Note 396 — XXVI

There should have been a gradual improvement in the construction of the press, as there was in the making of the types, but there was no decided change for two centuries. Moxon, in 1683, commending the “new fashion” presses of Blaew, denounced the “old fashion presses as make-shift, slovenly contrivances practised in the minority of this art.” Nor was Blaew’s press perfect. To insure proper register, Jackson (who undertook, at Venice in 1745, to print wood-cuts in colors) was obliged to reconstruct the press of Blaew.