mens of old printed books
and manuscripts was displayed on the screen by means of the
magic-lantern, and Mr. Walker's explanations were as clear and simple as
his suggestions were admirable. He began by explaining the different
kinds of type and how they are made, and showed specimens of the old
block-printing which preceded the movable type and is still used in
China. He pointed out the intimate connection between printing and
handwriting--as long as the latter was good the printers had a living
model to go by, but when it decayed printing decayed also. He showed on
the screen a page from Gutenberg's Bible (the first printed book, date
about 1450-5) and a manuscript of Columella; a printed Livy of 1469, with
the abbreviations of handwriting, and a manuscript of the History of
Pompeius by Justin of 1451. The latter he regarded as an example of the
beginning of the Roman type. The resemblance between the manuscripts and
the printed books was most curious and suggestive. He then showed a page
out of John of Spier's edition of Cicero's Letters, the first book
printed at Venice, an edition of the same book by Nicholas Jansen in
1470, and a wonderful manuscript Petrarch of the sixteenth century. He
told the audience about Aldus, who was the first publisher to start cheap
books, who dropped abbreviations and had his type cut by Francia pictor
et aurifex, who was said to have taken it from Petrarch's handwriting. He
exhibited a page of the copy-book of Vicentino, the great Venetian
writing-master, which was greeted with a spontaneous round of applause,
and made some excellent suggestions about improving modern copy-books and
avoiding slanting writing.

A superb Plautus printed at Florence in 1514 for Lorenzo di Medici,
Polydore Virgil's History with the fine Holbein designs, printed at Basle
in 1556, and other interesting books, were also exhibited on the screen,
the size, of course, being very much enlarged. He spoke of Elzevir in
the seventeenth century when handwriting began to fall off, and of the
English printer Caslon, and of Baskerville whose type was possibly
designed by Hogarth, but is not very good. Latin, he remarked, was a
better language to print than English, as the tails of the letters did
not so often fall below the line. The wide spacing between lines,
occasioned by the use of a lead, he pointed out, left the page in stripes
and made the blanks as important as the lines. Margins should, of
course,