LET US RESUME the consideration of some miscellaneous illustrations for the sake of investigating the different styles of design and the principles which underlie them. As we said in Chapter II, the French, who are the most ready to use simple designs printed on rough paper, also are experts in preparing with most exquisite workmanship most delicate designs. Let us cite the cover of the Paris IllustrÉ—you will see that here a half-tone and a wood engraving have been used, and that each is virtually a picture. The type of the title is very fine French Old Style (by fine we mean thin), and while, of course, the hair lines in the a and e are due to our great reduction of the cut, yet in the original these lines were very fine, and therefore by no {176} Cover design, by Rivoire, for a summer number of Paris IllustrÉ, the flowers printed in slate color, in half-tone; the portrait, of Mlle. Weber, a wood engraving, and the title, printed in black. The original 11¹/₂ by 15 inches. {177} means as well adapted to ordinary printing as the Grasset, Caspari (Jugend), and Stuck designs given in Chapter II. Yet I consider the present design an admirable one. But what are the facts in the case? The art editor, in getting up this design, had plenty of money at his disposal. The cover was of heavy calendered paper, the flowers were printed in half-tone in color, and the woman’s portrait, printed in black, was beautifully engraved on wood, a very costly process. This single cover may have cost as much as the entire sixteen pages of the body of the weekly.

The Auriol heading of this chapter is French also, and is no less artistic than the realistic flowers on the Paris IllustrÉ cover; but on account of its simplicity it is far superior to the Paris IllustrÉ as a floral design for ordinary printing, simply because it can be printed on cheap stock and can be cheaply and quickly reproduced. There ought to be no mistake, then, about my attitude in recommending one style of designing above another. I do so from a practical point of view.

A third example is found in the two Burns cuts. Surely, when I found the half-tone among the news columns of an English art periodical I did not object to its realism; on the contrary, it gave me a very good idea of what the original statue was like. But think of the expense of having a half-tone made large enough for a poster! Also, how vague it would appear from across the street if the poster were in half-tone.

But, turning to the Hassall, see how admirably the artist has given us the impression of Burns, how {178} BURNS STATUE. By F. W. Pomeroy. Recently unveiled at Paisley. Half-tone from a half-tone from a photograph, published in the Magazine of Art. {179} POSTER DESIGN FOR THE BURNS EXHIBITION, GLASGOW. By J. Hassall. {180} well his design would appear from across the street, and how cheaply it could be reproduced. Therefore, what an excellent style his is as a guide for my printer readers.

Hence, if the printer readers wish to make a cover design containing a portrait and flowers, I advise them not to follow the Rivoire—not for the reason that it is inartistic, but because it is too expensive for ordinary printing, and for cheap printing a poor imitation is abominable; while a design like the Caspari (Jugend, see page 169), where the portrait would be an outline and the lettering broad so it could be quickly read like the word “Jugend,” and in which the floral form should be decoratively treated like the dandelion design in the Grasset “Larousse,” or like the Auriol, page 175, would be just as pleasing to the eye, would print on the cheapest kind of stock, and would, therefore, appear to the critical as an artistic design.

AN IMPORTANT CHAPTER ON LETTERING — LETTERING CAN NEVER BE WHOLLY ORIGINAL, IT MUST FOLLOW HISTORICAL MODELS; MUST BE BLACKLETTER OR ITALIAN — THE STUDENT ADVISED TO MASTER THREE OR FOUR STANDARD ALPHABETS — STRANGE’S BOOK ON ALPHABETS RECOMMENDED — MONUMENTAL LETTERS CONSTRUCTED UPON A GEOMETRICAL BASIS — MR. GLEASON WHITE ON CHARLES RICKETTS AND THE VALE PRESS QUOTED — IT IS RECOMMENDED TO COPY A MONUMENTAL ALPHABET, AND TO GIVE SOME STUDY TO THE COMPLEX GOTHIC ALPHABETS, THAT THE STUDENT MAY UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE THICKENING OF DIFFERENT PARTS OF A LETTER BY PEN PRESSURE — IT IS RECOMMENDED TO PRACTICE THE CAROLINE HAND FIRST, AND THEN THE GOTHIC.

