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9994 SKEBN^^WiUiam) Eablt Ttpogeaphy : an essay on the Origin of 
 Letterpress Printing, 8yo. (pub. in Ceylon at 21s), hf. Boxhmghe 
 style, 10s Golomho, 1872 
 
 The deceased aattor of this 
 Robert Steep, who for thiftyyeaj- 
 of Bernard Quaritct's Catalqguee 
 ■tcrthe period of his death. ^ 
 
arW8714 
 Earl' 
 
 Cornell University Llbmry 
 
 liffliiiiiH 
 
 3 1924 031 411 048 
 olln.anx 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031411048 
 
tolg . iFgP;9raj%. 
 
PEINTED AT COLOMBO, 
 
 BY WILLIAM SKBEW, GOTBENMENT PHINTEB, 
 
 CEYLOK. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM 8KEEN. 
 
 COLOMBO: CEYLON, 
 1872. 
 
UNIVERSITYr 
 UBRARV/ 
 
 A. 9^^- 
 
Th^ accumulation of materials in the writer's hands in the 
 course of the last twelre months, has induced him to depart 
 from his original intention of limiting his labours to a 
 single book. A sketch of the history of the spread of the 
 Art, after the sack^of Mentz in 1462, with notices of the, 
 most material improvements and recent inventions connected 
 with it, will, consequently, form the subjects of a separate 
 volume. It only remains for him now thankfully to ac- 
 knowledge his obligations to Mrs. J. Ferguson, and Messrs. 
 Iliff, Eonald, and Paatz, of Colombo, for their most kindly 
 rendered assistance, by which he has been enabled to com- 
 plete this portion of his work much earlier than he otherwise 
 could have done. 
 
 Janua/ry 20, 1872. 
 
Inventors of the Art Sublime 
 
 Which Knowledge spreads thro' every clime ; 
 
 Who far the faibled god excell'd, 
 
 Prometheus, from heaven expell'd. 
 
 Material fire he brought to earth, 
 
 I'hey flames of a diviner birth 
 
 Drew from the seven-fold source of light 
 
 Seen in the Patmos vision bright, 
 
 When, the celestial portals raised, 
 
 Man, on the Godhead's glories gazed. 
 
 Majestic Truth they thus reveal'd. 
 
 By powers of Darkness long conceal'd ; 
 
 Ope'd Freedom's doors to fetter'd Thought 
 
 And forces into conflict brought — 
 
 Mind against mind — an eager fray 
 
 That shall not cease till Time's last day ; 
 
 That keener as the contest grows. 
 
 Truth greater, purer, mightier shews. 
 
 Thus Knowledge each successive age 
 
 Advances, wins an onward stage. 
 
 And gathers in one focus bright 
 
 Each fresh struck spark, each ray of light, 
 
 And clears the mists that still are found 
 
 Historic names and deeds around. 
 
 This light, that truth reveals, t' impart, 
 
 I seek. Disciple of the Art ; 
 
 That to the famed Teutonic three 
 
 Just meeds of praise may given be ; 
 
 That all aright the men may know 
 
 To whom Ttpogeaphy we owe ; 
 
 The men whose names immortal ring. 
 
 Whose gifts transcendent blessings bring. 
 
 Whose monuments in every land 
 
 By wisdom rear'd, heart-honor'd stand. 
 
 Inscribed in tongues of every clime — 
 
 "iNVENTOaS OF THE ArT SUBLIME !" 
 
 w. s. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Prbface ...* .. ... ... ... 9 
 
 Chapter I. — Introductory. -^ Letter-press Printing the 
 "Divine and Noble" Art — why so termed. — Freedom 
 of the Press — where first proclaimed. — Printing 
 known in China from time immemorial. — Method of 
 Chinese Printing. — Bibliography and Palaeotypo- 
 graphy. ... ••• ■•■ ••• H 
 
 Chaptee II. — Date of the Origin of Typography in 
 Europe.— Alleged Early Engravings. —Playing Cards. 
 — Block -books. — Mr. F. Holt's Hypothesis. — Evi- 
 dence of Costume. — German " Brief-malers." — 
 Decree of Government of Venice. — State of Europe 
 in the Middle Ages. — Cultivation of Classical Litera- 
 ture at the close of the Fourteenth and commence- 
 ment of the Fifteenth Century. ... ... 35 
 
 Chapter III. — John Gutenberg. — First attempts at 
 Typography in Strasburg. — Difficulties. — Invention of 
 the Press. — Lawsuit. — Return to Mentz, — Connection 
 with Faust. — Success. — Mazarin Bible the first Book 
 printed from Separable Metal Types.— Second Law- 
 suit.— Forfeiture of Plant to Faust. — Peter Schoeffer. 
 — Invention of Type-founding. — Faust and Schoefler. 
 — The Gutenberg "Printing-house." — Gutenberg 
 attached to the Court of the Elector of Mentz.— 
 His Death. ... ... ••. ••• 68 
 
Chaptee IV. — The claims of Coster and Haarlem con- 
 sidered, as opposed to those of Gutenberg and Mentz. 
 —Claims based upon Tradition.— No Contemporary 
 Authorities in their favor.— Abundance of such testi- 
 mony in favor of Gutenberg and Mentz.— Probable 
 Origin of Tradition. — Block-books.— Speculum Hu- 
 manse Salvationis.— Evidence of the Types : wood or 
 metal; cut or cast?— Books " Jettez en moUe."— Age 
 of the Paper. — Date of Costume. — Fraternity of 
 Brethren and Clerks of the Common Life. ... 201 
 
 Chapter V. — The works of Faust and Schoeffer. — Legend 
 of the Printer's Devil. — Monuments in Germany to 
 Gutenberg, Faust and Schoeflfer. — Sepasable Letters 
 first invented in China. — Characteristics of Ancient 
 Printed Books. — The "Composing-stick" and "Set- 
 ting-rule." — Early Bindings. ' ... ... 349 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 L— Account of the Origin of Printing, by J. F. Faust of 
 
 Aschaffenberg... ... ... ... 393 
 
 II. , by Hadrian Junius ... 404 
 
 III. — Dr. Van Der Liiide's Haarlem- Coster-Legend ... 408 
 IV.— Cut Wooden, versus Cast Metal Types ... ... 415 
 
 Errata ... ... ... ... 424 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The germ of the present work was a Lecture 
 delivered by the writer before the Members of 
 the Colombo Athenseum, on the 24th February 
 1853. That Lecture was fully reported at 
 the time in the Colombo Observer, and a few 
 copies were subsequently printed for private 
 distribution. These having been disposed of, 
 the writer's attention was directed to the pre- 
 paration of a more extended essay upon the 
 subject. The result of his labours is now 
 submitted to the public. The work makes 
 no pretension to the character of an exhaus- 
 tive treatise; it is, in fact, but little more 
 than a broad outline of the subject which 
 
10 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 it ventures to describe ; but it is hoped, that 
 a fresh interest may have been imparted to 
 some of the topics touched upon, and that 
 they will be found placed in a light which, 
 if not wholly new, is at any rate somewhat 
 clearer than that in which they have hither- 
 to been exhibited. 
 
 W. S. 
 
 Colombo, Ceylon, 
 April 29, 1871. 
 
f&^h ^zps^^H' 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 InTEODUCTORY. — LeTTEK-PRESS PrINTIKG the "DiVIlTE 
 
 AND Noble" Art — why so termed. — Freedom op 
 THE Press — ■where first proclaimed. — Printing 
 KNOWN IN China from time immemorial. — Method 
 OF Chinese printing. — Bibliography and Pal^o- 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Printing is the art of producing copies of 
 engraved writings or designs, by pressure, 
 either upon the inked surfaces of characters 
 raised in relief, or on metal plates, the upper 
 surfaces of which are polished, and the sunk 
 engravings charged with colour. The most 
 important, if not the oldest branch of this 
 art, is that of Typography, or Letter-press 
 Printing. To this Art, as it was invented 
 and perfected in Europe in the Fifteenth 
 
12 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 century, the epithets Divine and Noble 
 have not untruly been applied. 
 
 It is Noble, not merely because it is one of 
 those arts or professions, the practice of which 
 was permitted to the nobility of the German 
 Empire, but because it is the nurse and pre- 
 server of all other arts and sciences; and is 
 unquestionably the most important as well as 
 the most beneficial invention the world has 
 ever seen. It is the disseminator of every 
 other discovery ; the commemorator of all 
 other inventions: it hands down to posterity 
 every important event; immortalizes the ac- 
 tions of the great and good; and requires, 
 moreover, in all who would thoroughly excel 
 in its practice, the highest attainable combi- 
 nation of mental alacrity, educated intelligence, 
 and expert manual dexterity. 
 
