University of Virginia Library

They are sometimes used to give an approximate idea of the face-size, as, for instance, in '10 on 12 point Perpetua'; in this case the depth of the body would be exactly 12 points, but the '10 point' face-size is peculiar to the design. The face of '10 point Perpetua' is appreciably smaller than that of '10 point Times'.

The ascenders of most modern founts are slightly taller than the capital letters of the same fount; the ascenders of most eighteenth-century founts were not.

The body-size is usually slightly greater than the maximum face-size of a fount. The projection, at the bottom, is measured from the edge of the face to the edge of the 'shoulder' of the sort (which includes the 'bevel'), and is called the 'beard'. There is usually a similar projection at the top, large enough at least to accommodate the bevel.

W. Turner Berry and A. F. Johnson, Catalogue of Specimens of Printing Types . . . 1665-1830 (1935), pp. 52-53.

Berry and Johnson, op. cit., p. 53.

To take an example that is reproduced by Berry and Johnson (op. cit., plate 6); similar examples may be found in several other Caslon specimens.

Berry and Johnson, op. cit., plate 7. There is another good example in Fry's broadside of 1785, in which the largest fount is Four Line Pica titling with lower case; this immediately followed by Canon, which is the text version of Four Line Pica.

Some eighteenth-century printers, like their modern descendants, preferred to buy type cast on a large body, rather than to use leads. From the middle of the century most specimen books offered 'Pica on an English body', etc.

Not that the eighteenth-century founders lacked skill in casting. Nowadays founts are seldom cast in metal in sizes above 72 point (about Six Line Pica); but Caslon in 1764 was offering a fount, in metal, of Thirteen Line Pica.

Many of Baskerville's founts, particularly the text sizes from English down, were abnormal in size, and would require a separate table.

5th series, vol. I, pp. 248-249.