The Walter Printing Press. 



P R I N T I N G-L ITHOGRAPHY. 



PRINTING. 



"PRINTING is the art of producing impres- 

 JL sions from characters or figures, movable 

 and immovable, on paper or any other substance. 

 There are several distinct branches of this import- 

 ant art as the printing of books with movable 

 types and stereotype plates, the printing of en- 

 graved copper and steel plates, and the taking 

 of impressions from stone, called Lithography. 

 Our object, in the first place, is to describe the art 

 of printing books or sheets with movable types 

 or stereotype-plates, generally called letter-press 

 printing, and which may undoubtedly be esteemed 

 the greatest of all human inventions. 



ORIGIN AND HISTORY. 



The art of printing is of comparatively modern 

 origin : little more than four hundred years have 

 elapsed since the first book was issued from the 

 press ; yet we have proofs that the principles upon 

 which it was ultimately developed existed amongst 

 the ancient Chaldean nations. Entire and unde- 

 cayed bricks of the famed city and tower of Babylon 

 have been found stamped with various symbolical 

 figures and hieroglyphic characters. In this, how- 

 ever, as in every similar relic of antiquity, the 

 object which stamped the figures was in one block 

 or piece, and therefore could be employed only 

 for one distinct subject. This, though a kind of 

 printing, was totally useless for the propagation 

 of literature, on account both of its expensiveness 

 and tediousness. The Chinese are the only exist- 

 ing people who still pursue this rude mode of 

 printing by stamping paper with blocks of wood. 

 The work which they intend to be printed is, in 

 the first place, carefully written upon sheets of thin 

 100 



transparent paper ; each of these sheets is glued, 

 with the face downwards, upon a thin tablet of 

 hard wood ; and the engraver then, with proper 

 instruments, cuts away the wood in all those parts 

 on which nothing is traced; thus leaving the 

 transcribed characters in relief, and ready for 

 printing. In this way as many tablets are neces- 

 sary as there are written pages. No press is used ; 

 but when the ink is laid on, and the paper care- 

 fully placed above it, a brush is passed over with 

 the proper degree of pressure. A printing-office. 

 however, has, been in operation in the Imperial 

 Palace of Pekin for many years, in which a large 

 number of works are printed upon movable types, 

 manufactured substantially as they are with us. 



Among the first attempts at printing by means 

 of wood-engraving (see No. 101) which can be 

 traced to have been made in Europe, was the 

 making of playing-cards for the amusement of 

 Charles VI. of France, towards the end of the 

 1 4th century. Thereafter came prints from 

 wood-blocks of human figures, single or in 

 groups ; one of the earliest existing specimens 

 of which was found in a convent not far from 

 Augsburg, with the date 1423 upon it. It is a 

 representation of St Christopher, by an un- 

 krlown artist ; and is now, or was lately, in the 

 possession of Earl Spencer. These prints were 

 at first without any text, or letter-press, as it is 

 termed ; but after the groundwork of the art had 

 been completed, its rise towards perfection was 

 almost unparalleled in rapidity. Its professors 

 composed historical subjects with a text or ex- 

 planation subjoined. The pages were phced in 

 pairs facing each other ; and as only one side of 

 the leaf was impressed, the blank pages came 

 also opposite one another ; which, being pasted 



