Note 271 — XXII

In Germany, the punch or the model letter is known as the patrice, a word obviously derived from the root of the Latin patronarum of the text. The reversed duplicates of punches, here translated as matrices, are noticed in the text as formarum, a variation of the word form, which we find so often in the record of the Strasburg trial. “The admirable proportion, harmony and connection of the punches and matrices,” should be understood, not as a commendation of the beauty of the printed letters, but as a specification by the inventor of what he conceived was the great feature of typography, the making of types of different faces and thickness on bodies of absolute uniformity, so that they could be combined with ease. It should be noticed that the invention or the use of isolated letters or types is not boasted of; it was the method of making the types which the inventor regarded as the most admirable feature of his invention.