Black letter was a dense, pointed type that carried the weight of traditional authority. Roman type was a newer form in printing. While black letter had fallen out of fashion in popular works by the end of the sixteenth century, black letter retained popularity longer in England than on the European continent. English readers in 1750 were still familiar with black letter. Back letter conveyed traditional authority:

Printers who were well supplied with fonts of Black Letter intensified the prejudices of the readers by their absurd commendations of the Black Letter. … Religious prejudices had a good deal to do with the old dislike {of the newer Roman characters}. A book of devotion, to be orthodox, must be in pointed letters. A book in roman type savored of heresy. The free-thinking scholars and philosophers of Italy were suspected of heathenism when they tried to restore the letters and literature of old Rome. Every book in Roman character was an object to be mistrusted.^

An American author in 1820 used black letter to typecast a character:

He was a complete black letter hunter, and would scarcely read a work printed in the Roman character. … The worthy parson lived but with times past, and knew but little of the present.^

In order to make the prison acts of 1774 more legible, John Howard had those acts printed in Roman characters for posting in English prisons.