MOX­ON, 1683 SMITH, 1755 CAS­LON, 1841 FIG­GINS, 1841 THOR­OW­GOOD, 1841 WIL­SON, 1841
Canon  17 1⁄2  18 and G. P.  18  18    18  18
2-line Double Pica —  20 3⁄4  20 3⁄4  20 3⁄4    20 1⁄2  20 3⁄4
2-line Great Primer —  25 1⁄2  25 1⁄2  25 1⁄2    26  25 1⁄2
2-line English  33  32  32  32    32 1⁄4  32
2-line Pica —  35 3⁄4  36  36    36  36
Double Pica  38  41 1⁄2  41 1⁄2  41 1⁄2    41  41 1⁄2
Paragon —  44 1⁄2  44 1⁄2  44 1⁄2 —  44 1⁄2
Great Primer  50  51 and an r.  51  51    52  51
English  66  64  64  64    64 1⁄2  64
Pica  75  71 1⁄2  72  72 1⁄2    72  72
Small Pica —  83  83  82    82  83
Long Primer  92  89  89  90    92  89
Bourgeois — 102 and space. 102 101 1⁄2   103 102
Brevier 112 112 1⁄2 111 107   112 111
Minion — 128 122 122   122 122
Nonpareil 150 143 144 144   144 144
Pearl 184 178 178 180   184 178
Diamond — — 204 205   210 204

This list does not include Trafalgar, Emerald, and Ruby, which, however, were in use before 1841. The first named has disappeared in England, as also has Paragon. The Printer’s Grammar of 1787 mentions a body in use at that time named “Primer,” between Great Primer and English.

It is not our purpose to pursue this comparison further or more minutely; nor does it come within the scope of this work to enter into a technical {35} examination of the various schemes which have been carried out abroad, and attempted in this country, to do away with the anomalies in type-bodies, and restore a uniform invariable standard. The above table will suffice as a brief historical note of the growth of these anomalies.

As early as 1725, in France, an attempt was made to regulate by a public decree, not only the standard height of a type, but the scale of bodies. But the system adopted was clumsy, and only added to the confusion it was designed to remove. Fournier, in 1737, invented his typographical points, the first successful attempt at a mathematical systematisation of type-bodies, which has since, with the alternative system of Didot, done much in simplifying French typography. England, Germany, and Holland have been more conservative, and therefore less fortunate. Attempts were made by Fergusson in 1824,61 and by Bower of Sheffield about 1840,62 and others, to arrive at a standard of uniformity; but their schemes were not warmly taken up, and failed.

Before proceeding to a brief historical notice of the different English type-bodies, we shall trouble the reader with a further table, compiled from specimen-books of the 18th century, showing what have been the names of the corresponding bodies in the foundries of other nations,—premising, however, that these names must be taken as representing the approximate, rather than the actual, equivalent in each case63:—