This and the following chapters devoted to lettering give much practical information to the printer which may be enhanced in value if, before reading them, he will proceed as follows: Let him turn to the advertising pages of some printers’ magazine and copy, as best he can, three or four lines of ornamental lettering of three or four different fonts. After he has done this, then read this chapter and the next, and follow the suggestions therein. We think he will then get a fuller benefit from them than if he reads our suggestions first and then proceeds to letter according to our directions.

A GREAT deal of time is wasted by the beginner who attempts to letter because of his impression that he can originate new styles of letters. Now, a critic sometimes speaks of “original lettering,” meaning that the lettering shows individuality in treatment, and is not the mere slavish copying of some conventional form. {182} But in comparison to the other branches of art there is no such thing as originality in lettering. Your letter must be, broadly speaking, either Gothic (or blackletter, thus blackletter A) or Italian (or roman letter, thus A); that is, it must be built upon Gothic or Italian principles. The best thing for the beginner to do is to obtain some examples of good lettering and master two or three alphabets of Gothic or Italian style. After he has done this, he will see how all other alphabets he may come across in printed books will conform to the same general principles of the alphabets he has mastered. He will see how certain minor changes may be made, and if, in the end, he is anxious to be original he will, by broadening a letter where it may be broadened, or bringing its cross-bar down a little lower than usual, give a suggestion of originality to his work. (The chances are, however, that he will prefer to prove himself a good workman, and be content to combine, place and execute traditional letters.)

Strange’s “Alphabets,” published a few years ago, is an excellent book to study, and we shall give several alphabets from it. The old books on the subject are apt to be too ornamental for the printer, and the example we give from Niedling’s “Book Ornaments” is of far less practical use than the Strange examples we shall give. But the Bauernfeind alphabet is valuable for study. It shows the construction of the capitals on a geometrical basis, giving an idea of how monumental letters are made. It is easy to see that with such a guide as this, made by an architect, the commonest workman, with the aid of the {183} Page from a Minnesingers’ song-book in the University library at Heidelberg. Example of Gothic letter. The initial letters were in black and terra cotta. The letter W was half black and half terra cotta; the U, H, and I were terracotta; the ornamentation was black. In all probability the letters were half an inch or an inch high. If you examine them under a magnifying glass you can understand their construction better than as they now appear. The first verse reads as follows: “Winter, dine trÜben stunde und din kelte magnivalt, ob ich das erwenden kunde, daz siu wurden has gestalt, das liesse ich dur die lange naht, und durh die vil minneklichen diu mir froeiden vil hat braht.” see larger {184} square and compass, could cut in marble an immense dedication of a building or archway, though the letters might be two or three feet high. A little study of this alphabet will give you the ability to understand anything written upon the subject of roman letters, so that the following quotation from an article by Gleason White, taken from the Magazine of Art, will immediately become intelligible to you. Mr. White was writing of Charles Ricketts and the productions of the Vale Press. He said the Vale Press had its own type, its own paper with its own watermark, but the printing was done by Messrs. Ballantyne. The type designed by Mr. Ricketts was “based on the precedents of the best Italian alphabets.”

Mr. Ricketts believes that the plan on which all letters should be based is that of the perfect circle or the perfect square; it matters not which geometrical form you choose, since a certain number of letters—M, L, H, and the like—demand a parallelogram, and others—C, G, Q, O—an ovate or circular plan. If to draw this distinction between types based on the oval or the circle appear a mere quibble, we must remember that the difference between the Byzantine and the Pointed styles, which divide architecture into two great sections, is one of similar limit. There is all the difference in the world, to a specialist in types, between a small “b,” “g” or “o” that follows the circle (?), and one that is planned upon an oval (?)—I wish to emphasize this point, because I know that the designer regards it as vital; and I, for one, agree entirely with his estimate of its importance. The question of “ceriphs” and the angles of certain strokes; whether aW consists of interlaced V’s, or of two connected only by the ceriph; whether the ceriphs of a capital T are vertical, or slant divers {185} Reduced page from “Nimphidia,” by Michael Drayton; design and lettering by Charles Ricketts. Lettering to be compared with the Italian “Lucidario.” {186} Facsimile of the title-page of the “Lucidario” (A. Mischomini: Florence, 1494). Original size of rule, giving proportion of page, 4⁷/₈ by 7⁷/₈ inches. Showing early Italian type letter and wood-cut design in harmony with same. {187} ways, or parallel—all these are secondary matters, but the plan of the letter is not secondary.

