a necessity of writing a book to teach the manner of reading them. Their periods were distinguished by no other points than the double or single one-that is, the colon and full point; but they a little after introduced an oblique stroke, thus, which answered the purpose of our comma. They used no capital letter to begin a sentence, or for proper names of men or places. They left blanks for the places of titles, initial letters, and other ornaments, in order to have them supplied by the illuminators, whose ingenious art, though in vogue before, and at that time, did not long survive the masterly improvements made by the printers in this branch of their art. Those ornaments were exquisitely fine, and curiously variegated with the most beautiful colours, and even with gold and silver; the margins, likewise, were frequently charged with a variety of figures of saints, birds, beasts, monsters, flowers, &c., which had sometimes relation to the contents of the page, though often none at all. These embellishments were very costly; but for those that could not afford a great price, there were more inferior ornaments, which could be done at a much easier rate. The name of the printer, place of his residence, &c. &c. were either wholly neglected, or put at the end of the book, not without some pious ejaculation or doxology. The date was likewise omitted, or involved in some crampt circumstantial period, or else printed either at full length, or by numerical letters, and sometimes partly one and partly the other-thus, one thousand CCCC and Ixxiiii, &c.; but all of them at the end of the book. There was no variety of characters, no intermixture of Roman and Italic; they are of later invention; but their pages were continued in a Gothic letter of the same size throughout. They printed but few copies at once, for 200 or 300 were then esteemed a large impression; though, upon the encouragement received from the learned, they increased their numbers in proportion." About 1469-70, alphabetical tables of the first words of each chapter were introduced, as a guide to the binder. Catch-words (now generally abolished) were first used at Venice, by Vindeline de Spire. Early printed books had no signatures. Signatures are those letters of the alphabet which are put at the bottom of the right hand pages of sheets to distinguish their order. When the alphabet is finished, a second begins A a, or 2 A, instead of a single A; and when that is terminated, A a a, or 3 A, begin the third, and so on. In order to indicate more correctly the order of each theet, printers add figures to the initial letter on the third, fifth, and seventh pages; the numbers of these figures, which do not pass the middle of the sheet, point out the size of the edition. Thus, A 2 on the third page, A 3 on the fifth, and A 4 on the seventh, show a work to be in 8vo; in the 12mo size, A 5 on the ninth page, and A 6 on the eleventh page, &c.; but it is now customary to give signatures only on the first and third pages of 8vo, and on the first, third, and fifth pages of 12mo. In some modern French works, figures are substituted for letters, and the other leaves are marked by asterisks. The invention of signatures is ascribed by M. Marolles to John of Cologne, who printed at Venice in 1474; the Abbé Rive attributes it to John Koelhof, a printer at Cologne, and a contemporary with the former, from whom we have a work dated in 1472. It is, however, of little consequence who was the originator, for, on the whole, signatures are rather a clumsy expedient, merely to direct the binder in folding the sheet, and are generally much too conspicuous upon the pages. One of the chief improvements in the style of typography has been the dismissal of abbreviations and conneeted letters from the founts. Formerly, abbreviations were very common: the word the was indicated by the letter y and a small e above it; the conjunction and was indicated by &, which is a contraction of et. There were many of this species of abbreviations in printing both the English and Latin languages, and these were ust more unseemly than the connected letters; such, for instance, as the junction of the letters c and t by a curve stroke from the top of one to the other. In recent times, all these connected letters have been disused, with the exception of fl and A, because the head of the common ƒ would press against the 1, and be broke. Another very great improvement has been effected in the dismissal of the long s, in the case of two of this letter coming together. STEREOTYPING. We may now offer a brief explanation of the process of stereotyping, which has been of immense service to literature. Stereotyping is the manufacturing of fictitious pages of types, and the invention is generally attributed to a Mr William Ged, of Edinburgh, about the year 1725. When the art was properly made known, it was hailed with acclamation by the printing and publishing world; but as experience developed its powers, it was found to be strictly applicable only to a particular