Letter-prefs-plate or Stereotype Printing. 369 



tended to be multiplied by printing; and the cutting is ma- 

 naged in fuch a manner, that the letters are left prominent, 

 and prefent the original furface of the block, while every 

 other part of the furface is cut down fo much lower, that the 

 paper, linen, or other material to be printed, when applied 

 to the block or vice verfi, can come in contact with no part 

 of the bottom of the incifions, but only with the projecting 

 places which prefent the letters. The block being provided, 

 its furface is either applied to another Hat furface covered 

 over with a coloured compofition, as is the practice with ca- 

 lico printers, by which means it receives a fufficient charge 

 to enable it to give off a portion of the colour, and, with the 

 colour, its own form to the fluff to which it may then be 

 applied; or the colour is difTufed over its furface by means 

 of a ball, commonly made of loft fkin ftuffed with wool, as 

 is the practice with book- printers, in which cafe the coloured 

 body gets the name of printing ink, and the paper receives 

 the impreflion by being applied to, and prevYed upon, the 

 block. Were the block applied to the paper, the effect: would 

 be the fame; but in practice it is found much more conve- 

 nient to apply the paper to the block, for one reafon among 

 others — -the paper is the lighteft, and the eaficft taken up in 

 the hand. 



This kind of printing, from the beft information that can 

 be collected, appears to have been applied to the manufacture 

 of playing cards long before any idea was entertained of mul- 

 tiplying copies of books by its means. Thefe cards had va- 

 rious kinds of figures upon them ; and among others, we may 

 obferve in pafimg, one called the devil; and hence, probablv, 

 the antipathy expreffed by many againft all games with cards; 

 and hence, too, may have come the opprobrious name given 

 to them of the devil's book. 



At length the idea of copying MSS. by means of blocks 

 was taken up in Europe in the fifteenth century, and feveral 

 books were foon executed in that manner, which mav be 

 called the firft fpecimens of European ftereotype. It was & 

 wonderful help to the propagation of truth ; and the facility 

 with which books could be thus multiplied, compared with 

 the trouble of writing them, would have left little caufe for 

 wonder, had it induced men to be fatisfied for a long time 

 with this firft ftep in typography. 



This method, however, continued but a (hort time in prac- 

 tice till it fuggefted another. Cutting or engraving a block 

 for every page, was a work accompanied with confiderable 

 labour and expenfe : to cut feparate letters on fmall pieces of 

 wood, which might be arranged afterwards in any manner 



wanted, 



