the engravings are the same, and the types, ink, paper, and workmanship have similar defects and peculiarities. The first edition shows pages of types only; the next edition has types and blocks, but the types are like those of the first; then comes a third edition in the same types, but with two pages of types differing somewhat as to body and face; lastly an edition entirely in the old types, in a worn condition. Each edition has more or less connection with the others.[1]
English.
Two-line
Brevier.
The body or dimension of the types used in the Speculum approximates the size known to all British and American printers as English; but it is rather larger than any of the modern standards. It is really intermediate between the body English and the little used body of Two-line brevier or Columbian.[2]
The appearance of twenty engraved pages in the second edition of the Speculum cannot be explained with satisfaction. Bernard thinks that these pages are the relics of an earlier edition engraved, or at least attempted, on wood, which, for some unknown reason, were temporarily substituted for types.
- ↑ The Latin and Dutch editions of the Speculum maintain such a remarkable conformity with each other in the engravings, in the types, in the quality of the paper, in the presswork, and in every typographic feature, that it is evident that the four editions were published in the same country and by the same printer. As all bibliographers, whatever theory they may have concerning the origin of printing, attribute, without hesitation, the Dutch edition of the Speculum to Holland, the Latin editions should also be attributed to Holland. Guichard, Notice sur le Speculum, pp. 118 and 119. This is the opinion of all bibliographers except Heineken.
- ↑ The fac-simile given by Holtrop in his Monuments typographiques presents the following measurements, in American inches: In the Latin edition, described in this book as the first, 25 lines measure 5½ inches. In the Dutch edition, here described as the third, 27 lines measure 5½ inches. In the Dutch edition, here described as the fourth, 26 lines measure 5½ inches. As we find no indication of the use of leads or thin blanks to increase the distance between lines, it would seem that the types of the three editions were cast in different moulds. Sotheby's fac-similes, which seem to have been made with equal care, do not exactly agree with those taken from Holtrop's book. There are, no doubt, differences of size, not only in the fac-similes, but in the original copies of the book. Allowance must be also made for the unequal shrinkage on different leaves of the very thick paper, which may have been unequally dampened, and unequally extended before printing.
