Printers alſo applied, through much of the Century, ſome Rules of Style which the modern Reader may find odd if not awkward. For Example, they began all Nouns with a capital Letter, thus diſtinguiſhing them from other Parts of Speech ſuch as Adjectives, Verbs, &c. In the ſame Faſhion, they capitalized Expreſſions of particular Emphaſis, and Titles of Honor and Eminence. The Names of Perſons and Places they not only began with capital Letters but usually ſet in _Italic_ Type as well. With the exception of certain _Scottiſh_ faces, small Capitals were found in _Roman_ Fonts of Type only. They were employed to denote Emphaſis and Streſs, and were uſed where the large Capitals would not fit, i.e., were too long. Small Capitals were alſo found in the firſt Word of the firſt Paragraph after every Break in Context of a Chapter or Section of Text. Strange though ſome eighteenth-century Printing may appear to today’s Reader, there is one Point that ſhould be ſtreſſed. The Idioſyncracies of a Type Page of the Period were not merely Whims of individual Printers. They were the Faſhion of the Time. When a Printer uſed ſeveral Sizes and Styles of Type on a Page, he was practicing what he and his Contemporaries conſidered to be good Typography. The Printer in Eighteenth-Century _Williamsburg_ [Illustration: Decorative header.] _The Printer in Eighteenth-Century_ Williamsburg [Illustration: Decorative Capital.] If you had visited Williamsburg in the year 1743, say, and wanted to post a letter, buy a book, a newspaper, or some writing paper, or talk with an influential townsman, you would have sought out the shop of William Parks on Duke of Gloucester Street. Parks published the _Virginia Gazette_, the first newspaper in the Virginia colony, and his printing office served also as post office, bookshop, stationery store, and general information center. It was a place of many sounds and smells, and of much activity. There you would find ink-smudged printer’s devils carefully sorting type under the watchful eye of the journeyman printer, an accomplished craftsman and exacting instructor. There you would also find the bookbinder among his calfskins, marbled papers, glues, and presses. And on the shelves, waiting for buyers, were pamphlets and leatherbound volumes produced in the shop or imported from England. Perhaps, if you were lucky, you might see a postrider burst in with London papers, rushed from a ship just arrived from England. Then the printing shop was never livelier, for the coming of news from abroad was an exciting event. At such times, Printer Parks probably stopped what he was doing, culled the choicest items from the London journals, and made space for them on the front page of the next issue of the _Gazette_. In a day or so, “the freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestick,” would be on their way to Parks’s subscribers.