In the beautiful Kelmscott type, as in the famous Foulis fonts and other notable instances, the O is ovate, and all other letters agree with it. In Mr. Ricketts’ “Vale” type, the square and the circle dominate every letter. If this distinction be passed over as unimportant, further contention is useless. But on this point no compromise can be entertained. If it be unimportant whether the arch is a semicircle, or planned, like Euclid’s first problem, upon the intersection of circles, then it matters little. But so long as architecture is separated by such structural difference, it follows that an O based on a circle, or an H based on a perfect square, must be entirely unrelated to the ovate O or the oblong H. When taste is in question, one allows the adversary equal vantage; but when geometry comes in, axioms must be observed. Therefore, the ill-founded assertion that Mr. Rickett’s type copies any modern font cannot be allowed. You may dislike his symbol for the ordinary “&,” or dispute over the beauty of his ceriphs and the oblique strokes of certain letters; but if you maintain that a circle and an oval are practically alike, the question of these nicer points need not be raised.

We give a reproduction of a page from the Vale Press, and for comparison the Lucidario printed in Florence in 1494. The similarity in the style of lettering is evident.

An evening or two spent in copying the Bauernfeind alphabet, and then making up one upon the principle that most of the letters should be contained in a square will lead you to understand the monumental letter, or what you recognize as upper-case Roman. You might then begin to collect pictures of mediÆval and classical monuments, and you would at a glance be able to see {188} the principles upon which their inscriptions are constructed, and you would see that though the letters of certain monuments differed in proportion from others, yet the letters themselves of all the classical monuments would be virtually the same, and most of the Italian mediÆval inscriptions the same in character. An Albrecht Durer alphabet given by Strange (on page 174) is particularly interesting, being constructed in the same manner as the Bauernfeind.

The Stimmer and Rogel Gothic alphabets are almost worthless for printers’ designing, but it will not be without profit for you to realize that they are built upon the principle of the swell made with a quill pen, and this will lead you to the study of what you recognize as Gothic letters which grew out of the pen hand of the middle ages. Whether in solid black or white, any Gothic letter must have more or less the principles of the Stimmer and Rogel alphabets. Space will not permit of a full analyzation of the matter, so let us take the letter L only. In its simplest form it consists of two lines (or “limbs”) at right angles—one perpendicular, the other horizontal. Both lines may be the same length; but conventionality has ordered that if either be the shorter, the horizontal should be. The irregularity of the ends of the letter, as in the monumental letters, is not a necessary characteristic of an L (which may consist of two simple lines); but it is the most frequent form in the monuments and is associated with our idea of a capital letter. When made with a pen in the middle ages it was sometimes customary to give the two lines {189} Examples of seventeenth century alphabets. From “BÜcher Ornamentik,” by A. Niedling, Weimar, 1895. B. F. Voigt. The first alphabet, after Michael Bauernfeind, is a monumental letter based upon the square, the margins of the letters being obtained by segments of circles. With such a diagram a letter ten feet high could be made as easily as one an inch high, and by an ordinary workman. The printer would not advisedly map out his letter with such exactitude, but it would be well to copy several of the letters, if not the whole alphabet, that he may study the character of the monumental letter. The second alphabet is after Chr. Stimmer; the third after type, the dies of which were cut by Hans Rogel. see larger {190} an undulatory character, and there is hardly any kind of twist or curve that has not been given to them. In making initial letters, in order to fill up the space it became the practice to make two lines of the upright shaft, and sometimes three lines were used. Cross-bars were also introduced, so that in Caxton’s initial letters the L looks like the monogram P. E. L. Almost nothing restrained the caligrapher; and if he chose to make a dozen or two upright shafts, each getting smaller than the other on either side of the letter, the whole ending in some such Celtic interlacing as the base of the Niedling plate, he could do so. But none of this is an organic form of the letter L; and additional curve is pure ornament. The distinction between the superficial ornament and the organic lines of a letter is easily understood by first practicing the Caroline hand and then the Gothic. In the next chapter we shall be more explicit as regards details.

