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/50

 HISTORIC PRINTING TYPES. Merits of the Van Dyck types. Typographia, p. 618. octavos of Daniel Elzevir. The smaller types of the duo- decimos are too small to clearly show the peculiarities of cut. Van Dijck seems to have designed letters with intent to have them resist the wear of the press. The body-marks were firm, and the counters of good width, not easily choked with ink. Hair lines were few and of positive thickness. The serif s were not noticeably short, but they were stubby, or so fairly bracketed to the body-mark that they could not be readily gapped or broken down. When printed, as much of the Elzevir printing was done, with strong impression and abundance of ink, the types were almost as bold and black as the style now known as Old Style Antique. This firmness of face explains the popularity of the so-called Elzevir letter. It may not be comely, but it is legible. The letters may be stubby, but they have no useless lines ; they were not made to show the punch-cutter's skill in truthful curves and slender lines, but to be read easily and to wear well. Yet to readers whose standard of taste is the deli- cacy of copper-plate engraving, the Elzevir types are, as Hansard calls them, types of " awkward stiffness." The fickleness of popular taste is illustrated by the fate of the Van Dijck punches, which were last owned by the founders Enschede. Before the year 1770 all the Van Dijck letters were out of fashion. Michael Fleisch- man, a German punch-cutter then in the employ of the Enschedes, undertook to renew the types of their foundry, which he did by sending all the Van Dijck punches and