press ” is (except in the most primitive of country places) merely used for the pulling of proofs, the actual printing being done by “ machine,” with the application of a suitable motive power; and as the production of newspapers illustrates, perhaps, the most familiar form of “printing,” coming, as it does, under our continual observation, a few comparative facts may not be out of place if here recorded. The daily issue of the Times at the commencement of the present century was from 3,000 to 4,000 copies. The whole of these impressions were then printed by hand at the rate of about 250 or 300 per hour. Many hours were thus consumed in a purely laborious and uninteresting process, and as at this period the application of steam power was being made to machinery of various kinds, it occurred to Mr. John Walter, son of the originator of the Times newspaper, that some more expeditious method could be invented of placing his journal in the hands of the public. Accordingly many experiments, suc- cessful and unsuccessful, were made with his supervision, for a period of some six or seven years, until on the 29th of November 1814, finished copies of the Times, printed by steam-power, were distributed in London with considerable eclat. The leading article upon that day stated that the public were presented with the practical result of the greatest improvement connected with printing since the discovery of the Art itself. A description of the machine followed, which we here quote — “ After the letters are 27 placed by the compositors, and enclosed in' what is called the ‘ forme,’ little more remains for man to do than to attend upon and watch this unconscious agent in its operations. The machine is then supplied with paper ” — each sheet would of course be fed-in singly by hand, — “ itself places the forme, inks it, adju-sts the paper to the newly-inked type, stamps the sheet, and gives it forth to the hands of the attendant, at the same time with- drawing the forme for a fresh coat of ink, which itself again distributes, to meet the ensuing sheet now advancing for impression ; and the whole of these complicated acts is performed with such a velocity and simultaneousness of movement that no less than 1,100 sheets are impressed in one hour.” Then follows a touching eulogy upon the skill of the inventors of the machine, Messrs. Kdnig & Bauer, whose efforts — alas ! that our own individual conceptions so rapidly become obsolete — were quickly superseded and improved upon. It is interesting to compare this description with the compact apparatus now supplied by the Victory Machine Company, for the printing of newspapers. This remarkable invention receives the paper “ in the web,” that is upon endless rolls. These rolls gradually uncoil at one end of the machine, and after passing over the printing cylinders are impressed, cut,folded,and positively counted and delivered in sets of thirteen — the usual trade number, — and all this operation is performed without any intervention upon the part of the attendant, and at the speed of 24,000 impressions of a four-page paper per hour ; whilst the small Parisian Journal, La Petite Republique Frangaise, is run off upon a machine built by M. P, Alanget, at the amazing rate of 70,000 copies per hour ! 28 The last: few years have developed so many processes of printing, both lithographic and letterpress, that none but those whose undivided attention is given to their art can possibly hope to become acquainted with all the various and patented methods now adopted. Indeed, separate trades and occupations have sprung up in connection with these, which give employment to many thousands of persons, whilst but a few years back all the known methods were frequently in operation under one and the same roof; but, as it might possibly be an advantage to some who read these pages, we will not conclude without enumerating a few of the principal methods more frequently applied. Photo-lithography. — Drawings in outline, old prints, engravings, sketches, manuscripts, so long as the lines are clear — no washes or tints or colourings — can be photographed, either reduced or enlarged, and a print having been taken upon a gelatinised paper, inked and washed, can be “ transferred to stone,” and innumerable fac simile copies printed therefrom. Zincography. — The above, or any lithographed drawing, whether produced in chalk or line-work, can be transferred to zinc, etched with acid until the printing portions are raised and sensible to the touch. These zinc plates are then mounted upon wood, “type high,” and can be printed together with types. Hence the recent development of newspaper illustrations, the daily journals now giving ready prominence to maps, diagrams, and the like. In case of war this new process is hourly brought into requisition, the union of lithography and letter-press printing being now complete. 29 Automatic Reduction or Enlargement. — A recently invented apparatus gives the power of lithographic printing upon a thin, slightly-distended India-rubber film. This film is then placed upon a frame, and either stretched or contracted, as desired, and this altered impression is then re-transferred to the stone. Size of original drawing is therefore not so material a consideration as formerly. Stereotyping and Electrotyping are methods of taking moulds from types or engravings, and from these metal casts are made so that the originals are left untouched and intact. The Autotype is a mechanical photograph, soft and delicate in appearance, perfectly permanent, and can be produced in any colour, but is distinctly lithographic in appearance. The Woodburytype answers the same description, but is entirely photographic in appearance. The Luxotype, the Dallastype, and the countless other processes, all aim at the same effect, namely, an exact reproduction by photography of a given subject, and the power of producing unlimited copies of this subject by purely mechanical and inexpensive methods. 30 The various methods of engraving have scarcely been alluded to in these pages ; upon these subjects alone elaborate treatises could be written. The object of the author has been merely to touch upon those matters connected with the origin and development of printing, which might be thought worthy of more than a passing remark, seeing that the Manchester Jubilee Exhibition has brought us face to face with the most antique and the most modern examples and processes of the art. To chronicle a few of these before Old Manchester and Salford, with its Caxtonian Printing Office, and the early memories which associate with it, are no more, has been the sole reason for the author’s penning this "SiittSi (Boaeip aBouf (prinfing;” — at any rate this must be his excuse.