Page:Historic printing types, a lecture read before the Grolier club of New York, January 25, 1885, with additions and new illustrations; by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914; Grolier Club.djvu/29

EAKLY ROMAN TYPES. 25 In Germany the dislike of Eoman forms was inveterate. The printers of the Strasburg classics in Eoman type found that their editions were neglected. Not even the authority and example of Albert Durer, who preferred the Eoman form, could make that character popular. Obliged Roman not accepted in to lighten and make less somber the old monastic Gothic, Germany, the German printers retained all its angularity and even added to its bristling rows of ornaments and nourishes. Eeligious prejudices had a good deal to do with the old dislike. A book of devotion, to be orthodox, must be in pointed letters. A book in Eoman type savored of heresy. The free-thinking scholars and philosophers of Italy were suspected of heathenism when they tried to restore the Regarded as a heterodox letters and literature of old Eome. Every book in the character. Eoman character was an object to be mistrusted. Nor was the objection confined to Eoman letter or literature. The early printers of Paris encountered active hostility from the ecclesiastical authorities of that city when they printed books in Greek or Hebrew. Eoman types were occasionally used in England by Eichard Pynson, but the first book 1 printed in England 1 These Roman types were probably the printer to cast a new Italian letter made in France. The first distinct which he is doinge, and it will cost mention I find of the making in Eng- him XL marks ; and loth he and other land of Roman types is in a letter of printers be to printe any lattin booke, Archbishop Parker to Lord Burgheley, because they will not heare be uttered, Dec. 13, 1572: "To the better accom- and for that Bookes printed in Englande plishment of this worke, and other that be in suspition abroade." Timperley's shall followe, I have spoken to Daie Encyclopaedia, p. 381.