PREFACE
JOSEPH MOXON was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, England, August 8, 1627. There is no published record of his parentage or his early education. His first business was that of a maker and vender of mathematical instruments, in which industry he earned a memorable reputation between the years 1659 and 1683. He was not content with this work, for he had leanings to other branches of the mechanic arts, and especially toward the designing of letters and the making of printing-types.
In 1669 he published a sheet in folio under the heading of “Prooves of the Several Sorts of Letters Cast by Joseph Moxon.” The imprint is “Westminster, Printed by Joseph Moxon, in Russell street, at the Sign of the Atlas, 1669.” This specimen of types seems to have been printed, not to show his dexterity as a type-founder, but to advertise himself as a dealer in mathematical and scientificinstruments. The reading matter of the sheet describes “Globes Celestial and Terrestrial, Large Maps of the World, A Tutor to Astronomie and to Geographie”—all of his own production. Reed flouts the typography of this sheet: “It is a sorry performance. Only one fount, the Pica, has any pretensions to elegance or regularity. The others are so clumsily cut or badly cast, and so wretchedly printed, as here and there to be almost undecipherable.”[1]The rude workmanship of these early types proves, as he afterward admitted, that he had never been properly taught the art of type-founding; that he had learned it, as he said others had, “of his own genuine inclination.”
It was then a difficult task to learn any valuable trade. The Star Chamber decree of 1637 ordained that there should be but four type-founders for the kingdom of Great Britain, and the number of their apprentices was restricted. When the Long Parliament met in 1640, the decrees of the Star Chamber were practically dead letters, and for a few years there was free trade in typography. In 1644 the Star Chamber regulations were reimposed; in 1662 they were made more rigorous than ever. The importation of types from abroad without the consent of the Stationers’ Company was prohibited. Britishprinters were compelled to buy the inferior types of English founders, who, secure in their monopoly, did but little for the improvement of printing.[2]
It is probable that the attention of Moxon was first drawn to type-founding by the founders themselves, who had to employ mechanics of skill for the making of their molds and other implements of type-casting. In this manner he could have obtained an insight into the mysteries of the art that had been carefully concealed. He did not learn type-making or printing in the usual routine. The records of the Company of Stationers do not show that he was ever made a freeman of that guild, yet he openly carried on the two distinct businesses of type-founding and printing after 1669. It is probable that he had a special permit from a higher authority, for in 1665 he had been appointed hydrographer to the king, and a good salary was given with the office. He was then devoted to the practical side of scientific pursuits, and was deferred to as a man of ability.
He published several mathematical treatises between the years 1658 and 1687; one, called “Compendium Euclidis Curiosi,” was translated by himfrom Dutch into English, and printed in London in 1677. Mores supposes that he had acquired a knowledge of Dutch by residence in Holland, but intimates that he was not proficient in its grammar.[3]
In 1676 he published a book on the shapes of letters, with this formidable title: “Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum Typographicarum; or the Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters, viz: the Roman, Italick, English—Capitals and Small; showing how they are Compounded of Geometrick Figures, and mostly made by Rule and Compass. Useful for Writing Masters, Painters, Carvers, Masons and others that are Lovers of Curiosity. By Joseph Moxon, Hydrographer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. Printed for Joseph Moxon on Ludgate Hill, at the Sign of Atlas, 1676.” He then dedicated the book to Sir Christopher Wren, “as a lover of rule and proportion,” or to one who might be pleased with this attempt to make alphabetical letters conform to geometric rules.
There is no intimation that the book was intended for punch-cutters. It contains specific directions about the shapes of letters, covering fifty-two pages, as proper introduction to the thirty-eight pages of model letters that follow, rudely drawn and printed from copper plates. Moxon says that these modelletters are his copies of the letters of Christopher Van Dijk, the famous punch-cutter of Holland. He advises that each letter should be plotted upon a framework of small squares—forty-two squares in height and of a proportionate width, as is distinctly shown in the plates of letters in this book.[4]Upon these squares the draftsman should draw circles, angles, and straight lines, as are fully set forth in the instructions.
