ordinary book-faces when used in the larger sizes. It was modelled as closely as possible upon photographs of a page of Jenson's 'Cicero,' but partly by reason of the designing, and partly through the conventional training of the punchcutter (who was nevertheless a most admirable and skilful workman), the desired quality was only partially attained. The upper-case letters were fairly successful from the first, and required little modification; but the majority of the lowercase characters were recut several times-and were allowed to pass when the expense and the delay became prohibitive. This type is on the 16-point body." It has been delightfully used by Mr. Rogers in the Montaigne and in some other beautiful books designed by him (fig. 358). Since that time Mr. Rogers has designed another and, to my mind, finer font-the Centaur. The upper-case letters of this font have been, since 1914, in use for the work of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and in 1916 the complete font in 14-point size was shown in Maurice de Guérin's Centaur. Mr. Rogers describes the letter as a refinement on his Montaigne type, and though—as is his wont - he sees ways in which this font could be bettered, it appears to me one of the best roman fonts yet designed in America—and, of its kind, the best anywhere (fig. 359).

The type known as Merrymount was designed for the Merrymount Press about 1895 by Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the architect, who designed the well-known Cheltenham fonts. He, too, based the Merrymount font on the Jenson letter, but instead of having the courage of our rather wavering convictions and making a type as light as Jenson's, both he and I were seduced by Morris's unduly black types. So we merely modified the heaviness of the Morris fonts, although adopting an early form of roman letter. The result is that the type is too black unless used on large pages,

as in The Altar Book (1896) and an edition of the Agricola of Tacitus (1904), both in folio (fig. 360).

The Humanistic type was designed in Italy, and was based on a manuscript Virgil in the Laurentian Library at Florence. It was cut for the University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Extremely ingenious in its clever rendering of a written letter, it is not, as type, easy to read, and the excessive length of the descenders compels a somewhat leaded composition. It is an interesting letter-form and shows research, but it was not a wholly fortunate experiment, because more calligraphic in effect than is comfortable to the eye. It just lacks the charm of fine writing, and yet is too like it to make a fine type; and so falls between two stools.

What value have these specially designed and privately cut fonts of type? And the answer is: In themselves, very little. They are only in the nature of interesting experiments; and there is scarcely one of them that is absolutely practical. If they have failed, the causes are not far to seek. One minor reason is that most of them were not cut by the man who designed them, and the type-cutter cannot put into them as he works the touches which the designer would instinctively give, if he were a type-cutter too. Another reason is, that when a book becomes decorative at the expense of its readability, it ceases to be a book and becomes a decoration, and has then no raison d'être as a book. Again: being unaccustomed nowadays to the purer letterforms to which these types usually approximate, fonts of the kinds we have been considering are for continuous reading almost always consciously trying to the eye. Last and chiefly, such types do not readily lend themselves to the literary and typographical needs of to-day; and indeed there a great deal of printing that must to-day be done and done

is

THE BANQUET OF PLATO

APOLLODORUS. I think that the subject of your inquiries is still fresh in my memory; for yesterday, as I chanced to be returning home from Phaleros, one of my acquaintance, seeing me before him, called out to me from a distance, jokingly, 'Apollodorus, you Phalerian, will you not wait a minute?'-I waited for him, and as soon as he overtook me, 'I have just been looking for you, Apollodorus,' he said, 'for I wish to hear what those discussions were on Love, which took place at the party, when Agathon, Socrates, Alcibiades, and some others met at supper. Some one who heard it from Phoenix, the son of Philip, told me that you could give a full account, but he could relate nothing distinctly him

358. Bruce Rogers' Montaigne Type

I

CTHE CENTAUR. WRITTEN BY MAURICE DE GUÉRIN AND NOW TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY GEORGE B. IVES.

Was born in a cavern of these mountains. Like the river in yonder valley,whose first drops flow from some cliff that weeps in a deep grotto, the first moments of my life sped amidst the shadows of a secluded re treat, nor vexed its silence. As our mothers draw near their term, they retire to the cav erns, and in the innermost recesses of the wildest of them all, where the darkness is

most dense, they bring forth, uncomplaining, offspring as silent as themselves. Their strength-giving milk enables us to endure with out weakness or dubious struggles the first difficulties of life; yet

359. Bruce Rogers' Centaur Type