 It is Divine, inasmuch as it is one of the 
 grand instruments in the hands of Providence 
 for the regeneration of fallen humanity. By 
 it the mightiest movement the world has ever 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 13 
 
 seen since the days when the Apostolic Twelve 
 went about "turning it upside down," — the 
 Great Keformation of the Sixteenth century, 
 — ^was mainly effected. Without it the Word 
 of God could not have been diffused, as it 
 has bean, is being, and will continue to be, 
 to every nation and tribe and people and 
 tongue throughout the world: while but for 
 it England and the Anglo-Saxon race, who 
 owe it so much for the stability and uni- 
 formity it gave to their language,* would 
 
 *"The multiplication of printed books and the con- 
 sequent still greater multiplication of readers, created, what 
 may be termed a literary public throughout England, and 
 when the printed copies of a book from Caxton's press were 
 spread throughout this public, each member of it used a 
 copy that was uniform with the copies used by all the rest. 
 But before printing was known, and while copies of a book 
 could be made in manuscript only, the transcribers were 
 apt to introduce changes of spelliag, of syntax, and of 
 phrase, according to the dialect of the part of the country 
 to which each copyist belonged. And the dialects of dif- 
 ferent parts of England differed then from each other in a 
 far greater degree than any amount of variation which can 
 
14 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 never have attained their present proud pre- 
 eminence amongst the nations of the earth. 
 
 at present be detected by the most zealous philologist. 
 Moreover, each author wrote in his own dialect, or to speak' 
 more correctly, in the pure native English of his own part 
 of England. Hence the diction of an author of those times 
 ia many cases appears to us more archaic than the diction 
 of his contemporaries, or even of some of his predecessors. 
 But in proportion as men of letters became famUiar in their 
 reading with the nearly uniform English language of printed 
 books, they followed or approached that uniform English 
 in their own writings. The language continued to receive 
 changes by the introduction of new words and phrases, and 
 by the zeal for imitating Latin models, which grew to 
 excess in many of our prose writers not long after the close 
 of the Fifteenth century. Many more modifications of 
 etymology, and some of syntax, took place before the 
 modem English language can be said . to have been sub- 
 stantially established throughout the country; but that 
 amoimt of uniform establishment never could have been 
 effected at all, without the intervention and the extended 
 use of the art of priating."— Sir Edward S. Creasy's 
 History of England. 8vo. 1870. vol. ii. pp. 556-7. 
 
 What the Art of Printing did in this respect for England; 
 it likewise did ia all other countries to which it was car- 
 ried, in greater or lesser degrees, according to the amount 
 of freedom it enjoyed, or of restriction to which it, and the 
 people to whom it spoke, were subjectedi 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 15 
 
 Keligion, Arts, Sciences, Commerce, and 
 Civilization, have had the greatest scope, 
 and been most fully developed, wherever the 
 Press has been the least restricted. Its free 
 action is as necessary to the well being of a 
 State, ae the free action of the lungs is to the 
 well being of the human .body. This is well 
 illustrated in the history of unhappy Poland, 
 where the Liberty of the Press was first 
 proclaimed in the Sixteenth century. But 
 the narrow-minded bigots who succeeded 
 the monarch who proclaimed it, beheld in 
 it a portent foreboding evil to themselves; 
 and they not only speedily abrogated it, but 
 followed up that step with measvires destruc- 
 tive of the most cherished privileges of the 
 Polish nation.* The result was fatal, as well 
 to the country as to the kings who misruled it. 
 Corrupted, crushed, enslaved, — every vent for 
 
 * Vide Eeformafcion of Poland, by Count V- Krasinski, 
 2 Tols. 8vo. Msbef, 1838-40. 
 
16 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 the expression of patriotic feeling choked up, 
 ■ — and the voice of the people stifled by the 
 stern gripe of the strong hand of the despot, — 
 the doom went forth, and the record against 
 her was written as against Great Babylon of 
 old, — "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uphaesin." "God 
 hath numbered thy. kingdom and finished it. 
 Thou art weighed in the balances and found 
 wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and given 
 to the Medes and Persians." 
 
 The Freedom of the Press is the birthright 
 of the Anglo-Saxon race, — ^the hard- won pal- 
 ladium of all other rights ; and yet, while 
 there are few amongst that race who do 
 not rightly appreciate the blessings flowing 
 therefrom, the great majority are ignorant of 
 the origin or the history of the Art, the privi- 
 leges of which they so highly prize, and over 
 which, with watchful jealousy, they guard 
 against every thing that bears the semblance 
 of encroachment. This ignorance is doubt- 
 less, in the main, owing to the expensive nature 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 17 
 
 and technical character of many of the works 
 in which such information has been published. 
 These works, forming of themselves a distinct 
 class of literature, are neither few in number, 
 nor wanting in interest. Some of the more 
 important are indeed hardly procurable; and 
 in the far East, where works of the kind 
 must be imported for individual use, writing 
 upon special subjects of European lore is 
 beset with difficulties from which authors in 
 the mother country are happily relieved.* 
 Acting however, on the maxim of Lord 
 Bacon, "that every man is a debtor to his 
 profession, from the which as men do, of 
 course, seek to receive countenance and 
 
 * For aesistance in this matter, I am much indebted to 
 my father, Mr. Eobbet Skebn, under whose able teachings 
 I was thoroughly instructed in, and made a master of my 
 craft— the Art of Printing. I have also to acknowledge, 
 with thanks, the material aid received from Mr. H. W. 
 Caslon, the eminent Type-founder, as well as from my 
 publishers, Messrs. Teubnbe and Co., of Paternoster Eow. 
 
18 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 profit, so ought they, of duty, to endeavour 
 themselves by way of amends to be a help 
 thereunto," I have spared no pains in this 
 endeavour; and am not without hope of im- 
 parting to my readers some interesting parti- 
 ctJars concerning the origin and history of 
 the Noble Art 
 
 " That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will, 
 And cheaply circulates through distant climes 
 The fairest relics of the purest times," — 
 
 thus creating "a moral atmosphere which is, 
 as it were, the medium of intellectual life, 
 on the quality of which, according as it may 
 be salubrious or vicious, the health of the 
 public mind depends."* 
 
 Printing from surfaces of wood, engraved in 
 relief, is an art which appears to have been 
 known in China from time immemorial. Its 
 origin there is hidden in the obscurity of 
 
 * Southbt's " Colloquies." 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 19 
 
 bye-gone ages: it may have been practised 
 by the Chinese from the very contunencement 
 of their empire ;* or the idea may have been 
 
 * A reference can scarcely be avoided, in connection 
 with this subject, to the exclamation of the patriarch Job 
 (ch. xix. 23, 24), " Oh that my words were now written I Oh 
 that they were printed in a book ! That they were graren 
 with an iron pen, and lead, in the rock for ever!" The 
 book of Job is commonly supposed to have been written 
 either by Moses, when residing amongst the Midianites 
 about 1520 years before the commencement of the Chris- 
 tian era, or by Elihu, one of the speakers in the book 
 which would probably carry its antiquity a century and 
 a half or two centuries further back. The word trans- 
 lated 'printed' does not, however, bear the meaning in 
 the original, which is now generally attached to it. It 
 evidently refers to the method of inscribing records on 
 rolls, made of the skins of animals, for the purpose of 
 preserving them for the benefit of future generations, or on 
 such other substances as were then used for that purpose ; 
 and in the texts quoted the modes of writing and the instru- 
 ments for inscribing are expressly referred to. Plates of 
 metal, and prepared leaves of the talipot palm, are to this day 
 engraved and inscribed on, in Eastern countries, with iron 
 ' styles,' for purposes of record. Books of the laws of Buddha 
 exist on plates of gold, as well as on the more common olas ; 
 and although we do not know upon what material Moses 
 
20 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 derived at a later period from blotting-paper 
 impressions of writings, or from tracings or 
 
 transcribed the Law, which God himself commanded him to 
 write, and to place in the side of the Ark of the CoTenant, we 
 may be certain that it would be written on the most im- 
 perishable, as well as the most portable of 'substances adapted 
 for such a purpose, Moses being learned in all the wisdom 
 of the Egyptians, and having for his assistants the most 
 skilful artisans of the age. The Ten Commandments we 
 know were graven on tablets of stone hewn out of the rock. 
 From tablets such as these, and from engraved plates, as 
 well as from inscribed olas, copies and fac-similes might 
 have been easily made by a process analogous to that of 
 copper-plate printing; the only drawback being that in 
 aU such copies the printed characters would have been 
 reversed. That the Hebrews must have been familiar with 
 books, such as were referred to by Job, is clear. In Egypt, 
 during the time of their residence in that couiitry. Public 
 Libraries existed: — "Over the mouldering door which led 
 to the bibliothetical repository of the Memnonium, said to 
 have been built about the time of Moses, ChampoUion read, 
 written over the heads of Thoth and Safkh, (who were the 
 male and female deities of arts, sciences, and literature), the 
 remarkably appropriate titles of ' President of the Library,' 
 and 'Lady of Letters.'" (Kitto's Cycl. of Bill. Literature, 
 Art. Whiting). The Egyptians probably derived their know- 
 ledge of writing from Misraim the son of Ham, as did the 
 Canaanites from Canaan the brother of Misraim, from whom 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 21 
 
 rubbings of inscriptions, which travellers from 
 'the flowery land' may have taken, in foreign 
 
 they were descended. There is proof in the sculptured 
 pictures and inscriptions in the oldest Egyptian monuments, 
 of about the same age as the Great Pyramid, that 2200 years 
 B. c, writifcg was an art well known at that early period. 
 "Whatever the emplayment, or whatever the produce being 
 brought to be laid at the prince's feet, there were always 
 scribes in attendance to take down the exact amount in 
 writing on the property rolls." (Vide Life and Work at the 
 Great Pyramid in 1865, by 0. Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer 
 Royal, Scotland ; and article in Good Words, Part VII, 1867, 
 by the same author, p. 453.) When the Israelites took pos- 
 session of the land of Canaan, among other great and walled 
 cities which they captured was Debir, whose original name 
 was Kirjath-sepher, or the City of Books, or Kirjath-sannah, 
 the City of Letters, (Joshua xv. 49; Judges i. 11). This 
 word "sannali" is evidently the same as "sannas," the 
 name given to oblong copper-plates, on which are engraved 
 the record of the grants of lands, &c., made from very 
 ancient times by the kings of Ceylon, to temples, chiefs, and 
 others ; and which are frequently, under that name, received 
 in evidence in the law courts in disputes regarding landed 
 property. They are, in fact, the title-deeds under which 
 most of the Sighalese gentry of ancient family hold their 
 estates. These royal grants are sometimes on plates of 
 silver, and occasionally cut in the solid rock or on massive 
 stone tablets. 
 