These diagrams, with their accompanying instruction, have afforded much amusement to type-founders. All of them unite in saying that the forming of letters by geometrical rule is absurd and impracticable. This proposition must be conceded without debate, but the general disparagement of all the letters, in which even Reed joins, may be safely controverted. It is admitted that the characters are rudely drawn, and many have faults of disproportion; but it must not be forgotten that they were designed to meet the most important requirement of a reader—to be read, and read easily. Here are the broad hair-line, the stubby serif on the lower-case and the bracketed serif on the capitals, the thick stem, the strong and low crown on letters like m and n, with other peculiarities now commended in old-style faces and often erroneously regarded as the original devices of the first Caslon. The black-letter has more meritthan the roman or italic. Some of the capitals are really uncouth; but with all their faults the general effect of a composition in these letters will be found more satisfactory to the bibliophile as a text-type than any form of pointed black that has been devised in this century as an improvement.
Moxon confesses no obligation to any one for his geometrical system, but earlier writers had propounded a similar theory. Books on the true proportions of letters had been written by Fra Luca Paccioli, Venice, 1509; Albert Dürer, Nuremberg, 1525; Geofroy Tory, Paris, 1529; and Yciar, Saragossa, 1548. Nor did the attempt to make letters conform to geometrical rules end with Moxon. In 1694, M. Jaugeon, chief of the commission appointed by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, formulated a system that required a plot of 2304 little squares for the accurate construction of every full-bodied capital letter. The manuscript and diagrams of the author were never put in print, but are still preserved in the papers of the Academy.
This essay on the forms of letters seems to have been sent out as the forerunner of a larger work on the theory and practice of mechanical arts. Under the general title of “Mechanick Exercises,” in 1677, he began the publication, in fourteen monthly numbers, of treatises on the trades of the smith, the joiner, the carpenter, and the turner. These constitute the first volume of the “Mechanick Exercises.”The book did not find as many buyers as had been expected. Moxon attributed its slow sale to political excitement, for the Oates plot put the buying and study of trade books away from the minds of readers. He had to wait until 1683 before he began the publication of the second volume, which consists of twenty-four numbers, and treats of the art of printing only. It is this second volume that is here reprinted, for the first volume is of slight interest to the printer or man of letters.
Moxon’s book has the distinction of being not only the first, but the most complete of the few early manuals of typography. Fournier’s “Manuel Typographique” of 1764 is the only book that can be compared with it in minuteness of detail concerning type-making, but he treats of type-making only. Reed says: “Any one acquainted with the modern practice of punch-cutting cannot but be struck, on reading the directions laid down in the ‘Mechanick Exercises,’ with the slightness of the changes which the manual processes of that art have undergone during the last two centuries. Indeed, allowing for improvements in tools, and the greater variety of gauges, we might almost assert that the punch-cutter of Moxon’s day knew scarcely less than the punch-cutter of our day, with the accumulated experience of two hundred years, could teach him.... For almost a century it remained the only authority on the subject; subsequently itformed the basis of numerous other treatises both at home and abroad; and to this day it is quoted and referred to, not only by the antiquary, who desires to learn what the art once was, but by the practical printer, who may still on many subjects gather from it much advice and information as to what it should still be.”[5]
During his business life, Moxon stood at the head of the trade in England. He was selected to cut a font of type for an edition of the New Testament in the Irish language, which font was afterward used for many other books. He cut also the characters designed by Bishop John Wilkins for his “Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language,” and many mathematical and astronomical symbols. Rowe Mores, who describes him as an excellent artist and an admirable mechanic, says that he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1678.[6]There is no known record of the date of his death. Mores gives the year 1683 as the date of his relinquishment of the business of type-making, but he was active as a writer and a publisher for some years after.
The first volume of the “Mechanick Exercises,” concerning carpentry, etc., went to its third edition in 1703, but the second volume, about printing, has been neglected for two centuries. During this longinterval many copies of the first small edition of five hundred copies have been destroyed. A perfect copy is rare, and commands a high price, for no early book on technical printing is in greater request.[7]
The instruction directly given is of value, but bits of information indirectly furnished are of greater interest. From no other book can one glean so many evidences of the poverty of the old printing-house. Its scant supply of types, its shackly hand-presses, its mean printing-inks, its paper-windows and awkward methods, when not specifically confessed, are plainly indicated. The high standard of proof-reading here exacted may be profitably contrasted with its sorry performance upon the following pages. The garments worn by the workmen are shown in the illustrations. Some of the quainter usages of the trade are told in the “Customs of the Chappel,” and those of the masters, in the ceremonies of the Stationers’ Company, and in the festivals in which masters and workmen joined. To the student of printing a reading of the book is really necessary for a clear understanding of the mechanical side of the art as practised in the seventeenth century.