kind of work. When a page is intended to be stereotyped, the same process of putting up the types is gone through that we have already described; instead, however, of being carried to the press, the page is plastered over with liquid stucco to the thickness of about half an inch, so that a level cake is formed on the surface of the types. As soon as the stucco hardens, which it does almost immediately, the cake is separated from the types, and, on being turned up, shows a complete hollow or mould-like representation of the faces of the types, and everything else in the page. There being no longer any use for the types, they are carried off and distributed. As for the cake, it is put into an oven, and baked to a certain degree of heat and hardness, like a piece of pottery. It is next laid in a square iron pan, having a lid of the same metal, with holes at the corners. At the bottom of the pan there is a moveable plate, called the floating plate; and upon this plate, which has a smooth accurate surface, the mould is placed with its face downwards. The lid being now placed and held tightly on by a screw, the pan, by the assistance of a crane and other mechanism, is immersed in a pot of molten lead, and being allowed to fill by means of the holes, it is at length taken out and put aside to cool. On opening the pan, a curious appearance is presented. The lead has run into the mould side of the cake, and formed a thin plate all over, exhibiting the perfect appearance of the faces of the types on which the stucco was plastered. Thus is procured a plate, or fictitious page of types, not thicker than the sixth of an inch. When the plate comes out of the pan, it is in a somewhat rude state, and has to be carefully pruned at the edges, its little specks picked clean, and, if necessary, one or more bad letters cut out, and replaced by soldering in the heads of moveable types. The plate is also planed upon the back by means of an ingenious rotatory cutting machine upon which it is fixed. The stereotype plates, so prepared, are next taken to the printing-office, and made ready for press. This is done by placing them upon iron or wooden blocks, so that both plate and block make up the exact height of a page of real types. They are fixed to the blocks by the aid of small metal catches at the sides, head, and foot, which catches are held fast by slips of furniture properly wedged. Notwithstanding the great care taken in making the plates level and of an uniform thickness, it is seldom that they are perfect; and to make them as accurate as possible for a fair impression, scraps of thin pasteboard or paper are placed betwixt them and the blocks at the thinnest parts. When the impression is completed, the plates are unfixed, packed up, and laid aside for future use. Now for the specific utility of stereotyping. In all cases of common book-work, it is best to print from types to the amount of the copies required, and then distribute the types; but in most cases of books published in parts, sheets, or numbers, stereotyping becomes absolutely necessary. It is easy to perceive the reason for this. When books are published in numbers, it often happens that many more copies are sold of one | the sides so as to render it immoveable from its pasi number than of another; and unless the types be kept up to complete sets in the hands of the publisher, or to print copies according to the increased demand, a serious loss is sustained. The manufacture of stereotype plates is, therefore, simply a means of keeping up fictitious types to answer future demands, at an expense greatly inferior to that of keeping the actual pages standing, or of putting the types up anew. In the case of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, a new feature of utility was for the first time developed in the stereotyping art. It was desired to have a separate impression of that work in London, and stereotyping furnished the means. The types, being first set up and imposed, are sent to the foundry, where two sets of stereotype plates are cast from them, one to be retained for use in Edinburgh, and the other to be sent to London, and there subjected to a separate press. The expense of setting up the types anew in London, and the danger of errors being incurred from the want of editorial supervision, are thus avoided. Had not the stereotyping process been available, the arrangement for a separate impression of the Journal might not have been entered upon, and the progress of the work in circulation consequently obstructed to an indefinite extent. Advantage was afterwards taken of the art to the same purpose by the proprietors of other cheap periodicals, particularly the Penny Magazine, of the cuts of which, we believe upwards of a dozen sets of stereotype copies are sent to be printed in different parts of the world. PROCESS OF PRINTING. The duties of the compositor do not involve the process of printing. When the forms are duly prepared in the composing-room, they are carried into the pressroom, where they