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Rosengarten.]

[Jan. 4,

The Paris Book Exhibition of 1894.

By J. G. Rosengarten.

(Read before the American Philosophical Society, January 4, 1895.)

The November-December number of the Paris Bulletin du Bibliophile contains exhaustive notices of the "Exposition du Livre," opened at the Palais de l'Industrie, in Paris, during the summer of 1894. To those who had the good fortune to see this wealth of illustrations of the whole history of books in France, these notices are most useful, for there was no catalogue to guide the visitor through the vast space filled with the treasures of the collectors of Paris. To those who knew of the exhibition only from brief newspaper notices, it may be of interest to learn something of its extent and importance.

It had special significance in its fine examples of typography, illustration and bookbinding, but besides these, it had original drawings and engravings, and an almost endless variety of rarities-a whole histcry of the making of paper and its uses, a complete series of assignats, and great numbers of old specimens of mercantile paper, bills, drafts, shares of stock, stamped papers from the time of Louis XIV to our own, playing cards of every country-a whole series from China for instance -fans, invitations to dinners, fêtes and other entertainments, public and private, notices of service in the National Guard, visiting cards, not the commonplace pasteboard of to-day, but rich in vignettes and other ornamental illustration. There was a wealth of theatrical and other posters, in which the French led the way for an artistic development that has since spread all around the world. Autograph letters and documents, dating back for the last three centuries, were displayed in great profusion, under the title of "graphology." A whole series of papers showing the papermakers' marks, for a long series of years, was quite an important contribution.

The newspaper collection was very large, from the Gazette de France, founded in 1631, through the whole history of French periodicals. A number of L'Ami du Peuple, much discolored, is said to be the very copy in the hand of Marat, and stained with his blood when he was stabbed in his bath by Charlotte Corday. There were all the illustrated journals and newspapers so characteristic of French taste.

There was a large collection of ornamental letters and other typographical ornaments of the printers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, their catalogues, the decrees of Parliament ordering the destruction of condemned books and the punishment of the book peddlers who offered them for sale. There were whole series of printed books and very striking examples of book binding, engraving, typography, from the very outset to our own day, the bad and indifferent as characteristic as the good and the best. There was a fragment of the Biblia Pauperum,

1895.]

[Rosengarten.

xylographic work preceding the discovery of movable types. There were beautiful incunabula, works printed before 1500, and fine examples of printing of the sixteenth century, when all the problems of typography were already solved, black, brilliant, unalterable ink, paper often uneven but strong enough to resist use and wear all these years, type perfectly clear and extremely beautiful, illustrations of great artists, refined in execution, in exquisite taste; wood engravings in harmony with the text, yet all these were done with imperfect mechanical appliances, but much better done than the work of our own day with all the help of machinery carried to the highest perfection.

Then came the Elzevirs with their attractive books, and a whole series of printers of irreproachable correctness, charming simplicity and a noble air worthy of the books they issued from their presses. Publishers and printers alike were then men of knowledge, masters of the classical languages, writing Latin and reading Greek. Later on, as books increased in numbers, they lost in their typographical value; a few printers fought for the old standards of excellence, but they were driven from the field, and even when the art of illustration was at its best, the printing and paper were at their worst.

The nineteenth century has seen a still greater divorce between the good and the bad. Many books well printed and illustrated are made of wretched paper. That used in the incunabula has stood four centuries of hard usage without harm. That used in some of the books printed in this century of ours has not lasted for forty years. Typography was an art in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; to-day it is an art with and for the few, an industry with and for the many. It is carried on in vast establishments that have little in common with the old printing office, so admirably preserved in the Plantin Museum of Antwerp, and so well reproduced in Flameng's picture of Grolier's visit to the Aldine printing office in Venice, some cases full of type, some forms ready, a press on the model of the old wine presses, from which the name was derived. Nowadays there would be a great manufacturing establishment with machinery driven by steam or electricity, where printing is done with the best mechanical appliances.

At the Exposition there was a whole series of such machinery in use to-day. It is only to be regretted that there was not a retrospective exhibition, from the old hand press, the first steam press, that of the Times of 1814, when the announcement was proudly made that that paper was printed by steam-very primitive it was, too-printed on one side at a time. By 1834 there were 160 steam presses in use in France. By 1817 there was in use in Paris a steam press with four cylinders printing both sides at once, for the first time. In 1866, rotary presses were introduced, and in 1873 an endless printing press was first used in Paris. In 1878, there was exhibited a press printing 40,000 copies an hour, and cutting, counting, folding, all done by machinery. Since then printing in colors, photogravure, photolithography, and many other applications of the

letter. In 1487, Hahn, a rival German printer, began printing in another Roman letter, which also showed a preference for the Gothic form. The first really good form of Roman, adopted everywhere to the suppression of all others, was made by Jenson of Venice, and shown in his Eusebius of 1470. Accepted by the educated, it was, however, rejected by the common people, who were just beginning to buy books, and Jenson had to print popular books in Gothic characters, and the most beautiful contemporary books of Paris, the Netherlands and England were in pointed type. The first book printed in England in Roman type was Henry VIII's treatise, which secured for him the title of Defender of the Faith, so printed by Pynson possibly in deference to Italian taste and in compliment to the Pope. Aldus Manutius added a new style, the Italic, based on a written style then popular with copyists. The Italic, first shown in the 1501 Virgil, differed from modern Italic in several respects, notably in the fact that the capitals are upright and stand apart from the text. The Lyons founders, moved by the popularity of Italic, soon after produced the Cursiv François or Civilité, an unreadable letter. The disuse of black letter in France was largely due to Tory of Paris, and his Champ Fleuri of 1526. Caxton's type was distinctly Flemish, that of his successors resembled the black letters of the printers of the day of Paris and Rouen. Black letter maintained its popularity in England and the Netherlands, after it had fallen into disuse in France. English printers had no type foundry until John Day established his, 1546-84, and had to accept Dutch type with their mannerisms, English readers showed a marked preference for black letter, and it was used in some of the most popular books, such as the first edition (1525) of Tyndall's New Testament, Coverdale's Bible (1535), Cranmer's Great Bible (1540), and the authorized Prayer Books. In the reign of Roman Catholic Mary, Roman was the proper text for books of devotion, but under Protestant Elizabeth, Prayer Books in black letter had the preference. Fox's Acts and Monuments (1560) was in black letter. Soon after the printers evinced a partiality for Roman for English classics. The writings of Shakespeare and Bacon appeared in Roman. Black letter was out of fashion at the close of the sixteenth century."-Chambers' Encyc., s. v. "Types."

"The earliest known representation of a printing press is dated 1507, and it pictures an apparatus which is little more than a modification of the ancient wine press-hence the name."-do., s. v. "Printing," p. 410.

Under the head of " Black Letter," Chambers' Encyc. says: "The first types were copies of the letters in use in the middle of the fifteenth century. Two sorts of letters were in use-Roman from the fifth to the close of the twelfth century, when they gradually began to pass into what has been called Gothic, which continued till the sixteenth century, when, in most European countries, they were superseded by Roman letters. The classic taste of Italy could not long tolerate Gothic, and it was modified until it assumed the shape to which the name of Roman has since been

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CHRISTOPHORUS SCHISSLER, GEOMETRICUS AC ASTRONOMICUS ARTIFEX,
AUGUSTA, VINDELICORUM, FACIEBAT, 1578.

NOW IN THE CABINET OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

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