HISTORICAL NOTICE OF PRINTING IN FRANCE.

405

Ci.ass XVIT."

tinguished itself by large publications, such as the collec-tion of Ordoimances of the Kings of France , that of theFathers of the Church and of the Councils, and that ofthe Byzantine Historians, &c. At the fall of royalty itbecame a vast establishment, in which was concentratedall the printing of the Government departments, dividedhitherto among private printing-offices. Napoleon con-fided the direction of it in 1809 to M. Marcel, who hadaccompanied the expedition to Egypt , and had founded aprinting-office at Cairo . Making u;>e of the types of thePropaganda of Rome, which had been removed to Paris ,M. Marcel printed the Lord’s Prayer in 150 languages.

U was especially under the reign of Louis-Philippethat the printing-office, then a royal establishment, im-proved its means of execution, and caused a great numberof Oriental types to be engraved under the special direc-tion of the most learned Oriental scholars, such as MM.Burnouf, Mold , Hase, &c. All the types are remarkablefor their beautiful execution, and for the happy combina-tions which, without impairing the purity of form ofcharacters, has simplified their cutting and facilitatedtheir composition. We may particularly instance thehieroglyphic character, composed of 2,400 punches, withwhich all the Egyptian inscriptions can be reproduced;and the Assyrian character, the decomposition of whichlias brought down to 100 the number of punchesnecessary to form its various combinations. The 150foreign founts in the specimen-book of the NationalPrinting-office offers an interesting subject of comparisonwith the rich collection of the Imperial Printing-office ofAustria . The Jury have particularly remarked the puretaste and perfect execution of the borders printed ingold and in colours, in imitation of the drawings andvignettes of the elegant Oriental manuscripts.

It is to be desired that the National Printing-office ofFrance , following the example of the Imperial Printing-office of Austria , and of the manufactures of Sfcvres andthe Gobelins in France , should successively increase itsrich store of foreign type, and devote itself more espe-cially to every kind of experiment relating to typo-graphy. The making of such experiments, which requirethe co-operation of learned men and good artists, wouldbe honourable for a nation like the French .

The typographic execution, with reference to thetypes, the harmony, the clearness, and the purity of thedesigns executed by MM. Chknayard and Clerget, isperfect. Nothing can he more beautiful than the threevolumes of the Oriental Collection sent by the NationalPrinting-office. These are—

1st. The First Book of Kings .

2nd. The First Volume of the History of theMongols.

3rd. The First Volume of the Bhagavata Purana.

The Jury have found the bookselling business of Paris honourably represented in this Exhibition by MM.Renouard (p. 1194), Bailliere (p. 1197), and Gaume(p. 1220), for the sciences and literature; by MM. Lan-cs lois and Leclercq (p. 1190), and by M. PagnerreCp. 1225), for educational works; by MM. Bance(p. 1200), Gide fp. 1188), and CharlesTexier (p. 1228),for architectural works: by M. Mathias (p. 1211) forhis industrial and scientific library', so suitably adapted tothe wants of mechanical science; and, lastly, by MadameIItzard, for works upon agriculture.

Amongst other works, the Jury have remarked theedition of Hippocrates, in Greek and French , formingseven octavo volumes; and the first volume of the collec-tion of the Greek Physicians, issued from the press of theNational Printing-office. M. Bailliere (p. 1197) is thepublisher of these works, as also of the Anatomy of theHuman Body, by Cruvelhier.

The “ Complete Works of St. John Chrysostom, andof St. Basil,” with the Latin translation in juxtapositionwith the Greek text, and the edition of the “ CompleteWorks of St. Augustine,” published by M. Gaumefp. 1220), are beautiful and honourable literary under-takings. Worthy also of mention are the Lives of thePainters and Aitists, published by M. Jules Renouard(p. 1190); the Monuments of Sineveh , by M. Gide

fp. 1188), executed at the National Printing-office; andin another class of works some books intended for scien-tific studies, such as the Lessons in Botany, by M.Lemaout, a ml the Course rf Chemistry , by M. Kegxaui.t.

