The same adaptation is observable in the use of the colophon by the early printers in the place of a title-page, when, as was not always the case, they thought fit to give a title at all. To us this seems almost incomprehensible. The immense advantage of a book bearing a title on its front and manifesting its nature from the first is so apparent that our practical age cannot comprehend how it could have been less obvious to our predecessors than to ourselves. It further seems in accordance with common sense and general usage in all similar matters that proclamation should be made at the beginning and not at the end, at the entrance and not at the exit, as the dedication of the temple is inscribed above the portico. The neglect of this apparently self-evident rule is perhaps to be explained by the influence of the “traditions of the scribes,” which affected early printing in many ways. We have alluded to the manner in which types were modelled upon the style of handwriting in use in the respective countries, the beautifully clear Italian type contrasting so markedly with the massive and imposing ruggedness of the Gothic. We also see how the tradition of illumination long induced printers to leave blank spaces for capital letters, especially at the beginnings of chapters, to be filled in by the artist, and to employ the services of a “rubricator” to preserve at least some phantom of the wealth of color which the printing art was destroying as effectually as in our day the photograph has killed the woodcut. The elegant border, also, was a legacy from the manuscript to the printed book, and this, fortunately lending itself to engraving, admitted of preservation. The service rendered by printing to engraving, it may be parenthetically remarked, is a great set-off against the injury it inflicted upon art in the shape of pictorial illustration. All these circumstances indicate the strong influence of the scribe upon the printer; and it is perhaps not surprising that the latter should for some time have followed the example of his predecessor, and given no title except occasionally the brief heading which frequently precedes the first chapter of a manuscript. This was never set out on a distinct leaf, an indispensable condition of a title-page, until many years after printing had effectually dethroned transcription as the method of the reproduction of books. The first title-page did not appear until some twenty years after the invention of printing. Title-pages became the rule about 1490, but it was not until 1493 that the announcement of the printer or publisher, hitherto buried in the colophon, began to appear upon them.