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/74

 70 THORNE'S BOLD-FACE. IT is a greater misfortune that all the early chronicles of printing were writ- ten in a dead language. Wolf's collection of Typographic Monuments, which in- cludes nearly every paper of value written before 1740, is in Latin ; the valuable books of Meerman, Maittaire, and Scho- epflin are also in Latin. To the general reader these are sealed books : to the student, who seeks exact knowledge of the methods of the first printers, they are tiresome books. Written for the informa- tion of librarians rather than of printers, it is but proper that these books should devote the largest space to a review of the controversy or to a description of early editions ; but it is strange that they should so imperfectly describe the construction and appearance of early types and the usages of the early printers. The me- chanical features of typography were, ap- parently, neglected as of little importance. The Bold-face style of Robert Thorne. From the foundry of George Brace's Son & Co. Great Primer No. 1.