A printer's paradise, the Plantin-Moretus Museum at Antwerp

TYPOGRAPHIA

Ex LibrisJ. BURKE

<7

University of California • Berkeley
PAULINE FORE MOFFITT LIBRARY

/

T?? CENTU RY

ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY

MAGAZINE.

Mayl88$,1o October 1888

T9? CENTURY C9 , NEW-YORK.

T.FISHERUNWIN, LONDON.
Vol. XXXVT. NevSeries Vbt.XIK

Copyright, 1888, by THE CENTURY Co.

THE DE VINNE PRESS.

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

THE PLANTIN-MORETUS MUSEUM AT ANTWERP.

HE modern print-
ing-office is not
at all picturesque.
Whether it be old,
with grimy hand-
presses and dingy
types, or new,
with huge iron
machines and
long lanes of
cases and stones,
it does not invite
the artistic pencil. Without doubt the cradle
of books, but can one see any poetry about the
cradle ? The eye is confused with strange

'I

sights; the ear is jarred with harsh noise ; the
air itself is heavy with odors of ink and oil and
wet paper. Nor does the imagination expand
in the office of the manager, in which the prom-
inent objects are always chairs and desks, and
a litter of ragged papers and well-thumbed
books — all prosaic and factory -like.

Was it always so ? No one knows of the in-
terior of Gutenberg's office in the Zum Jut/gen
house at Mayence, for no artist in his day or
ours has found in it any beauty to be pre-
served; but we do know that this birthplace
of a great art is now a beer-shop, in which for
a few pfennigs one may get a refreshment for
the body not to be had for the mind. The

VOL. XXXVI.— 32.

THE FRONT OF THE MUSEUM.

226

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

GUTENBERG S OFFICE AT MAYENCE.

fate that fell on Gutenberg's office has fallen
on the offices of Aldus and the Stephens and
the Elzevirs. Not a vestige of office fittings or
working material remains.

ThePlantin-Moretus Museum at Antwerp is
the only printing-house that has been left in-
tact as the monument of a great departed bus-
iness. How well it was worth having may be
inferred from the price of twelve hundred thou-
sand francs paidfor it bythecity,in 1876, to the
last member of the family of the founder. How
well it is worth seeing is proved by the steady
tide of visitors that pass through it
every day. Here is a printing-house
that is not a factory — a house that
has been as much the home of art
and education as a place for work
and trade.

It is not an imposing structure.
No public building in Antwerp is
more unpretentious as to its exteri-
or. Its dull front on the Marche du
Vendredi gives but one indication
of the treasures behind the walls. To
him who can read it, the little tablet
over the door is enough to tell the
story; for it is the device of Chris-
topher Plantin, " first printer to the
king, and the king of printers."
Here is the hand emerging from the
clouds, holding a pair of compasses,
one leg at rest and one describing a
circle ; here is the encircling legend
of Lahore et Constantia. Heraldry is
overfull of devices that are as arro-
gant as they are absurd, but no one
dare say that Plantin did not fairly
earn the right to use the motto of
labor and patience.

Plantin deserved remembrance
from Antwerp. He did much for
its honor, although he was not of
Flemish birth. Born in France, about
1514, taught printing and book-

binding at Caen, he should have been by right,
and would have been by choice, a worthy suc-
cessor to the printers of Paris who did admira-
ble work during the first half of the sixteenth
century. But his most Christian majesty Henry
II. of France had begun his reign in 1547
with the announcement that he should pun-
ish heresy as worse than treason. What a
drag-net was this word heresy for the en-
tanglement of printers ! Stephen Dolet, most
promising of all, had been recently burned at
the stake; Robert Stephens, weary of end-
less quarrels with meddlesome ecclesiastics.,
was meditating the flight he soon afterward
made to Geneva. To those who could read
the signs of the times, there were even then
forewarnings of the coming massacre of St.
Bartholomew. France was a good country
for a printer to leave, and Plantin did wisely
to forsake Paris in 1548 and to make his
home in Antwerp.

Not so large as Paris or London, Antwerp
was superior in wealth and commerce, as well
as in its artistic development. Printing was
under restraint here, as it was everywhere ; but
the restraints were endurable, and printers
were reasonably prosperous. Antwerp encour-
aged immigration. One of the most interest-
ing of the many paintings in its Hotel de

A TRADE-MARK.

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

227

Ville is that of the ceremonious naturalization
of an Italian and his family in the sixteenth
century. It was as the principal in a similar
ceremony that Plantin became a citizen in
1550, and was enrolled as a printer.

With little money and few friends, Plantin
had to struggle to keep his foot-hold in a city
that had already been well served by many
master printers. It did not appear that he
was needed at all as a printer. So Plantin

printing-office. In that year he published two
little books, cautiously dividing the risk with
other publishers. It must have been difficult to
get books that were salable, for his first book *
was in Italian and French, his second in
Spanish, his third in French, — clear evidences
all that there were in Antwerp already printers
before him who had published all the books
called for in Flemish.

But Plantin went to Antwerp to stay. In

PAINTING IN H6TEL DE VILLE — ITALIAN FAMILY TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE. (LAST PAINTING BY HENRI LEYS.)

must have thought, for he avoided printing,
and opened a shop in which he sold prints
and books, and his wife sold haberdashery.
To fill up unemployed time he bound books
and decorated jewel-boxes. At this work he
prospered, and soon earned a reputation as
the most skillful decorator in the city. Before
he was fairly established he met a great mis-
fortune. Encountered on a dark night by a
ruffian who mistook him for another, Plantin
was dangerously stabbed, and forever disabled
from handling gilding-tools. The possible
rivalry that might have arisen between him
and the artistic book-binders of Paris was ef-
fectually prevented. He had to begin anew,
but it was more as a publisher than as a printer,
for it is not certain that in 1555 he owned a

1556 he published four more books, two of
them original; in 1557 eight books, six of
them original; in 1558 fourteen books, many
of them of large size and of marked merit.
The four years that followed show steady in-
crease in the number and improvement in
the quality of his publications, among which
were several Latin classics, a Greek text, a
Latin Bible, and a dictionary in four lan-
guages.

His ability was fully recognized in 1562,
but his business life was henceforward a suc-
cession of great misfortunes as well as of great
achievements. By leaving Paris he did not
escape, he only postponed, the conflict that
had begun between the press, the state, and
the church. The country that promised to

* " La Institvtione di vna Fancwlla nala nobil- that three hundred years after his death a copy of this
mente." It was a small I2mo (now rated an i8mo). It book would be sold for more than one hundred dollars,
would have greatly cheered him if he could have known He had to be content with one sou and a quarter.

