1895.] J-O [Rosengarten. 



xylographic work preceding the discovery of movable types. There were 

 beautiful incunabula, works printed before 1500, and fine examples of 

 printing of the sixteenth century, when all the problems of typography 

 were already solved, black, brilliant, unalterable ink, paper often uneven 

 but strong enough to resist use and wear all these years, type perfectly 

 clear and extremely beautiful, Illustrations of great artists, refined in 

 execution, in exquisite taste ; wood engravings in harmony with the text, 

 yet _all these were done with imperfect mechanical appliances, but much 

 better done than the work of our own day with all the help of machinery 

 carried to the highest perfection. 



Then came the Elzevirs with their attractive books, and a whole series 

 of printers of irreproachable correctness, charming simplicity and a 

 noble air worthy of the bo )ks they issued from their presses. Publishers 

 and printers alike were then men of knowledge, masters of the classical 

 languages, writing Latin and reading Greek. Later on, as books 

 increased in numbers, they lost in their typographical value ; a few 

 printers fought for the old standards of excellence, but they were driven 

 from the field, and even when the art of illustration was at its best, the 

 printing and paper were at their worst. 



The nineteenth century has seen a still greater divorce between the 

 good and the bad. Many books well printed and illustrated are made of 

 wretched paper. That used in the incunabula has stood four centuries of 

 hard usage without harm. That used in some of the books printed in 

 this century of ours has not lasted for forty years. Typography was an 

 art in tiie (ifleeuth and sixteenth centuries ; to-day it is an art with and 

 for tlie few, an industry with and for the many. It is carried on in vast 

 establishments that have little in common with the old printing office, so 

 admirably preserved in the Plantin Museum of Antwerp, and so well 

 reproduced in Flameng's picture of Grolier's visit to the Aldine printing 

 office in Venice, some cases full of type, some forms ready, a press on 

 the model of the old wine presses, from which the name was derived. 

 Nowadays there would be a great manufacturing establishment with 

 machinery driven by steam or electricity, where printing is done with the 

 best mechanical appliances. 



At the Exposition there was a whole series of such machinery in use 

 to-day. It is only to be regretted that tliere was not a retrospective exlii- 

 bition, from the old hand press, the first steam press, that of the Times 

 of 1814, when the announcement was proudly made that that paper was 

 printed by steam — very primitive it was, too — printed on one side at a 

 time. By 1834 there were 160 steam presses in use in France. By 1817 

 there was in use in Paris a steam press with four cylinders printing both 

 sides at once, for the first time. In 186S, rotary presses were introduced, 

 and in 1873 an endless printing press was first used in Paris. In 1878, 

 there was exhibited a press printing 40,000 copies an hour, and cutting, 

 counting, folding, all done by machinery. Since then printing in colors, 

 photogravure, photolithography, and many other applications of the 



