Geoffroy Tory composed a curious book, as poetic as learned, in which he studied at once the form of the letter from the typographic and the emblematic point of view, and also the French orthography of the time. He tells us himself that he was brought to commence this book on the fête-day of the kings, 1523, when, after a frugal repast, he was, he says, "dreaming on my bed and revolving my memory, thinking of a thousand little fancies, serious and mirthful, among which I thought of some antique letters that I had made for Monseigneur the treasurer for war, Master Jehan Grolier, councillor and secretary of our lord the King, amateur of fine letters and of all learned personages." Tory called his book _Champfleury, auquel est contenu l'art et science de la deue proportion des lettres ... selon le corps et le visage humain_, and he published it himself in small folio, putting upon it the sign of Gilles de Gourmont, in 1529. At heart Tory had been fascinated by the theories of Dürer on the proportions of the human body; and he says, "The noble German painter Albert Dürer is greatly to be praised that he has so well brought to light his art of painting in designing geometrical forms, the ramparts of war, and the proportions of the human body." He wished to indicate the true measure of letters to his contemporaries, "the number of points and turns of the compass that each one requires." The most amusing part of this curious treatise is his short academical preface, where, under a playful form, the great publisher studies the orthography of his time, and exclaims against the forgers of new words, the Latinisers of the language, "the skimmers of Latin, jesters and gibberers, ... who mock not only their shadows, but themselves." The entire passage was copied by Rabelais, nearly literally, and it indicates that its author was possessed of good sense, which, unhappily, all his contemporaries were not. For the technical part, he added to his theories a number of designs of geometrical letters, but he was carried away, after the fashion of the time, by Greek and Roman models, perhaps a little further than he meant, losing himself in the midst of idle dissertations. To these geometrical engravings he added small and charming figures, said to be by Jean Perréal, as well as emblematical letters of the nature of the Y which is here given, with explanatory text and commentary. To him this Y had two branches: one of virtue and one of vice; that of virtue shows palms, crowns, a sceptre, and a book; that of vice birches, a gallows, and fire. [Illustration: Fig. 51.--Emblematical letter Y, taken from the _Champfleury_ of Geoffroy Tory.]