228

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

give him liberty was to become the chosen
battle-field of the contestants, and the result
of the battle was to be undecided even at
his death. In 1562 the regent, Margaret
of Parma, ordered search for the unknown
printer of a heretical prayer-book, and it was
proved that the book had been printed in
Plantin's printing-office. Forewarned of com-

JEAN MORETUS I, SON-IN-LAW OK PLANTIN. , (FROM A PAINTING BY RUBENS.)

ing danger, Plantin escaped to Paris, where
he staid for twenty months. When he could
safely return, his business had been destroyed,
and his printing-office, and even his household
property, had been sold at auction to satisfy
the demands of his creditors. Thirteen years
of labor had been lost. He was down, but
not to stay.

Plantin was strongly suspected of complic-
ity in this matter of heretical printing, but he
had not been condemned. He overcame the
prejudices, if there had been any, of ecclesias-
tical authorities, and made them active friends
forever, although he was frequently afterward
denounced as a Calvinist. Four wealthy men

lent him money to found a printing-house, in
which he worked hard. At the end of the
next four years he had seven presses and
forty workmen in his employ, and had pub-
lished 209 books. What to him was of more
importance, he had established friendly rela-
tions with the authorities of the state. The
city of Antwerp gave him special privileges
as printer; the King of Spain
in 1570 made him "Proto-
typographe," the ruler of
all the printers of the city.
He was in correspondence
with many of the great
scholars and artists of his
time, and was by them, as
well as by every one, re-
garded as the foremost
printer of the world. The
King of France invited him
to Paris; the Duke of Savoy
offered to give to him a great
printing-house and special
rewards if he would go to
Turin. But he kept in Ant-
werp, and enlarged his busi-
ness. He not only worked
himself, but made all his
household help him. His
daughters kept a book-store
in the cloisters of the ca-
thedral ; he established an
agency in Paris under the
direction of his son-in-law,
Gilles Beys. Another son-
in-law, Moretus, was his
chief clerk, and a regular
attendant at all the Ger-
man book fairs, while an-
other, Raphelengius, was his
ablest corrector of the press.
Even the younger daughters
were required to learn to
read writing, and to serve as
copy-holders, often on books
in foreign languages, before
they were twelve years old.

His season of greatest apparent prosperity
began in 1570. His printing-house was soon
after one of the wonders of the literary world.
Twenty-two presses were kept at work, and
two hundred crowns in gold were required
every day for the payment of his workmen, re-
cites an old chronicler with awe and astonish-
ment. His four houses were too small. He
had to buy and occupy the larger property
which now constitutes the Plantin- Moretus
Museum. Before he occupied his new office
he had printed the largest and most expensive
book then known to the world, the " Royal
Polyglot," eight volumes folio, in four Ian-

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

229

BUST OF BALTHAZAR MORETUS, IN THE COURT-YARD.

guages, with full-page illustrations from copper-
plates. It was an enterprise that earned him
more of honor than of profit, for the King of
Spain, who had promised liberal help, dis-
appointed him. Plantin had incurred
enormous expenses and was harassed
by creditors, and had to sell or pledge
his books at losing prices. At that
time the patronage of the king was
a hindrance, for when he was in the
greatest straits the king commanded
him to print new service books for the
Church that would be of great cost
and of doubtful profit.

The king's habitual neglect to pay
his obligations provoked his soldiers
to outrages which nearly ruined
Plantin. Antwerp had been for years
in practical mutiny against the king.
To repress this mutiny the citadel
was filled with Spanish soldiers who
were furious because they had not
been paid, and were threatening to
plunder the city by way of reprisal
or as compensation. On the fourth
day of November, 1576, when Plan-
tin was no more than fairly settled
in his new office, the threat was ex-
ecuted. Joined by an army beyond
the walls, and by treacherous allies
that the civic authorities had hired as
defenders, they began the sack of
the city. Eight thousand citizens
were killed, a thousand houses were

burned, six million florins' worth of property
were burned, and as much more was stolen,
amid most atrocious cruelties. The prosperity
of the great city, which had been the pride of
Europe, received a blow from which it never re-
covered. The business of Plantin was crushed.
" Nine times," he said, " did I have to pay
ransom to save my property from destruction ;
it would have been cheaper to have abandoned
it." But his despondency was but for a day.
In the ruins of the sacked city, surrounded by
savage soldiers, discouraged with a faithless
king who would not protect his property nor
pay his debts, ill at ease with creditors who
feared to trust him, and alarmed at the absence
of buyers who dared not come to the city, Plan-
tin still kept at work. The remainder of his
life was practically an unceasing struggle with
debt, but debt did not make him abandon his
great plans. To pay his debts he often had to
sell his books at too small prices. Sometimes
he had to sell his working- tools. In 1581 he
went to Paris to dispose of his library, costing
16,000 francs, for less thari half its value.

Rich enough in books, in tools, in promises to
pay, he had little of money, and slender cred-
it. The political outlook was disheartening.
Alexander of Parma was menacing Flanders
and Brabant ; there was reason to fear a siege
of Antwerp and the destruction of his printing-
house. With the consent of his creditors

230

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

BALTHAZAR MORETUS I. (AFTER A PAINTING IN BLACK AND WHITE BY ERASMUS QUELLYN.)

Plantin temporarily transferred his office to
his sons-in-law, and in 1582 went to Ley den,
to muse as he went on the warning, "Put
not your trust in princes." There he was cor-
dially received by the university, and at once
appointed their printer. There he founded a
new printing-house, in which he remained for
nearly three years. When the siege was over,
Plantin returned to Antwerp, but it was never
after the Antwerp of his earlier days. Nor was
Plantin himself as active. The king had made
Antwerp a Catholic city, but its commerce was
destroyed.

Plantin died on the first day of July, 1589,
and was buried in the cathedral. Although,
by reason of his bold undertakings, he had
been financially embarrassed for many years
before his death, he left a good estate, at least

on paper. By a will made conjointly with his
wife, who soon followed him, he gave the
management of his printing-office and most
of his property, then valued at 135, 718 florins
(equal to $217,000), to his son-in-law Moretus
and his wife, burdened with legacies to chil-
dren and other heirs, with the injunction that
they, at their death, should bequeath the undi-
vided printing-office to the son or successor who
could most wisely manage it. If they had no
competent son, then they must select a compe-
tent successor out of the family. This injunc-
tion was fairly obeyed. Under John Moretus
the reputation of the house was fully main-
tained, although the publications were not so
many nor so meritorious. But this falling-off
was largely due to the diminished importance
of Antwerp as acommercial city. His sons Bal-

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

231

thazar and John Moretus II. carried
the office to the highest degree of
prosperity. To Balthazar I., more
than to any other member of the
family, the world is indebted for the
treasures of art and learning which
now grace the rooms of the Plantin-
Moretus Museum. A very large
share of the prosperity of the house
came from the valuable patents and
privileges accorded to Plantin and his
successors by the King of Spain. For
more than two hundred years they
were the exclusive makers of the litur-
gical books used in Spain and its de-
pendencies. The decline of the house
began with the death of Balthazar III.
in 1696. During the eighteenth cen-
tury it lost its preeminence as the first
printing-house in the world, and was
simply a manufactory of religious
books. In 1808 the special privileges
they had for making these books for
Spain and its possessions were with-
drawn, and this great business of the
house was at an end. In 1867 it
ceased to do any business.

