Note 398 — XXVI

Words and lines were sometimes printed in red in a text of black, with a nicety of register rarely equaled by any printer during the first years of this century. The early method of printing red with black, has been described by Moxon. The black form was first printed with quadrats in the places that should be occupied by the red words or lines. This done, the form remaining on press, the quadrats were taken out and the vacant space partially filled with “underlays” of reglet, about one-sixth inch thick. On these underlays the types to be printed in red were placed, which adjusting made them about one-sixth of an inch higher than the types of the black form. The bearers were then raised, the impression was readjusted, a new frisket was put on, and the pressman was ready to print red as he had printed the black. This method of printing red with black, a clumsy method at best, which can be practised only on small forms on the hand-press, has been out of fashion for many years.—The color work of the early printers has been overpraised. Superior, no doubt, to that of printers of the last century, who tried to do more work in less time, it cannot be compared with the color work of our time. The rubricated Book of Common Prayer printed by Welch, Bigelow & Co. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Specimen Book of Charles Derriey of Paris, the French-English Dictionary of George Bellows of Gloucester, England, may be offered as specimens of modern color presswork which show an exactness of register and a purity of color and of impression not to be found in any early book.