had no sticks. The peculiar workmanship of the unknown printer and of Albert Pfister shows that the types were taken direct from the case and wedged in the mortised blocks of wood which served for chases. Blades attributes the uneven spacing and irregular endings of lines in the early printed books of Caxton and of other printers, to their ignorance of the advantages of a composing rule, without which types could not be readily moved to and fro, and adjusted.[1]
In the following illustration, the compositor has the copy before her in the shape of a book, but Conrad Zeltner, a learned printer of the seventeenth century, said that this was not the early usage; that it was customary to employ a reader to read aloud to the compositors, who set the types from dictation, not seeing the copy. He also says that the reader could dictate from as many different pages or copies to three or four compositors working together.[2] When the compositors were educated, the method of dictation may have been practised with some success; when they were ignorant, it was sure to produce many errors. Zeltner said that he preferred the old method, but he admits that it had to be abandoned, on account of the increasing ignorance of the compositors.
- ↑ Bernard says that sticks of wood were used by Christopher Plantin, "king of printers." It is characteristic of the taste of his time, that Plantin had sticks of wood, although he boasted that some of his types were cast in [matrices of] silver.
- ↑ Madden, in his first collection of Lettres d'un bibliographe,—the most curious piece of analytical criticism that has appeared in typographical literature—has demonstrated that the method of dictation was practised in the office at Weidenbach. In this series of letters he critically examines three books, printed at this office with the same types, and at the same time, and points out the peculiar errors of three different compositors, who, not seeing the copy, were misled by their misapprehension of the dictated words. He claims that these books were the practice work of three amateur compositors who were then learning the trade. Each compositor had copies of his own workmanship who, not seeing the copy, were misled by their misapprehension of the dictated words. He claims that these books were the practice work of three amateur compositors who were then learning the trade. Each compositor had copies of his own workmanship as a memento of his errors. Novel as they may seem, I am inclined to accept the conclusions of Madden. Many copies of early printed books, known to be of the same edition, or done at the same time, show variations in the typographical arrangement which cannot be explained by any other hypothesis than that of a double composition by compositors working from dictation.
