( 626 ) 
‘NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 
ACCOUNT of the ORIGIN, HISTORY, and PROGRESS of PRINTING, ix 
STEREOTYPE, commonly called the ART of BLOCK-PRINTING ; read to the 
NATIONAL INSTITUTE of FRANCE, by A. G. CAMUS. 
‘(Concluded from p. 450.) 
HE author then proceeds to mention 
the following fact, which, as he 
conceives, refers to the period of time he 
has been considering. ‘There has been 
lately communicated to him, he cbserves, 
the first pages of a small Virgil, in octavo, 
or in twelves, accompanied with the fol- 
lowing note. “ This Virgil was polytyped 
about the year 1780, in common metal 
characters, by Andrew Foulis, of Glas- 
gow, who obtained for his process a 
patent, or exclusive privilege, during the 
term of fifteen years.” The author easily 
recognized the types of Foulis; he found 
in this fragment the faults that are usu- 
ally in sterectype editions, such as cha- 
racters deformed at the time of the pres- 
sion, and others unequally printed. In 
this fragment, the author regrets that 
there is neither title nor advertise- 
ment; nothing, in short, to fix the 
precise date of the edition, nor to indi- 
cate. the methods according to which it 
was executed. The edition here cited 
may he known, he says, by a fault in the 
first word of the 18th verse of the 6th 
Eclogue, page 15, line 4, where we read 
adgresti, in lieu of adgressi. 
The year 1786 is a remarkable epoch 
in the history of polytypage, and stereo- 
typy, from the use that Hoffmann (Fran- 
eis Ignatius Joseph), an Alsacian, made 
of the discoveries of those who had pre- 
ceded him, and from the latitude or ex- 
tension which he attempted to give them. 
The first epoch of his discoveries may 
be referred to the year 1783; and 
in fact, in the volume of Arts of L’Ency- 
elopédie Methodigue, which contains 
the article Printing, and which 
peared in 1784, there is the fullowing 
passage: “ We may quote among 
the experiments in printing, a new 
art of M. Hoffmann, a German, who 
has settled in France this year, 1784.” 
The author rejects the words, “ new 
ari,” as he contends that Hoffman did 
not, invent any thing, but only. suc- 
ceeded in the application and combi- 
nation of the processes already disco- 
verer. 
Stereotypy or polytypy, as it respects 
the mode of printing with letters, princi- 
t 
ap-- 
pally engaged the attention of Hoffmann, 
He had learned in Darcet’s Essay the 
composition of alloys or mixtures, which 
may be congealed, in some measure, like 
softwax. From the experiments of Ged, 
he had conceived the idea of moulding or 
casting forms for printing in a paste or 
clayey consistence. Hoffmann himself 
says, ‘‘ A form, set up with moveable 
types by the method of ordinary compos- 
ing, Serves me to make a mould by pres- 
sure into a fatsoft earth, mixed with plas- 
ter, and prepared with a gelatinous sub- 
stance formed of syrup of gum and sedi- 
ment of potatoes. This served as a mas 
trix, in which a composition of lead, pew- 
ter, and of bismuth, when pressed at the 
moment of cooling, yielded tables, which 
expressed in relievo the characters that - 
had served to make the matrix.” 
Hoffmann printed by this process many 
leaves of his polytvpe journal; and hean- 
nounced as a polytyped book, the Re- 
cherches historiques sur les Maures, a work 
by de Chenier (the father) which ap- 
peared in 1787, in three volumes 8vo. 
After an attentive examination of these 
volumes, I am of opinion says the author, 
that with an exception of the tables at the 
end of each volume, the whole has been 
polytyped. One of the reasons which ins 
duces him to think so, is the attention 
that has been paid to the marking, both 
on the front and back of each page, at 
the bottom, the volume te which it be- 
longs; aprecaution not used, and indeed 
quite useless in the ordinary mode of 
printing. During thetime that Hoffmann 
was publishiag-this work, he annexed to 
one of the numbers of his polytype jour~ 
nal, two proofs of page 69 of the first vo- 
lume of the Recherches sur les Maures, 
one printed with a polytyped plate, the 
other with moveable characters, that a 
comparison might be made respecting the 
result of the two operations... The au- 
thor does enter into a detail of the faults 
whichthis proofexhibits; itis easy to per- 
ceive, he remarks, that several characters 
do not resemble the characters that serv- 
ed to sink the matrix. 
Such were the methods that Hoffmann 
had adopted in printing, with respect to 
east 
