particularly low ebb. Standards in typography and printing were rude (Caslon 

 was just beginning his career), far inferior to those on the Continent. Cuts were 

 used rather sparingly by printers, and almost always for initial letters (these in- 

 cluded little pictures), for tailpieces, and for decorative borders. As a measure of 

 economy the same cut was often repeated throughout a book. Also, initial letters 

 were sometimes contrived to permit the type for different capitals to be inserted in 

 the center area, so that in some instances no more than two cuts were needed to 

 begin alternate chapters in a volume. Rarely were woodblocks employed to illus- 

 trate the text. Pictures were almost always supplied by the copper-plate engraver, 

 even when the prints were small and surrounded with typographical matter. This 

 was an expensive and troublesome procedure, but it was the only one possible 

 where an able group of cutters or engravers on wood did not exist and where 

 printers found it diflBcult to achieve good impressions on the uneven laid paper of 

 the time. 



The main employment for knife cutters on wood was in making the popular 

 prints, or illustrated broadsides, which had been sold in city and village throughout 

 the country since the early i6oo's. Plank and knife could be used for these prints 

 because of the generally large size of the pictures and the lack of sophistication of 

 the audience. They are described by Bewick from his memories as a boy in the 

 1760's:" 



I cannot, however, help lamenting that, in all the vicissitudes which the art of 

 wood engraving has undergone, some species of it are lost and done away: I mean 

 the large blocks with the prints from them, so common to be seen, when I was a 

 boy, in every cottage and farm house diroughout the country. These blocks, I sup- 

 pose, from their size, must have been cut on the plank way on beech, or some other 

 kind of close-grained wood; and from the immense number of impressions from 

 them, so cheaply and extensively spread over the whole country, must have given 

 employment to a great number of artists, in this inferior department of woodcut- 

 ting . . . These prints, which were sold at a very low price, were commonly Illus- 

 trative of some memorable exploits, or were, perhaps, the portraits of eminent men 

 . . . Besides these, there were a great variety of other designs, often with songs 

 added to them of a moral, a patriotic, or a rural tendency, which served to enliven 



^■^ Bewick, 1925 (ist ed. London, 1862), pp. 211-212. 



16 



