that the black of the text is very deep and glossy, that the red has a vividness of color, and the blue a delicacy of tint, not to be found in the productions of any modern printer. It has been asserted that this Psalter is more neatly printed than any modern book; that Schœffer, with rudely made types, a rough press of wood, and with small experience in, or scientific knowledge of, ink-making, succeeded in producing presswork that has never been excelled on modern presses. These bold assertions require careful examination.
The few experts in printing who have examined copies of this book have been so cowed by the rulings of eminent bibliographers that they have not, apparently, dared to trust their own observation. Savage was the first to refuse the dictum of authorities and tell us what he saw with his own eyes. He distinctly says that the blackness of some notes of music ,was made by retracing with a pen[1] the faded lines of a paler printed color. Bernard[2] and Humphreys[3] plainly say that in the fine copy of the Mentz Psalter at the British Museum, some lines of text have been written in by hand. Humphreys thinks that this filling in of lines may have been done when the book was published. We have here trusty evidence that the printing of the Psalter was imperfect: that in some places the ink was too weak,[4] and that the deeper
- ↑ He says the ink was dull yellow:
On some of the leaves where music is given there is an appearance as if the oil in the ink had penetrated through the vellum and tinged the opposite side of the leaf with a dingy yellow. This had been supposed to be the case, but I find that the original tune had been printed with a dull yellow ink, and that subsequently a different one had been written in over the first, with black ink to match the color of the text; and so exactly is this effect produced that, if it were not for the remains of the printing of the original tune, it might pass unsuspected of being any other than the production of the press. Practical Hints on Decorative Printing, pp. 49 and 51.
- ↑ De l'origine, etc., vol. i. p. 225.
- ↑ History of Printing, p. 85.
- ↑ Some writers say that the earliest printing inks were gum-water colors, which could be washed off the vellum with a wet sponge. But the ink of the Psalter was a true printing ink, a smoke-black mixed with oil. The modern pressman, who has ineffectually tried to make ordinary printing ink stick to parchment imperfectly cleansed of oily matter, will at once attribute this failure of the printer of the Psalter to the oiliness of the vellum and the weakness of his printing ink.
