Page:A litil boke the whiche traytied and reherced many gode thinges necessaries for the infirmite a grete sekeness called Pestilence.djvu/23

 A noticeable deterioration in the quality of workmanship accompanied the change in the class of books issued by the press. For the neat fount used by Lettou was substituted a small cramped type, evidently designed for printing law books, as it contains numerous contractions, like the legal manuscripts of the time.

After the publication of the five books mentioned above Lettou's name disappears; whether through death, or through withdrawal from the business, is not known. The deterioration in the press work just alluded to suggests that on the accession of Machlinia he did not exercise the same active supervision over the press, and may have been preparing to retire from it altogether on his partner acquiring sufficient practice in the art of printing. On the other hand the consistent employment of signatures so long as Lettou remained in the firm—a typographical aid used very irregularly by Machlinia—shows that the former did not give up entire charge to his partner.

The date when Machlinia acquired the sole control of the press appears to have been about 1483, although owing to the entire absence of dates in his books one is unable to state positively when the change took place.

The same fount of type, with some modifications, as that used by Lettou and Machlinia appears in one other book, "The siege of Rhodes," which is generally attributed to an unknown printer. This is an English version by John Kay, who describes himself as poet laureate, of a Latin work written by Gulielmus Caorsin, vice-chancellor of the Knights of Malta.