A wayzgoose in a printing press

A wayzgoose is a printing term, dating from the seventeenth century, for an entertainment organized by a printer for his staff. The establishment shown here would have been a fairly large printing shop, containing at least five common presses. The common press was used for letterpress printing, as opposed to copperplate printing, and the necessary printer's furniture can be seen in the painting: in the centre foreground the printer sits on the stool on which he would have stood to work at the setting table behind him, taking letters from the upper and lower cases. In the right foreground the forme, into which the type was set, is leaning against some reams of paper. This forme is set up for printing in octavo format, i.e. eight pages to a side. The printing press in the centre background is open, and on the presses along the left-hand wall other tools of the printer's trade can be seen, including the inking balls used for inking the surface of the type. The presses are braced to the ceiling to prevent them twisting or shifting about in use, and would have been large enough to have printed a folio sheet with a single pull of the press.