KIN TIN G> 



163 



Printing. 



ereotype 

 inting. 



Illiam 





v. i- iiih, could purchase a pros, and employ artificers; 

 hut km-w no more of hooks than the title-pa^e and 

 tin- price. Andru Hart, who is juetly prai.sed by Wat- 

 MIII t.ji hi-* wt-11- printed Bible, was only a bookseller." 

 Hut this di-lidi-nry is amply compensated by the criti- 

 CM! acumen :iml t-nidition of Kuddiinan, (not to men- 

 tion one or two others,) to whom, in thin island, classi- 

 cal literature is more indebted than to any other indi- 

 vidual llrnry Stephens himself," says Mr. Chalm- 

 ers, '' would have scarcely complained of Kuddiman 

 as one of those printers who hid brought the typo- 

 graphic art into contempt by their illiterature. When 

 collect his Gutrin Dcnglas and Buchanan, his 

 l\udiii.i-nlx and his grammar*, his Lit'//, and his Vindi- 

 cation <>/ lim-Jianan's Psalms, wherein competent judges 

 have found the knowledge of a scholar and the accu- 

 racy of n critic, we may fairly place Kuddiman in the 

 honourable list of learned printers, with Radius and 

 Aldus, with the Stephenses and Jansens." 



But though, in general, Scotland may not have at- 

 tained to great eminence in the history of printing, 

 there is yet one species of the art of which she is enti- 

 tled to the honour of the invention. We allude to 

 Stereotype printing, invented by William Ged, first a 

 goldsmith, and afterwards a printer in Edinburgh. 

 The word is obtained from the Greek terms a-regie? solid, 

 and rvirof a type, as the method which it designates con- 

 sists in printing from solid plates instead of moveable 

 types. The mode of casting stereotype it may not 

 be improper to mention. The work to be stereotyped 

 requires to be set up by the compositor in distinct 

 pages. From the several pages, when carefully cor- 

 rected, a mould in plaster, the basis of which is gyp- 

 ium, is taken, and from this mould an impression is 

 cast, forming an exact fac-simile of the moveable types 

 originally set up by the compositor. A stereotype 

 plate is thus obtained, and the great saving of expence 

 consists in this, that the stereotype plate does not re- 

 quire to be above one-seventh part the breadth or 

 thickness of the ordinary types. This mode of print- 

 ing combines many advantages, such as security 

 against typographical errors, and cheapness of execu- 

 tion. It can, of course, only be used in the printing of 

 books that are in general use, and require no alteration 

 or correction, as the original expence of casting the 

 plate would be too high for a work of limited circula- 

 tion, undergoing probably only one edition. But in 

 publications of steady and ordinary sale, as prayer 

 books, Bibles, school books, the saving is not less than 

 40 per cent. The invention of this mode of printing 

 is due to William Ged as above mentioned. France and 

 Holland have, it is true, respectively laid claim to this 

 honour ; but their pretensions are so inadequately and 

 flimsily supported, that all writers have now concur- 

 red in favour of our countryman. Mr. Ged, naturally 

 inquisitive and ingenious, had made, while a gold- 

 smith, various improvements in the line of his pro- 

 fession ; and was led to turn his attention to printing, 

 sat he himself informs us, in the following manner. 

 In 1725, conversing with a printer on the disadvan- 

 tages experienced in Scotland from the want of a 

 letter foundry, and thence adverting to the inconve- 

 niencies of single types, and the tediousness and ex- 

 pence of putting them together in pages, the printer, 

 aware of the mechanical eminence of Ged, asked him 

 if it was not possible to remedy so great and palpable 

 a defect. " I answered," (says Ged) " that I judged 

 it more practicable for me to make plates from the 

 composed pages than single types. To which he re- 

 plied, that if such a thing could be done, an estate 



might be made by it. I desired he would give me a Printing. 

 page for an experiment, which, after come days trial, * "Y^"' 

 I found practicable, and so continued for near two 

 years, improving on my invention, and making a 

 great many experiment*, several of which were expen- 

 sive : but the more I practised, and the lets charge- 

 able materials 1 used, 1 was the more successful, till 

 at last I brought it to bear as that no distinction could 

 be made between the impression from my plate* and 

 that from the types." ( Memoir n>J (Jed, p. 1.) 



Such was the invention of Ged ; and nothing pre- 

 vented him from carrying it into immediate and exten- 

 sive effect but the want of capital. A gentleman of 

 Edinburgh undertook, on condition of getting a fourth 

 of the profits, to advance the necessary funds ; but the 

 other printers thinking that if Ged'u invention were 

 acted upon, their business would be ruined, dissuaded 

 the person in question from furnishing the requisite 

 sum, assuring him that his whole fortune would be in- 

 sufficient to accomplish the undertaking. In two years, 

 accordingly, L 22 was all that was advanced ; and 

 Ged, thus disappointed in Edinburgh, accepted the 

 offer of a London stationer to remove to that city to 

 carry his wishes into effect. In the English capital 

 his objects were, as before, opposed by the jealousy of 

 trade, particularly by the exertions, (whether honoura- 

 ble or otherwise, we shall not say,) made by the King's 

 Printers, whose interests they supposed were at stake. 

 Mr. Ged returned to Edinburgh in 1739, where, owing 

 to the liberality of his friends, he printed a stereotype 

 edition of Sallust, in 150 pages, 12mo. with this curious 

 title, C. Crixpi Salu&lii Belli Catihnarii et Jugurthini 

 Hittoriae. Ellin. Gulielmus Ged, Aurifaber Edinensit, 

 non typis mofjiliLus ut vulgo fieri snlet, ted Tabellit ten 

 Laminis fnsis excudebal, MDCCXXXIX. In the exe- 

 cution of this work he met with the most marked op- 

 position. No compositor could be got to set up the 

 types, from which the plate was to be taken ; and his 

 own son, a boy of only twelve years of age, then an 

 apprentice to a printer, did this part of the process at 

 night, or during his intervals of labour. Another small 

 work, ScougaPs Life of God in the Soul of Man, was exe- 

 cuted by Mr. Ged, who died in 174-9, after having 

 devoted nearly thirty years of his life to the improve- 

 ment of an art of great public importance, but which 

 to him or his family was never productive of any ad- 

 vantage. He left behind him two sons, who emigrated 

 to Jamaica, where they both died. And his name, 

 and the services he had rendered to a useful art, were 

 nearly forgotten till Mr. Nichols published Biogra- 

 phical Memoirs of him in 1781, and till Mr. Alexander 

 now Dr. Tilloch, (also a Scotchman,) the editor of the Dr. TU- 

 Philosophical Magazine, did ample justice to his merits loci 1 , 

 in the tenth volume of that journal. Dr. Tilloch may 

 himself be regarded as the second inventor of stereotype 

 printing ; for having bestowed great attention on the 

 art in question, he discovered the practicability and 

 utility of solid plates ere he had heard of the original 

 invention. Within the last forty years, many improve- 

 ments have been made in the stereotype printing, 

 particularly by Dr. Tilloch and Mr. Foulis of Glas- 

 gow, several French printers, psrticu'arly Hoffmann 

 and the two Didots, Mr. Wilson of London, Earl Stan, 

 hope, &c. It is now gaining ground every day, and 

 promises to he productive of incalculable advantages. 



See the following works on this subject : Junius's 

 Batatiio, Lugd. Bat. 1588. Maittaire's An/tales Typo- 

 graphical. Meerman's Origines Typographic*. Histo- 

 ries of Printing, by Watson, Palmer, Marchant. An ex. 

 eel! tut synopsis of the discussions of former writers may 



