knots to play at leap-frog, or at whatever consists of a liberal allowance of good other game may happen to be what is neat's-foot oil and tallow. technically called 'in.' A fat, ruddyfaced boy wearing a paper-cap is seen vaulting over the back of a young tightmade devil, while 'a legion of foul fiends' appear gambolling in groups or jumping over each other's shoulders.*

As this scene of rest and enjoyment is to last for a whole hour, we perhaps cannot better employ a small portion of the interim than by a few reflections on the history of printing.

The labour attendant upon propagating

While this scene is passing in the mid-manuscript copies of volumes has been dle of the street, steady workmen who thus very feelingly described by William are going to their dinners are seen issu- Caxton :ing in a stream out of the great gate, while at the same moment, by a sort of back current, there is entering the yard a troop of little girls with provisions for those who prefer to dine at their posts. Most of these children are bearers of one

or more sixpenny portions of smoking hot meat with penny portions of potatoes or cabbage, in addition to which some of the little girls, with their longing eyes especially fixed on the dish, are carrying great twopenny lumps of apple-pudding, or of heavy pieces of a cylindrical composition commonly called 'rolly-polly pudding,' which very closely resembles slices of 'the doctor. Besides these eatables, a man is seen gliding hastily down the declivity of the yard, carrying in each hand a vertical tray glistening with bright pewter pint pots.

A remarkable silence now pervades the

compo

establishment. The halls of the
sitors appear to be empty; for while en-
joying their humble meal, sick of stand-
ing, they invariably seat themselves un-
derneath their frames, and thus, like rats
in their holes, they can scarcely be dis-
covered. The care-worn reader, in soli-
tude, is also at his meal; but whatever it
may consist of, it would be hard to say
which he enjoys most-food for the body
or rest for the mind. The great steam-
engine, which works the nineteen print-
ing presses, is also at its dinner, which

" Thus end I this book; and for as moche as in wrytyng of the same my penne is worn, myn hande wery, and myn eyne dimmed with over. moche lookyng on the whit paper, and that age crepeth on me dayly'

Accordingly fifty years were sometimes employed in producing a single volume. At the sale of Sir W. Burrell's books, May, 1796, there was displayed a MS. bible on vellum, beautifully written with a pen, and illuminated, which had taken upwards of half a century to perform; the writer, Guido de Jars, began it in his fortieth year (the period of life at which Sir Walter Scott began Waverly), and yet did not finish it till he was upwards of ninety.

The expense attendant upon the ancient operation will be sufficiently explained by the following extract of a translated epis

tle from Antonio Bononia Becatello to

Alphonzo, King of Naples :

You lately wrote to me from Florence that the works of Titus Livius are there to be sold in very handsome books, and that the price of each book is 120 crowns of gold: therefore I entreat your majesty that you cause to be bought for us Livy, whom we used to call the king of books, and cause it to be sent hither to us. I shall in the for the price of the book. One thing I want to mean time procure the money which I am to give know of your prudence, whether I or Poggius have done best: he, who, that he might buy a country-house near Florence, sold Livy, which he had writ in a very fair hand; or I, who, to purchase Livy, have exposed a piece of land to sale? Your goodness and modesty have encouraged me to ask these things with familiarity of you. Farewell, and triumph.'

of his friends who had sent to him from Gaguin, in writing from France to one Rome to procure a Concordance, says,—

Whenever a printer's devil, in the morning, at noon, or at night, is about to be let loose upon an author, the proofs' he is ordered to convey are se cured in a leathern bag, strapped round his waist. Some time ago, however, a young, thoughtless imp from Messrs. Clowes's establishment, chose to carry upon his head a heavy packet, addressed by his em ployer to Lieut. Stratford, R. N., Somerset House: You young rascal!' exclaimed a tall thief, who, after having read the inscription, cunningly ran up 'I have not to this day found a Concordance, to him, Lieut. Stratford has been waiting for the except one that is greatly esteemed, which Paslast two hours for this parcel! Give it to me!'chasius the bookseller has told me is to be sold, The devil, conscience-stricken and crest-fallen at and it may be had for a hundred crowns of gold the recollection that he had twice stopped on his (about 837.) road to play at marbles, delivered up his packet to the conveyancer; who, on opening it in his den, must have been grievously disappointed to find that it contained nothing but some proofs of The Nau. tical Almanac, for 1840.'