THE DISTINCTION IN LETTERING BETWEEN SUPERFLUOUS ORNAMENTS AND ORGANIC LINES — A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR THE STUDY OF LETTERING — STUDIES, WITH THE QUILL PEN, OF THE CAROLINE ALPHABET AND ITS MODERN REVIVAL IN FRANCE BY GRASSET AND AURIOL — THE MINNESINGER LETTER NOT VERY ORNATE BUT MORE COMPLEX THAN THE CAROLINE — THE MINNESINGER CORRESPONDS TO THE STIMMEL AND ROGEL ALPHABETS — THE BERGOMENSIS LETTER MORE COMPLICATED AND MORE REGULAR THAN THE MINNESINGER — THE ITALIC LETTER MORE SIMPLE AND ROUNDER THAN THE MINNESINGER.

IN the last chapter we said, “The distinction between the superficial ornament and the organic lines of a letter is easily understood by first practicing the Caroline letter and then the Gothic.” Let us explain the benefit of this practicing; the keynote to the matter is found in our Caroline example. Draw the second I and you will find that it is virtually a simple shaft with a little spreading at the top and bottom. If you draw with a quill or reed pen it is very easy to get this swell by a little extra pressure as you begin to draw and as you finish; and in almost all Caroline writing the I is made freehand and the shape depends upon pen pressure and varies a little each time the letter is made. It is not mapped out beforehand. The thin curved line on top of the first I is superfluous ornament; that line is made by a second stroke. We find several such ornaments in the first two lines which form the head of a chapter, just as we find much ornamentation of the initial letter; but we {192} do not find any ornamentation of the I’s in the eight lines of text. There the I’s are all made with a single stroke of the pen, so that the top and bottom of each one is a trifle different from that of the others. In the first line of text there is superfluous ornamenting of the T’s, and of the H. Otherwise this is a true pen hand; the I made with one stroke, the C, D, L, O, P, Q, U, X, etc., with two strokes, the A, B, E, M, N, R, S, with three. The reader is advised to copy this alphabet with as large a quill pen as procurable, making the letters from half an inch to an inch high, and then, turning to the Grasset “Nouveau Larousse IllustrÉ,” it will dawn upon him that he knows exactly how the letters there were made; and he will have little trouble in imitating almost to perfection the three words, “En Six Volumes.” When he tries the words, “Nouveau Larousse IllustrÉ,” he may have some trouble with the A, the S and with the O, which does not show its separate halves as in the Caroline: the horizontal line of the L also is more difficult to make than if it were the same width throughout. The I, R, N and V he will find quite simple. As he familiarizes himself with the Caroline M, D, V and I; with the H in the second line of the text under the ornamental H; and with the P, S, C, he will begin to realize that upper and lower case letters were originally the same. He will also be surprised, if he next falls to studying the Minnesinger letters (last chapter) under a magnifying glass, to find how like they are to the Caroline. Is not the capital I somewhat clumsier than the first I in the Caroline top line? Are not the c, d, h, i, o, p, s, u, v and y clumsier, more angular drawings of the same letters as in the {193} TITLE-PAGE BY JACOBUS PHILLIPPAS FORESTI BERGOMENSIS. (Ferrara, 1497.) A splendid example of Gothic lettering. It is to be remembered that this was originally designed with a reed or quill pen, and the ornamentations are such as may be easily made with that instrument. But its regularity is also due, in a small measure perhaps, to its having been engraved on white metal. In an entire book written in this style the letters would be less regular—a little more like the Minnesinger letters. {194} Caroline alphabet? You find the s more decidedly four strokes, while in the Caroline it may be considered three. You find the m slightly different: turn to our last chapter and note the Hans Rogel m, which is upper case, and see how it corresponds to the Minnesinger lower-case m.

The Caroline e you think, differs from the Minnesinger e, but if you will look at the e in erat, third line of text, you will see how decidedly the e there is a lower-case e.

