A History of the Old English Letter Foundries: with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography.Reed, Talbot Baines
History
A History of the Old English Letter Foundries: with Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography.
Reed, Talbot Baines
Printing -- England -- History; Type and type-founding -- England -- History
OCCIDENTALS.―
_Greek_: Great Primer and Small Pica.
_Roman and Italic_: Two-line English, Double Pica [Day’s],[322] Great
Primer, English, Pica, Long Primer, Brevier, five-line Pica,
two-line Great Primer, Small Pica.
SEPTENTRIONAL.―
_English_ (Black): Pica.
* Of the founts marked thus (*) in the present and following
summarised lists of the contents of the English foundries, the
matrices or punches, and in some cases both matrices and punches,
still exist.
{174}
[Illustration: FOUNTS OF THE LONDON POLYGLOT, 1657.
40. ETHIOPIC. From the original matrices.
41. SYRIAC. From the original matrices.
42. SAMARITAN. From the original matrices.]
The matrices of three of these founts, the Samaritan, the Ethiopic, and
the Syriac, have survived to the present day, and in the course of this
work we shall have occasion to trace their descent from the original
makers to the present owners. Meanwhile, it is with great satisfaction
that we are able here to show a specimen of types actually cast from
these venerable relics as they now exist.[323] Of the Arabic fount,
some of the punches and matrices also exist, but in too incomplete and
dilapidated a state to allow of their being used.
Of the Orientals, the Hebrew is, perhaps, the least good. The Syriac
and Arabic are fine bold characters. The Greek is neat, though somewhat
insignificant. The Ethiopic[324] and Samaritan[325] are both good and
elegant faces. The Italic is particularly neat. As might be expected
from founts procured from various foundries in that day, there is
a certain absence of uniformity in the {175} bodies on which the
different founts are cast. This only makes the more remarkable the
accuracy and precision with which the columns are arranged. In most
copies the columns are divided by red lines, ruled by hand—in itself an
enormous task.
Nine languages are used in the _Polyglot_, but no single book is
printed in so many. The following is the arrangement of texts according
to volumes:
VOL. 1.—_Prolegomena._
_Pentateuch._ Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic and
Samaritan.
VOL. 2.—_Joshua to Esther._ Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac and
Arabic.
VOL. 3.—_Job to Malachi._ Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac,
Arabic, and _Psalms_ also in Ethiopic.
VOL. 4.—_Apocrypha._ Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic (some of
the books, however, have not the Arabic. _Tobit_ is in a
two-fold Hebrew). An appendix to this volume contains two
Chaldee Targums and a Persic _Pentateuch_.
VOL. 5.—_New Testament_, _Gospels_ in Greek, Latin, Syriac,
Arabic, Ethiopic and Persian; other books, Greek, Latin,
Syriac, Arabic and Ethiopic.
VOL. 6.—_Various readings._
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