In his " Archeologie Typograph-
ique," Bernard told of the desolation
of the house as he saw it in 1850.
Everything was in decay. That the
types and matrices would soon go to
the melting-kettle; that books and
prints, furniture and pictures, would
find their way, bit by bit, to bric-a-
brac shops ; that this old glory of
Antwerp would soon be a story of
the past — seemed inevitable. Fortu-
nately there were in Antwerp men who
tried to save the collection. Messrs.
Emanuel Rosseels and Max Rooses
(now conservateur of the Museum),
under the zealous direction of M.
Leopold de Wael, the burgomaster of
the city, induced the city and the state
to buy the property, the transfer of
which was formally made, as we read
from a tablet in the wall, in 1875.

The Museum, as it now stands, is
not as Plantin left it. His successors,
Balthazar I. especially, made many
changes, additions, and restorations,
but all have been done with propriety.
The visitor is not shocked by incon-
gruities of structure or decoration.
The difficult task of re-arranging the
house has been done with excellent
taste by the architect Pierre Dens.
It is the great charm of the Museum
that the house and its contents, the
books, pictures, prints, windows, walls,

JEANNE RIVIERE, HER SIX DAUGHTERS,
A PAINTING IN THE CATHEDRA

ANL> JOHI>
L BY VAN

DEN BROECK. )

232

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

- \\ \

ROOM OF JUSTUS L1PSIUS.

types, presses, furniture, are all in their places,
and with proper surroundings. They fit. To
pass the doorway is to take leave of the nine-
teenth century ; to put ourselves not only with-
in the walls, but to surround ourselves with the
same familiar objects which artists and men of
letters saw and handled two or three centuries
ago. Here are their chairs and tables, their
books and candlesticks, and other accessories
of every-day office and domestic life. It is a
new atmosphere. Standing in the vestibule
under a copper lamp, facing a statue of Apollo,
surrounded by sculptured emblems of art and
science, the visitor at once perceives that he
is in something more than a printing-house —
in an old school of literature.

Yet there is little that is bookish in the first
salon. One's attention is first caught by the
little octagonal window lights that face the
inner court, bright in colors, and with com-
memorations of John Moretus II. and Baltha-
zar Moretus II. and their wives. And then
one has to note the heavy beams overhead,
and the old tapestries on the walls, the great

tortoise-shell table, and the buffet of oak with
its queer pottery, and the still queerer painting
of an old street parade in Antwerp.

Over the chimney-piece in the second salon
is the portrait of Christopher Plantin as he
appeared at sixty-four years of age, wrapped
in a loose black robe, with a broad ruff about
his neck — unmistakably a man of authority,
and of severity too. There is nothing dull,
or impassive, or Dutch, about this head. He
is a Frenchman of the old school, — muscular,
courageous, enduring, — a man of the type of
Conde or Coligny. Here too is Jeanne Ri-
viere, his wife. How Flemish-looking is this
French woman of placid face, in her white
cap and quilled collar! plainly one of the
grand old women that Rembrandt loved to
honor. The portraits of some of Plantin 's
five daughters are on the walls, but they can
be seen together only at the cathedral, on a
panel painted by Van den Broeck. The eldest,
Marguerite, was married in 1565, to Francis
Raphelengius.* Martine, the second daugh-
ter, in 1570 married John Moretus, who was

* The wedding festivities lasted one week, for which sous, five legs of mutton at I florin, twelve sweet -

Plantinmade this provision, which has a fine medieval breads at 7^ sous the dozen, three beef tongues at 8

flavor: three sucking pigs at 1 7 sous each, six capons at sous, four almond cakes, six calves' heads, three legs

22 sous, twelve pigeons at 6 sous, twelve quails at 4 of mutton browned, six (i6-lb. ) hams at 2^ sous the

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

Plantin's trusted man of business during
his life, and his heir and successor. Made-
laine, the fourth daughter, brightest of all, in
1572 married Egidius Beys, who was Plantin's
agent in Paris. " My first son-in-law," wrote
Plantin, " cares for nothing but books ; my

233

in-law who complemented each other and
fully served him. Beys * was not an esteemed
assistant, nor was his son.

Here too are the portraits of many of the
learned friends of Plantin. The somber face
of Arias Montanus, the learned confessor of

THE CONFERENCE CHAMBER.

second knows nothing but business." Not a
kindly criticism of Moretus, who was learned
and wrote well in four languages, but Plantin
must have been well content with these sons-
pound, Rhine wine valued at 12 florins 5 sous, red
wine valued at 4 florins 2^ sous, red and black
cherries, strawberries, oranges, capers, olives, apples,
salads, and radishes valued at 3 florins 8j£ sous,
confectionery valued at 4 florins 9 sous, two pounds of
sugar-plums, one pound of anis, and three pounds of
Milan cheese. The gifts to Raphelengius amounted
to 32 florins 5 sous ; to Plantin (for this was the cus-
tom of the period), 90 florins 16^ sous. Plantin gave
to his workmen on this occasion a pot of wine valued
at 7 florins.

*In 1587 the eldest son of Beys, then fourteen
years of age, lived with his grandfather. At the close
of a day of alleged misconduct, Plantin required of
him the task to compose and write in Latin a descrip-
tion of the manner in which he had spent that day.
This is the translation: "The occupations of Chris-
tophe Beys, February 21, 1587. I got up at half-past
6 o'clock. I went to embrace my grandfather and
grandmother. Then I took breakfast. Before 7
VOL. XXXVI.— 33.

Philip II., who was commissioned by the king
to superintend the printing of the great poly-
glot, glows with all the color that Rubens
could give. By the same painter are the por-

o'clock I went to my class, and well recited my lesson
in syntax. At 8 o'clock I heard mass. At half-past 8
I had learned my lesson in Cicero and I fairly re-
cited it. At II o'clock I returned to the house and
studied my lesson in phraseology. After dinner I
went back to the class and properly recited my les-
son. At half-past 2 I had fairly recited my lesson in
Cicero. At 4 o'clock I went to hear a sermon. Be-
fore 6 o'clock I returned to the house, and I read
a proof [held copy for] Libelhis Sodalitatis with my
cousin Francis [Raphelengius]. I showed myself re-
fractory while reading the proofs of the book. Before
supper, my grandfather having made me go to him,
to repeat what I had heard preached, I did not wish to
go nor to repeat ; and even when others desired me to
ask pardon of grandfather, I was unwilling to answer.
Finally, I have showed myself in the eyes of all, proud,
stubborn, and willful. After supper I have written my
occupations for this day, and I have read them to my
grandfather. The end crowns the work."