Now turn to the Bergomensis letters and recognize that they have certain characteristics. One characteristic is that the final letters and several others are ornamented with the same kind of curved lines as in the first Caroline I. Then that the letters are made with a pen stroke, but that three strokes are frequently used where one is satisfactory in the Caroline. This is plainly seen in the letter I. And of these three strokes, one is the shaft of the letter, which is long, the other two are the top of the shaft, which extends a little to the left, and the bottom which extends to the right. And these three strokes become the basis of the letter i, of u which is a double-i, of n which is a double-i, and of m which is a triple-i. The o is made of the main shaft and the right-hand base, and the left-hand top and the main shaft. So you will then see that the Bergomensis is nothing less than a more complicated and more regular letter than the Minnesinger, which in turn is nothing less than a more irregular letter than the Caroline! In order to make the Bergomensis letter you must have your pen cut to a comparatively blunt point the exact width of the letter—a letterer uses such a pen almost always. {195} When you study the Italic specimen (see last chapter, “Lucidario” page), however, you find that the lower-case letter is very much like the Minnesinger, except that it is more simple and a trifle more rounded, but note that it is evidently written with a comparatively sharp-pointed quill pen. But it is not to be overlooked Example of seventh century lettering from a Latin manuscript, reproduced from Strange’s book on lettering. In this letter, freed of the curves in the capitals I, T, L, V, C, etc., we find the principles of a very simple and graceful style of lettering, virtually the Caroline, which is being revived by Grasset and Auriol in France today. that the variety in the letters is still due to the pressure of the pen. The Italic letter is best practiced with a new quill; and then when it gets a little out of order it may be cut a trifle and be used for a Gothic letter, like the Minnesinger; and then when it spreads again it may be cut a second time and then used for a broader Gothic letter like the Bergomensis. {196}

Now, I do not claim that this chapter will be intelligible to a mere reader—I feel sure that it will not be—but to anyone who will put in practice all the exercises I have suggested, I feel sure that it will be intelligible, and that it will give him the foundation for the whole study of lettering so that he may pick up any alphabet and master its principles after a few days’ practice.

USE OF QUILL FEN NECESSARY IN THE STUDY OF LETTERING — THE ORNAMENTATION IN LETTERING OF NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN SCRIBES COMPARED: THE ITALIAN, GOTHIC, VISIGOTHIC, LOMBARDIC, ROMAN, VENETIAN, ARABIC — THE FIRST PRINTED LETTERS: TYPE OF CAXTON, GUTENBERG, ALDUS — THE ITALIC (LUCIDARIO PAGE), MODERNIZED, BECOMES THE JENSON AND MORRIS TYPE, THE FRENCH OLD STYLE, ENGLISH OLD STYLE, AND OUR MODERN ROMAN LOWER CASE: THE ALDUS TYPE BECOMES OUR ITALIC — THE PRINTER MUST HAVE EDUCATED TASTE IF HE WOULD DESIGN CORRECTLY — APPROPRIATENESS OF CERTAIN LETTERS BECAUSE OF THEIR HISTORIC ASSOCIATIONS — THE BAD TASTE OF ORNAMENT AT THE EXPENSE OF CLEARNESS — AIMLESS, UNBALANCED ORNAMENTATION — OVERORNAMENTATION — GRASSET’S LETTERING STUDIED — IN AURIOL’S LETTERING THE SPIRIT OF PLANT FORM IS EXTENDED BY LETTERING, AS IN GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE PLANT FORM IS BUILT UPON.

IT is to be hoped that upon our advice the printer, after reading Chapter I, attempted to copy some font, and that, not following any special method, he found it pretty tedious work: that he then read Chapters II, III and IV, and found, with the help of our information about the Latin capitals in a square, and about the Gothic letter being dependent upon the spreading of a quill pen, that things seemed clearer, more intelligible. But we think that, with the help of the present chapter, he will make still more progress. If he, fully appreciating our reference to the quill pen, procured one, and set to work studying the Grasset letters {198} he must have made rapid progress; for it is only by using the quill pen that the Grasset and Auriol letters can be understood. So we say that if a printer will procure one and practice the Caroline alphabet given in the last chapter, next the Burgomensis, next the Minnesinger, and then the Stimmel and Rogel alphabets, he will find that he has a solid foundation on which to study lettering, and a clear idea of the genius of letters. He will begin to realize that the Caroline is the simplest, the Burgomensis and Minnesinger the more complex, but not very ornamental, though in them the caligrapher had begun to assert himself, using a flourish from time to time to ornament the letters. And he will notice that these flourishes are such as are made naturally with a quill or reed pen, and that upon these curves and swellings are based not only the Gothic capitals, but also what are known as lower-case letters.

