Figure 333
Modern Face Types: Alexander Wilson & Son’s Specimen, Glasgow
From a copy in the Newberry Library
1833
It is sturdier and pleasanter to read than parallel French types, and we are much more at home with it. It is not as good as a type as the Caslon character, but as produced by Wilson it is a very handsome and serviceable letter, and in it we have another English type-family—the Scotch modern face. It is an English equivalent of the fonts shown in the 1819 specimen of the Didots.
This quarto specimen is in two parts. In an “Address to the printers,” which prefaces the volume, the Wilsons say:
In conformity with ancient, immemorial usage, we have, in Part I. displayed our Founts in the Roman garb—the venerable Quousque tandem; but lest it should be supposed that we have chosen the flowering drapery of Rome for the purpose of shading or concealing defects, we have in Part II. shown off our Founts in a dress entirely English.
Two pages of titling-letters are displayed before we come to the first body type—a spirited and fine cut of great primer. Then follow varieties of roman, from pica to diamond. A page of double pica Greek (used in the Homer printed by the Foulis brothers) is followed by Greek fonts down to “mignon,” and two pages of Hebrew. The roman and italic types are again displayed in Part I, set in English, sometimes in prose, sometimes in poetry, and variously leaded. A broadside specimen of Wilson’s newspaper fonts ends the book.