of line, and with the forefinger and thumb of the right hand he picks up the types forming the words of his copy, and receives them with the thumb of the left in the stick, feeling that the nick, which is on the under side of each type, is uppermost as he drops it into its place. Between words are inserted spaces, which being lower than the letters do not produce an impression on the paper, and, varying in thickness, allow each line to be spaced out to a uniform width. All the letters are separate pieces of metal, fitting closely to each other; and, in a page such as this, there are upwards of 2,000 distinct pieces, each of which the compositor has to pick up separately, his wages being regulated by the number of thousands he sets up.

It is nevertheless requisite to remark that attempts have lately been made to supersede to a very great extent the manual labour of the compositor, in the arrangement of the letters, by two machines, which are acted on in the same way as the keys of a piano-forte are touched. The letters of each kind are arranged in different compartments, and one of each drops through, at each touch, as the key opens a valve at the bottom of the receptacle. These machines-the invention of Messrs. Young and Delcambre-are exceedingly ingenious; but peculiar skill and a long education is required before they can be brought into effective play, and either from the indisposition of men to quit their old habits, or from the want of capital, on the part of the proprietors, to submit their inventions to the principals of establishments in an effective state, they have received very scanty encouragement in any department of the business.

If, however, it has hitherto proved unprofitable to adapt machinery to the process of arranging the types, such has not been the case with regard to the impressions to be taken from them. Until towards the close of the last century, but little improvement had been made in the form of the old wooden printing press, except, as has been stated, in enlarging the

size and increasing the power of the screw. But, at the period alluded to, Earl Stanhope, a nobleman of great ingenuity, who was himself an amateur printer, and exceedingly desirous of improving the art, invented, and, with the assistance of Mr. Walker, a skilful machinist, brought to perfection, an iron press in which the power, instead of being derived from the screw, was derived from a bent lever that impressed the platten or iron plate upon the paper, which is brought down on the surface of the types. The peculiar property of this press is, that when the platten first moves downward, its motion is rapid, while, when the power is about to be applied, it is slow, so that the greatest amount of force is concentrated just at the time when it can be of the greatest effect. This press of Lord Stanhope's was followed by several others, for which patents were taken out; all of very ingenious construction, and which came into very general use. The most powerful of those was one called the Columbian press, invented by an American named Clymer; and the quickest in its action was the Albion press, invented by Mr. Cope of Finsbury, and greatly improved by his successor, Mr. Hopkinson. The power in both these is obtained from the effect of levers alone.

A press called the Ruthven press was much used when first brought out. Its peculiarity consists in the bed on which the type is placed being stationary, while the platten producing the impression is drawn over by the hand. It has very con

siderable power, but from the bar being pressed down by the left hand is very laborious to the pressman, and owing to the confined position of the works preventing their being oiled or cleaned with facility it is now almost entirely disused; and those now more generally adopted for manual printing are on the principles of Clymer and Hopkinson.

Of the various modes adopted for the execution of those beautiful works in which several colours are used for embellishment, we have not space, within the limits here assigned, to speak. The examples which have already. issued from the type press show to what an extent this beautiful art has been carried. Want of room also prevents us from dwelling upon the equally beautiful art of printing from wood engravings, in which the lines, instead of being sunk beneath the surface, as in copper plates, are left raised, the other portions of the surface being cleared away.

To enter fully into these processes, as well as the departments of lithography and copperplate printing, would require

a volume. Let us, however, turn to the crowning discovery, the application of the Steam Engine, which makes the printing press, in one sense, a voluntary machine, and brings by its aid the productions of the noblest genius within the reach of the myriads whose means little more than suffice for the necessaries of life. This was accomplished by the invention of the Printing Machine, by which cylindrical pressure is applied in lieu of the flat, or platten, impression obtained by the common press.

Before, however, stating the circumstances of the application of steam power to printing, we should notice an invention, without which we may almost venture to say steam-machine printing could never have been generally adopted. This is an improvement for inking the types by means of composition rollers. Printing ink consists chiefly of lamp-black and varnish, with some other constituents to increase the brilliancy of the colour, and to keep the principal substances in coherence with each other. Formerly the ink was laid upon a flat surface by a little triangular piece of iron, with a handle to it, called a slice. A small portion of it was then taken and brayed out with a sort of wooden mallet as evenly as possible. The workmen employed to put the ink upon the forme (or a quantity of types which are arranged in their several pages in certain positions on the bed of the press, where they are to give their impression to the paper) held in each hand a wooden stock, in the shape of a stone-mason's hammer, which was hollowed out on its lower surface. That hollow was stuffed with wool, until there was a convex surface formed, and over this there was stretched a piece of untanned sheepskin, so as to be perfectly tight, even, and smooth. These are technically called balls; and the great art of keeping them fit for service consisted in retaining the pelts or sheepskin in a certain state of moisture and softness, so that they would receive the ink equally all over. The pressman, having taken a small portion of this ink on one

of the balls, worked it against the other spirally, and occasionally dabbing the balls together until the ink was very evenly

spread or distributed over them both. With these he then dabbed the forme, keeping them constantly twirling round in his hands, when not absolutely touching the face of the types, until at length the whole of the letters were equally and sufficiently covered. This process required great nicety, and was moreover very labori

ous, while considerable trouble and atten

tion were necessary to keep the balls in proper working order. All was at length obviated by the discovery of Mr. Foster, who, by the intermixture of glue, treacle, tar, and isinglass, formed a composition which retained all the requisite qualities of softness, elasticity, and readiness to receive and impart the ink, and which could, moreover, be made to adhere round a wooden

apparently indispensable value in machine printing. These rollers have of late years been immensely improved by the ingenuity of the Messrs. Harrilds, of Great Distaff Lane, in the city of London, and an inspection of the apparatus, which they possess for making composition balls and rollers, will amply gratify any one who has a taste for the useful arts.

But, to return to the Printing Machine. The want of some means to meet the increasing demand for books and newspapers had long been felt, and as early as 1790, before even Lord Stanhope's press had been brought into use, Mr. W. Nicholson had taken out a patent for two machines, the one