It so happened that most of the southern scribes (Italians and Spanish) confined themselves to a very simple letter, while the northern ones took pleasure in variety. The southern style is called the Italian, or italic; the northern, the Gothic. There are many historical instances, however, where northern manuscripts are simple; and on the other hand, the letters of Visigothic and Lombardic writers, though southern, were more ornamental than those of their Roman and Venetian brethren; and our Burgomensis specimen we call Gothic, though it was originated in Italy. The true southern ornamentation was originated under the Arabic influence in Spain (at the time of the Saracenic conquest), and traveled up to France, where it is found in the elongated d, s and f in the French diplomatic hand.

You, of course, know that when the art of printing was invented the types had to be cast, and the dies were naturally cut in the form of the letters of the manuscript of the country in which the printing was done. Caxton imitated the manuscript of the Low Countries and not that of England, when he printed the first book printed in English movable type. So, too, Gutenberg’s type imitated the German manuscript, while that of Aldus, tradition says, was cast after the manuscript of Petrarch, and that form has been called Italian or italic ever since. We give a specimen of Aldus’ “Horace”: copy with a quill the lower case in it till you can write with ease, and you will be able to write as Petrarch did. It is harder to associate it with quill pen writing than to associate the Gothic with the pen letter. Nevertheless, if you will write for a little while with an old quill, lettering like the Minnesinger, and then with a new quill imitate the Aldus italic, you will soon see that the italic character depends upon the pressure of the quill pen, just as the Gothic does, though not to such a degree. Make lower-case a, d and s, or an m several times, and you will see what I mean. The other Italian form, which printers do not call italic, is like the Lucidario, which is less cursive than the Petrarchian form. When modernized, the Lucidario becomes the “Jenson” and Morris type (while the Aldus is our italic); it only needs a little investigation to realize how easily it became the French Old Style and English Old Style, and then our modern, roman lower case.

It will not be difficult for you, if you will really obtain the quill pen and practice as I propose, to realize the truth of the following suggestions:

A printer should show an educated taste in his {201} designs. Few people know this, and your fight will be continually against this ignorance, both in yourself First page of Larousse’s New Dictionary, showing a scholarly style of decoration. This can be best studied under a magnifying glass. see larger and your customers. You will think that anything you like is artistic and appropriate and you will be tempted {202} to undertake it. Your customers will say that they “know nothing about art” but they “know what they like”; so they will pick out some ill-executed and inappropriate job and insist upon your following it. But my business is simply with that which is established as standard, and not with what people like or dislike. Now, historic association plays an important part in designing for printers. The first page of the Larousse dictionary is a superb example of historic association introduced into a design. Here, to illustrate the letter A we have letters from many different periods, but they are all harmonious because of their ornament and their execution. And they are appropriate because they are historical. So if you are designing an announcement of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, a prospectus of a genealogical society, a book of early English poetry (earlier than the tenth century) you could use the sixth or seventh century A because that belongs to the very best Irish-English lettering used between the sixth and tenth centuries. The other letters that go with the Larousse sixth century ornamented A specimen you will find in an example from the “Book of Kells,” given in Strange’s “Alphabets,” and perhaps in the “Durham Book.” This identical A is probably from “The Rule of St. Benedict.” Now, if you should obtain an Anglo-Saxon alphabet and master its style and apply it as we have suggested, it would be properly associated with these historic subjects; so you, as an educated printer, would know that you were right, and any criticism would not deter you from using it.

I take it for granted, however, that you use such letters as this A only as initials, or in designing a title {203} of a line or two; and that you would not let it occupy too much of the page: for it is not only necessary that a letter should be associated historically with a subject and that it be well designed, but it must also be associated with printing or bookmaking. It is true that some introductory pages in the sixth and seventh century Irish-English manuscripts were sometimes very ornamental, but the reading pages were, as a rule, quite This is a design by Eugene Grasset for the heading of a department in “La Revue EncyclopÉdique.” It represents French designing art at its best. It is free from conventionality, and yet orderly and well balanced. The Auriol design for “La Revue EncyclopÉdique” is bold and striking, but not as perfect as this. simple. The good bookmaker never forgets his pages are for reading. So, a Gothic ornamental letter that might be appropriate in a stained glass window or on a hand-painted testimonial might be offensive throughout a printed book. I know of nothing more inartistic, more nauseating to critics, than the millions of lithographed mottoes, Christmas cards, etc., that the English lithographic publishers have put out for the last decade—overburdened with ornament that should be painted and not printed. And so the whites in this sixth century A, and the dotted outline around it, make {204} it in a way less appropriate for general printing than the solid black, twelfth century A.

