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HISTORY] 

 TYPOGRAPHY (i.e. writing by types) is the general term for the art of printing movable (cast-metal) types on paper, vellum, &c. It is distinct from writing, and also from wood-engraving or xylography, which is the art of cutting figures, letters, words, &c., on blocks of wood and taking impressions from such blocks by means of ink, or any other fluid coloured substance, on paper or vellum.

Although the art of writing and that of block-printing both differ widely from printing with movable metal types, yet this last process has apparently been such a gradual transition from block-printing, and block-printing in its turn such a natural outcome of the many trials that were probably made to produce pictures, books, &c., in, some more expeditious manner than could be done with handwriting, that a cursory glance at these two processes will not seem out of place, especially as a discussion on the origin and progress of typography could hardly be understood without knowing the state of the literary development at the time that printing appeared.

The art of printing, i.e. of impressing (by means of certain forms and colours) figures, pictures, letters, words, lines, whole pages, &c., on other objects, as also the art of engraving, which is inseparably connected with printing, existed long before the 15th century. Not to go back to remoter essays, there is reason to suppose that medieval kings and princes (among others William