2'"i S. N" 85., Am. 15. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



135 



Constitution (p. 245.), I find it stated that students 

 at the Universities are entitled to the rank of 

 gentlemen, not to that of esquire. It is well known 

 to those who know anything about such matters, 

 that very few persons indeed have any right to 

 be called esquire, perhaps hardly one in fifty of 

 those who go to the University. 



Your correspondents should really be a little 

 more careful. They often ask things which they 

 ought to know, but seldom state the exact oppo- 

 site to the fact, as in this case. C. C. B. 



WORKMEN S TERMS. 



(2°^ S. iii. 166. 393.) 



In continuation of my notes on the trade terms 

 of printers, their derivation and meaning, I beg 

 to add the following : — 



Prima. — The compositor who has the copy 

 for the first portion of a sheet, holds what is called 

 the " prima." 



Indention. — If a line begin further in than its 

 fellows (like the first line in every paragraph in 

 " N. & Q.") it is said to be " indented." 



To make up is when a sufficient quantity of 

 type has been composed, the compositor divides 

 the matter into pages of a fixed length. 



Imposition is placing the made-up pages in their 

 proper relative position on the im.posing-stone, and 

 surrounding them with an iron chase, which must 

 then be " dressed." 



To dress a chase is to place furniture, or pieces 

 of wood or metal, made for the purpose, between 

 the pages to keep them in their places ; quoins, or 

 little wedges of hard wood, are then inserted be- 

 tween the chase and the furniture ; a form is the 

 term now applied to the whole, requiring only a 

 planer, which is a smooth flat piece of hard wood 

 used to press down any letters that may be 

 standing higher than the others, and a mallet and 

 shooting-stick with which to tighten the quoins, to 

 make it quite ready for the pressman. 



Tympan. — A part of the printing-press : the 

 parchment which is stretched over an iron frame, 

 ready to receive the sheet of paper which is to be 

 printed. The word at one time included the 

 frame, but is now generally only applied to the 

 skin covering it. 



Register (registrum, anything kept according to 

 rule).— -When the printing on both sides the 



fjaper is kept so even that every page, line for 

 ine, exactly backs its fellow, the sheet is said to 

 be " in register." To effect this is often by no 

 means an easy matter, and when we consider the 

 rudeness of the tools with which our first typo= 

 graphers worked (and Caxton tells us how his 

 presses were made, viz. three printing-presses out 

 of one wine-press), we cannot help greatly ad- 



miring the perfection they attained in the registra- 

 tion of their work. 



Reiteration. — The pressman having worked off" 

 a form on one side of the paper, the operation is 

 repeated with another form on the other side. 

 This second form is commonly called the " reiter- 

 ation," or for short the " ret." 



Benvenue (bien venue) was originally applied 

 to the fee or fine paid by a workman to th^ father 

 for the good of the chapel on his admission to that 

 body, but was afterwards levied on occasions too 

 numerous to mention. Of late years these fines 

 have happily for the most part fallen into disuse, 

 so that the term is now but seldom heard. 



Solace. — The fine for breaking any of the 

 various rules of the chapel was so called ; but, like 

 the last mentioned term, this word has almost be- 

 come obsolete. 



Most of the above terms show at once their 

 etymology; but the derivation of the words quoin, 

 furniture, chase, form, and tympan, as used by 

 printers, does not seem quote so plain. Also the 

 word stick, as applied in the following terms to 

 four things entirely distinct in their appearance 

 and uses, is a puzzle to me : composing-stick, shoot- 

 ing-stick, side-stick, and foot-stick. The last two, 

 I should explain, are the pieces of wood placed 

 respectively at the side and foot of the pages next 

 the chase. Can any of your correspondents throw 

 any light on their etymology ? 



When we consider that Caxton spent thirty 

 years of the prime of his life in Flanders (as he 

 tells us in his prologue to the Recuyell of the His- 

 toryes of Troye') — that printing was first brought 

 to perfection at Mayence — that upon the disper- 

 sion of the workmen there, Caxton learnt the art 

 from some of them at Cologne (see his own ac- 

 count at the end of the above-named book), — that 

 the first workmen in England were without ex- 

 ception (as their names show) foreigners, and 

 most probably from the same city — Cologne, we 

 might reasonably expect to find at least some 

 trade terms in use among English printers de- 

 rivable from the Dutch or German. The reverse 

 of this, however, is the case : for while continental 

 printers have very few words in use not to be 

 found in any of their dictionaries, the English 

 printers seem to have chosen the majority of 

 their terms from the Latin or ecclesiastical vo- 

 cabulary. This feature in English typographical 

 nomenclature is further noticeable, as on the Con- 

 tinent, even more than in England, the early 

 printers were men of standing, and had in the 

 same manner to look to ecclesiastical and noble 

 patronage as the road to success. The only 

 terms in which perhaps the English printer may 

 trace a connecting link between himself and his 

 brethren of the Lowlands are the two following : 



Galley. — A piece of smooth flat board with a 

 raised ledge all round it, used to place the lines 