The middle A is in the style of the wood-cut Venetian letter of the sixteenth century; and while on general principles a gray background like this is not so satisfactory as a black one, yet this is not a bad specimen of designing, for the stipple could be punched into the wood very deeply, and is so near together that if one hole did fill up it would not be missed. However, it, too, must not be used for general printing, but only as rich ornament. It is well balanced, mind you, and therefore the detail is not so worrying as would be as much detail put in freehand, aimlessly and unbalanced.

If you will now turn to the cover design of the Larousse given in the August number, you will find it a beautiful production by Grasset, wherein we see also some decorative elements that may be studied in conjunction with what we have written in this and preceding chapters about letters. For example, the use of line with silhouette—we find a dandelion leaf reduced to silhouette, and another laurel wreath like the one pictured on the head of Goethe’s mother. But the lettering of the title is the most interesting part of it. Grasset has studied the Caroline letter, and reproduces it with very scholarly fidelity. Only when you have studied an example like the Caroline alphabet we give from Strange’s book can you appreciate the workmanship and good taste in the Grasset. A companion piece to this is the heading by Auriol where we see a modification of the monumental letter and the uncial as in the d and the r. Here the initials JJ and the initial L are Gothic in principle, and you will not fail to see how {205} Design for an article in “La Revue EncyclopÉdique” on “Le ThÉatre Moderne et L’Influence ÉtrangÈre, par Jean Jullien,” with an initial letter and design embracing a half-tone portrait of the author. A harmonious design, showing the use of silhouette; and Caroline lettering not so well understood as in the work of Grasset. Designed by George Auriol. {206} harmoniously the L below the leaves extends the spirit of the plant design, so that if you have ever read essays upon Gothic art, like the writings of Ruskin, you will readily see the plant form is here built upon, as in Gothic architecture. What we have said so far ought to have prepared you for a historic survey of the topic of lettering. Our space is much too limited to make such a survey very extensive, but what we shall give in the next chapter will serve as a foundation on which you can build, by reading, a much more exhaustive study of the subject.

THE GROWTH OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE — SIGNS AND SYMBOLS BECOME HIEROGLYPHS — EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHS BECOME HIERATIC OR CURSIVE — THE HIERATIC BECOMES ANGULAR IN THE PHŒNICIAN — PHŒNICIAN ALPHABET A MONUMENTAL ONE AND THE LETTERS LIKE OURS — FROM THE PHŒNICIAN COME THE GREEK AND LATIN ALPHABETS, WHICH ARE USED THROUGHOUT EUROPE TODAY.

THE GROWTH of written language is briefly recorded as follows. Primitive man used signs and symbols, as does the North American Indian. Noah understood the symbol of the dove with the olive branch. Had he wished to record the event of the flood he would probably have drawn several waved lines to represent water, and a mountain peak underneath, to show that the water rose above the mountains. A second picture of a dove with an olive branch would have indicated that the waters had subsided. This method of writing was used by the Assyrians and Egyptians 5000 B. C. With the Assyrians the symbols developed into “cuneiform,” or wedge-shaped signs, stamped on clay. With this form we have nothing to do, as it never influenced our writing; but with the Egyptians (as with the Chinese) the symbols soon took a written form called hieratic (used by the priests), which is the direct parent of our own handwriting. In hieroglyphs on monuments in Egypt, the sign for water was a horizontal zigzag, and for a mountain a silhouette of hill-like form. These {208} were painted, and sometimes partly incised on soft stone or stucco, and had a pictorial character. But when the priests had to write voluminous rituals, they used a reed pen on papyrus, and reduced the silhouette pictures to shorthand-like marks. The first example in the Larousse Dictionary (page 201), represents the hieratic shorthand of the hieroglyph of a bird. But not only did the Egyptians use their signs as hieroglyphic word symbols, but they also used them as phonetic signs, so that the sign for water stood for both water (mu) and the sound n. The Phoenicians and Hebrews are supposed to have borrowed their alphabet from the Egyptian hieratic writing; and in the transition the irregular character of the markings of the reed pen on papyrus disappeared and monumental regularity took its place, as nearly all of the early Phoenician and Hebrew writing was in the form of inscriptions on stone and metal. But in this transition the letters did not revert to the Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol, but simply became an angular, simplified form of the hieratic, so that the A became a V or caret-like form with a line crossing it.