22 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 countries, on sheets of paper, such as are 
 known to have been manufactured in China 
 from times of a very remote antiquity, and 
 which are to this day better adapted for such 
 purposes than any papers elsewhere made. 
 Such rubbings, forming a kind of papier- 
 mach^ castings,* would naturally suggest, 
 not only the idea of stereo-blocks, whereon 
 writings in reversed characters could be en- 
 graved in relief, but also the mode of 
 printing, which, to the present day, prevails 
 throughout the Chinese empire. With the 
 fact before us, that the Chinese were, up to 
 
 * Plaster casts of inscriptions might also have suggested 
 the same idea. The use of plaster, for the purposes of in- 
 scriptions, dates back to a very ancient era. It seems to 
 hare been as old as the art of writing itself. We learn 
 from the book of Deuteronomy (xxvii. 2-4), that while 
 the Children of Israel were yet wandering in the desert, 
 after their exodus from Egypt, it was ordained, that when 
 they had passed into Canaan, — the land which should be 
 given them, — great stones, plaistered over with plaister, 
 should be set up, on which stones should be written "very 
 plainly" all the words of the law. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 23 
 
 a certain period in their history, far ahead 
 of all other nations, not even excepting the 
 Egyptians, in the development of inventions 
 which could only be the product of an ad- 
 vanced state of civilization, it is not unreason- 
 able to • conclude, (especially in the absence 
 of positive information to help us in our re- 
 searches), that the art of printing from blocks 
 originated in China in the manner above 
 stated. Whether such were the case or not, 
 Du Halde, in order to establish its great anti- 
 quity, cites the following proverb, quoted by 
 an old author as written by the Emperor Van 
 Vong, who flourished 1120 years before Christ 
 — "As the stone Me (a word signifying ink 
 in the Chinese language) which is used to 
 blacken the engraved characters, can never 
 become white, so a heart blackened with 
 vices, wUl always retain its blackness." This 
 quotation, however, not being very conclusive 
 on the subject, he fixes the invention at fifty 
 years before the Christian era. 
 
24 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Father Couplet, Klaproth, and others, ascribe 
 it to a much later date. " Under the reign of 
 Mint-song," writes Klaproth, "in the second 
 of the years Tchang-hing (932) the ministers 
 Fong-tao and Li-yu proposed to the Academy 
 Kpue-tseu-kien to review the nine king or 
 canonical books, and to have them engraved 
 upon blocks of wood, that they might be 
 printed and sold. The emperor adopted the 
 advice ; but it was only in the second of 
 the years Kouan-chun (952) that the engrav- 
 ing of the blocks was completed. They were 
 then distributed and circulated in all the 
 cantons of the empire." 
 
 But that the art was known and practised by 
 the Chinese at a period still more remote, we 
 learn from the 39th volume of the Chinese 
 Encyclopaedia, where we are informed, that on 
 the eighth day of the twelfth month of the 
 thirteenth year of the reign of Wen-ti, founder 
 of the Sou'i dynasty (593) it was ordered by a 
 decree to collect the worn out drawings and 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 25 
 
 inedited texts, and to engrave them on wood 
 and publish them. This fact is confirmed by 
 various Chinese writings; and this, continues 
 the work quoted, was the commencement of 
 printing upon wooden blocks. Under the 
 Thang df^nasty, from 618 to 907, it grew much 
 into use; made still greater progress during 
 the five lesser dynasties, firom 907 to 960; 
 and reached its perfection and greatest deve- 
 lopment between 960 and 1278. But as 
 block-printing was only for the first time 
 imperially ordered in the year 593, it is very 
 probable that the art was known long before 
 that date. Had it then been a new inven- 
 tion, something surely would have been said 
 about its origin and author. 
 
 The following particulars relative to Chinese 
 printing are given by Du Halde. 
 
 "The work intended to be printed is tran-. 
 scribed by a careful writer upon thin transparent 
 paper : the engraver glues each of these written 
 sheets, with its face downwards, upon a smooth 
 
26 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 tablet of pear or apple tree, or some other hard 
 wood; and then with gravers and other in- 
 struments, he cuts the wood away in all those 
 parts upon which he finds nothing 
 traced [as in the fac-simUe* in the 
 margin]; thus leaving the reversed 
 
 J^ characters ready for printing 
 
 When once the blocks are engraved, 
 the paper is cut, and the ink is ready, 
 one man with his brush can, without 
 
 \^ 
 
 -?»> 
 
 ^ 
 
 fatigue, print ten thousand sheets in a day. 
 The block to be printed must be placed level, 
 and firmly fixed. The man must have two 
 brushes ; one of them of a stififer kind, which 
 he can hold in his hand, and use at either end. 
 He dips this into the ink, and rubs the block 
 with it; taking care not to wet it too much, 
 
 nor to leave it too dry The second brush 
 
 is used to rub over the paper with a small 
 degree of pressure, that it may take the im- 
 
 'Sy-chong-^geii-pon," the name of a Chinese Song-book. 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 27 
 
 pression: this it does easily, for not being 
 sized with alum, it receives the ink the instant 
 it comes in contact with it. It is only neces- 
 sary that the brush should be passed over 
 every part of the sheet with a greater or 
 smaller degree of pressure, and repeated in 
 proportion as the printer finds there is more 
 or less ink upon the block." 
 
 The number of copies which, according to 
 Du Halde, a Chinese workman can print in 
 a day, is greatly exaggerated. About four 
 thousand, or four hundred an hour, is the 
 utmost that the most expert workman would 
 be able to throw off. 
 
 To the above account it may be added, -that 
 the blocks, each containing two pages, are 
 frequently engraved on both sides ; that the 
 sheets printed are small, and impressed on 
 one side only ; and that each sheet when dry 
 is folded back, so as to present the appear- 
 ance of a leaf impressed on both sides. 
 
 The history of printing in China, and the 
 
productions of the Chinese press, are subjects 
 which Oriental bibliographers have more or 
 less touched upon. Interesting as they are, 
 there will probably be no occasion to allude to 
 them in these pages more than once again. 
 
 Bvit the history of books in Europe, the pro- 
 ductions of the early printers in the various 
 countries to which they carried their art, is 
 one to which our subject is most closely 
 allied ; and European bibliography is a study 
 to which many men of great ability have 
 devoted themselves during the last three cen- 
 turies, in Germany, Holland, England, Spain, 
 France, Italy, Belgium, and other cotmtries. 
 To their labours all later writers on the sub- 
 ject are u.nder manifold obligations.* But 
 
 * The following alphabetical list includes the most dis- 
 tinguished of these writers: — Andres, Antonio, Baillet, 
 Bayle, Blount, Bouterwek, Brucker, Brunet, Buhle, Chal- 
 mers, Collier, Corniani, De Bure, De Vries, Dibdin, Ebert, 
 Eichhorn, Falkenstein, Fischer, Foppens, Frere, Gesner, 
 Gingu^ne, Groujet, Graesse, Greswell, Hallam, Ilain, Heeren, 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 29 
 
 in attributing various undated books to one 
 or other of the earliest established presses, 
 guess-work, and the bias of national pre- 
 judice, have largely prevailed amongst even 
 the most painstaking of European bibliogra- 
 phers. , J^his unscientific method, long felt 
 to be a reproach to learning and literature, 
 has of late years been attempted to be reme- 
 died by a more close and critical examina- 
 tion of the Incunabula, or books printed in 
 the Fifteenth century. "The method of ar- 
 ranging these early books under the countries, 
 .>t6wns, and presses at which they were pro- 
 dticed," says Mr. Henry Bradshaw, the Li- 
 brarian of the University of Cambridge, "is 
 the only one which can really advance our 
 knowledge of the subject. This is compa- 
 
 Home, Kastner, Mallinckrot, Maittaire, Maitland, Meiners, 
 Mendez, Montucla, Naud6, Niceron, Panzer, Portal, San- 
 tauder, Sismondi, Sprengel, Sotheby, Tennemaim, Tiraboschi, 
 Vanderhaeghen, Van der Meersch, Van Iseghem, Van Praefc, 
 "Watt, Wolf, Wilrdtwein, Zapf. 
 
30 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 ratively easy with dated books, though there 
 is no safeguard against the misleading nature 
 of an erroneous date. But the study is of little 
 use unless the bibliographer will be content 
 to make such an accurate and methodical 
 study of the types used and habits of printing 
 observable at diiferent presses, as to enable 
 him to observe and be guided by these charac- 
 teristics in settling the date of a book which 
 bears no date on the surface. We do not 
 want the opinion or dictum of any biblio- 
 grapher, however experienced ; we desire that 
 the types and habits of each printer should be 
 made a special subject of study, and those 
 points brought forward which shew changes ^ 
 or advance from year to year, or where prac- 
 ticable, from month to month. When this is 
 done, we have to say of any dateless or falsely 
 dated book, that it contains such and such cha- 
 racteristics, and we therefore place it at such 
 a point of time, the time we name being merely 
 another expression for the characteristics we 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 31 
 
 notice in the book. In fact each press must be 
 looked upon as a genus, and each book as a 
 species, and our business is to trace the more 
 or less close connection of the different mem- 
 bers of the family, according to the characters 
 which thfty present to our observation." 
 
 The study thus defined is designated Palaeo- 
 typography ; and concerning it Mr. Bradshaw 
 further says, "except Mr. Blades's monograph 
 of Caxton's press,* the Hague Catalogusf 
 and Monwnens Tk/pographiques^ are the only 
 books existing in any literature, so far as 'I 
 know, which render the study of palseotypo- 
 graphy in any way possible upon a proper 
 
 * The Life and Typography of "William Caxton, by 
 William Blades. 2 vols. 4to. with 57 fac-simile illus- 
 trations. London, 1861-63. 
 
 j- Catalogus Librorum Ssec. XVI. impressomm, in Bib- 
 liotheca Regia Hagana asserratoram, 8vo. Hagtm, 1856. 
 
 % Monumens Typographiqnes des Pays Bays au XVe 
 Siecl6, 20 livraisons, imp. 4to. 120 plates of fac-similes. La 
 Haye, 1857-66. Of this magnificent work only 200 copies 
 were printed. 
 
32 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 basis. Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, are 
 at present perfectly impracticable fields of 
 work, and are, I fear, likely to remain so for 
 some time to come."* 
 
 Respecting Mr. Bradshaw's own labours in 
 this field of investigation, Mr. Frederick Miiller 
 of Amsterdam, an enthusiastic bibliographer 
 of rare power, bears the following testi- 
 mony if — "Hardly anybody in England takes 
 an interest in foreign bibliography — the 
 only exception being that excellent biblio- 
 grapher, Henry Bradshaw, Fellow of King's 
 College, Cambridge, who is examining with 
 great enthusiasm the Incunabula Typogra- 
 phica, and who has lately arrived at most 
 surprising and important results in this de- 
 partment I do not know which most 
 
 * Classified Index of Fifteenth Century Books in the 
 Collection of the late M. J. de Meyer of Ghent. 8vo. 
 London, 1870. pp. 15-16. 
 
 t Trtjbner's American and Oriental Literary Record, 
 July, 1870. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 33 
 
 to admire — the acumen of the conjectures 
 about the places where some of the works 
 were printed, or the clearness with which the 
 writer treats several very difficult subjects. 
 
 This method of ascribing a work solely 
 
 from the appearance of the types used, he 
 
 carries to the utmost point of application 
 
 Mr. Bradshaw is the first who turns to ad- 
 vantage the excellent lessons of the French 
 and German bibliographers, and through him 
 a new light will probably arise in English 
 bibliography." 
 
 To the researches of Mr. Bradshaw and 
 Mr. Blades, and to the labours of Mr. Ottley* 
 and Mr. Humphreys,! in their last published 
 
 * Inquiry concerning the Invention of Printing, by W. 
 Y. Ottley. 4to. 37 plates, and other engravings. London, 
 1863. 
 
 t A History of the Art of Printing: Its Invention and 
 Progress to the Middle of the Sixteenth Century, by H. 
 Noel HuMPHEEYS. imp. 4to. 105 photo-lithographic fac- 
 similes. London, 1869. 
 
J 
 34 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 works, I am greatly indebted. The interest- 
 ing information they have accumulated I 
 have freely made use of in the preparation 
 of this volume, although I diflFer considerably 
 from some of the conclusions which one or 
 other of them has arrived at. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 Date of the Origin op Typosrapht in Eubopb. — 
 Alleged early Engravings. — Playing Cards. — 
 Block-books. — Mr. F. Holt's Hypothesis. — Evidence 
 OF Costume. — German ^'Briep-malers." — Decree op 
 Government op Venice. — State of Europe in the 
 Middle Ages. — Cultivation of Classical Litera- 
 ture AT THE close OP THE FOURTEENTH AND COM- 
 MENCEMENT OP THE Fifteenth Century. 
 
 It has been a question much debated, whether 
 the Art of Printing was not introduced to 
 Europe from the East at a much earlier period 
 than that generally assigned as the date of its 
 invention ; and we are informed by Klaproth, 
 that it might have been known in Europe a 
 hundred and fifty years prior to its discovery 
 by the Germans, if Europeans had been able 
 
36 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 to read and translate the Persian historians, 
 as the Chinese method of printing is clearly 
 explained in the Djemm^ a-et-tewarikh, by Ra- 
 chid-Eddin, who finished this immense work 
 about the year 1310. 
 
 On this subject, Mr. WiUiam Savage, a 
 weU-known printer, and a gentleman to whom 
 the public and the profession are indebted for 
 several valuable works on the art, states, in the 
 preface to a volume published in 1841, — "The 
 dates given of the introduction of the practice 
 into Europe by previous writers, are un- 
 questionably erroneous, as we have conclusive 
 evidence of its being followed as a profession 
 for nearly a century before the earliest date 
 they givet" — and he announced his intention 
 of embodying the facts and information he had 
 been for a long period collecting, in another 
 work, as hitherto, he declares, there has in 
 reality been but little said on the History or 
 Practice of Printing, the numerous works on 
 the subject being chiefly copies from one or 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 37 
 
 two of the earlier writers. This is true 
 enough. From the very nature of the case it 
 can scarcely be otherwise, until and unless 
 the discovery of fresh facts, or the investi- 
 gations of fresh inquirers lead to conclusions 
 different to those which had previously been 
 generally received. 
 
 It is possible, nay probable, that a knowledge 
 of the art, as practised in China, may have 
 been carried to Europe by the Venetian tra- 
 vellers, or traders, at a very early date ; but, as 
 no account is known to exist that such really 
 was the case, so no certain conclusion on the 
 subject can be arrived at. Whether it was so 
 or not, there is little difficulty in supposing that 
 on many occasions attempts might be made 
 similar to that contained in the much disputed 
 account given by Papillon of the discovery at 
 Bagneux, a village near Mont-Rouge, in the 
 library of M. De Greder, a Swiss Captain, of a 
 work, lent to M. De Greder by M. Sperchtvel, 
 another Swiss Officer, supposed to have been 
 
38 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 printed in 1284 or 1285. This work, which has 
 never since been seen, is said to have borne 
 the following inscription in old Italian. 
 
 "The heroic actions, represented in figures, 
 of the great and magnanimous Macedonian 
 king, the bold and valiant Alexander; dedi- 
 cated, presented, and humbly offered to the most 
 holy Father, Pope Honorius IV, the glory and 
 support of the Church, and to our illustrious 
 and generous father and mother, by us AUes- 
 sandro-Alberico Cunio, Cavaliere, and Isabella 
 Cunio, twin brother and sister : first reduced, 
 imagined, and attempted to be executed in 
 relief with a small knife on blocks of wood 
 made even and polished by this learned and 
 dear sister, continued and finished by us to- 
 gether, at Ravenna, from the eight pictures of 
 our invention, painted six times larger than 
 here represented; engraved, explained by 
 verses, and thus marked upon the paper to 
 perpetuate the number of them, and to enable 
 us to present them to our relations and 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 39 
 
 friends, in testimony of gratitude, friendship, 
 and affection. All this was done and finished 
 by us when only 16 years of age." 
 
 Interesting as this statement is, and correct 
 as it possibly may be, it can scarcely be 
 accepted ,as an historical fact, inasmuch as 
 no one but the alleged discoverer appears 
 ever to have seen the originals. 
 
 Besides the preceding doubtful account we 
 
 have notices of a print in the Library of Lyons 
 
 with the date 1384. Specimens of engravings, 
 
 of playing cards, as well as of saints, said to 
 
 have been produced in the years 1390 and 1400 
 
 are also extant. From the year 1400 to 1440 
 
 other and more elaborate engravings, of a 
 
 devotional character, are likewise to be met 
 
 with. One of the most curious, representing 
 
 St. Christopher carrying the infant Saviour 
 
 across the sea, is in the possession of Earl 
 
 Spencer, and bears the date 1423. A few years 
 
 later we find similar prints accompanied with 
 
 explanatory inscriptions or texts of Scripture 
 
40 BAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 placed beneath them ; next came whole series 
 of these prints published together as a book ; 
 and lastly, the small Latin Grammars of 
 Donatus, the common school-books of the 
 day, engraved and printed in like manner. 
 These productions are distinguished by Bib- 
 liographers as Block-books, and nine or ten 
 diflferent specimens are known to exist. Of 
 these the most remarkable are the Biblia Pau- 
 perum, or Poor Man's Bible,* a book contain- 
 ing 40 pages of quarto, or small folio prints, 
 with several engravings with inscriptions upon 
 each page, supposed to have been executed 
 (most probably at ZwoUef in Holland) between 
 
 * This is shewii, in the history of wood-cutting by Mr. J. 
 Jackson, not to have been the original title of the work, 
 which was rather, says the writer, a book for the use of 
 preachers than the laity, — "A series of skeleton sermons, 
 ornamented with woodcuts to warm the preacher's ima- 
 gination, and stored with texts to assist his memory." 
 
 f The blocks of the origiual Biblia Pawperum re-appeared 
 in this city on the revival of wood-engraTing in Holland ; 
 and it is the opinion of Mr. Beadshaw, that it was here 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 41 
 
 the years 1420 and 1435; and the Speculum 
 Humance Salvationis* or Mirror of Salvation, 
 a book containing 63 leaves in the two Latin, 
 and 62 in the two Dutch editions, (each in 
 small folio), 58 of which are ornamented 
 with engravings representing stories from 
 the Old and New Testaments, beneath which 
 are more copious explanatory inscriptions 
 
 StuKer auie r^a^iCo tit fonnaKi 
 e torti^ mu (S)itmenfe eCtpamta , 
 
 ti^t gt? ipf aquotamo Cub W Ne ^^tn6 
 <ft7 etra r loto t ofupteH^ plafmamt 
 
 [Copy of an Inscription on the first leaf of the " Speculum Humanae Salvationis."] 
 
 the earliest of the block-books -was produced. This opinion 
 has additional importance attached to it, from the fact that 
 ZwoUe was, in the early part of the Fifteenth century, cele- 
 brated as a seat of learning. " Thomas d Kempis, according 
 to Meiners, whom Eichhorn and Heeren have followed 
 presided oyer a school at Zwoll, wherein Agricola, Hegius, 
 Langius, and Dringeberg, the restorers of learning in 
 Germany, were educated." — Hallam's Introduction to the 
 Literatwe of Europe, %Y0. 1837. toI. i. p. 149. 
 
 * Some writers consider" that the whole of the text of 
 what are considered the first and last editions, and a large 
 
42 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 than those in the "Biblia Pauperum." These 
 editions are supposed to have been published 
 between the years 1430 and 1457. 
 
 Mean as these books would seem if issued 
 from the press at the present day, they were 
 wonderful productions for the age in which 
 they appeared ; and although the first named 
 was called the 'Poor Man's Bible,' or 'Book 
 
 portion of the text of the other two, were printed from 
 moveable wooden letters; others again assert, that these 
 letters were made of cast fasile metal. No positive proof, 
 however, has been, or can be given that they were the latter. 
 That the texts were separately printed, is evident, from the 
 diflferent inks employed, the burnished appearance of the 
 paper at the back of the cuts, and the indentations at the 
 back of the lines of type. These last, differing considerably 
 in different specimens, give rise to differences of opinion as to 
 whether the impressions were produced by an ordinary print- 
 ing press, or by some other method of imparting pressure. 
 The presumption is that all, or nearly all, the impressions 
 of the oldest specimens of the art, printed only on one side 
 of the paper or vellum, were taken in the Chinese way. 
 Before the press was invented, there certainly was a possi- 
 Ulity, but that was all, of printing otherwise ; but after its 
 invention, impressions could most easily be taken on both 
 sides of the paper, without the risk of spoiling the first,. 
 
EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 43 
 
 of the Poor,' it was only in comparison with 
 the cost of a written copy of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures, which was worth the, in that day, 
 enormous sum of £100.* As very few copies 
 are now in existence, (and those generally 
 in an imjierfect state), they have literally 
 become worth more than their weight in 
 gold: a copy of the Biblia Pauperum having 
 
 while 'perfecting' (i. e. printing) the reverse or blank side 
 of the sheet. As the press was not an essential in block- 
 printing, it was probably not thought of in that embryonic 
 state of the art. But after separable, and especially metallic, 
 letters were made, the press could no longer be dispensed 
 with; types would be all but useless without it; for al- 
 though impressions might still be taken by careful rubbing, 
 the paper being sufficiently damped, that process would 
 be attended with much additional trouble, owing to the 
 precautions rendered necessary to avoid cutting through the 
 paper, or otherwise spoiling it by blacking the margins 
 on the inlsed coffin or chase in which the types, when 
 formed into a page, were screwed or quoined or wedged 
 together. The date of the invention of the Lbttbe press, 
 by the adaptation of the screw to the purposes of book- 
 printing, is thus an important element in the consideration 
 of questions relating to the origin of Typography. 
 * About £1000, or £1200, of current English money. 
 
U EAKLY TYPOaEAPHY. 
 
 been bought by the Duke of Marlborough, 
 after a keen competition at an auction sale 
 in 1813, for the almost fabulous sum of £257. 
 It was from these early Block-books, or 
 Donatuses, that Gutenberg, as we learn from 
 the statement of Ulric Zell, — a contemporary, 
 and working printer at Mentz with the ori- 
 ginal inventors while the art was yet a secret, 
 — derived his idea of printing as at present 
 practised. In the words of Mr. Charles 
 Knight, in his interesting biography of the 
 venerable Caxton, the Father of the Art in 
 England, — "To seize upon the idea, that the 
 text or legend might be composed of separate 
 letters, capable of re-arrangement after the 
 impressions were taken off, so as to be ap- 
 plied without new cutting to other texts and 
 legends, was to secure the principle upon 
 which the printing art depended. It was 
 easy to extend the principle from a few lines 
 to a whole page, and from one page to many, 
 so as to form a book;" 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 45 
 
 Such, according to the almost universally 
 adopted belief, were the successive steps which 
 led to the invention of Typogeaphy. And 
 for nearly a century no one had ventured 
 to doubt that either inxages of saints, or cha- 
 racters fo^ playing cards, were first printed 
 from engraved wooden blocks, as cheap sub- 
 stitutes for the works of the draftsman and 
 painter ; — that these were succeeded by 
 subjects of sacred history with explanatory 
 legends cut in wood, imitative of the art of 
 the illuminator, and the caligraphy of the 
 scribes or professional writers ; — that these 
 again were followed by Donatuses ; — and that 
 from these Donatuses, printed from solid 
 blocks, Gutenberg obtained his first idea of 
 the Typographic Art. 
 
 But in 1868 an altogether new hypothesis 
 was propounded at the annual congress of the 
 British Archaeological Association, held that 
 year at Cirencester. It was there maintained, 
 in a paper read by Mr. Henry F. Holt, that 
 
46 EARLY TYPOaEAPHY. 
 
 printing from moveable types, as practised in 
 Europe, preceded in point of time that of 
 printing from engravings on wood. After a 
 careful inspection of the celebrated print of 
 St. Christopher, in Earl Spencer's library at 
 Althorp, he contended, — "that the date 1423 
 is not that of the engraving, but of the 
 legend beneath it, which had been copied by 
 the engraver, and has reference to the jubilee 
 year of the Saint; that it has been printed 
 by a press, and with printer's ink; and, 
 what is more important, upon paper which 
 exhibits the well-known water-mark of the 
 bull or heifer's head, with a flower issuant 
 between the horns, which was used by Faust, 
 and supposed to have been made for him.* 
 He has shewn, that the discovery of this 
 supposed early engraving instigated the fabri- 
 
 * Paper with the same water-mark was also used by the 
 First Printer in England. Vide Plate IX in vol. ii. of 
 Tlie Life and Typography of William Caxton. 
 
EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 47 
 
 cation of several similar, which were stained 
 with coffee to give them the appearance of age. 
 He farther maintains, that the block-books, — 
 originally, in his opinion, produced by the 
 celebrated painter and engraver Albrecht 
 Durer, — were cheap substitutes for the highly- 
 priced productions of the Printing press." 
 And he challenges literature "to prove, that 
 a copy of the block-book known as the 'Bib- 
 lia Pauperum,' was actually in any known 
 library, public or private, prior to 1485, or 
 known then to be in existence."* "All this 
 has," as Mr. Planch^ observes, "naturally 
 aroused a host of antagonists, who have 
 more or less courteously contradicted, with- 
 out convincing Mr. Holt, by the production 
 of any incontrovertible fact, which would 
 refute the evidence he adduces in support of 
 his arguments. Alone and undismayed, he 
 still gallantly defies all comers." 
 
 * Letter in Builder, Not. 26, 1870. 
 
48 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Guided by the test of costmne, — "a test 
 which he has never known applied in rain, 
 when called to the assistance of the critical 
 inquirer," — Mr. Planch^, while abstaining from 
 the expression of an opinion upon the prin- 
 cipal point in dispute, shews, as a matter of 
 fact in regard to playing cards, that "with the 
 exception of those by the Master of 1466 [an 
 engraver only known by that designation], 
 and a set of "tarots," called the Mantegna 
 Cards,* on one of which is the date 1483, all 
 the specimens of printed playing cards that 
 he has met with display the unmistakeable 
 character of the fashions of Germany, 
 France, and England, during the latter half 
 of the Fifteenth century, and the greatest 
 portion those of the very latest part, — 
 
 * So called after Andrea Mantegna, a celebrated Italian 
 painter and engraTcr, born in Padua 1431, died 1505, 
 Cards designed and coloured by this artist are very highly 
 prized. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 49 
 
 Louis XI, Charles VIII, of France; Edward 
 IV, and Henry VII, of England; and 
 Maximilian I, i^mperor of Germany."* 
 
 So far, then, the evidence of the playing 
 cards seems to support the hypothesis of 
 Mr. Holt., 
 
 Most of the early prints are certainly of 
 
 [The Knave of Bells, 1390.] 
 
 * Builder, Nov. 19, 1870. 
 
an extremely rude type, consisting chiefly 
 of mere outlines of figures ; in the one 
 case of saints, copied from^ the illuminated 
 Missals, and in the other, of characters for 
 playing cards similar to the foregoing fac- 
 simile, afterwards coloured in imitation of 
 paintings. Very probably they may have 
 been made, in the first instance, by means 
 of stencil plates ; if not, the impressions were 
 obtained from the engraved blocks by fric- 
 tion, after the Chinese manner. Whichever 
 was the method adopted, the ' Brief- malers ' 
 or card painters of Germany seem to have 
 run their Italian brethren hard in the race of 
 competition in the first half of the Fifteenth 
 century, as we learn from a decree of the 
 Government of Venice, bearing date the 11th 
 October 1441 ; which, after stating that the 
 art and mystery of making cards and printed 
 figures had fallen into decay, from the num- 
 bers printed out of Venice, ordains — "That 
 it be ordered and established, according to 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 51 
 
 that which certain masters had supplicated, 
 that from this time in future no work of the- 
 said art that is printed or painted* on cloth 
 or on paper, that is to say, altar pieces, 
 images, and playing cards, and whatever 
 other wouk of the said art is done with a 
 brush and printed,! shall be allowed to be 
 
 * "The word which has been translated printed is 
 'stampide' ('Carte e figure depinte e stampide'), and the 
 question arises as to the meaning of that word in 1441. 
 'Stampide,' according to Florio, signifies 'to print, to 
 presse, to stampe, to form, to figure ; ' and ' stampe' in like 
 manner, besides a print or impression, is saidtobe 'amarke, 
 a shape, a figure.' The word existed before printing, in its 
 modem sense, had been heard of, and the natural application 
 of it to the new art, does not in the least determine the 
 question of when that art was invented. ' Stampide' in 
 1441, might simply mean formed, figured, or shaped, by the 
 means of the stencil, a process which we know was adopted 
 at that period, and which being much more rapid than 
 drawing and coloring by hand, would doubtless affect very 
 seriously the art of the card illuminator, similarly as pho- 
 tography, at the present day, has the art of the miniature 
 painter."— J. E. Planch^. Builder, Nov. 19, 1870. 
 
 t This phi-ase seems specially to refer to the method of 
 stencilling. 
 
52 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 brought or imported into this city under 
 'pain of forfeiting the works so imported, 
 and XXX livres and xii soldi,* of which fine 
 one-third shall go to the state, one-third 
 to Signor Giustizieri Vecchi, to whom the 
 affair is committed, and one -third to the 
 accuser." The worthy magistrates of Venice 
 were excellent Protectionists in their day 
 and generation ; but this antique method of 
 printing, either from engraved wooden blocks, 
 or with stencilling plates and brushes, had 
 soon to give way to the newer art of 
 Typography; and twenty-eight years after 
 the promulgation of this decree we find 
 printed works issuing from the press of 
 John and Vandeline of Spire, established 
 in Venice in the year 1469. 
 
 It is a moot point among antiquarians 
 when playing cards were first printed. The 
 commonly received opinion of their inven- 
 
 * Equivalent to about £5 15s. sterling. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 53 
 
 tion in 1392 for the amusement of the insane 
 King, Charles VI of France, is decidedly erro- 
 neous.* On this subject Mr. Planch6 writes, 
 — "There is plenty of evidence to prove 
 that cards, drawn, painted, and gilded by the 
 hand, like those of Jacquemin-Gringonneur, 
 and to which the name of ' Tarot cards ' 
 has been given, found their way into 
 Europe from the East in the Fourteenth 
 centuty, or perhaps earlier; but they had 
 nothing in common with those to which 
 we are accustomed, although they might 
 have suggested them, and the ■ fact in no 
 wise affects the question of printing by 
 means of wood-blocks only."f 
 
 * St. Louis of France, after his return from the Crusade, 
 [a. d. 1254], interdicted the use of all playing cards 
 throughout his dominions. They were also forbidden by the 
 Council of Cologne in the year 1281. These prohibitions 
 most probably arose from their being used for purposes of 
 fortune-telling. 
 
 f Gringonneur was paid for the cards drawn and painted 
 for Charles VI in 1392, fifty-six sous of Paris, which is 
 
54 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 That this art — the art of printing by pres- 
 sure to obtain copies, in ink, from separable 
 types or letters — had not been attempted to 
 be carried Into effect at a much earlier 
 period than the time when Gutenberg made 
 his first essay at Strasburg, about the year 
 1435, has been a subject of wonderment with 
 certain writers. But the truth is, that prior 
 to that period the world was not ripe for 
 the invention, neither had the time arrived 
 for the development of those grand designs 
 of Providence, in the effecting of which the 
 Press and Printing were destined to be 
 mainly instrumental. Otherwise, it is incon- 
 ceivable how for ages previous, while the 
 germ of the art,, as ultimately perfected, was 
 
 calculated to be about £7 Is. 8d. of our present money, and 
 a single pack of "tarots," admirably painted about 1415 by 
 Marziano, Secretary to the Duke of Milan, cost the enormous 
 sum of 1,500 golden crowns (about £625); but in 1454 
 a pack of cards intended for the Dauphin of France, cost 
 only five sous of Toui-s, about lis. or 12s.— The Arts in 
 the Middle Ages, by M. Paul Lacroix. 
 
EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 55 
 
 in common use among men, — in seals and 
 signets ;* in stamped records on bricks and 
 tablets of clay in Babylon ; in chiselled in- 
 scriptions on rocks and pillars in India ; 
 and in irons with letters cut in relief upon 
 them for J)randing cattle with their owners' 
 
 * Several ancient specimens of Greek and Roman signets 
 are still extant. The most remarkable of these is a brass 
 sigillum of C. J. Caecilius Hermias, in the Duke of Rich- 
 mond's collection. It was found near Rome, and is supposed 
 to belong to the Fourth century. The characters are reversed, 
 engraved in relief, the back metal being cut away to a 
 considerable depth and left in a rough state. The inscription 
 is surrounded with a border, as shewn below. 
 
 C I CAECILI 
 HERMIAE. SN. 
 
 The size of the signet is two inches long by one inch wide. 
 At the back is a ring. If used for printing, its application 
 was no doubt the same as that of the blocks used by the 
 Paper Stamers of the present day. Coloured pigments would 
 be applied to the face of the letters, and the signet would 
 then be stamped on whatever substance was to be marked. 
 It might, in this way, have been used for stamping on the 
 covers of letters or parcels, to mark the name of the party 
 
56 EAELY TYPOaRAPHY. 
 
 names, (known among the Romans in the 
 days of Virgil); — no one discovered the way 
 to this method of multiplying documents for 
 general distribution, or for the promulgation 
 of edicts through the length and breadth of 
 the ruling empires of the world. 
 
 from whom they were sent, in the same way as engraved 
 fac-simile signatures are officially used for franking such 
 documents through the post at the present day. It may, 
 however, have been the receipt stamp of a man in trade ; or 
 a trade-mark, used, for instance, to stamp the wares while in 
 a semi-plastic state, of a baker or brick-maker. 
 
 After the above was in type, the writer was informed 
 by Dr. J. D. M. Coghill, Superintendent of the Convict 
 Establishment at Welikada, near Colombo, that the pro- 
 bability of the first of the purposes to which the signet 
 is supposed to have been applied, was much strengthened by 
 the somewhat similar practice, though not for an exactly 
 similar object, which prevails in parts of China, in the use of 
 chaps, — "house-signs," — ^by professional men, traders, &c. 
 These chops are small blocks of box or other hard wood, on 
 the upper surfaces of which the name and profession of an 
 individual or firm are cut by itinerant engravers, at the rate 
 of thirty for a Mexican dollar. To meet the requirements 
 of business and to facilitate intercourse between Enropeaiis 
 and native Chinese, each foreign house, or firm, or profes- 
 
It may be well, therefore, before entering 
 upon the History of Printing, popularly so 
 called, to take a rapid glance at the state 
 of Europe, both as regards Religion and 
 Literature, in the ages immediately pre- 
 ceding ths»t at which we have now arriyed. 
 
 sional man, furnishes all those with whom he or they have 
 
 transactions, with his 'chop,' on the sides of which his name 
 
 and address are also written in Eoman characters. Whatever 
 
 letter, document, packet or parcel is thenceforth sent to him 
 
 or them, besides the address written with ordinary ink and 
 
 in Eoman characters, a red ink impression of the chop is 
 
 stamped on the envelope or cover. This any native can 
 
 read, and the addressee is without difficulty found. To this 
 
 information Dr. Coghill kindly added the gift of the accom- 
 
 ■■' ^ 1 panying original chop, which belonged to his bro- 
 
 jfa ther. Dr. Sinclair Coghill, when practising as a 
 
 ' physician with his partner. Dr. Bell, in Shanghai. 
 