234

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

traits of Ortelius and Justus Lipsius and Pan-
tinus — grave, scholarly, dignified faces all.
Of greater attraction is the portrait, so often
copied, of Gevartius, the clerk of the city of
Antwerp. A showcase in the middle of the
room contains designs by Martin de Vos, Van
den Broeck, Van der Borcht, Van Noort, Van
der Horst, Rubens, Quellyn, and other illustra-
tors of books for the Plantin office, all famous

ception must have been exercised to find
heresy in the Psalms ! This was not the only
interference with the printer by the law, for
there is also posted a tariff made by the magis-
trates of Antwerp, by which a fixed price is
made for every popular book. Whoever dares
sell a book at a higher price is warned that
he shall be fined twenty-five florins. In the
corner near the window is the chair in which

PLANTIN S PROOF-READERS AT WORK.
(FROM A PAINTING BY PIERRE VAN DER OUDERA, NOW IN POSSESSION OF FELIX GRISAR, ANTWERP.)

in their time. Not the least curious is Rubens'
bill of sale, dated 1630, to Balthazar Moretus
I., of 328 copies of the works of Hubert Golt-
zius, the great archaeologist, for 4920 florins,
and the further sum of 1000 florins for the
plates of the same, payable in books. The
opportunity for " working off unsold remain-
ders " was not neglected.

Fronting on a side street is the old book-
store, with all its furniture, including the old
scales by which light gold coin was tested.
A motley collection of books is on the shelves
— prayer-books and classic texts, amatory
poems and polemical theology. Posted up is
a " Catalogue of Prohibited Books," a pla-
card printed by Plantin himself in 1569, by
the order of the Duke of Alva. Two of the
prohibited books, the " Colloquies of Eras-
mus " and the " Psalms of Clement Marot,"
came from the Plantin press. What keen per-

the shop-boy sat and announced incoming cus-
tomers to the daughters who were at work in
the rear of the store, from which it was sepa-
rated by a glazed partition. Plainly a room
for work and trade, but how differently work
and trade were done then ! No doubt there
was enough of drudgery, but to the young
women who worked in the glow of the col-
ored glass windows, and listened to the tick-
ing of the tall Flemish clock, and saw above
them on the wall the beautiful face of a stat-
uette of the Madonna, life could not have
had the grimy, stony face it presents to the
modern shop-girl.

In an adjoining room is the salon of tap-
estries, five of which represent shepherds,
hunters, market women, dancers, — Flemish
idyls all. One has to make another compari-
son, between the value of old and modern
needle-work, not to the credit of Berlin wools

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

235

THE PRESS-ROOM.

and South Kensington stitches. Curious fur-
niture is in the room — a buffet on which rests
fine old china, wardrobes in oak and ebony,
chairs and tables of wonderful carving, all
surmounted by a chandelier of crystal. Most
interesting of all is an old harpsichord with
three tiers of keys, on the interior of which is
painted a copy of Rubens' St. Cecilia. It
bears the inscription, "Johannes Josephus
Coenen, priest and organist of the cathedral,
made me, Roermond, 1735." Not at all an
old piece, — just midway between Plantin's
time and ours, — but how old it seems by the
side of a modem piano !

Of severer simplicity is the room of the
Correctors of the Press, in which is a great
oak table that overlaps the two diamond-
paned windows opening on the inner court.
On the walls are paintings of two of the most
famous of Plantin's correctors — Theodore
Poelman and Cornelius Kilianus. Poelman is
represented as a scholar at work on his books
in a small, mean room, in which his wife is
spinning thread and a fuller is at work. And
this was Poelman's lot in life : to work as a
fuller by day, and to correct and prepare for
press classic texts at night, for three or four
florins per volume. Kilianus was corrector for
the Plantin house for fifty years. Beginning

as a compositor in 1558, at the very modest
salary of five patards a day, not more (per-
haps less) than two dollars and forty cents a
week in our currency, he ultimately became
Plantin's most trusted general proof-reader.
Not so learned as Raphelengius, he was more
efficient in supervising the regular work of the
house. He wrote good Latin verse, composed
prefaces and made translations for many books,
and compiled a Flemish dictionary of which
Plantin seems to have been ungenerously
envious. His greatest salary was but four
florins a week, but little more than was then
paid to Plantin's expert compositors. The
most learned of Plantin's regular correctors
was his son-in-law Raphelengius, who had
been a teacher of Greek at Cambridge. He
began his work in the Plantin office at forty
florins a year and his board. Montanus testified
that he had thorough knowledge of many
languages, and was an invaluable assistant on
the Polyglot Bible. His greatest salary, in
1581, was but four hundred florins a year.
As a rule editing and proof-reading were
done at the minimum of cost. The wages
paid to a scholarly reader, who had entire
knowledge of three or four languages, was
about twelve florins a month. Ghisbrecht,
one of these correctors, agreed to prepare

236

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

copy for and to oversee the work of six com-
positors for his board and sixty florins a year.
Besides the regular correctors of the house,
Plantin had occasionally some volunteer or
unpaid correctors, like Montanus. His friend
Justus Lipsius seems to have been the only
editor who was fairly paid for literary work.

The printing-room does not give a just idea
of its old importance. What here remains is
as it was in 1576, but the space then occu-
pied for printing must have been very much

workmanship which has been the admiration
of the world.

Plantin had this work done at small cost.
His account-books show that the average
yearly earnings of expert compositors were
one hundred and forty-two florins, and of the
pressmen one hundred and five florins. The
eight-hour law was unknown. Work began
at five o'clock in the morning, but no time is
stated for its ending. His rules were hard.
One of them was that the compositor who

THE PROOF-READERS ROOM.

larger. Plantin's inventory, taken after his
death, showed that he had in Antwerp seventy-
three fonts of type, weighing 38,1.21 pounds.
Now seven hand-presses and their tables oc-
cupy two sides of the room, and rows of type-
cases and stands fill the remnant of space.
How petty these presses seem ! How small
the impression surface, how rude all the ap-
pliances ! Yet from these presses came the
great " Royal Polyglot," the Roman Missal,
still bright with solid black and glowing red
inks, and thousands of volumes, written by
great scholars, many of them enriched with
designs by old Flemish masters. " The man
is greater than the machine," and Plantin was
master over his presses. From these uncouth
unions of wood and stone, pinned together
with bits of iron, he made his pressmen extort

set three words or six letters not in the copy
should be fined. Another was the prohibition
of all discussions on religion. Every workman
must pay for his entrance a bienvenue of eight
sous as drink money, and give two sous to
the poor-box. At the end of the month he
must give thirty sous to the poor-box and
ten sous to his comrades. This bienvenue was
as much an English as a Flemish custom, as
one may see in Franklin's autobiography.