With the Phoenicians and Hebrews the signs were never used for word signs, but for syllabic (or letter) forms, so that with them N was simply a phonetic sign (plus variable vowel accompaniments).

This alphabet was used by the Phoenicians, Hebrews, Moabites and other Semitic inhabitants of Palestine. It is supposed to have been carried by the Phoenicians to Greece, and possibly to countries farther west, but until investigation throws further light upon the subject it is well to suppose that all the other countries of Europe {209} received their alphabets from Greece, so that, virtually, all the alphabets of Europe—Latin, English, German and Russian-are simply modifications of the Greek (see the succeeding specimens in the Larousse Dictionary page). The Greek alphabet was modified in two ways: first, in the monumental form it became more regular—more right-angled—than the Phoenician; secondly, in the manuscript it became much more irregular—cursive in general, with angles not at right angles (see cursive examples, third row of Larousse Dictionary page)—so that in some third century manuscripts there is as much irregularity as in the Egyptian. This character, however, is more apt to be found in the late Greek manuscripts—that is, those written during the Christian era—than in classic Greek manuscripts where simplicity and regularity prevail. It is particularly interesting to the printer to realize this fact: for when he sees a difference in European lettering—as, for instance, the difference between Russian and German text on the one hand, and English on the other—he must remember that Russian and German are outgrowths of the late Greek or ornamental lettering; while English, Italian, Spanish and French are the outgrowths of the simpler classical Greek forms. To distinguish the two we have called the first (most of which is irregular) Gothic, the second (which is generally regular) Latin. But many an irregular manuscript was written by other than Gothic scribes, and there are some Latin manuscripts that are as irregular as the Gothic.

No matter how a letter may vary in ornamentation in a German, Russian, or English book, it is an outcome {210} of a Greek original. In the Russian, in one or two cases, a sign is a compound of two Greek letters, but in English each letter has its Greek prototype. Now anyone who stops to think will notice that monumental letters on stone are about the same in all countries. (The letters on Gothic brasses, however, are dissimilar to the usual monumental letters.) For the monumental letter is usually made by measuring, as in the first Bauernfeind alphabet, and is cut by an ordinary workman who follows a pattern, which should be simple. Therefore, an A is nearly always two oblique uprights and one horizontal crosspiece, like the sixth Larousse example. The two uprights are not always at the same angle, but they are nearly always oblique, though one may be very near the perpendicular. The crosspiece is sometimes oblique, but rarely at an angle greater than fifteen degrees. So a monument erected in Greece 600 B. C., one in Rome 60 B. C., one in Italy in 1400 A. D., and one in Paris today, have virtually the same letter A upon them as one written in Paris today, and a child who had just learned its letters could recognize it in each.

It must not be expected that in a short treatise of this kind we can cover the whole field of paleography, but our few notes on the subject may indicate to some readers a line of study that will repay anyone who undertakes it. The easiest method is to examine manuscripts of Bible text, where the subject matter is pretty well known, and, following the different styles of writing, acquaint oneself with the development of writing in different centuries and in different countries. A valuable handbook giving facsimiles of many Bible pages is “Bible Illustrations,” published by Henry Frowde, New York—it costs but $1.

SUMMARY OF METHOD OF INSTRUCTION GIVEN — PRELIMINARY “PLACING” OF LINES IN A SKETCH — THE RELATION OF A SILHOUETTE TO AN OUTLINE — DRAWING IN OUTLINE, IN SILHOUETTE, WITH PARTIAL SHADING AND WITH FULL SHADING — CUTS GIVEN OF VARIOUS STYLES OF BOOK DECORATIONS — ANALYSIS OF THESE STYLES.