 The characters represent the words ' Peh-i-sang,' 
 
 the nearest equivalent the Shanghai dialect of the 
 
 jyb Chinese language gives to 'Bell, Physician.' It 
 
 ' is a small block, an inch and a quarter long, 
 
 l^. 
 
 ^ 
 
 three-eighths of an inch broad, and was one inch and three- 
 eighths high. It has, however, been reduced to an inch in 
 height to suit the size of the type and allow of its being 
 herewith printed. 
 
58 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 From the Sixth to the Fifteenth century 
 the Western world may be said to have been 
 covered with moral darkness. On the fall 
 of the Roman Empire, ignorance, barbarism, 
 and superstition spread in dense and heavy 
 clouds over the nations of the West. Learn- 
 ing so rapidly declined, that it was almost 
 wholly lost; and the light of Religion, — 
 that light "which lighteth every man that 
 cometh into the world," — appeared well nigh 
 entirely quenched. Here and there, however, 
 in different countries and in successive 
 ages, a ray of light shot forth ; Schools 
 and Universities were established, and a 
 few bright names shine out like stars amid 
 the thick darkness which surrounded them. 
 The number of these was somewhat in- 
 creased towards the Tenth century. About 
 this time Paper made from cotton or linen 
 rags began to come into use. The import- 
 ance of this invention must at once have 
 been felt, and by decreasing the expense of 
 
EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 59 
 
 manuscripts, — hitherto written on parchments, 
 or the perishable papyrus, — have greatly en- 
 larged the demand for such documents. This 
 enlarged demand induced more to follow the 
 occupation of Scribes, or Caligraphers. In 
 the Eleveath century the Benedictine Monks 
 exercised themselves in copying manuscripts; 
 and to their industry we owe almost all we 
 possess of Classic Latin Literature at the 
 present day. The light of learning in this 
 century shone brightest in France and Eng- 
 land; in Italy but faintly, while in Germany 
 its glimmerings were scarcely perceptible. 
 In the Twelfth century a slight improvement 
 may be traced ; John of Salisbury and William 
 of Malmesbury being distinguished writers in 
 this age. In the Thirteenth however, dark- 
 ness prevailed again; and few, if any, were 
 capable of appreciating the master-mind of 
 Roger Bacon, who shone like a beacon in the 
 realms of literature and science, but who 
 was looked upon by his mole-eyed contem- 
 
60 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 poraries as a magician whose lore was derived 
 from unholy sources. The Church grew 
 more and more corrupt. Ignorance aq^ fa- 
 naticism every where abounded; and true 
 Religion was scarcely to be discerned amid 
 the prevailing superstitions of the age. It 
 was in the moral world as in the physical: 
 the darkest hour is that which precedes the 
 dawn. Darkness at this period covered the 
 earth and gross darkness the people. The 
 mind of man had become, as it were, without 
 form and void; and in that state, himianly 
 speaking, it was long likely to remain. 
 But such was not the will of Goc. As in 
 the creation of the world, God said. Let 
 there be Light, and Light was; so now the 
 command went forth — "Arise, shine, for thy 
 light is come, and the glory of the Lord is 
 risen upon thee." And the light of truth 
 burst forth ; not indeed at first with noontide 
 splendour ; but there came from the East a 
 dawn, and a day-spring thence arose, which 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 61 
 
 announced the coming of that light which 
 will only cease to shine when time shall be 
 no more. 
 
 The Fourteenth century was to that which 
 followed it like the morning star that ushers 
 in the dayvja. The love of learning revived; 
 and polite letters were restored in the person 
 of Petrarch. Universities were established in 
 Rome and Fermo, in Perugia, Treviso and 
 Pisa, in Pavia and Florence, in Sienna, Lucca 
 and Ferrara. In England, Richard Aunger- 
 ville. Bishop of Durham and Chancellor of 
 Edward III, but better known to fame as 
 Richard of Bury, gave his library to the 
 University of Oxford, with special injunc- 
 tions that his valuable manuscripts should 
 be lent out to scholars.* These, and like 
 
 * For, says the Bishop in his ' Philobiblon,' "Books are 
 masters who instruct us without rods, without hard words 
 and anger, without clothes and money. If you approach 
 them they are not asleep; if investigating you interrogate 
 them, they conceal nothing; if you mistake them they never 
 gTumble ; if you are ignorant they cannot laugh at you." 
 
62 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 agencies elsewhere at work, paved the way 
 for the era then ahout to commence. 
 
 As the dangers which menaced the Eastern 
 Empire at the close of the Fourteenth cen- 
 tury increased, the most learned of the Greeks 
 fled to the West, carrying with them the trea- 
 sures of their language. Amongst the first 
 o:f these was Emanuel Chrysoloras, who set^ 
 tied in Florence in 1395 as public teacher in 
 Greek. He had been previously known as 
 an Ambassador from Constantinople to the 
 Western powers, his mission being to solicit 
 aid against the Turks. From Florence he 
 proceeded to various Italian Universities, and 
 became the preceptor of several early Hel- 
 lenists. In 1423, 238 manuscripts of Greek 
 authors were brought into Italy by John 
 Aurispa of Sicily, who thus put his country 
 in possession of authors hardly known to 
 her by name. By means of these, and the 
 labours of Philelfo and other collectors, an 
 ardent thirst for Classical and especially 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 63 
 
 Grecian Literature began to make itself ma- 
 nifest, which about the year 1440 was com- 
 pletely developed. 
 
 The kings of France and the Dulies of 
 Burgundy were at this period the most 
 munificent • patrons of learning and litera- 
 ture. The fashion they set was followed 
 by their chief nobles, and many celebrated 
 libraries were formed in their dominions. 
 The Library of the Louvre was founded 
 by King John of France in 1350. His 
 third son, Jean, Due de Berri, formed one 
 at his Chateau de Bic^tre, near Paris, only 
 inferior to that of his father. Philippe le 
 Hardi, the youngest son, who became Duke of 
 Burgundy, was also addicted to the collec- 
 tion of fine books, " and spared no expense 
 in the employment of artists to adorn his 
 library, and in the purchase of their most 
 choice productions." His son, Jean sans 
 Peur, inherited his father's tastes and added 
 to the collections already made. "But all 
 
64 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 previous patronage sinks into comparative 
 insignificance before the encouragement 
 given to everything connected with literature 
 by Philippe le Bon, who succeeded Jean 
 in 1419. At Bruges where he kept his 
 Court, he gave continual employment to 
 multitudes of au^thors, translators, copyists, 
 and painters, who were constantly enriching 
 his library with their best productions." 
 In an account of the Duke's library, nearly 
 two thousand works are enumerated, "the 
 greater part being magnificent vellum folios 
 beautiftilly illujninated, bound in velvet, 
 satin, or damask, studded with gems, and 
 protected by gold clasps jewelled and 
 chased." "The passion for books thus dis- 
 played was not confined to France or the 
 French princes. In Italy, Germany, Eng- 
 land, and other countries, the same taste 
 spread. In England Henry YI had a 
 valuable library ; many books written and 
 illuminated for him being stiU among the 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 65 
 
 royal MSS. in the British Museum. The 
 Duke of Bedford, whose love of literature 
 was probably greatly stimulated while Re- 
 gent of France, was surpassed by none of 
 his countrymen in his patronage of the 
 Fine ArtSi; and the celebrated Missal 
 executed for him still remains as one of 
 the choipest productions of his age. Hum- 
 phrey, Duke of Gloucester, the Protector 
 of Henry VI, was also greatly attached to 
 his library, and bequeathed many hundreds 
 of volumes to the University of Oxford, 
 and to King's College, Cambridge." 
 
 "Owing to these causes the various 
 Artists connected with T)ook-writing and 
 book-binding, as well as the trades neces- 
 sary to them, received great encouragement, 
 while to ensure speed as well as excel- 
 lence of workmanship, division of labour 
 was carried out to a great extent. Indeed, 
 so important a branch of commerce had 
 the manufacture of books now become, and 
 
66 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 so numerous * were the various classes of 
 craftsmen employed in this way at Bruges, 
 that there sprang up in that city a Guild, 
 —'The GuUd o£ St. John the Evangelist,' 
 the patron Saint of Scribes, — which in 1454 
 had a formal charter and privileges granted 
 it by the Duke." Other cities also had 
 similar corporations. Thus, at Antwerp the 
 Society of St. Luke was formed in 1450, 
 and at Brussels there was a guild of Wri- 
 ters called 'Les Freres de la plume.' The 
 Guild of St. John the Evangelist contained 
 members of both sexes, and consisted of 
 Book - binders. Book - sellers. Boss - carvers. 
 Cloth - shearers, Curriers, Figure - engravers. 
 Illuminators, Letter - engravers. Painters, 
 Painters of Vignettes, Parchment and 
 Vellum - makers. Printers, Print - sellers. 
 School - masters. School - mistresses, and 
 Scriveners and copyers of books.* 
 
 * Vide vol. i. of The Life and Typography of William 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 67 
 
 Coincident with this development of a thirst 
 for classical learning, and a passion for litera- 
 ture amongst the great and wealthy, was the 
 invention of Printing in the Western world. 
 
