A Specimen of the Several Sorts of Printing-Types Belonging to the University of Oxford at the Clarendon Printing-House
The University of Oxford's inventory of printing type, dated 1768 on its title page, with a supplement of new letters bought in 1768, 1769 and 1770 bound in at the back.
What it is
The University of Oxford's inventory of printing type, dated 1768 on its title page, with a supplement of new letters bought in 1768, 1769 and 1770 bound in at the back. It argues nothing in words. Each size, named in trade terms from Two Lines Paragon down to Brevier, appears as a line of capitals and then a block of continuous Latin, mostly from Cicero's defence of Quinctius and a Latin version of Aeschines against Ctesiphon, so the same kind of text recurs from size to size. Superiors, fractions, figures, braces and a page of printers' flowers follow. Then come black letter, several Greeks including one credited to Baskerville, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic with a supplement for Persian, Turkish and Malayan, Samaritan, Etruscan, Coptic, Slavonic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Saxon, and Gothic and Runic characters given by Francis Junius about 1677.
Why read it now
The method holds. The book never describes a face. It sets each one at working size in real prose, so the buyer judges with the eye instead of the seller's adjectives. Keeping the sample text steady across sizes is a controlled comparison, the same logic as an A/B test where only one thing changes. Type foundries still publish specimens this way, and the filler text lorem ipsum is itself scrambled Cicero. Naming sizes in the trade's own units turns the book into an order form. What has dated: the size names, long since replaced by points; the long s, which the OCR reads as f; and Latin sample text, which shows the texture of a page but not how a face handles the reader's own language. The OCR of the Greek, Hebrew and Arabic pages is unreadable, so those faces cannot be judged from this file. Use: when choosing an Arabic and a Latin face for a Gulf brand, set one fixed bilingual paragraph, with prices and digits in it, in every candidate at every size the brand will use, side by side, and decide from that sheet.
Passages worth keeping
Animis igitur ad variam porticum accedite ; nam omnium egregiorum facinorum monumenta in foro consecrata sunt.
هذا هو النص اللاتيني الثابت الذي تُعرض به الحروف الكبيرة، ومعناه دعوة السامعين إلى تأمل الرواق المزيّن حيث تُخلَّد أعمالهم في الساحة العامة. قيمته في العينة أنه لا يتغير، فيبقى الفرق الذي تراه العين فرقًا في الحرف وحده.
English Roman, (With a permanent Distance.)
الحرف نفسه مصبوب على جسم أكبر فتبقى بين السطور مسافة ثابتة، والعينة تعرض هذا الخيار صراحة لأن تباعد السطور يغيّر راحة القراءة بقدر ما يغيّرها شكل الحرف.
A Supplement to the Arabic Alphabet; to print Persian, Turkish, and Malayan.
المطبعة تعلن أن حرفها العربي يمكن أن يخدم لغات أخرى تُكتب بالحروف العربية، أي أنها تبيع قدرة على تغطية أسواق لغوية كاملة لا حرفًا واحدًا.
A SPECIMEN of the Gothic, Runic, Islandic, and Saxon Characters, with Roman, Italick, and Black ; given to the University of Oxford by Mr Francis Junius, about the Year 1677.
العينة تذكر مصدر الحروف واسم من أهداها وتاريخ الإهداء، فتتحول صفحة العرض إلى سجل أصل يثبت عمر المجموعة وقيمتها.
NEW LETTERS PURCHASED In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770.
الملحق يضيف ما اشتُري بعد طبع الكتاب، فالعينة وثيقة حية تُحدَّث كلما زاد المخزون، لا كتالوج يُطبع مرة ويُنسى.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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