Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/594

 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

58&

stereotype printing was employed in Holland long before it was ever known in France. In a note to No. 1316 of Barbier's Catalogue, it is also recorded that Johann Muller, pastor of the German church at Leyden, bad devised, in the year 1701, a novel method of printing, which mnch resembles the process of stereotyping as now practised. This method consisted m com- posing the page in the usual manner, correcting It accurately — securing the type with iron ties — taming it over on its face, and then cementing it into a solid mass by means of a metallic com- position, or probably of mastic. The first trial of this process was made with a book of prayers, and printed by W. Muller, the inventor's son, in this year. The invention was transferred to Hake ; and Muller, in a letter of the 28th of June, 17U9, mentions that he had published a Syriac new testament conjointly with Lexicon Luther's bible. '

Upon the question of the origin of the inven- tion, as at present practised, Mr. Tilloch, editor of the Phitotophieal Magazine, has given in the tenth volume of that work, the following extract translated from a Dutch writer. " Above a hundred years ago the Dutch were in possession of the art of prmting with solid or fixed types, which, in every respect, was superior to Didot's stereotype. It may, however, be readily com- prehended that these letters were not cut in so elegant a manner, especially when we reflect on the progress which typography has made since that period. Samuel and J. Luchtmans, book- sellers at Leyden, have still in their possession the forms of a quarto bible, which were con- structed in this ingenious manner. Many thou- sand impressions were thrown off, which are in every body's hands, and the letters are still good.

" The inventor of this useful art was J. Van der Mey, father of the well-known painter of that name. About the end of the sixteenth cen- tury he resided at Leyden. With the assistance of Muller, the clergyman of the German congre- gation there, who carefully superintended the correction, he prepared and cast the plates for the above-mentioned quarto bible. This bible he published also in folio, with large margins ornamented with figures, the former of which are still in the hands of Elwe, bookseller at Amsterdam ; also an English new testament, and Schauf 's Syriac JXcHonaty, the former of which were melted down ; and likewise a small Greek testament in 18mo."

A very intelligent and useful work was pub- lished by Mr. Hodgson, of Newcastie-upon- Tyne, which ought to be in the hands of eveiy person who make the art of printing either their business or amusement, entitled. An Estay on the Origin and Progrea of Stereotype Printing : itudnding a description of the various Proceuet. By Thomat Ronton. Newcattle : printed by andforS. Hodgson, fxc. 1820. Mr. Hodgson lays claim " to little merit beyond that of col- lecting into one publication a variety of inform- ation, which either lay scattered in different works, or was unknown to the generality of

English readers." It is plain &om his work, that he is equally excellent either as author or

{>rinter ; without, however, any practical know- edge of the stereotype branch of the art. Con> siderable extracts are made by Mr. Hodgson, from the memoir of M. Camus Histaire de SU- riotypie, 1802, 8vo. His exposure of the inven- vention of Van der Mey throws a new, and much more rational, light upon the subject: he says, " this mode, which may be considered an intermediate link between the operations of common letter-press printing and tnose of ste- reotype, as practised at the present day, con- sisted in immersing the bottoms of the types, after the pages ha^ been composed, and made quite correct, nearly up to the shoulder of the letter, in melted lead or solder, thus rendering the nage one solid mass. In this manner. Van der Mev prepared for Samuel Luchtmans, book- seller of Leyden, the pages of a quarto and folio edition of ue bible, aiM of some other books. The waj in which he prepared his pages having been misunderstood, or unknown to all the Eng- lish writers who have yet noticed this subject, this artist has been constantly represented as the inventor of stereotype printing, in the usual ac- ceptation of that term, an honour to which he is certainly not entitled. The authority on which I have ventured to give the above ex- planation of the process pursued by Van der Mey, is a letter, dated Leyden, June 24, 1801, addressed by Messrs. S. and T. Luchtmans, booksellers, of that city, to M. Renouard, of Paris. As this letter is very interesting, both on account of this explanation, and also for the notice it contains of the works on which this process was employed, I here insert a translation of it as published by M. Camus.

" ' We have sent you a copy of our stereotype bible, which we take the liberty of offering vou as a work truly interesting in regard to the his- tory of the art. All the plates of it are now in our possession, and notwithstanding that many thousand copies have been printed from them, they are still in very g^ood condition. They are formed by soldering the bottoms of common types together, with some melted substance, to the thickness of about three quires of writing paper. The plates were made, about the beginning of the last century, by an artist named Van der Mey, at the cost of our late grandfather, Samuel Luchtmans, bookseller. The same artist, at the same time, and in the same manner, also prepared for our grandfather, the stereo- type plates of a folio Dutch bible ; these plates are at present in possession of the book- seller Elwe ; and afterwards of a Greek new testament, on brevier, and of 24mo. size, the plates of which are still preserved by us. The fast work which this artist executed in this manner, was the Novum Testamentum Syriacum et Lexicon Syriacum, by Schauf, 2 vols. 4to. ; a work sufficiendy known. The plates of this last work have been destroyed. These instances comprise, as far as our knowledge extends, all the attempts of this kind which have yet been

4 D

VjOOQ IC