spicuity, there is no fair room for argument about the superior
mechanical construction of modern type. Types were never
made as well as they are made now. Drawing was never
so correct. Cutting was never so deep and clean, nor even
lining so true. The bodies of types were never before made
so solid, so uniform, so exact. The mechanical workman-
ship of a second-rate modern founder is far better than that
of Jenson or Van Dijck. It should be better. The old
founders were self-taught; they did not work with proper
scientific system ; their tools, compared with those now in
general use, were rude and inexact. The greatest fault of
modern type-founding the disagreement in the sizes of
different foundries, an evil which seems now impossible
of correction is an inherited fault. It comes from the in-
ability of the old founders to see the advantages of system.
The Roman That the Eoman letter is not free from fault, every one
letter practi-
cally unalter- will admit. There are letters that might be altered with
able.
advantage ; there are sounds that need new characters ; but
every attempt at the radical reformation of our letters has
failed and there have been many between the " real char-
1668. acter" of Bishop Wilkins and the phonotypes of Isaac Pit-
1837. man. The art of printing seems to have fixed the forms
beyond the possibility of reconstruction.
Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/114
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110
HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES.