Note 24 — INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER THE TYPES AND TYPEFOUNDING OF THE FIRST PRINTERS.

In a recent paper, read by the late Mr. Bradshaw of Cambridge, before the Library Association, he points out a curious shrinkage both as to face and body in the re-casting of the types of the Mentz Psalter, necessary to complete the printing of that work. The shrinking properties of clay and plaster are well known, and, assuming the new type to have been cast in moulds of one of these substances formed upon a set of the original types, the uniform contraction of body and face might be accounted for. If, on the other hand, we hold that the types of this grand work were the product of the finished school of typographers, the probability is that the new matrices (of the face of the letter only) were formed in clay, as suggested at p. 15, and that the adjustable mould was either purposely or inadvertently shifted in body to accommodate the new casting.