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/92

 88 HISTOKIC FEINTING TYPES. Mannerisms discarded. Attempts to add modern graces. See pp. 89, 91. Weakness of the modern old style. The type-founders who had no old matrices of old style in their punch-closets, and were obliged to cut new punches, did not copy the designs of inexpert founders. They cut with intent to improve, and, in the main, cut wisely. Obso- lete mannerisms were discarded ; the long f and its train of double letters were dropped. The proportions of each letter were re-adjusted ; lean letters were made fat, and fat letters made lean, with view to better effect in mass. Some founders went far beyond this in the line of attempted improvement. They rounded hard curves, and re-adjusted angles; made thinner the strong body-marks, and reduced the firm hair line to a' razor-edge. So treated, the character of the old style was seriously changed. The angular terminations, the high shoulder, the square form, even when reproduced with great fidelity, were not enough to preserve the general effect. This modernized old style is undoubtedly more popular than the old form of Caslon ; each character is more symmetrical, but the combined char- acters are not so pleasing in mass. Here are two examples of attempts at improvement. In the larger size short ascenders and still shorter descenders are attached to small letters of unusual lightness and roundness. The lines are light and the types are open, yet the types in mass are gray in color and feeble in effect. In the smaller size the light- ness of the type is measurably relieved by a greater propor- tion of white space between the lines, but in this size, as in the other, there is a deficiency in strength of form and of