On the last leaf of a folio manuscript of the Roman de la Rose (the property of the late Mr. Ames), there is written,

C'est lyuir costa au palas de Parys quarante coronnes d'or, sans mentyr.'

Unable to read or write, the uncivilized orator of the present day has hardly any materials to build with but his own native About the time of Henry II. the works talent; he has received nothing from his of authors were, it has been said, read forefathers-he can bequeath or promul over for three days successively before gate little or nothing to posterity-whatone of the Universities, or before other ever, therefore, may be his eloquence, and judges appointed for the service, and if whatever may be his intelligence, he is althey met with approbation, copies of them most solely guided by what resembles were then permitted to be taken by monks, brute instinct rather than human reason, scribes, illuminators, and readers, brought which, by the art of writing, transmits exup or trained to that purpose for their perience to posterity. maintenance. But the labours of these Before the invention of printing almost monks, scribes, illuminators, &c., after the whole herd of mankind were in a state all, were only for the benefit of a very of moral degradation, nearly equal to that few individuals, while the great bulk of which we have thus described; for althe community lived in a state of igno- though various manuscripts existed, yet rance closely resembling that which has ever characterized, and which still characterizes savage tribes.

the expense and trouble of obtaining them were, as we have endeavoured to show, so great, that few could possess them in any The heaven-born eloquence of many of quantities, except sovereign princes, or these people has been acknowledged by persons of very great wealth. The intelalmost every traveller who has enjoyed lectual power of mankind was consequentthe opportunity of listening to it with a ly completely undisciplined-there was translator. no such thing as a combination of moral Nothing, it is said, can be more striking power-the experience of one age was not than the framework of their speech, which, woven into the fabric of another-in short, commencing with an appeal to 'the Great the intelligence of a nation was a rope of Spirit' that governs the universe, gradu- sand. Now, how wonderful is the conally descends to the very foundation of the trast between this picture of the dark age subject they are discussing. Nothing which preceded the invention of printing more beautiful than the imagery with and the busy establishment which only which they clothe their ideas, or more for a few moments we have just left! imposing than the intellectual coolness The distinction between the chrysalis with which they express them. From and the butterfly but feebly illustrates the sunrise till sunset they can address their alteration which has taken place, since by patient auditors; and, such is the confi- the art of printing science has been enadence these simple people possess in their bled to wing its rapid and unerring course innate powers of speech, that a celebrated to the remotest regions of the globe. Ev orator was, on a late occasion, heard to declare, That had he conceived the young men of his tribe would have so erred in their decision, he would have attended their council fire, and would have spoken to them for a fortnight!'

ery man's information is now received and deposited in a common hive, containing a cell or receptacle for everything that can be deemed worth preserving. The same facility attends the distribution of information which characterizes its colBut what has become of all the ora- lection. The power of a man's voice is tions which these denizens of the forest no longer the measured range to which he have pronounced? What moral effect can project his ideas; for even the very have they produced beyond a momentary opinion we have just uttered, the very senexcitement of admiration, participated tence we are now writing-faulty as they only by a small party of listeners, and may both be-printed by steam, and transwhich, had even millions attended, could ported by steam, will be no sooner pubonly, after all, have extended to the radi-lished than they will be wafted to every us of the speaker's voice. region of the habitable globe,-to India,

