tures were more highly developed. The "Scotch-face" was a pleasing novelty much admired by the book-buyers, and it retained popularity for many years.

But there were critics who looked with aversion on the increasing effeminacies of letter-cutting. They condemned the sharp hair-lines, long serifs, and gradual tapering curves of the new school as improper imitations of the graces of penmanship and copper-plate engraving. They longed for a return to the bold, manly, and more readable styles of Caslon and Van Dijk, who had made types to aid the reader rather than to show the dexterity of the letter-cutter. This desire for a return to simpler styles induced Nephew Whittingham to reinstate the true old-style type of the first Caslon. Matrices that had been reposing in the vaults of the Caslon foundry for nearly three generations were refitted to molds, and made to serve for the casting of types for "The Diary of Lady Willoughby," which was published in 1844. The selection was a wise one. No new face of this century has been so successful as the revived Caslon old-style.

The "Wife's Manual," of 1856, was printed in another face of old-style type, made to the order of Nephew Whittingham, for the exclusive use of the Chiswick Press. It was called the "Basle" style, probably because it was used at Basle in the last decade of the fifteenth century. Some of its peculiar features are to be seen in Venetian volumes of the same period. It is a quaint and readable type, but not a general favorite, although it was selected by William Morris for one of his earlier books.

The early selections of black-letter by the Chiswick Press were not happy. During the first quarter of this century, following the fashion of the time, the elder Whit

55

THE LOST LITTLE ONE.

HE fairy form our home that bleft
With sport and prattle gay,

The little one we loved the best

From earth has pass'd away.

We miss her footfall on the floor,

Amidst the nursery din,

Her tip-tap at our bed-room door,
Her bright face peeping in.

And when to Heaven's high courts above
Afcends our focial prayer,

Though there are voices that we love,
One sweet voice is not there.

And dreary feem the hours, and lone,
That drag themselves along,
Now from our board her smile is gone,
And from our hearth her fong.

A page of the "Wife's Manual," of 1856. By courtesy of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co.

tingham adopted the new fat-faced black-letter, designed by Thorne. For this he was sharply rebuked by Dibdin and Hansard. The Nephew's work showed a purer taste. The text of the "Little Passion" of Albert Dürer (1844) is in Old English types of correct form-fair copies of the letters used by the Norman printers who in the sixteenth century practised their art in London.

The Whittingham folio reprints of the Book of Common Prayer deserve the highest praise for their pure form of black-letter and for their appropriate decoration. But although Nephew Whittingham seems to have preferred the Old English form of black-letter, he did not exclude other faces of merit. The headings of some of his later books are in modernized forms of Flemish black-letter. They are good copies-possibly castings from the original matrices-of the beautiful forms of Van Dijk. Here the Nephew stopped. He rigorously excluded from his good books all the modern forms of finical black-letter, that seem to have been designed by writing-masters and engravers of visiting-cards.

The Nephew's honest liking for the excellencies of old types was also exhibited in his selection of the italic of Aldus for Basil Montague Pickering's "Catalogue of Curious and Standard Books,"1 in 1858. This revived Aldine italic, with its offset roman capital letters of small size, departed too much from the prevailing standard of form to meet with general approval.

The development of the Whittingham taste in the use of types may be traced in the Chiswick title-pages. The Uncle began by following the artificial and feeble style of his time, as we see it in the title of Young's

Dibdin's Kemonstrance.

Why does he adopt that frightful, gouty, dis= proportionate, eye=distracting and taste=re= volting form of black-letter, too frequently visible on the frontispieces of his books?

The Thorne style of black-letter.

The Last Judgment.

When the Son of man thall come in his glory, and all the holy Angels with him, then thall he fit upon the throne of his glory: and before him thall be gathered all nations: and he thall separate them one from another, as a thepherd divideth his theep from the goats.

The black-letter of early English printers.

Therefore J, William Carton, a symple personne, have endevopred me to wryte fyrst over aff the said Book of Polycronycon, and sommewhat have chaunged the rude and old Englisshe that is to wete, Certain words which in these days be neither usyd ne understanden.

"Night Thoughts." In this, and in the titles of many following books, the type was displayed, with big capitals and little capitals, long lines, catch lines, thick-faced cross-rules, italic and diamond dashes, making, as far as the words allowed, a fair showing of the variety of fonts in stock. It was then, and it is yet to some extent, a practice of the trade to define the relative importance of a title line by a selection of large or small types, and by lengthening or shortening the lines alternately. Sometimes the types were too small for the page or for the Sometimes there were not letters enough to fill the line, and in that case the letters were thrust apart by wide gaps of white space which almost destroyed their connection. In the hands of the unskilled a title-page so treated is weak and meaningless. The Uncle Whittingham was quite as successful as any other printer of his time with titles made after old-fashioned rules, but the rules were arbitrary and mechanical. He outgrew them.

text.

The Nephew's attempts at improvement are first shown in the addition of specially engraved borders, which give a proper boldness and beauty to the door by which the reader enters to the text. The "Legends of the Lakes" (1829), the "Whole Duty of Man" (1842), the "Institucion of a Gentleman" (1839), and the "Temple" (1850), are fair examples. Possibly the suggestion of improvement emanated from Pickering, for in the Pickering books Whittingham's engraved title-page borders are first shown.

Nephew Whittingham broke away from the traditions of the conventional displayed title. The balancing of long lines and short lines, the mixing of italic with roman capitals and black-letters, and the general treatment of