Neither Chapman and Millar, nor any of their succes sors for many ages, were distinguished, like many of the printers of that period, for literary attainments. " At the commencement of the seventeenth century," says Mr. Chalmers, "the printers of Edinburgh were generally booksellers, who, having acquired some wealth, could purchase a press, and employ artificers ; but knew no more of books than the title-page and the price. Andro Hart, who is justly praised by Watson for his well-printed Bible, was only a bookseller." But this deficiency is amply com pensated by the critical acumen and erudition of Ruddi man, (not to mention one or two others,) to whom, in this island, classical literature is more indebted than to any other individual. " Henry Stephens himself," says Mr. Chalmers, " would have scarcely complained of Ruddi man as one of those printers who had brought the typo graphic art into contempt by their illiterature. When we recollect his Gawin Douglas and Buchanan, his Rudi ments and his grammars, his Livy, and his Vindication of Buchanan's Psalms, wherein competent judges have found the knowledge of a scholar, and the accuracy of a critic, we may fairly place Ruddiman in the honourable list of learned printers, with Badius and Aldus, with the Stephenses and Jansens." But though, in general, Scotland may not have attained to great eminence in the history of printing, there is yet One species of the art of which she is entitled to the ho nour of the invention. We allude to Stereotype printing, invented by William Ged, first a goldsmith, and afterwards a printer in Edinburgh. The word is obtained from the Greek terms G-7..-efo;, solid, and rvroy, a type, as the method which it designates consists in printing from solid plates, instead of moveable types. The mode of casting stereo type it may not he improper to mention. The work to be stereotyped requires to be set up by the compositor in dis tinct pages. From the several pages, when carefully cor rected, a mould in plaster, the basis of which is gypsum, is taken; and from this mould an impression is cast, forming an exact facsimile of the moveable types originally set up by the compositor. A stereotype plate is thus obtained, and the great saving of expense consists in this, that the stereotype plate does not require to be above one-seventh part the breadth or thickness of the ordinary types. This mode of printing combines many advantages, such as secu rity against typographical errors, and cheapness of execu tion. It call, of course, only be used in the printing of books that are in general use, and require no alteration or correc tion, as the original expense of casting the plate would be too high for a work of limited circulation, undergoing probably only one edition. But in publications of steady and ordinary salop as prayer books, Bibles, school books, the saving is not less than 40 per cent. The invention of this mode of printing is due to William Ceti, as above mentioned. France and Holland have, it is true, respectively laid claim to this honour; but their pretensions are so inadequately and fliinsily supported, that all writers have now concurred in favour of our countryman. Mr. Ged, naturally inquisi tive and ingenious, had made, while a goldsmith, various improvements in the line of his profession, and was led to turn his attention to printing, as he himself informs us, in the following manner. In 1725, conversing with a printer on the disadvantages experienced in Scotland, from the want of a letter-foundry, and thence adverting to the in conveniences of single types, and the tediousness and ex pense of putting them together in pages, the printer, aware of the mechanical eminence of Ged, asked him if it was not possible to remedy so great and palpable a defect. " I answered," (says Ged,) " that I judged it more practicable for me to make plates from the composed pages than sin gle types. To which he replied, that if such a thing could be done, an estate might be made by it. I desired he would
give me a page fur an experiment, which, after some days' trial, 1 found practicable, and so continued for near two years, improving on my invention, and making a great many experiments, several of which were expensive: but the more I practised, and the less chargeable materials I used, I was the more successful, till at last I brought it to bear as that no distinction could be made between the im pression from my plates and that from the types." (Me moirs of Ged, p. 1.) Such was the invention of Ged ; and nothing prevented him from carrying it into immediate and extensive effect, but the want of capital. A gentleman of Edinburgh un dertook, on condition of getting a fourth of the profits, to advance the necessary funds; but the other printers, think ing that if Ged's invention were acted upon, their business would be ruined, dissuaded the person in question from furnishing the requisite sum, assuring him that his whole fortune would be insufficient to accomplish the undertaking. In two years, accordingly, 22/. was all that was advanced ; and Ged, thus disappointed in Edinburgh, accepted the offer or a London stationer, to remove to that city to carry his wishes into effect. In the English capital his objects were, as before, opposed by the jealousy of trade, particu larly by the exertions (whether honourable or otherwise we shall not say) made by the King's Printers, whose in terests they supposed were at stake. Mr. Ged returned to Edinburgh in 1739, where, owing to the liberality of his friends, he printed a stereotype edition of Sallust, in 150 pages, 12mo. with this curious title, C. Cris/pi Sallrcstii Belli Catilinariicc Jugurthini Histories. Edin. Gulielmas Ged, ?urifaber Edinensis, non ty/zis nzobilibus, ut go Teri soles, sed Tabellis seu Laminis fusis excudebat, MDCCXX XLY. In the execution of this work he met with the most marked opposition. No compositor could be got to set up the types from which the plate was to be taken; and his own son, a boy of only twelve years of age, then an apprentice to a printer, did this part of the process at night, or during his intervals of labour. Another small work, Scougal's Life of God in the Soul of Man, was exe cuted by Mr. Ged, who died in 1749, after having devoted nearly thirty years of his life to the improvement of an art of great public importance, but which to him or his family was never productive of any advantage. He left behind him two sons, who emigrated to Jamaica, where they both died; and his name and the services he had rendered to a useful art, were nearly forgotten, till Mr. Nichols published Biographical Memoirs of him in 1781, and till Mr. Alexan der, now Dr. Tilloch (also a Scotsman) the editor of the Philosophical Magazine, did ample justice to his merits, in vol. x. of that journal. Dr. Tilloch may himself be re garded as the second inventor of stereotype printing; for, having bestowed great attention on the art in question, he discovered the practicability and utility of solid plates, ere he had heard of the original invention. Within the last forty years many improvements have been made in the stereotype printing; particularly by Dr. Tilloch and Mr. Foulis, of Glasgow, several French printers, particularly Hoffmann and the two Didots, Mr. Wilson, of London, Earl Stanhope, &c. It is now gaining ground every day, and promises to be productive of incalculable advantages.
See the following works on this subject : Junius's Bata via, Lugd. Bat. 1588. i\lattaire's 4nnales Typographiecr. Meertnan's Origines Typographicze. Histories of printing, by Watson, Palmer, Marchant. An excellent synopsis of the discussions of former writers may be found in The Ori gin of Printing, in two Essays, &c. Lond 1774, 8vo. Sec also Chalnzers's Life of Ruddiman, pp. 80. 81. Lives of the Scottish Poets, vol. i. p. 75. Memoirs of Getz'. (T. m.)