hat the mediaeval rule was to make a difference of 20 per
cent. from margin to margin. Now these matters of spacing and position
are of the greatest importance in the production of beautiful books; if
they are properly considered they will make a book printed in quite
ordinary type at least decent and pleasant to the eye. The disregard of
them will spoil the effect of the best designed type.

It was only natural that I, a decorator by profession, should attempt to
ornament my books suitably: about this matter, I will only say that I
have always tried to keep in mind the necessity for making my decoration
a part of the page of type. I may add that in designing the magnificent
and inimitable woodcuts which have adorned several of my books, and will
above all adorn the Chaucer which is now drawing near completion, my
friend Sir Edward Burne-Jones has never lost sight of this important
point, so that his work will not only give us a series of most beautiful
and imaginative pictures, but form the most harmonious decoration
possible to the printed book.

Kelmscott House, Upper Mall, Hammersmith. Nov. 11, 1895

A SHORT HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE KELMSCOTT PRESS.

The foregoing article was written at the request of a London bookseller
for an American client who was about to read a paper on the Kelmscott
Press. As the Press is now closing, and its seven years' existence will
soon be a matter of history, it seems fitting to set down some other
facts concerning it while they can still be verified; the more so as
statements founded on imperfect information have appeared from time to
time in newspapers and reviews.

As early as 1866 an edition of The Earthly Paradise was projected, which
was to have been a folio in double columns, profusely illustrated by Sir
Edward Burne-Jones, and typographically superior to the books of that
time. The designs for the stories of Cupid and Psyche, Pygmalion and the
Image, The Ring given to Venus, and the Hill of Venus, were finished,
and forty-four of those for Cupid and Psyche were engraved on wood in
line, somewhat in the manner of the early German masters. About
thirty-five of the blocks were executed by William Morris himself, and
the remainder by George Y. Wardle, G. F. Campfield, C. J. Faulkner, and
Miss Elizabeth Burden. Specimen pages were set up in Caslon type, and in
the Chiswick Press type afterwards used in The House of the Wolfings,
but for various reasons the project went no