The presses cost about fifty florins each. In
one of his account-books is the record that
he paid forty-five florins for copper platens to
six of his presses. This is an unexpected dis-
covery. It shows that Plantin knew the value
of a hard impression surface, and made use
of it three centuries before the printer of THE
CENTURY tried, as he thought for the first

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

237

time, the experiment of iron
and brass impression surfaces
for inelastic impression.

The proportion of readers or
correctors to compositors was
large. In 1575 Plantin had, be-
sides Raphelengius and More-
tus, five correctors for twenty-
four compositors, thirty-nine
pressmen, and four apprentices.
Much of the work done by these
correctors was really editing,
translating, re-writing, and pre-
paring copy. With all these
correctors, proof-reading prop-
er was not too well done.
Ruelens notes in Plantin's best
work, the " Royal Polyglot,"
one hundred and fifteen errors
of paging in the eight folio
volumes. Yet this book was
supervised by Montanus and
Raphelengius, and in some por-
tions by eminent scholars and
professors of the Leyden Uni-
versity.

To publish a polyglot with
parallel texts in Latin, Greek,
Hebrew, and Chaldee, with
Granvelle and ecclesiastics of
high station to recommend the
proposed work to the king
and to get from him a subvention, Plan-
tin's first estimate for the six volumes which
he then thought enough for the work was
24,000 florins, exclusive of the cost of new
types and binding. After much deliberation
the king consented to advance 6000 ducats,
for which he was to receive an equal value
in books at trade rates. But the work grew
on Plantin's hands ; it made eight volumes
instead of six, and it cost 100,000 crowns be-
fore it was completed. Twelve hundred copies
on paper were printed and announced to the
trade in the style of the modern Parisian
publisher.

10 on grand imperial paper of Italy, .price not stated

30 on grand imperial, at the price of 200 florins

200 on the fine royal paper of Lyons 100 florins

960 on the fine royal paper of Troyes 70 florins

The king had twelve copies on vellum,
which required more skins than could be had
in Antwerp or Holland. It is of interest to
note that Plantin, like all printers, had no
enthusiasm for vellum. To an application
from a German prince who asked for a copy
on vellum, Plantin answered that none could
be furnished, but that the copies on the impe-
rial Italian paper were really better printed
than those on the vellum. In the matter of

\

THE ENTRANCE TO THE ENGRAVING-KOOM — IN BLACK AND GOLD.

clean, clear printing they were every way
better.

This " Royal Polyglot " was the beginning
of Plantin's financial troubles, from which he
never fairly recovered. The king would not
allow the work to be published until it had
been approved by the pope, who refused his
consent. Montanus went to Rome to plead
for a change of decision ; but it was not until
1573, when a new pope was in the chair, that
this permit was granted. Even then the diffi-
culties were not over. A Spanish theologian
denounced the work as heretical, Judaistic, the
product of the enemies of the Church. Then
the Inquisition made a slow examination, and
grudgingly decided in 1580 that it might be
lawfully sold. For more than seven years the
unhappy book was under a cloud of doubt as
to its orthodoxy. The damage to Plantin was
severe. Before he reached the concluding vol-
umes his means were exhausted, and he had
to mortgage at insufficient prices two-thirds
of the copies done. The king was fully repaid
in books for all money he had advanced, but
Plantin got no more. With the generosity
of people who are accustomed to give what
does not belong to them, the king granted
Plantin an annual pension of four hundred
florins, secured on a confiscated Dutch estate ;

238

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

but the perverse Dutchman who owned the
estate soon retook it, and as the king could
not wrest it from him, the pension was forever
ineffective.

Seven rooms or lobbies in the Museum are
devoted to the exhibition of engravings as well
as of their blocks or plates, of which there are
more than 2000 on copper and about 15,000
on wood. It is a most curious collection of
original work, more complete and more diver-
sified than that of any printing-house before

was in his trade, and who loved his work for
the work's sake. His early training as a book-
finisher gave him decorative inclinations.
What he could not do on book covers with
gilding-tools he tried to have done on the
printed leaves with wood-cuts from designs by
eminent artists.

He must have quickly earned good reputa-
tion as a skillful printer of wood-cuts, for he
was chosen by the authorities of Antwerp over
all rivals to print a large illustrated book de-

THE TYPE-FOUNDRY.

the nineteenth century. Indeed, it would not
be easy to find a rival as to quantity and
quality among modern houses. Here are etch-
ings by Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Teniers ;
engravings by Bolswert, Vorsterman, Pontius,
Edelinck. One looks with more than ordinary
attention on the St. Catharine, the only etch-
ing known to have been done by the hand of
Rubens, as well as on the wonderful line en-
graving by Edelinck of the portrait of Phil-
ippe de Champagne. The prints that may
be most admired were made to the order
of Plantin's successors, who were contempo-
raries of the greatest Flemish masters, but
their preference for the work of true artists
was implanted by the founder of the house. " I
never neglected," Plantin said, " when I had
the opportunity and the ability, to pay for the
work of the best engravers." The sparsity of
engravings in his earlier books was, no doubt,
caused by his poverty ; but even these petty
books show that they were planned by a man
of superior taste — by a printer whose heart

scribing the recent obsequies of Charles V.
This book he published in 1559 in the form
of an oblong folio, containing thirty-three large
plates, at the cost of 2000 florins. These plates,
although separately printed, were designed to
be conjoined, and used as a processional frieze,
In planning this book he did not repeat the
folly of many of his rivals, who were still imi-
tating the coarse designs and rude cutting of
the obsolete " Biblia Pauperum " and " Specu-
lum Salutis." He gave the work to a compe-
tent designer, and was equally careful with the
engraving and printing, and found his profit
in the large sale of many editions and in
five languages. After this he made increasing
use of engravings on wood. No printer of his
time illustrated books so freely : in one book,
the " Botany" of Dodonaeus, the cuts would be
regarded now as profusely extravagant. To
this day they are models of good line draw-
ing and clean engraving. When the text did
not call for descriptive illustrations he made
free use of large initial letters, head-bands, and

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

239

tail-pieces. The shelves and closets of, the
Museum contain thousands of initials remark-
able for the vigor of their designs or the inge-
nuity of their backgrounds or interfacings. One
series is about five inches square. One cannot
refrain from expressing the regret that so many
modern designers and publishers seem to be
entirely ignorant of the beauty of some of the
Plantin initials, and prefer elaborated distor-
tions of the alphabet, which are every way un-
worthy of comparison. But Plantin soon found
that there was a limit to the effects to be had
from engravings on wood when printed on his
rough paper and by his weak presses. He be-
gan to develop on a grand scale illustrations on
copper, of which the " Humanae Salutis Monu-
menta" of 1571, with its seventy-one large
plates, was his earliest and most noteworthy
example.