NOTE BY THE PRINTER
This edition of the “Mechanick Exercises” is a line-for-line and page-for-page reprint of the original text. The only suppression is that of the repetition of the words “Volume II” in the running title and the sub-titles, which would unnecessarily mislead the reader, and of the old signature marks that would confuse the bookbinder. Typographic peculiarities have been followed, even to the copying of gross faults, like doublets, that will be readily corrected by the reader. The object of the reprint is not merely to present the thought of the author, but to illustrate the typographic style of his time with its usual defects. A few deviations from copy that seemed to be needed for a clearer understanding of the meaning of the author have been specified at the end of the second volume. The irregular spelling and punctuation of the copy, its capricious use of capitals and italic, its headings of different sizes of type, have been repeated. At this point imitation has stopped. Turned and broken letters, wrong font characters, broken space-lines, and bent rules have not been servilely reproduced. These blemishes, as well as the frequent “monks” and “friars” in the presswork, were serious enough to prevent an attempt at a photographic facsimile of the pages.The two copies of Moxon that have served as “copy” for this reprint show occasional differences in spelling and punctuation. Changes, possibly made in the correction of batters, or after the tardy discovery of faults, must have been done while the form was on press and partly printed. The position of the plates differs seriously in the two copies; they do not follow each other in the numerical order specified. In this reprint the plates that describe types and tools have been placed near their verbal descriptions.The type selected for this work was cast from matrices struck with the punches (made about 1740) of the first Caslon. It is of the same large English body as that of the original, but a trifle smaller as to face, and not as compressed as the type used by Moxon; but it repeats many of his peculiarities, and fairly reproduces the more important mannerisms of the printing of the seventeenth century.The portraits have been reproduced by the artotype process of Bierstadt; the descriptive illustrations are from the etched plates of the Hagopian Photo-Engraving Company.
This edition of the “Mechanick Exercises” is a line-for-line and page-for-page reprint of the original text. The only suppression is that of the repetition of the words “Volume II” in the running title and the sub-titles, which would unnecessarily mislead the reader, and of the old signature marks that would confuse the bookbinder. Typographic peculiarities have been followed, even to the copying of gross faults, like doublets, that will be readily corrected by the reader. The object of the reprint is not merely to present the thought of the author, but to illustrate the typographic style of his time with its usual defects. A few deviations from copy that seemed to be needed for a clearer understanding of the meaning of the author have been specified at the end of the second volume. The irregular spelling and punctuation of the copy, its capricious use of capitals and italic, its headings of different sizes of type, have been repeated. At this point imitation has stopped. Turned and broken letters, wrong font characters, broken space-lines, and bent rules have not been servilely reproduced. These blemishes, as well as the frequent “monks” and “friars” in the presswork, were serious enough to prevent an attempt at a photographic facsimile of the pages.
The two copies of Moxon that have served as “copy” for this reprint show occasional differences in spelling and punctuation. Changes, possibly made in the correction of batters, or after the tardy discovery of faults, must have been done while the form was on press and partly printed. The position of the plates differs seriously in the two copies; they do not follow each other in the numerical order specified. In this reprint the plates that describe types and tools have been placed near their verbal descriptions.
The type selected for this work was cast from matrices struck with the punches (made about 1740) of the first Caslon. It is of the same large English body as that of the original, but a trifle smaller as to face, and not as compressed as the type used by Moxon; but it repeats many of his peculiarities, and fairly reproduces the more important mannerisms of the printing of the seventeenth century.
The portraits have been reproduced by the artotype process of Bierstadt; the descriptive illustrations are from the etched plates of the Hagopian Photo-Engraving Company.
Portrait: Joseph Moxon.
Joseph Moxon.Born atWakefeildAugust. 8.Anno 1627.