come under the charge of the press men. The earliest printing-presses were exceedingly rude, and seem to have resembled the common screw press, with a contrivance for running the form under the point of pressure. This must have been not only a laborious and slow operation, but ore exceedingly defective, from the difficulty of regulating the impression, and the risk of injuring the faces of the types. The defects in these original presses were at length remedied by an ingenious Dutch mechanic, Willem Jansen Blaew, who carried on the business of a mathematical instrument maker at Amsterdam. He contrived a press, in which the carriage holding the form was wound below the point of pressure, which was given by moving a handle attached to a screw hanging in a beam having a spring, which spring caused the screw to fly back as soon as the impression was given. This species of press, which was almost entirely formed of wood, continued in general use in every country in Europe till the beginning of the present century. With certain lever powers attached to the screw and handle, it is here represented. In connection with this representation of the old common press, the process of printing may be described. form, being laid on the sole of the press, is fixed at tion. There are two men employed; one puts ink en To suit paper for printing, it is necessary to wet # some hours previous to its being used. This is done by dipping alternate quires in water, and afterwards preeing the mass with a heavy weight, till the whole is in a half dry or damp state. After the sheets are printed, they are hang upa poles in the printing-office to be dried. On beag dried, they are individually placed between fine glazed boards, and in this condition subjected in a mist the pressure of a powerful press. On removal, the indentations of the types are found to be levelled, and the whole sheet to be smooth and ready for the oper tions of the bookbinder. Latterly, a great improve ment has been effected in the smoothing process, by employing the hydraulic or water press, which gives an enormous pressure with little aid from manual labour. INK AND INKING-ROLLERS. Much of the beauty of good printing depends on the quality of the ink, which it requires considerable skill to manufacture. The ink used by the earliest printers was of such excellent quality, that in many resta it remains intensely black to this day; but a lang perod afterwards elapsed, during which very bad ink wa employed. Within the present century, great improve ments have taken place in the composition of pesting ink, which is now produced of a good quality in London by several manufacturers; it is, however, still inferat to the finer kinds of ink used in Paris, the French hay ing evidently surpassed the English in producing a pure and intensely black ink which will preserve its colour. Printing ink is composed of genuine linseed oil, boiled to the consistency of a syrup, and then well mixed and ground with lamp-black. The qualities desired in the composition, are depth and durability of colour, and that it should be stiff without strong adhesion, and keep soft and mellow, but dry quickly after being put upon the paper. It is made of different qualities, from 1s. 6d. to 58. and upwards, per pound weight. One of the greatest of recent improvements in the art of printing is in the mode of inking the forms. From the days of Guttenberg, this had been done by stuffed cushions, or balls covered with skins, by which no regularity could be preserved, and no speed acquired. Earl Stanhope, when he invented his improvement on the press, attempted the plan of inking by means of rollers, but he could not discover any species of skin suitable for the purpose; all that this nobleman so anxiously desired, was at length accomplished, in consequence of a chance observation of a process in the Staffordshire potteries, where rollers formed of a composition were used. A Mr Forster, employed at a bookseller's printing-office at Weybridge, was the first who applied it to letter-press printing, by spreading it, in a melted state, upon coarse canvass; the inventors of printing machines soon caught the idea, and, by running the composition as a coat upon wooden cylinders, produced the perfect inking-rollers. The composition is formed of treacle and glue, which, being heated and melted together, are poured into long iron moulds, in which the central rod has previously been inserted. The process resembles that by which moulded candles are made, the central rod being nearly in the same predicament in the one case as the wick in the other. When taken out of the mould, the roller is a cylinder of soft and elastic matter, resembling India rubber. If required for the hand-press, it is connected with a handle after the manner of a garden roller. The ink being placed, in moderate quantity, at the back of a smooth metal table, the workman, grasping the handle, draws the roller backwards and forwards along the table, distributing a little ink equably all over its surface; and