From our first discovery of their coun- to America, to China, to every country in try to the present day, their eloquence Europe, to every colony we possess, to has passed away like the loud moaning our friends, and to our foes, wherever noise which the wind makes in passing they may be. In short the hour has at through the vast wilderness they inhabit, last arrived at which the humblest individand which, however it may affect the tra- ual in our community is enabled to say to veller who chances to hear it, dies away those, whoever they may be, who are seen in the universe unrecorded. Ito wield authority wickedly,

'Si vous m'opprimez, si vos grandeurs dédaignent went through Germany, and GUTENBERG ! Les pleurs des innocens que vous faites couler, Mon vengeur est au ciel apprenez à trembler !' As railroads have produced traffic, so has printing produced learned men ; and 'to this art,' says Dr. Knox, we owe the Reformation.' The cause of religion has been most gloriously promoted by it; for it has placed the Bible in everybody's hands. Yet, notwithstanding the enormous mass of information it has imparted, it is, however, a most remarkable fact, that printing is one of those busybodies who can tell every man's history but his

own.

Although four centuries have not elapsed since the invention of the noble art, yet the origin of this transcendant light, veiled in darkness, is still a subject of dispute ! No certain record has been handed down fixing the precise time when -the person by whom-and the place whence this art derived its birth. The latent reason of this mystery is not very creditable to mankind; for printing having been as much the counterfeit as the substitute of writing, from sheer avarice it was kept so completely a secret, that we are told an artist, upon offering for sale a number of Bibles, which so miraculously resembled each other in every particular that they were deemed to surpass human skill, was accused of witchcraft, and tried in the year 1460.

GUTENBERG !! was toasted in many a bumper of Rhenish wine, amidst this cordial and enthusiastic people.' But while Gut! Guten! GUTENBERG ! are thus resounding through Germany, the web-footed inhabitants of the city of Harlaem, nothing daunted, still paddle through their streets, with their burgomasters at their head, holding annual festivals, and making public speeches, in commemoration of the grand discovery of the art by their beloved Coster,' to whom various monuments have been erected.

เ

But two o'clock has arrived, and we therefore most readily abandon the history of printing, to return with Mr. Clowes's people to his interesting establishment.

On entering the door of a new department, a number of workmen, in paper caps, and with their shirt sleeves tucked up, may be seen at a long table, immediately under the windows, as well as at another table in the middle of the room, intently occupied at some sort of minute niggling operation; but what wholly engrosses the first attention of the stranger is the extraordinary convulsive attitudes of ten men, who, at equal distances from each other, are standing with their right shoulders close to the dead wall opposite to the windows.

These men appear as if they were all possessed with St. Vitus' Dance, or as if Gutenberg, we all know, is said to have they were performing some Druidical or been the father of printing; Schoeffer, the Dervishical religious ceremony. Instead, father of letter-founding; Faust, or Fust, however, of being the servants of idolathe generous patron of the art; and by trous superstition, they are in fact its Hansard these three are termed 'the grand most destructive enemies; for grotesque typographical triumvirate.' On the other as may be their attitudes, they are busily hand, Hadrianus Junius, who wrote the fabricating grains of intellectual gunpowhistory of Holland in Latin, published in der to explode it-we mean they are 1578, claims the great art for Harlaem, type-casting. assigning to Laurentius Coster the palm of being the original inventor. Neither our limits nor our inclination allow us to take any part in the threadbare discussion of the subject. On the front of the house inhabited by Gutenberg, at Mentz, there is the following inscription :

JOHANNI GUTTEMBERGENSI,

Moguntino

This important operation is performed as follows:-In the centre of a three-inch cube of hard wood, which is split into two halves like the shell of a walnut, there is inserted the copper matrix or form of the letter to be cast. The two halves of the cube when put together are so mathematically adjusted that their separation can scarcely be detected, and accordingly down the line of junction. there is pierced, from the outer face of this wood, to the copper matrix, a small hole, into which the liquid metal is to be Besides this, a fine statue by Thorwals- cast, and from which it can easily be exden, erected in the city, was opened tricated by the opening or bisection of amidst a burst of enthusiasm. For three the cube. Besides this piece of wood, days,' says a late writer, 'the population the type-caster is provided with a little of Mayence was kept in a state of high furnace, and a small cauldron of liquid. excitement. The echo of the excitement metal, projecting about a foot from the