Two rooms contain the remnants of the
type-foundry, which provoke reflection on the
difference between old and new methods of
book-making. The modern printer does not
make his types ; he does not even own a punch
or a matrix. Buying his types from many foun-
dries, he has great liberty of selection, but, neces-
sarily, a selection from the designs of other men.
It follows that the text types of one printer may
be — must be, often — just the same as those
of another printer, and that there can be no
really strong individuality in the books of any
house. In the sixteenth century every eminent
printer had some of his types made to his own
order, which types he only used. This was
the method : He hired an engraver to draw
and cut in steel the model letters, or punches,
and to provide the accompanying mold and
matrices. Keeping the punches, he took the
mold and matrices to men who cast types for
the trade, who furnished him all he needed.
The founders who made Plantin's earlier types
were Guyot and Van Everbrocht of Antwerp.
The designs for these types and the making
of the punches and matrices were by skilled
engravers in different cities at prices which now
seem incredibly small — from twenty to forty
sous for punch and matrix of ordinary letter.
Robert Granjon of Lyons and Guillaume Le
Be of Paris did much of his best work ; Hau-
tin of Rochelle, Ven der Keere of Tours, and
Bomberghe of Cologne were also employed.
Plantin had types cast in his office after 1563,
but the foundry was not an important part of
the house until 1600: at that date the collec-
tion of punches was very large.

Here are some of the common tools of
type-making, — the vises, grindstones, files,
gravers, etc., — and rude enough they seem.
When we go into the next room, and scrutinize
the molds and punches behind the wire screens,
and the justified matrices in the showcases,

we wonder that this excellent workmanship
could have been done by these rough tools.
Printed specimens of some of the types are
shown on the walls, but they do not fairly
show the full merit of the work. It is true that
the counters are not as deep as a modern
founder would require, but the cutting is clean
and good. Here are the punches of the great
type of the Polyglot, of the music of the
Antiphonary, besides Roman, Italic, Greek,
and Hebrew, — of many sizes, — all out of
use, out of style. Do we make better types
now ? From the mechanical point of view,
yes : modern types are more truly cut and
aligned, more solid in body, than those cast
by hand from metal poured in the mold with
a spoon. From the utilitarian, and even from
the artistic standpoint, one cannot say yes so
confidently. Modern types are more delicate,
have more finish, and more graceful lines ; but
the old types are stronger and simpler, more
easily read, and have features of grace that
have never been excelled.

To the admirer of old furniture, the room
numbered 26 — the bed-chamber of the last
Moretus — is attractive. A great bedstead of
carved oak, black with age, partly covered
with an embroidered silk coverlet (a marvel
of neat handiwork and dinginess), flanked by
a grimy prie-dieu and a wardrobe equally
venerable, is dimly reflected in a tarnished
mirror of the last century. On walls covered
with stamped and gilt leather hang two old
prints and a carving of the crucifixion. Ele-
gant in its day, admirable yet, but how dead
and cheerless is this little room ! As devoid
of life and warmth as the crucibles and fur-
naces in the foundry.

There is no room in the Museum deficient
in objects of interest, for in all are paintings
or prints or old typographic bric-a-brac enough
to evoke enthusiasm from the dullest observer;
but, after all, the great charm of a printer's
museum is in the printer's books, and the li-
brary is properly placed at the end of all, and is
the culmination of all. It is rich in rare. books.
Here is the Bible of thirty-six lines, which is
rated by many bibliographers as the first great
work of Gutenberg. Here are first editions and
fine copies from the offices of all the famous
early printers. They were not bought for show,
nor as rarities — merely as texts to be com-
pared, collated, or referred to for a new manu-
script copy to be put in the compositors' hands.
The collection here shown of the books printed
by Plantin is large, probably larger than can
be found elsewhere, but not entirely complete.
They are not arranged in chronological or-
der ; one has to consult Ruelens's catalogue to
see how Plantin's ambition rose with oppor-
tunity — to see what great advances he made

240

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

every year and for many years, not only in
the number of his books, but in their greater
size and merit, and in steadily increasing im-
provement of workmanship. " He is all spirit,"
wrote Montanus ; " he gives little thought to
food, or drink, or repose. He lives to work."

published by Max Rooses, the director of the
Museum.

In these records may be found his corre-
spondence with artists, scholars, and dignita-
ries, both civil and ecclesiastical, as well as
the weekly bills of his workmen, inventories
of stock, accounts of sales, of profit and loss,
memoranda of work done and work prepared
— everything one can need for an insight into
the economy of an old printing-house. Here
is his letter to the King of Spain setting forth his
grievances from the king's delayed payments ;

1

PLANTIN S PRIVATE OFFICE.

But the most valuable part of this collection
of 14,000 books is not in its printed but its
written treasures. Plantin was a model man
of business, who carefully preserved records,
accounts, and much of his correspondence,
and taught his successors to exercise similar
diligence. The records show more than the
business ; they show the man and his motives.
Many are in Plantin's handwriting; the ac-
counts in Flemish, the correspondence in
Latin, French, and sometimes in Spanish. The
more valuable papers have been edited and

the items of money spent at the wedding-
feast of each daughter (and curious reading
it is) ; the bills of type-founders and engravers
on wood; his written wrestlings with money-
lenders who wanted too much of interest or
of security, and with booksellers who wanted
too much discount, and sold books below reg-
ular prices; his bargainings with editors and
authors for manuscripts, and the pourboires
he had to pay to officials of high and low sta-
tion for permission to print; his complaints
against the intolerable delays of artists and

A PAINTER'S PARADISE.

241

engravers.* Rich as it is in relics of the do-
mestic life of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the house and furniture of the Mu-
seum does not show that domestic life with
the clearness that the business life can be seen
in the records. What is missing ?