having thus diffused some ink all over the roller, he applies the same to the types, drawing it backwards and forwards over them, to make sure that all have been inked. By this plan the types are inked more equably than by the balls, and in less than half the time. Within these few years, a plan has been devised for moving the rollers over the forms by an apparatus attached to the press. Self-inking presses are now coming into use. IMPROVED PRINTING-PRESSES. As already mentioned, the original printing-press, as slightly improved by Blaew, remained in general use throughout Europe till the beginning of the present century. Its defects were of such a nature, that it seems wonderful that no effort was made, during so long a time, to remedy them. The surface communicating the impression, or platten, was generally only the size of half a sheet, and so after one portion of a form was pressed, the carriage had to be still farther wound in, and the remaining portion pressed. The consequence was, that besides losing time, the impressions upon a single sheet were not always uniform, one part being perhaps harder pressed than the other. At length, near the close of the eighteenth century, the celebrated Charles Earl of Stanhope applied his ingenious though eccentric mind to the improvement of the printing-press. His lordship's improvements did not go the length of altering the general form or construction of the press. He left the same plan to be pursued of winding the carriage below the platten by a handle and rounce, and of pulling the impression by the application of the right hand to the seat of power. What he accomplished was the constructing of the press with iron instead of wood, and that of a size sufficient to print the | whole surface of a sheet, and of applying such a combined action of levers to the screw as to make the pull a great deal less laborious to the pressman; the mechanism altogether being such as to permit much more rapid and efficient working. The Stanhope press, which is here represented, consists of a massive frame of iron, cast in one piece. This is the body of the press, in the upper part of which a nut is fixed for the reception of the great screw, and its point operates upon the upper end of a slider fitted into a dovetail groove formed between the two vertical bars of the frame. The slider has the platten firmly attached to the lower end of it; and, being accurately fitted between the side guides, the platten must rise and fall parallel to itself when the screw is turned. The weight of the platten and slider is counterbalanced by a heavy weight behind the press, suspended by a lever which acts upon the slider to lift it up, and keep it always bearing against the point of the screw. There are two projecting pieces cast with the main frame, to support the carriage when the pull is made; to these, rails are screwed, and placed exactly horizontal for the carriage to run upon, when it is carried under the press to receive the impression, or drawn out to remove the printed sheet. The carriage is moved by a rounce or handle, with leather girths, very similar to the wooden press. Upon the axle of this handle a wheel is fixed, round which leather belts are passed, one extending to the back of the carriage to draw it in, and two others which pass round the wheel in an opposite direction to draw it out. By this means, when the handle is turned one way, it draws out the carriage; and by reversing the motion, it is carried in. There is likewise a check strap which limits the motion of the wheel, and, consequently, the action of the carriage. The principal improvement of Earl Stanhope's press consists in the mode of giving motion to the main screw of it, which is not done simply by a lever attached to the screw, but by a second lever. The main screw has a short lever fixed on the upper end of it, and this communicates by. an iron bar or link to another lever of rather shorter radius, which is fixed upon the upper end of a second spindle, and to this the handle or lever by which the press is worked is fixed. Now, when the workman pulls this handle, he turns round the spindle, and, by the connection of the rod, the main screw turns with it, and causes the platten to descend with it and produce the pressure. But it is not simply this alone, for the power of the handle is transmitted to the screw in a ratio proportioned to the effect required at the different parts of the pull; thus, at first, when the pressman takes the handle, it lies in a direction parallel to the frame, or across the press; and the short lever (being nearly perpendicular thereto) is also nearly at right angles to the connecting rod; but the lever of the screw makes a considerable angle with the rod, which therefore acts upon a shorter radius to turn the screw; because the real power exerted by any action upon a lever is not to be considered as acting with the full length of the lever between its centres, but with the was in the case of the ingenious invention of Mr J Ruthven of