Foulises and the Ruddimans in Scotland; of Bodini in Italy; and of the Didot family in Paris, any real progress can be pointed out. As a striking proof of the present improved state of the typographic art, we need only point to THE TIMES newspaper, which prints 35,000 copies every day; but on the day following the Duke of Wellington's funeral (viz. Nov. 19, 1852) 70,000 copies were printed, being 15,000 more than had ever been printed of any one number before. The 70,000 copies were printed off in. six hours and a quarter by their wonderful machine. In London, the centre of the printing and book business, there were in 1851, 3000 men and 1500 boys employed as Compositors, besides 800 men and 350 boys at press. Nearly 3000 works (including new editions) are published yearly, of the value of £450,000: 230 monthly and quarterly magazines produce £500,000 yearly. The stamp-duty on newspapers in 1845, was £327,682; in 1850, sixty-five millions and three-quarters of penny stamps, and eleven millions and three-quarters of halfpenny stamps, were used by 159 London and 222 English provincial newspapers. millions and three-quarters of penny stamps, and half a million of halfpenny stamps, by 110 Scottish papers. Six millions and three quarters of penny, and half a million of halfpenny stamps, by 102 Irish papers.

TYPE-FOUNDING.

Seven

Type-founding was an improvement upon the Chinese engraved blocks. With these forms, or blocks, they could print nothing else, because the letters could not be transposed. Guttenberg, however, assisted by John Fust, or Faust, discovered the means of cutting the forms of all the letters of the alphabet, which they called matrices, from which again they cast characters in copper or tin, of sufficient hardness to resist the required pressure. Faust's son-in-law, Schoeffer, adopted the more easy method of casting the types, which, with various improvements, has been continued to the present time. At the commencement of the eighteenth century, native talent was at so low an ebb, that nearly all the types used in London were imported from Holland. William Caslon, however, has the honour of removing this stigma upon English ingenuity, and of establishing the first foundery for British types.

The most important operation of a type-foundery is the formation of the punches, which are well-tempered pieces of steel. The face of the punch exactly resembles that of the finished type: the letter being reversed, and in high relief. The punch being hardened, it is then struck into a piece of copper, which receives the impression from the end of the punch, and forms a mould (called the matrix) for the face of the type, by which an expert workman will cast 500 letters in an hour. At the close of the last century, the Younger Fourmier, a punch-cutter and type

C

founder, caused some improvements to be made in this art; and M. Fermin Didot of Paris, who engraved the types used by his father for his beautiful publications, exerted himself for the purpose of imparting to types of all descriptions the highest degree of elegance. Mr. Whittingham of Chiswick first re-introduced the old letters of Garamond and Jenson, and has been followed by many of the London printers, so true it is "there is nothing new in this world except that which is old."

STEREOTYPING.

This is one of the means for making fac-similes in type-metal of pages of types, woodcuts, &c., about the eighth of an inch thick, and, to keep the plates of a volume of one uniform thickness, each plate is turned in a lathe. The process is as follows:-When the form of type is ready, the face of it is oiled with a brush, then burnt plaster of Paris (gypsum), mixed with water to the consistence of cream, is poured upon it; this matrix is then dried in an oven, and afterwards secured in a frame, and immersed in a caldron of melted metal. The plate thus produced, is then passed to the picker, who removes any superfluous metal. The first attempt at stereotyping was made by Samuel Luchtmans, who obtained plates by a process of clichage. About 1700, Valleyre printed in Paris some almanacs which he had obtained by casting. In 1725, Mr. William Ged, a goldsmith in Edinburgh, printed an edition of Sallust from plates; and in 1784, M. Hoffman, of Alsace, France, succeeded in obtaining stereotype plates from moulds of clay mixed with gelatine. But all the previous methods were superseded by the present process, invented by Lord Stanhope in 1800. Numerous attempts have since been made to substitute for plaster moulds the employment of sheets of paper with whiting placed between them; but the results appear inferior to the plaster moulds. For vignettes, casts of bitumen answer very well, and stereotype plates of bitumen give good results.

BOOKBINDING.

Splendour in the binding of books is a taste which dates back from remote times. These magnificent covers with their rich bindings were executed for the greater part by jewellers, who enriched them with reliefs in gold, silver, steel, and ivory; with precious stones, enamels, and other decorations. The ancient rolls were fastened together, either in the centre or from the end, by means of a boss, upon which the most cunning and curious art was frequently lavished. Velvet seems to have been the favourite covering for books at an early period. Calf leather came into use about the same time as vellum, during the fifteenth century. At the beginning of the next century, all the skill of the work

man was lavished in ornamenting the sides, the backs being plain, and even without a lettering. From that period till the commencement of the present, very little improvement was made in bookbinding; but of late years the production of books has so greatly exceeded that of any former period, and caused the application of so much machinery, that bookbinding may fairly be said to have become a manufacturing business. Books, handsomely bound, gilt, lettered, embossed, and otherwise ornamented, no longer depend upon individual skill; but are produced, with extraordinary rapidity, by the aid of machinery. Thus, many of the principal London houses can put 1000 volumes in cloth, gilt, in six hours, provided the covers be previously got ready, and this can be done in less than two days!

AUTHORS.

"Hard is the task a letter'd fame to raise,

And poor, alas! the recompense it pays."

