Stereotype Printing. 325 



times produced plates tolerably perfect, by different processes, but we 

 may safely infer, from the art having made no great progress until 

 the time of Didot the elder, that their endeavors had not been 

 crowned with much success. 



At the beginning of the French revolution great quantities of pa- 

 per money becoming necessary to supply the. deficiency of specie 

 either concealed or sent out of the kingdom by the rich, Didot was 

 applied to by the National Assembly to invent some kind of assignat 

 or bank bill, which should not easily be imitated ; and at this period 

 it was that M. Didot first directed his attention to the means of pro- 

 ducing, in relief, a set of plates, to print on a common printing-press 

 which were exactly facsimiles, and could not without much difficul- 

 ty be falsified. This process was termed Polytyping ;* as the mould 

 in which the plates were cast was durable, and would produce any 

 number of copies ; the usual mode of stereotyping being, as the 

 French term it, a moule perdu ; it being necessary to make a new 

 mould for every plate. 



But as M. Didot's views were by degrees extended to the casting 

 of pages for book printing, he found it unnecessary to use durable 

 moulds, and therefore, after a year's experiment invented a compo- 

 sition, which, like the sand used by brass-founders, might be wrought 

 over again for different casts. The elegant editions produced by M. 

 Didot and sons, are the best proof of his success. 



When the fame of M. Didot's invention reached England, Lord 

 Stanhope, an ingenious and wealthy nobleman, whose time and for- 

 tune are principally devoted to the advancement of the arts, made 

 propositions to Mr. Andrew Wilson, of Wild Court, Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields, proprietor of the Oriental press, to assist him in such experi- 

 ments as might bring to perfection a new mode of stereotyping, of 

 which his lordship had obtained some ideas. Mr. Wilson, embraced 

 the proposal ; and after four or five years of incessant labor, they at- 

 tained nearly all the advantages they had contemplated. Mr. Wil- 

 son, in the year 1802, built his foundry in Duke street, Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields, and in the following year disposed of the secret for six thou- 

 sand pounds sterling, and some future advantages to Mr. Richard 

 Watts, for the use of the University of Cambridge. In the year 



* We have seen some beautiful specimens of this art produced by Mr. Joh& 

 Watts, of this city, of whose undertakings we shall hereafter speak more at large. 



Vol. XXIV.— No. 2, 42 



