68.—Portrait of Alexander Wilson. From Hansard _face_ 258 69.—Greek, cut by Alex. Wilson, _ante_ 1768. From the Glasgow _Homer_, 1768 262 70.—Portrait of John Baskerville. From Hansard _face_ 268 71.—Greek, cut by Baskerville for Oxford. From the Oxford _Specimen_, 1768–70 _face_ 274 72.—Roman and Italic, cut by Baskerville, 1758. From the _Milton_, Birmingham, 1758 _face_ 276 73.—Engrossing, cut by Cottrell, _circ._ 1768. From the original matrices 289 73a.—Silhouette Portraits of Joseph and Edmund Fry. From the originals _face_ 298 74.—Alexandrian Greek (formerly Grover’s), rejustified by Dr. Fry. From the original matrices 304 74a.—Hebrew, cut by Dr. Fry, _circ._ 1785. From the original matrices 304 75.—Portrait of Joseph Jackson. From Nichols’ _Literary Anecdotes_ _face_ 316 76.—Portrait of William Caslon III. From Hansard _face_ 326 77.—Two-line English Roman, cut by Vincent Figgins, 1792. From the original matrices 337 78.—Samaritan, cut by Dummers for Caslon, _circ._ 1734. From the original matrices 345 [Illustration] {1} [Illustration] INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER THE TYPES AND TYPEFOUNDING OF THE FIRST PRINTERS. For four centuries the noise of controversy has raged round the cradle of Typography. Volumes have been written, lives have been spent, fortunes have been wasted, communities have been stirred, societies have been organised, a literature has been developed, to find an answer to the famous triple question: “When, where, and by whom was found out the unspeakably useful art of printing books?” And yet the world to-day is little nearer a finite answer to the question than it was when Ulric Zel indited his memorable narrative to the _Cologne Chronicle_ in 1499. Indeed, the dust of battle has added to, rather than diminished, the mysterious clouds which envelope the problem, and we are tempted to seek refuge in an agnosticism which almost refuses to believe that printing ever had an inventor.