"as

La Bruyère, many years ago, observed, that "'tis as much a trade to make a book as a clock;" c'est un metier que de faire un livre, comme de faire une pendule. But, since his day, many vast improvements have been made. Solomon said, that "of making many books there is no end ;" and Seneca complained, that, " the Romans had more than enough of other things, so they had also of books and book-making. But Solomon and Seneca lived in an age when books were considered as a luxury, and not a necessary of life. The case is now altered; and though, perhaps, as Doctor Johnson observed, no man gets a bellyful of knowledge," every one has a mouthful.

66

ARCHITECTURE.

When mankind had no other shelter from the dews of night, or the burning sun of noon-day, but what could be derived from the trees of the forest, how anxious must they have been to improve their condition, and how solicitous to discover some mode of fortifying their miserable huts against the vicissitudes of the season! It is therefore not unlikely, that baked clay, in the form of bricks, was made use of for this important purpose, in an early state of society. This application of clay is, indeed, known to have been very ancient.

The Tower of Babel, 2247 years before Christ, was built with bricks; and when the Children of Israel sojourned in Egypt, 600 years afterwards, their taskmasters employed them chiefly in this kind of manufactory.-Exodus i. 13, 14; v. 6, 19.

Architecture may be said, however, to be in a measure coeval with the creation, that is, in its rude state. In the Sacred Scriptures we are told, that Cain, the second man, and the first born of human beings, "builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch." Whether this city con

sisted of a series of huts, constructed of branches and twigs of trees, like the wigwams of the American Indians, or of tents made by covering a pole with the skins of animals, we know not. Vitruvius, a celebrated architect in the age of Augustus, who wrote more than eighteen centuries ago, considered that men took their idea of huts from bird-nests, and constructed them of a conic figure; but finding this form inconvenient, on account of its inclined sides, gave them afterwards a cubical form. Four large upright beams, on which were placed four horizontally, he considers the ground-work of the building, the intervals being filled with branches interwoven, and covered with clay. The Egyptians, who, according to Scripture, were the first makers of bricks, gave an impetus to the improvement of architecture; next the Romans, and then the Greeks; then

"Palaces and lofty domes arose,

These for devotion, and for pleasure those."

In the Grecian style, less wealth, but more taste prevailed, and where, indeed, architecture may be said to have been cradled, since it is to the Greeks that we owe its true proportions, as exemplified in the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian Orders, which we derive from them. The Greek term for architect is apXiTextov, which we find employed by Herodotus in the same sense as the word,architect now is; he informs us that Rhocus a Samian was the architectōn or architect of the great Temple of Samos. We thus learn from positive testimony, that before the great buildings of Athens were erected, the term Architect, and the profession of an Architect, were distinctly recognised among the Greeks.

FIVE ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE.

The Greeks are entitled to the honour of having first combined elegance and symmetry with utility and convenience in building; and by them and the Romans were the Five Orders, into which architecture is generally divided, carried to perfection. These orders, as Mr. Alison, in his "Principles of Taste," well observes, "have different characters from several causes, and chiefly from the different quantity of matter in their entablatures. The Tuscan is distinguished by its severity; the Doric by its simplicity; the Ionic by its elegance; the Corinthian and Composite by their lightness and gaiety. To these characters their several ornaments are suited with consummate taste. Change these ornaments; give to the Tuscan the Corinthian Capital, or to the Corinthian the Tuscan, and every person would feel not only a disappointment from this unexpected composition, but a sentiment also of impropriety, from the appropriation of a grave or sober ornament to a subject of splendour, and of a rich or gaudy ornament to a subject of severity."

TUSCAN.

The Tuscan Order had its name and origin in Tuscany, first inhabited by a colony from Lydia, whence it is likely the order is but the simplified Doric. On account of its strong and massive proportions, it is called the Rustic Order, and is chiefly used in edifices of that character, composed of few parts, devoid of ornament, and capable of supporting the heaviest weights. The Tuscan Order will always live where strength and solidity are required. The Etruscan architecture is nearly allied to the Grecian, but possesses an inferior degree of elegance. The Trajan Column at Rome, of this order, is less remarkable for the beauty of its proportions, than the admirable pillar with which it is decorated.

DORIC.

The Doric Order, so called from Dorus, who built a magnificent temple in the city of Argos, and dedicated it to Juno, is grave, robust, and of masculine appearance, whence it is figuratively termed the Herculean Order. The Doric possesses nearly the character for strength as the Tuscan, but is enlivened with ornaments in the frize and capital. In various ancient remains of this order, the proportions of the columns are different.

Ion, who built a temple to Apollo in Asia, taking his idea from the structure of man, gave six times the diameter of the base for the height of the column. Of this order is the Temple of Theseus, at Athens, built ten years after the battle of Marathon, and at this day almost entire.

IONIC.

The Ionic Order derived its origin from the people of Ionia. The column is more slender than the Doric, but more graceful. Its ornaments are elegant, and in a style between the richness of the Corinthian and the plainness of the Tuscan, simple, graceful, and majestic; whence it has been compared to a female, rather decently than richly decorated. When Hermogenes built the Temple of Bacchus at Teos, he rejected the Doric after the marbles had been prepared, and in its stead adopted the Ionic. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus, of Apollo at Miletus, and of the Delphic Oracle, were of this order.

CORINTHIAN.

This is the finest of all the orders, and was first adopted at Corinth, from whence it derives its name. Scamozzi calls it the Virginal Order, expressive of the delicacy, tenderness, and beauty of the whole composition. The most perfect model of the Corinthian Order, is generally allowed to be in the three columns in the Campo Vaccino at Rome, the remains of the Temple of Jupitor Stator.

The leaves of a species of Acanthus, (says an ingenious caterer of the literary world,) accidentally growing round a basket covered