GREAT PRIMER.—For this body, Mores claims an indisputable English origin. He considers it possible that it may date back to before the Reformation, and that it was the body on which were printed the large Primers of the early Church.[65] This derivation[66] would be more satisfactory were it found that these works, or the school primers of a later date, were, as a rule, printed in type of this size.[67] But this is not the case. _Primers_, _Pyes_, and _Breviaries_ occur printed in almost all the regular bodies. Great Primer was a favourite body with the old printers, and having been adopted by many of the first Bible printers, was sometimes called Bible Text. The French called it Gros Romain; and the “Great Romaine letter for the titles,” mentioned in Pynson’s indenture in 1519, may possibly refer to an already recognised type-body of this size. In Germany it was called Tertia, being the third of the regular bodies above the Mittel. In Holland, Italy, and Spain it was called Text. ENGLISH is also a body which undoubtedly belongs to us. Until the end of last century the name served not only to denote a body, but the face of the English Black-letter; and many of the old founts used in the law books and Acts of Parliament were English both in body and face. As in Germany, where it is called Mittel, English was the middle size of the seven regular bodies in use among us: the Great Primer, Double Pica, and two-line English (the Tertia, Secunda, and Prima of the Germans) being on the ascending side, and Pica, Long Primer, and Brevier on the descending. The French call it St. Augustin,[68] and the Spaniards Atanasia, apparently from its use in printing the works of these Christian Fathers. Although the middle body, its standard has been subject to much variation, particularly in France and Germany, where large and small English are two distinct bodies. {38}