French printing has been honourably represented atthis Exhibition; for Paris by M. Dupont (p. 1182),whose extraordinary production of fac-similes,* of oldbooks, in the style of anastatic reproductions, and whosegeneral specimens of printing as exhibited, deserve parti-cular mention ; by M. Didot (p. 1184;, who has raisedmonuments worthy of the old masters in his last threegreat publications—the Thesaurus of Stephanus, Du-cange’s Glossarium , and Bibliotheca Scriptorum Gne-corum, all produced in a country village, the whole of the

* Mr. Harris, so well known for his extraordinary pro-duction of fac-similes of old hooks, restoration of defectiveleaves, &e., has favoured the Jury with the following de-scription of the means he employs. His specimens were inClass XXX., and consequently out of the jurisdiction of theJury of Class xvn.:—

In the history of mankind there are few things so re-markable, as that the press and the easel have been themeans of producing works of art which have most con-spicuously tended to the civilization of man and the unityof nations. The avidity with which these productions aresought after, up to the present time, is fully proved by theprices given either for early printed books or ancient paint-ings, of which the former especially are often imperfect.From this latter circumstance the collector has been inducedto seek the means of having ancient and valuable works intypography and painting completed by fac-similes. and thusrestoring to the present generation works which most pro-bably in a few more years would have been buried in obli-vion.

It was about the year 1815 that I was first employed bythe late Mr. John Whittaker, of Westminster, an eminentbookbinder at that period ; and I believe the idea of havingancient books of the early printers, &c.. perfected by fac-similes, was first suggested to him by the late Earl Spencer,for whom many books were so done ; and numerous spe-cimens are preserved of seme of the rarest productions ofthe press in the library at Althorpe. Specimens are also tobe seen in the King’s Library, which were done in thelifetime of His Majesty King George III. , the art of imi-tation by facsimile being patronized by him; also by thelate Earl Fitzwilliam, the Hon. Thomas Grenville , and manyothers. I continued to work for Mr. Whittaker till about1820, when I was sent for by Lord Spencer, for whom Icompleted a Pentateuch in Hebrew and Chaldee, and se-veral other works; also I was employed by the late Mr.Grenville , in whose library are numerous specimens ofvarious works completed by me, as there are also in thelibraries of many other noblemen and gentlemen by whomI have been employed during the last 30 years. It nowonly remains to give a brief sketch of the process em-ployed. Formerly I made an accurate tracing from theoriginal leaf, and afterwards retraced it on to the inlaidleaf by means of a paper blacked on one side ; this pro-duced an outline lettered page, which, by being gone overcarefully and imitating the original, produced the desiredleaf. This process was found to take up much time, andwas consequently expensive, but it was the method Iadopted while employed by Mr. Whittaker; and he, tocarry out the deception still further, had two sets of toolscut of the large and small letters generally used by Caxton,with which he has often been at the trouble to go over thepages after my work was done, to give the appearance ofthe indentation of the type. The process afterwards adoptedby me was to make the tracing in a soft ink. to transfer thesame to a thin paper, and to re-transfer on to the intendedleaf: by this means I saved one-third, or one tracing of thework, which was a great saving both in time and expense.I pursued this process for some years; hut I have withinthe last 10 or 12 years had recourse to lithography, pro-ducing the tracing on to the stone, and finishing up theletters on the same: this has been beneficial, particularlywhen more than one copy was wanted ; but I occasionallyfind even this process irksome and uncertain, and frequentlyat this present time have recourse to my own, or the secondmethod described, and execute fac-similes by manuscriptprocess. I have thus endeavoured to give a concise andclear statement of the method employed in producing fac-similes. With respect to early printing, the specimensproduced by me are entirely done by hand, and are spe-cimens of a style now little in use in water-colour painting.”