Qui Primus Omnium Literas Ere
Imprimendas Invenit,

Hac Arte De Orbe Toto Bene Merenti.'

wall, on his right. The wall is protected | A good rubber can finish about 2000 an by sheet-iron, which is seen shining and hour. glittering in all directions with the metal By a fourth process, the types are, by that in a liquid state has been tossed upon it to a great height.

men or boys, fixed into a sort of composing stick about a yard long, where they are made to lie in a row with their 'nicks' all uppermost: 3000 or 4000 per hour can be thus arranged.

On the floor, close at the feet of each 'caster,' there is a small heap of coals, while a string or two of onions hanging here and there against the wall, suffici In a fifth process, the bottom extremiently denote that those who, instead of ties of these types, which had been left leaving the building at one o'clock, dine rough by the second process, are, by the within it, are not totally unacquainted stroke of a plane, made smooth, and the with the culinary art. letter-ends being then turned uppermost, The ladles are of various denominations, the whole line is carefully examined by a according to the size of the type to be microscope; the faulty type, technically cast. There are some that contain as termed 'fat-faced,' 'lean-faced,' and 'botmuch as a quarter of a pound of metal, tle-bottomed,' are extracted; and the rest but for common-sized type the instrument are then extricated from the stick, and does not hold more than would one-half left in a heap. of the shell of a small hazle-nut. With the mould in the left hand, the founder with his right dips his little instrument into the liquid metal-instantly By the system we have just described, pours it into the hole of the cube, and then, in order to force it down to the matrix, he jerks up the mould higher than his head; as suddenly he lowers it, by a quick movement, opens the cube, shakes Type-founding has always been conout the type, closes the box, re-fills it, re-sidered to be a trade of itself, and there jerks it into the air, re-opens it-and, by is not in London, or we believe in the a repetition of these rapid manœuvres, each workman can create from 400 to 500 types an hour.

By the convulsive jerks which we have described the liquid is unavoidably tossed about in various directions; yet, strange to say, the type-founder, following the general fashion of the establishment, performs this scalding operation with naked arms, although in many places they may be observed to have been more or less burned.

The last operation is that of telling them down and papering them up,' to be ready for distribution when required.

Mr. Clowes possesses the power of supplying his compositors with a stream of new type, flowing upon them at the rate of 50,000 per day!

world, any other great printing establishment in which it is comprehended; but the advantages derived from this connection are very great, as types form the lifeblood of a printing-house, and, therefore, whatever facilitates their circulation adds to its health and promotes science.

Small, insignificant, and undecipherable as types appear to inexperienced eyes, yet, when we reflect upon the astonishing effects they produce, they forcibly remind us of that beautiful parable of the grain As soon as there is a sufficient heap of of mustard-seed, which indeed is the type cast, it is placed before an intelligent least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is little boy, (whose pale wan face sufficient- the greatest among herbs, and becometh a ly explains the effect that has been pro- tree, so that the birds of the air come and duced upon it by the antimony in the lodge in the branches thereof.' But, castmetal,) to be broken off to a uniform ing theory aside, we will endeavour to length; for, in order to assist in forcing the metal down to the matrix, it was necessary to increase the weight of the type by doubling its length. At this operation a quick boy can break off from 2000 to 3000 types an hour, although, be it ob- By possessing an ample store of this served, by handling new type a workman primum mobile of his art, a printer is has been known to lose his thumb and enabled, without waiting for the distribuforefinger from the effect of the antimony. tion or breaking up of the type of the va By a third process the types are rubbed rious publications he is printing, to supply on a flat stone, which takes off all rough- his compositors with the means of setness or 'bur' from their sides, as well as ting up' whatever requires immediate atadjusts their beards' and their shanks.' tention-literary productions, therefore,

6

demonstrate the advantages which not only the establishment before us, but the whole literary world, bonâ fide derives from a cheap, ready, and never-failing supply of type.

of every description are thus relieved ready to admit new information—to refrom unnecessary quarantine, the promul- ceive fresh facts-to so late a moment, gation of knowledge is hastened, the dis- that our eight or ten articles may be sent tance which separates the writer from the to the printer on a Monday with directions reader is reduced to its minimum. to be ready for publication on the Saturday.

