88 THE ART OF PRINTING. 



made very slight efforts to improve their art. It is almost needless 

 to say, that all the labour and expense of the type-founder (which are 

 at all times very considerable), will be unavailing, and the best 

 efforts of the printer rendered nugatory, if the quality of the paper 

 be overlooked. The precise period of the first manufacture of this 

 article is extremely unsatisfactory, neither is the first process suffi- 

 ciently known to warrant us in hazarding an opinion : it appears, 

 however, that the paper on which Caxton printed his works was 

 prepared of " very fine and good linen rags." It is useless to inquire 

 as to when or how printing paper was first manufactured ; as it is an 

 incontrovertible fact that the art has considerably retrograded in 

 England. The printing paper which is now used is made of cotton 

 rag and plaster of Paris, and bleached with various acids, in the 

 humble hope of making it comparatively white ; but paper so pre- 

 pared retards the printer in the execution of his work, defies his best 

 abilities, and ultimately injures his reputation: the bad quality of 

 paper alone may account for so few elegantly printed works having 

 emanated from the British press. It has long been admitted that 

 India paper is the best for fine printing, particularly from wood en- 

 gravings j that the French plate paper is the next in succession, and 

 the English manufacture the worst of all ! To endeavour to keep 

 pace with the amazing improvements daily making by the typo- 

 graphical artist, as well as with the laudable attempt to raise the 

 national manufacture to the highest degree of importance, by making 

 the English the exporter instead of the importer of fine printing 

 paper, British talent and capital have been actively engaged for the 

 last few years, to improve the quality of our own fabric, and to 

 obviate the necessity of resorting to a foreign market. The inconve- 

 nience which must always result from a nation being dependent on 

 a foreign fabric, latterly became the more serious, in consequence of 

 the great excellence to which wood engraving had arrived, and the 

 A^ery considerable preference and patronage bestowed on all illustrated 

 works. 



The first book auction in England, of which there is any record, 

 is of a date as far back as 1676, when the library of Dr. Seaman was 

 brought to the hammer. Prefixed to the catalogue there is an 

 address, which thus commences : " Reader, it hath not been usual 

 here in England to make sale of books by way of auction, or who 

 will give most for them ; but it having been practised in other coun- 

 tries, to the advantage of both buyers and sellers; it was therefore 

 conceived (for the encouragement of learning) to publish the sale of 

 these books in this manner of way." 



In the year 1274, the price of a small Bible, neatly written, was 

 30/. It is said that the building of two arches of the old London 

 Bridge cost only 25/., being 51. less than a copy of the Bible many 

 years afterwards. 



For the invention of Italic letter, we are indebted to the ingenuity 

 of Aldus Manutius, by birth a Roman, who introduced Roman 

 shapes of a much neater cut than those before in use, and gave birth 

 to that beautiful letter now known to most of the nations in Europe 

 by the name of Italic ; though most of the founders and printers in 

 the North of Germany, still persist in calling this character cursiv. 



