Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/46

 42 HISTORIC FEINTING TYPES. Commended by Willerns. Lea Elzevler, p. Ixxix. if occasion be, even those small Letters will appear as large as the biggest Bodied Letters shall to the naked Eye : And then it will be no difficult Task to judge of the Order and Decorum even of the smallest Bodied Letters. For indeed, to my wonder and astonishment, I have observ'd V. Dijcks Pearl Dutch Let- ters in Glasses that have Magnified them to great Letters, and found the whole Shape bear such true pro- portion to his great Letters, both for the Thickness, Shape, Fats and Leans, as if with Compasses he could have measur'd and set off in that small compass every particular Member, and the true breadth of every Fat, and Lean Stroak in each Letter, not to exceed or want (when magnified) of Letter Cut to the Body it was Mag- nified to. Alphonse Willems, the annalist of the Elzevirs, is even more emphatic in his praise of Van Dijck's types. 1 After reading these eulogies the reader will probably be disappointed when he examines the fac-simile shown by Willems of the specimen sheet of Van Dijck's types which the widow of Daniel Elzevir sent to Moretus, then the owner of the Plantin printing-house. The fac-simile, al- though fairly made, does not fully show the merits of the 1 "All who seek and value the master- pieces that came from the Elzevir press have often asked the name of the ar- tist who designed and engraved the types, the outlines of which are so del- icate, the proportions so fine, and the spacing so intelligently arranged, all of them features which give to the El- zevir editions the seal of the master, and which put them altogether beyond comparison. Surely the man who de- signed this beautiful type so perfect in its style that the phrase Elzevirian, by which it is known, has become in bibliographic language the synonym of perfection was not an ordinary ar- tist, and deserved, not less than the Elzevirs themselves, that his name should go down to posterity. * " The name, formerly unknown, of Christopher Van Dijck is now attached to the history of printing, and will add itself to the glorious line of artists of all kinds which the inhabitants of the Netherlands are proud of. If France mentions with pride the name of Claude Garamond and the Sanlecques, Hol- land can be proud, too, in possessing a master scarcely inferior to the first, and surely surpassing the two others."