But besides the facility which the possession of abundance of type gives both to the publisher and to the public, the printer's range, or in other words the radius, to the extent of which he is enabled to serve the world, is materially increased; for with an ample supply he can manage to keep type in 'forms' until his proofs from a distance can be returned corrected. In a very large printing establishment like that before us, this radius is very nearly the earth's diameter; for Messrs. Clowes are not only enabled, by the quantity of type they possess, to send proofs to the East and West Indies, but they are at this moment engaged in printing a work regularly published in England every month, the proof-sheets of which are sent by our steamers to be corrected by the author in America!

Again, in the case of books that are likely to run into subsequent editions, a printer who has plenty of type to spare can afford to keep the forms standing until the work has been tested; and then, if other editions are required, they can, on the whole, be printed infinitely cheaper than if the expense of composition were in each separate edition to be repeatedthe publisher, the printer, and the public, all, therefore, are gainers by this arrange

ment.

But notwithstanding all the examples we have given of the present increased expenditure of type, our readers will probably be surprised when they are informed of the actual quantity which is required.

The number of sheets now standing in type in Messrs. Clowes's establishment, each weighing on an average about 100lbs., are above 1600. The weight of type not in forms amounts to about 100 tons!-the weight of the stereotype plates in their possession to about 2000 tons: the cost to the proprietors (without including the original composition of the types from which they were cast) about 200,0007. The number of wood-cuts is about 50,000, of which stereotype-casts are taken and sent to Germany, France, &c.

Having mentioned the amount of stereotype-plates in the establishment, it is pro per that we should now visit the foundry in which they are cast. The principal piece of furniture in this small chamber is an oven, in appearance such as is commonly used by families for baking bread. In front of it there stands a sort of dres ser; and close to the wall on the right, and adjoining the entrance door, a small table. The forms' or pages of types, after they have been used by the printer, and before the stereotype impression can In bye-ways as well as in high-ways, be taken from them, require to be cleaned, literary labourers of the humblest des- in order to remove from them the particles cription are assisted by a printing estab- of ink with which they have been clogged lishment possessing abundance of type. in the process of printing. As soon as For instance, in its juvenile days, the this operation is effected, the types are 'Quarterly Review' (which, by the way, carefully oiled, to prevent the cement is now thirty years old) was no sooner sticking to them, and when they have been published than it was necessary that the thus prepared, they are placed at the botfirst article of the following number should tom of a small wooden frame, where they go to press, in order that the printer lie in appearance like a schoolboy's slate. might be enabled, article by article, to In about a quarter of an hour the plastercomplete the whole in three months. Of of-Paris, which is first dabbed on with a the inconvenience to the editor attendant cloth and then poured upon them, becomes upon this never-ending-still-beginning' hard, and the mixture, which somewhat system, we deem it proper to say nothing: resembles a common Yorkshire pudding, our readers, however, will at once see the is then put into the oven, where it is baked scorbutic inconvenience which they them- for an hour and a half. It is then put into selves must have suffered by having been a small iron coffin with holes in each cor supplied by us with provisions, a consider-ner, and buried in a cauldron of liquid able portion of which had unavoidably metal, heated by a small furnace close to been salted down for nearly three months. the oven-the little vessel containing the Now, under the present system, the con-type gradually sinks from view, until the tents of the whole number lie open to silvery glistening wave rolling over it enfresh air, correction, and conviction-are tirely conceals it from the eye. It remains