<P> Caslon began his career in London as an apprentice engraver of ornamental designs on firearms and other metalwork . According to printer and historian John Nichols, the main source on Caslon's life, the accuracy of his work came to the attention of prominent London printers, who advanced him money to carve steel punches for printing, first for exotic languages and then as his reputation developed for the Latin alphabet . Punchcutting was a difficult technique and many of the techniques used were kept secret by punchcutters or passed on from father to son . Caslon would later follow this practice himself, according to Nichols teaching his son his methods privately while locked in a room where nobody could watch them . As British printers had little success or experience of making their own types, they were forced to use equipment bought from the Netherlands, or France, and Caslon's types are therefore clearly influenced by the popular Dutch typefaces of his period . James Mosley summarises his early work: "Caslon's pica...was based very closely indeed on a pica roman and italic that appears on the specimen sheet of the widow of the Amsterdam printer Dirck Voskens, c. 1695, and which Bowyer had used for some years . Caslon's pica replaces it in his printing from 1725...Caslon's Great Primer roman, first used in 1728, a type that was much admired in the twentieth century, is clearly related to the Text Romeyn of Voskens, a type of the early seventeenth century used by several London printers and now attributed to the punch - cutter Nicolas Briot of Gouda ." Mosley also describes several other Caslon faces as "intelligent adaptations" of the Voskens Pica . </P> <P> Caslon's type rapidly built up a reputation for workmanship, being described by Henry Newman in 1733 as "the work of that Artist who seems to aspire to outvying all the Workmen in his way in Europe, so that our Printers send no more to Holland for the Elzevir and other Letters which they formerly valued themselves much ." Mosley describes Caslon's Long Primer No. 1 type as "type with generous proportions and it was normally cast with letter - spacing that was not too tight, characteristics that are needed in types on a small body . And yet it is so soundly made that words that are set in it keep their shape and are comfortably readable...It is a type that works best in the narrow measure of a two - column page or in quite modest octavos ." Caslon sold a French Canon face he did not engrave that may to have been the work of Joseph Moxon with some modifications, and his larger - size faces follow this high - contrast model . Compared to the more delicate, stylised and experimental designs that developed in Europe during Caslon's life, notably the romain du roi type and the work of Fleischmann in Amsterdam, and the Baskerville type of John Baskerville in Birmingham that appeared towards the end of Caslon's career, Caslon's type was quite conservative . Johnson notes that his 1764 specimen "might have been produced a hundred years earlier". Stanley Morison described Caslon's type as "a happy archaicism". </P> <P> While not used extensively in Europe, Caslon types were distributed throughout the British Empire, including British North America, where they were used on the printing the U.S. Declaration of Independence . After William Caslon I's death, the use of his types diminished, but had a revival between 1840--80 as a part of the British Arts and Crafts movement . </P> <P> Besides regular text fonts, Caslon cut blackletter or' Gothic' types (and sold some earlier ones from older foundries), which were also printed on his specimen . These could be used for purposes such as title pages, emphasis and drop caps . Bold type did not exist in Caslon's time, although some of his larger - size fonts are quite bold . </P>

What type of font is the declaration of independence