Edinburgh. This mechanician contrived a press in which the types stand upon a fixed frame o table, while the pressing part or platten is brought over the form by being hurled forward on wheels. On be brought over the form, a depending hook or notch each end of the platten is caught and pulled down h the combined action of levers beneath the table, operated upon by the left hand of the pressman Th was an exceedingly meritorious invention, and m presses on this plan were manufactured and sold, b experience has evinced that the contrivance is e valuable when applied to small presses, not larger th foolscap size, and chiefly useful for executing jobs. M Ruthven makes his presses as small as quarto size; a as they stand on a table, and can be easily wrought any gentleman, no better press could be recommend to the notice of the amateur printer. The above presents a correct representation of Mr Rathve press, which it will be perceived is of an exceeding compact and portable form. THE CHAPEL. distance in a perpendicular, drawn from the line in which the action is applied to the centre of the lever. The obvious excellence of the Stanhopian improvement in gaining power for the handle, led a number of printers to apply this species of lever power to the screw of the common press, but we believe not with marked success. The improvements of Lord Stanhope were speedily followed by the attempts of other individuals in Great Britain and America, to remedy the ancient defects in printing mechanism. So numerous, indeed, have these attempts been since the beginning of the present century, that it is quite out of our power to mention them in detail. With, we believe, one or two exceptions, all the modern improvers of the printingpress have confined their efforts chiefly to the process of communicating pressure to the platten, so as to modify labour, and procure greater rapidity of working. In these cases the screw has been generally dismissed, and power procured sometimes by the action of two or more inclined planes working against each other, in other instances by fulcrums and levers, and in others by the straightening of a joint. The latter is an exceedingly simple and beautiful form of power, and may easily be comprehended when we say, that it resembles the bending and straightening of the knee-joint: when the knee of the upright bar of the press is bent, the platten is drawn up; and when the knee is forced by a lever into a perpendicular position, the platten sinks, and the pressure is communicated. This may be considered the most efficient mode of compressing the platten yet discovered, and it would be difficult to rival it in the properties of simplicity and rapidity of execution. Nevertheless, such is the number and variety of improved presses in the present day, that it would not be easy to decide upon which has the best claims to the notice of printers. Among those which have gained a large share of approbation, may be mentioned the Columbian press, which is of American invention. This new press was brought to this country in 1818, by Mr George Clymer of Philadelphia, and made the object of a patent. The pressing power in this instance is procured by a long bar or handle acting upon a combina-occur among members. The general improvem tion of exceedingly powerful levers above the platten, and by many workmen this press is greatly preferred to any other. The various improved presses which we have noticed, are, in most cases, made of at least three sizes, namely, demy, royal, and super-royal-that is, they are respectively able to print sheets of these sizes; and they accordingly vary in price from about £50 to £80 each. They are nearly all manufactured by the patentees in London. In the present day, the old wooden press of Blaew is entirely discarded from use in printing, and it is only to be seen occasionally in an obscure corner of the printing-office, reduced to the humble character of a proof-press. The only instance worth mentioning, in which an improved press was made of quite a new construction, It is worth while to remark, that till the present in every thing connected with printing establishm "Our art was hail'd from kingdoms far abroad. LAWS AFFECTING PRINTERS. The proprietors and printers of newspapers are ject to various laws, enforcing the mode of public the use of stamps, and payment of advertisement dut but printers of books, or any common species of work practically left at liberty to carry on their business manner or way that seems suitable to themselves. printer, however, by the act 2 V., c. 12, is require print upon the front of any sheet, if printed on co only, or upon the first or last leaf of every book con ing of more than one leaf, his name, place of abeds business; penalty for omission £5, and the like peal for dispersing any such publication without the in But no actions for penalties can be instituted exe the name of the Attorney or Solicitor General for land, or the Queen's Advocate in Scotland. The enjoys the prerogative of printing the authorised |