the publications which have issued from this printinghouse."1

P. and J. Blaeu printed at Amsterdam in 1698 a French edition of Gerard Brandt's Life of Admiral de Ruyter La Vie de Michel de Ruiter-a more or less commonplace performance of seven hundred folio pages. The book is composed in a light variety of old style roman, with the numerous quoted documents arranged in italic. It is illustrated with large copper-plates-which, unlike the text, leave nothing to be desired as to incident and movement.

§3

The name of Wetstein, the eminent Amsterdam printerpublisher, appears (with others) on the title-page of Hooft's Nederlandsche Historien, printed in 1703. Its types are characteristic Dutch fonts of the eighteenth century, but more lively than those in most contemporary work. The italic used has some delightful characters. Except for copperplates, the volume has no decorations save some nine-line Dutch "bloomers," used at the beginning of each of the thirteen books into which the History is divided. They "bloom" energetically!

Peter the Great, on his last stay in Holland, from 1716 to 1717, was fired with the idea of improving printing in Russia, and he made various endeavours to this end. The history of the only effort that succeeded—and that but partially-is a curious incident in the annals of Dutch printing. There had been at the beginning of the seventeenth century a Dutch Bible printed at the command of the StatesGeneral of the United Provinces, and taking this for a basis, 'Filips von Zesen's Beschreibung der Stadt Amsterdam, 1664, pp. 215, 216; quoted in E. L. Stevenson's Willem Janszoon Blaeu, Hispanic Society, New York, 1914. For a list of the principal geographical works of the elder Blaeu, see Bibliography in the latter book.

the Czar ordered a Bible arranged in double column; the Dutch text (entirely in capital letters) on the right, the other column being left blank for a Slav translation of the Dutch text-to be printed later in Russia from Slavic types, cut and cast for this purpose by Clerk and Voskens, the Amsterdam type-founders. The New Testament, in two folio volumes, was printed at The Hague in 1717, and the Old Testament, in four volumes, at Amsterdam. It appears that the greater part of the edition sent to Russia was lost, and that only a few copies of the New Testament ever were completed by the addition of the Slav text. Only four copies are now known.1

The quarto edition of Brieven... den Johan de Witt, issued by H. Scheurleer at The Hague in 1723, has a congested red and black title-page, and apart from this is a perfectly straightforward quarto, set from heavy, awkward old style types, moderately well printed, on moderately good paper, perfectly respectable, and as uninteresting as all this sounds. Wetstein and Luchtmans-both good names in Dutch printing and publishing-brought out at Amsterdam and Leyden in 1738 a quarto Livy in seven volumesa monumental work, and, like most monuments, depressing. The type of the text is a very square cut of old style, the notes a colourless variety of Elzevir types. The crowded title, the allegorical frontispiece, the author's portrait, the preface in enormous italic, and page after page of crowded text, make these two volumes of something over one thousand pages each, a very sleepy affair.

Bernard Picart, a French engraver and seller of prints who resided at Amsterdam after 1710, contributed a decorative note to early eighteenth century Dutch printing. An

1

Stockum's La Librairie, l'Imprimerie et la Presse en Hollande à travers Quatre Siècles, facs. 153, 154.

example of his work is the Euvres Diverses de M. de Fontenelle, published in 1728 at The Hague by Gosse and Neaulme. The book is full of Picart's exquisite engraved decorations, and is (except for the tiresome type border on every page) printed from old style types more French than Dutch in effect. Another more imposing and more familiar "Picart" book is the folio Temple des Muses, published at Amsterdam by Zacharie Chatelain in 1733, the year of Picart's death. Apart from the engravings and the series of fine frameworks around them-so good that they have been often utilized by later printers and decorators the typography is extremely handsome. The fonts usedof a bold, massive sort—are impressive in effect; and the composition, too, is adequate, and very much in the key of the pretentious plates (fig. 208). Such books were, I suppose, bought for their pictures, and were intended as luxurious pieces of book-making. Still another illustrated Picart work is the Cérémonies et Coutumes Religieuses des Nations de tous les Peuples du Monde in nine volumes, begun in 1723, of which an English edition was published.

Johannes Enschedé and Jan Bosch of Haarlem very appropriately printed G. W. van Oosten de Bruyn's De Stad Haarlem en haare Geschiedenissen in 1765. It is not much of a performance. The dull, light, roman and italic types have lost all colour and spirit (fig. 209). Some black-letter (possibly Fleischman's) is here and there used for verse. Then, too, the composition of displayed and prefatory matter is tasteless and pretentious. As a whole, the book,—a folio, -weak as it is in its types, is yet interesting, because showing new tendencies in printing.

The eighteenth century Dutch press brought out a great many famous books which were prohibited or in danger of suppression in France. These are often good examples of

OVID. S. Faft.

208. Dutch Type used in Temple des Muses, Amsterdam, 1733