It is not an easy matter to make a wise se-
lection from the wealth of the material which
M. Rooses, the director of the Museum, has
brought to light. One must begin with the
unexpected discoveries. Contrary to the pre-
vailing belief, Plantin's editions were not small.
His ordinary edition was 1250 copies; his
largest edition was 3900 copies of the Penta-
teuch in Hebrew. He refused to print books
in small editions unless he was paid the cost
of the work before it was begun. He
sold few single copies; the retail trade
in ordinary books was done by wife and
daughters in shops in other quarters
of the city. Nearly all his books went
to booksellers at fairs or in other cities,
to whom he gave small discounts, about
one-sixth less than the retail price. The
retail prices were very small. The ordinary
text-book, in an octavo (in size of leaf equivalent
to the modern i6mo) of three hundred and
twenty pages, was then sold at retail for ten
sous. A Horace of eleven sheets sold for one
sou ; a Virgil of nineteen and a half sheets for
three sous — of thirty-eight sheets for five sous ;
the Bible, 1567, in Latin, at one florin. For
large quartos and folios, for texts in Greek, and
for profusely illustrated books, the prices were
as high as, or even higher than, they are now,
considering the then greater purchasing power
of money. For his Polyglot in eight volumes
he asked seventy florins, equivalent to one
hundred and twelve dollars of American
money.

The modern publisher is amazed at the
low prices for ordinary books, but the records
show that the cost of a book was in proportion.
Planlin paid very little to authors and editors.
Sometimes they were required to contribute
to the cost of the printing, and were given a
few copies of the book after it had been
printed as a full make- weight. As a rule they
contributed nothing, and were paid, if paid at
all, in their own books. Many authors got but
ten florins for the copy of valuable and sal-
able books. The literary world was under-
going a curious transition. In the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries scholars had tried to

* There are engravers on copper here who offer to
work for eight florins a day in their own houses.
When they have worked one or two days they go to
taverns and disreputable houses, and carouse witli
worthless people. There they pawn their goods and
tools. Whoever has work in their hands is obliged to
hunt them up and pay their debts. [Plantin to Ferdi-
nand Ximenes, Jan. 2, 1587.]
VOL. XXXVI.— 34.

keep to themselves their knowledge ; in the
sixteenth century they were eager to publish
it, and glad to get an opportunity.! Many
seemed to think that they were under moral
obligation to give freely what they knew.

Designing and engraving were relatively
cheaper than they are now. From four to seven
sous was the price for designing and engraving
a beautiful initial letter, not to be had as
good now for as many dollars. What
modern publisher would hesitate to
engage Van den Broeck to fur-
nish the elaborate and beautiful
design, " Our Lady of Seven
Sorrows " (a full folio page),
at the price of six

A ROOM IN PLANTIN'S HOUSE.

florins ? For his superb engraving of this de-
sign Plantin overpaid the dissolute Jerome
Wiericx ninety-six florins. The usual price
of the brothers Wiericx for engraving a plate
of folio size was thirty florins.

All the materials of the book were cheap.
The ordinary paper came from France and
cost, according to weight and quality, from
twenty-four to seventy-eight sous a ream.
Even the large vellum skins of Holland,
bought for the " Royal Polyglot," cost but
forty-five sous the dozen.

He paid his binders for the labor of bind-
ing (not including the leather or boards) an
octavo in full sheep one sou for each copy ;
for a quarto, one sou and a half to two sous ;
for a folio, in full calf, from seven to eleven

t Balzac wrote a letter to Elzevir, in which he
thanked Elzevir effusively for his piratical reprint of
one of his books. Balzac never got a sou from this
reprint, not even thanks, but he was not the less
grateful, for he was delighted because he had been
introduced in the good society of the great authors,
and had received the imprimatur and approval of
Elzevir.

242

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

sous.* Richly gilt books were paid for at that could be printed to profit. To this could

higher prices, but miserably small they seem
as compared with present prices.

If Plantin had done no more than to found

be added the poverty and the sparseness of
readers. All the popular classic texts, and
all ordinary forms of school books and of

a large printing-house, he would deserve no devotional books, had been printed so many
more consideration than any other successful times, and in such large editions, that they
trader of his time. He was not an ordinary often had to be sold for little more than the
trader : he has right to an honorable place cost of the white paper. Yet Plantin entered
among the great educators of his century — this overcrowded field with confidence. His
not for what he wrote, but for what he had books of devotion were more carefully printed
written or created for him. He has no stand- and more richly illustrated ; his school texts

were more carefully
edited and more in-
telligently arranged.
All were of the first
order; he did not
pander to low appe-
tites ; his aims were
always high and his
taste was severe.

Before the year 1567
he had printed many
editions of the Bible
in Latin, Flemish, and
Hebrew. By far the
largest part of the read-
ing of the sixteenth
century was theolog-
ical, and Plantin saw
that he would make
his greatest success
in getting an ap-
pointment as the rec-
ognized or official
printer of the liturgical
books of the Roman
Catholic Church. His
earliest attempts were
beset with difficulties.
He had to solicit the
help of Cardinal Gran-
velle and Philip II.
The permit given by
the pope and his car-
dinals was grudgingly
allowed by the ec-
clesiastical magnates of the Netherlands.
When he did begin to print, he had to pay

A CORNER OF THE COURT-YARD.

ing as a scholar or as an editor, but as a
publisher he outranks all his contemporaries.

He printed more than sixteen hundred edi- ten per cent, of his receipts to Paul Manutius
tions, some of which were original work writ- of Rome, who held the privilege. He had to
ten at his request. His greatest production petition the King of Spain to get the exclusive
was eighty-three editions in 1575, and the privilege he desired for the printing of the
lowest, twenty-four editions in 1576, the year Church on Spanish territory. His friend Mon-

tanus told the king that Plantin's prices were
more, but his printing was better than that
of the Italian printers. It was this superior-
ity in workmanship, as well as in business
methods, that turned the scale in his favor.
Two of these service books, the great Psalter
and the Antiphonary of 1571 and 1572. are
admirable pieces of rubricated printing. For

of the Spanish Fury.

One of the difficulties of a publisher of the
sixteenth century was the scarcity of books

* M. Rooses appraises the real or purchasing value
of silver in the time of Plantin, at its maximum, at four
times its stamped or nominal value. By this standard
the sou should be rated as equal to eight cents of
American money, and the florin as equal to $1.60.

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

243

many years the printing of these and other
books kept him in financial embarrassment,
but the result demonstrated the wisdom of
his foresight. He never lived to enjoy the
fruits, but his successors were made rich by
a monopoly which they held for more than
two hundred years.

Plantin's printing was good, but it has been
overpraised. He was named " King of Print-
ers " at a time when the duties most admired
in a printer were those of editor and publisher.
Here he was grand. His purposes were always
far beyond those of his rivals; great folios,
many volumes, large types, difficult works in
little-known languages, " lumping patents "
or privileges, profuse illustrations by eminent
artists — every peculiarity of typography that
dazzled or astonished. All his books are above
mediocrity, but he did not attain the highest
rank, either in his arrangement of types or
in his press-work. He had obscure rivals in
France and the Netherlands, who never made
showy or imposing books, but who did better
technical work, furnished more faultless texts,
and showed clearer and sharper impressions
from types. After Balthazar III. a decline set
in. Some of the later books of the house are
positively shabby — a disgrace to their patent
and to the art.

