DOMINE Omnipotens, Deus patrum nostrorum Abraham, et Isaac et Jacob, et seminis eorum justi, qui. fecisti cœlum et terram cum omni ornatu eorum ; qui ligasti mare verbo præcepti tui; qui conclusisti abyssum, et signasti eam terribili et laudabili nomine tuo; quem omnia pavent et tremunt a vultu virtutis tuæ, quia importabilis est magnificentia gloriæ tuæ, et in

sustentabilis ira comminationis tuæ super peccatores; immensa vero et investigabilis misericordia promissionis tuæ: quoniam tu es Dominus, altissimus, benignus, longaminis, et multum misericors, et pænitens super malitias hominum. Tu, Domine, secundum multitudinem bonitatis tuæ promisisti pænitentiametremissionem iis,qui peccaverunt tibi, et multitudine miserationum tuarum

DOMINE Omnipotens, Deus patrum nostrorum Abraham, et Isaac et Jacob, et seminis eorum justi, qui fecisti cœlum et terram cum omni ornatu eorum; qui ligasti mare verbo præcepti tui; qui conclusisti abyssum, et signasti eam terribili et laudabili nomine tuo; quem omnia pavent et tremunt a vultu virtutis tuæ, quia importabilis est magnificentia gloriæ tuæ, et insustentabilis ira comminationis tuæ super peccatores; immensa vero et investigabilis miseri

cordia promissionis tuæ: quoniam tu es Dominus, altissimus, benignus, longaminis, et multum misericors, et pænitens super malitias hominum. Tu, Domine, secundum multitudinem bonitatis tua promisisti pænitentiam et remissionem iis, qui peccaverunt tibi,et multitudine miserationum tuarum decrevisti pænitentiam peccatoribus in salutem. Tu igitur, Domine Deus justorum, non posuisti pænitentiam justis, Abraham, et Isaac et Jacob,

367. Examples of Transitional Types

ter will do all the work of an old style type, and has sometimes, as I have said, a distinction and delicacy which old style fonts do not possess; while it is more interesting — less bleak and commonplace-than a modern face type. The two upper sections in our plate (fig. 367) are set in a transitional font, which is, both in roman and italic, a fine and workable letter. The smaller roman beneath has certain interesting peculiarities that render it unlike Caslon's ordinary fonts-or Baskerville's either—but its accompanying italic came from the Caslons when under the Baskerville influence, and is for all intents and purposes a characteristic "Baskerville" type. A man must be thoroughly grounded in his knowledge of type-forms to select these fonts; for an untrained eye may be easily deceived by some mongrel type which is not transitional at all, but merely a bad type for any period. But an eye trained to be sensitive to type-forms will be able to "spot" good types amid masses of worthless material. There is no need to limit ourselves to American or English products in searching for such types. Continental type foundries must have many agreeable types hidden away among their material, which might well be resuscitated.

And what are the types we ought not to want-which have no place in any artistically respectable composingroom? They are (in my opinion) practically all types on "standard line," all condensed or expanded types, all "sansserif" or (as they are absurdly miscalled) "gothic" types, all fat-faced black-letter and fat-faced roman, all hair-line types, almost all "ornamented" types and types which imitate engraving, and, with one or two exceptions, all shaded types. To this list I would add the variant forms of many standard series of types, which make up their “families." These are principally condensations, distortions, or exag

gerations of the original letter-the disreputable offspring of honest parents.

To the printer the moral of all this is that studies in typeforms teach us not only how to choose, but give us courage to eliminate. There are many ways of being wrong, but only one way of being right, and it is surely better to know the one way of being right, and purchase types few but fit, than to follow the many ways of being wrong, and expend much time, labour, and money in the experience! I have called this book a study in survivals, because in it I have tried to show not only what types have survived, but what should survive through their fitness for the best typography, and in so doing to lay down those general principles which may help "the survival of the fittest" in days to come. Each year that passes, we shall be called on to judge the design of types, both old and new. We must have a trained taste and eye to make a rewarding choice. For if we do not judge types rightly, they will judge us-the penalty of foolish choice being the penalty we pay for choosing foolishly in life. We are punished by getting what we want!

It is a simple matter to make lists of good types-though not as simple as it seems. It is still simpler-and much less trouble - lazily to accept other people's conclusions and think no more about it. But the ideal composing-room will never be equipped in this way. It will be made what it ought to be only by those adventurers who add to those types accepted as "standard" other interesting fonts selected from sources to which study will have furnished a clue. The field for fruitful research is still great; and the printer who seeks will find himself the possessor, not merely of delightful, individual, and rare types, but of the ideal composing-room.

CHAPTER XXIV

INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS OF THE PAST AND THEIR RELATION TO THE PRINTER'S PROBLEM TO-DAY

T first sight, the conditions of industry in the past do not seem to have practical relation either to a

knowledge of printing types or to the work which a printer has to do with them. This same objection, however, might be made to the historical study of type-forms; yet the deductions made from such a study have a practical bearing on the selection of material for to-day's work. I propose to show that a knowledge of past industrial conditions is of like value. For over and above the eternal problem of how best to do our work, some ambitious beginners in printing have made a further problem of their own. These men, knowing little of economic and industrial history, have come to believe that the conditions under which a printer works now are somehow very different from conditions in the past, and that the reason men cannot do to-day what the early printers so splendidly did, is because to-day's conditions are so entirely different.

It is natural that any one who desires to become something more than a commonplace printer should be beguiled by the romantic aspect of his art; and if he starts out with a false although conventional conception of "the good old times," it is only because he has derived such views from pleasant papers, written by so-called "craftsmen," concerning ancient guilds, the former unity of aim among workmen, the stimulating environment which surrounded them, and the ease with which masterpieces were thus produced. The statements of these romantic writers have little relation to facts, or their deductions much application to our problems now. Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Morris were long ago

responsible for some of the harm done in this direction; and the disciples of the ideals of the one, and the imitators of the work of the other, have had time to do even more harm. There have been, indeed, many well-meaning persons some are still with us-who have written, and also talked, in a manner very near to nonsense, about the advantages of working long ago-though the precise years of these agreeable periods are usually left dans la vague.

Such mistaken views have not been confined to writing and talking, but were sometimes acted upon. Theorists and sentimentalists here and there formed themselves into temporary industrial groups, fenced away from what they called the "corroding influences" of the period to which they really belonged! These men thought (or said they did) that they were reproducing that tranquil and contented industrial life under which—in some Golden Age-good work was universally done. A little study of the economic history of printing, and of the life of printers in old times, would perhaps have convinced these amiable persons that-as far as typography was concerned-no such conditions existed. The Gothic scene against which the old work was accomplished, made in some ways as little difference to it as does the shape of a room to the sense of what is said in it. What we think of as the printers' foreground was usually their background, and the remoteness of the period should not lead us to idealize it, or them. When we throw away all this "bric-à-brac sentimentale et moyen-âgeux” we find that the constant element was the human will struggling against human laziness; and that the victory of the one or of the other made for success or failure then, precisely as it does now. When what they did was admirable-as it sometimes, but not always, wasit was produced with travail. The pity of it is that much valuable enthusiasm, which might have been applied to present