Was Plantin a Catholic ? Prefaces written
by him in some books are fervid with pro-
testations of loyalty to the old Church. Mon-
tanus and Cardinal Granvelle, and many
prominent ecclesiastics, were his personal
friends, and vouched for his orthodoxy. The
suspicious King of Spain never seems to have
doubted him, not even when he went to Lou-
vain, that home of heresy. These are strong
assurances ; yet he was often denounced as a
Calvinist: he printed books that were pro-
scribed, and for which he lost his property.
His correspondence with heretics proves be-
yond cavil that he was at heart a member of
a non-resisting sect not unlike that of the
Friends, — a sect which taught that religion
was a personal matter of the heart and life,
and not at all dependent on churches, creeds,
or confessions. How much this flexible, non-
resistant faith was his justification for the
insincerity of his professions he alone can
answer. It is certain that he was insincere.
He was not the stuff martyrs are made of.

It is more pleasant to turn to another side
of his character, in which his sincerity is above
all reproach. To the last, Plantin was true to
his trade. Too many successful traders make
use of their success to indulge in unsuspected
propensities. They kick away the ladder they
climbed up on ; they forswear trade and ple-
beian occupations ; they take their ease and
display their wealth ; they build mansions and

STATUETTE OF MADONNA AND CHILD, OVER CANDLESTICK

IN THE PRESS-ROOM. (FROM AN ETCHING MADE

FOR THIS ARTICLE BY OTTO H. BACKER.)

buy estates; they seek social distinction for
themselves and their families. From this vain-
glory Plantin was entirely free. His ambition
began and ended in his printing-house. To
form a great office worthy of the king of
printers, in which the largest and best books
should be printed in a royal manner, was the
great purpose of his life. Neither the Span-
ish Fury, nor the siege of Antwerp, nor the
destruction of the great city's privileges and
commerce, nor the king's neglect, nor his failure
to perpetuate his name in a son, nor the in-
firmities of old age, shock his purpose. The
future fate of the office for which he had labored
was doubtful; for his sons-in-law were not in
accord with one another. He had little ready
money and many obligations. He had only
the appearance of success ; his greatest bequest
was the means by which unreached success
could be attained. The probabilities were that
his name, fame, and estate would soon disap-
pear in a struggle between contentious heirs ;
but with all the odds against him, he did carry
his point. The will of the dying old man had
more enduring force in it than there was in any
decree or treaty then made for the perpetuation
of the Spanish dynasty. The Plantin-Moretus
house outlived the Spanish house of Hapsburg.
For more than three centuries the printing-

REPRODUCED FROM AN ENGRAVING BY HENRI GOLTZ1US.
C. PLANTIN.

A PRINTER'S PARADISE.

245

office was kept in the family in unbroken line
of descent; for at least three generations it
maintained its position as the first office in the
world. The Plantin types and presses and
office are still the pride of Antwerp, but the
statue of the king's representative, the fierce
Duke of Alva, which once dominated a square
in the city, and who boasted on the pedestal
that he had restored order and preserved re-
ligion and reconstructed society, was long ago
overthrown. No overthrow could be more com-
plete. It was not merely the upsetting of statue
or dynasty, but of the foundations of medieval
ideas and principles. Plantin, unwittingly no
doubt, but not the less efficiently, did his share
in bringing down this thorough destruction.
The books which he and others printed
aroused the mental activity and inspired the
freedom which soon made the Netherlands
the foremost state in the world. Kings die and
beliefs change ; the bronze statues made to be
imperishable are destroyed, but the printed
word stands. The book lives, and lives forever.
Horace was right : it is more enduring than
bronze.

In walking through the Museum the eye
does not weary of sight-seeing, but the brain
does refuse to remember objects that crowd
so fast. To remember, one must rest and think
of what he has seen. It is a relief to sit down
under the cool arcade and look out on the
quiet court, and think of the men who trod
these stones. For here Plantin and Moretus
used to sit in the cool of the day ; here they
matured plans for great books, and devised
means of borrowing money to pay fast-coming
obligations. Was the end worth the worry ?
Behind those latticed windows, obscured with
rampant grape-vine leaves, the great Justus

Lipsius wrote or corrected the books that were
the admiration of all the universities — books
now almost forgotten. In the next room
Poelman and Kilianus and Raphelengius
plodded' like wheel-horses in dragging ob-
scure texts out of the muddy roads in which
copyists and compositors had left them. Who
thinks of them now ? Through that doorway
have often passed the courtly Van Dyke and
the dashing Rubens, gay in velvets and glit-
tering with jewels. They, at least, are of the
immortals. Dignitaries of all classes have
been here : patriarchal Jewish rabbis and
steeple-crowned Puritans; the ferocious Duke
of Alva and the wily Cardinal Granvelle ;
cowled ecclesiastics from Rome and black-
gowned professors from Ley den. From upper
windows not far away Plantin's daughters
have looked out in terror, on the awful night
of the Spanish Fury, as they heard the yells of
the savage soldiers raging about the court,
and listened to their threats of " blood and
flesh and fire," and shuddered at the awful
fate that seemed before them. Truly a sad
time for the making of books or the cultiva-
tion of letters. And even nine years after this,
the boy Balthazar must have been stopped at
study by the roar of Farnese's guns during that
memorable siege, and by the shrieks of the
starving defenders of the doomed city.

The evening bell sounds its warning : it is
time to go. At our request the obliging con-
cierge gives us a few leaves from the grape-
vine, and we take our places in the outgoing
procession. Out once more in the steaming
streets — out in the confused roar and clatter
of modern city life. But the memory of the
Museum is like that of the chimes of Ant-
werp's great cathedral — never to be forgotten.

Theo. L. De Vinne.

20

•

22

Z

-rl ^

31 i 30 29

13

25| 24

PLAN OF THE PLANTIN-MORBTUS MUSEUM.

The Ground Floor: I. 2, 3, Parlors ; 4, 5, Shops; 6, Room of tapestries : 7, Room of the correctors ; 8, Office ; 9, Room of Justus Lipsius; 10, Lobby;

ii. Room for the letters ; 12, Printing-room ; X, Porter's lodge : Y, Staircase looking out on the court ; Z, Servants' room, etc. First Story :

*3i I4> Front rooms; 15, 29, 30, Library; 16, 18, 22, Wood-engravings ; 17, Lobby ; 19, Copper-plates : 20. 24, Parlors ; 21, Room

of the licenses ; 23, Room of the Antwerp engravers ; 25, Rear room ; 26, Sleeping-room ; 31, Hall of archives ;

X, Reading-room ; Y, Office of the Director; Z, Staircase leading to the court.

Vol.. XXXVI.— 35.