 Caxton, from the second chapter of which the two pre- 
 ceding paragraphs have been abridged. 
 
(Saiilg i^aPlfi'^15^^2- 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 John Gtutenbeeg. — First attempts at Ttpoqeaphy 
 m Strasbueg. — Difficulties. — Invention of the 
 Press. — Lawsuit. — Ebtuen to Mentz. — Connec- 
 tion WITH Faust. — Success. — Ma^iaein Bible the 
 first book printed feom moveable metal types. 
 — Second Lawsuit. — Forfeiture of Plant to 
 Faust. — Peter Schceffer. — Invention of Type- 
 founding. — Faust and Schceffer. — The Guten- 
 berg 'PRINTING house.' — GUTENBERG ATTACHED TO 
 
 THE Court op the Elector of Mentz. — Death. 
 
 Until the publication in the Hague of 
 Meerman's Origines Typographicce (1765), 
 — a work based upon the traditions inserted 
 in Hadrian Junius'-s Batavia, first published 
 in 1588, —7 the man to vrhom the whole 
 of Europe, with hardly a dissentient voice, 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 69 
 
 ascribed tlie honor of the invention of the 
 Art of Typography, was John Gutenberg,* 
 a native of Mentz, He was of honorable 
 descent ; his family being included among the 
 junckers and nobility, the equestrian order 
 of the co^jitry, and possessing a small estate 
 situated in the neighbourhood of Mentz, 
 called Sulgeloch, on which estate he was born, 
 about the year 1399. His father, Frielo, had 
 besides him, an elder son, Conrad, who 
 died some time previous to the year 1424, 
 and Frielo, a younger, who was living 
 in 1459 ; and two daughters. Bertha and 
 Hebele, both of whom became nuns in the 
 Convent of St. Clair at Mentz. In addition 
 to the above-mentioned estate, the family 
 
 * Variously named in contemporary docnments, Johannes 
 Gutenberg; Johannes de Moguntia, dictus Gutenberg; 
 Johannes dictus Gensefleisch, junior, dictus Gutenberg; 
 Johannes Gansefleisch, dictus Sulgeloch vel Sorgenloch; 
 Henne Gensfleisch, genant Sulgeloch; Hans Genzefleisch 
 von Mentz, genant, Gutenberg. In English 
 would be written Oooseflesh; in Latin, -Ansicarus. 
 
70 EAKLY typogeaphy. 
 
 owned two houses in the city of Mentz, one 
 of which was called 'Zum Gansfleisch,' and 
 the other 'Zum Gutenberg.' The latter of 
 these formed part of the property of his 
 mother, Elsy of Gutenberg. John Guten- 
 berg, junior,* left Mentz in early life for 
 
 * Mbeeman, and a few other writers, make mention of 
 two John Grutenbergs, brothers, both of whom are spoken 
 of as inventors of Typography; the elder, known as John 
 Gansfleisch, dying, so it is stated, in 1462. The reason 
 of this seems to be, that some one was wanted to fill the 
 position of the thief, who, according to the tale of Junius, 
 stole from Janssoen, the Coster of Haarlem, the moveable 
 types he had recently invented. As John Gutenberg, 
 junior, could not be fixed upon, and there was no other 
 method of bringing discredit upon his claim, and as the 
 alleged thief was a John somebody, John Gansfleisch, 
 senior, assumed to be elder brother to John junior, was 
 thought of; and from him, it is asserted, the younger 
 brother obtained his knowledge of the art of printing. 
 The authority on which Meennan relied appears to be a 
 document first published by Kohler ( Ehrenrettung Gutien- 
 herg's), in which it is stated, that in 1443 John Gansr 
 fleisch the elder hired a house at Mentz, his birthplace. 
 Santander says, the phrase was used because John Guten- 
 berg's wwU having died about this time, he had in reality 
 become the elder. Later writers agree with Santander 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 71 
 
 Strasburg, where he settled and obtained 
 rights of citizenship, and established himself 
 in business as a polisher of precious stones, 
 and a mirror and looking-glass manufacturer, 
 in both which arts he is said to have shewn 
 considerable skill. The precise date of his 
 arrival and settlement in Strasburg has not 
 been ascertained, but that it was prior to 
 1424 is known from a letter written to his 
 sister Bertha, on the 24th March of that 
 year ;* probably it was about the year 1420, 
 
 that the elder Gansfleisch here referred to was an uncle to 
 Gutenberg junior, but they do not admit his death at this 
 time. Being named after him, he was probably his god- 
 fathw, and may haye been living with him in Strasburg in 
 1443. It was to his house that Gutenberg junior went, on 
 his return to Mentz. 
 
 * " To the worthy nun Bertha, in the Convent of St. Clair, 
 at Mentz, health and fraternal good wishes. My dear sister, 
 with respect to what you say of the rents and money which 
 were left to you by our brother Conrad, whom God bless, 
 by his last will; that often and for a long time past, they 
 have not been paid to you, and that they are still owing to 
 you, and amount as you say to a considerable sum; I have 
 to inform you, that, upon giving a receipt, you may receive 
 
and may have been occasioned by the poli- 
 tical disturbances of the time. His name 
 frequently appears in the city documents and 
 registers, and he occasionally visited Mentz. 
 He left Strasburg finally about the year 
 1444. Of great natural sagacity, gifted with 
 an inventive genius, and of indomitable 
 perseverance, the increasing thirst for Icnow- 
 ledge which at this period was every where 
 manifesting itself, arrested his attention, and 
 
 the sum of twenty florins (of gold.) out of my rents and 
 revenues, coming as you know, from Mentz, and other 
 places; by applying to Joh. Dringelter, the wax chandler; 
 Veronica Mystersen, at SeilhoTen ; or at Mentz, and various 
 other places, of which Pedirman can inform you; as at 
 Lorzwiller, Bodenheim, and Murminheym. I purpose, if 
 it please God, to have the pleasure of seeing you before 
 long, and to arrange the matter with Pedirman, so that 
 your property may be promptly delivered to you, according 
 to the terms and intention of the will. I await your answer 
 upon this subject. Given at Strasburg; feria quints post 
 dominicam (the 24th March) M.cccc.xx.iiii." 
 
 (Signed) " Hennb Gensflbisch, called Sulgeloch." 
 — Santandm-, from Oberlin's "Essai d'Annales de la Vie 
 de J. Gutenberg," pp. 3, 4. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 78 
 
 convinced him of the desirability, as well as 
 the profitableness, of devising some method 
 for its more ready and abundant supply. 
 
 The problem of the mechanical multipli'' 
 cation of manuscripts had already been 
 partially solved in the block - books which 
 were manufactured in Holland. In the study 
 of these, Gutenberg perceived the immense 
 advantages which would follow from having 
 every letter made separate, with sufficient 
 quantities of each to allow of their being 
 combined into words, sentences, and pages, 
 instead of continuously engraving whole series 
 of lines in solid' blocks as in the specimens 
 before him. That idea once clearly seen, 
 time and patience, with the ability to en- 
 grave, were all that were required for its 
 realization, so far at least as concerned 
 the mere making of the types or letters. 
 The first experiments would naturally be, as 
 indeed we are informed they, were, on wood. 
 And one can well imagine the flush of triumph 
 
that mantled on his brow, when, after having 
 engraved a few continuous sentences, or sets 
 of alphabets, with spaces between each line 
 and letter; and after having sawn each line 
 asunder, and separated each letter from the 
 one adjoining, and trimmed and squared the 
 whole to his mind, Gutenberg recomposed the 
 letters into words, and other words, which dif- 
 fered from the original, and saw his cherished 
 thought worked out complete before him. 
 
 But, whUe thus on the very threshold of 
 success, obstacles and difRculties began to 
 present themselves, which taxed his ingenuity 
 and tried his perseverance to an extent which 
 it was scarcely possible for him to have fore- 
 seen. In the first place, whatever plan he may 
 have adopted to produce impressions in his 
 earliest experiments,, he could not fail to find 
 out in a very short time that the Chinese 
 method, adopted by the block-book printers, 
 would not answer for his separable types; 
 and moreover, that the fine strokes and edges 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 75 
 
 of his wooden letters were liable to damage 
 and destruction from other causes besides 
 those arising from the amount of pressure 
 it was necessary to subject them to in order 
 to ensure a clear readable impression. It was 
 necessary liherefore to resort to metal. This 
 was, in itself, a serious matter to begin with, 
 for engraving on metal is a much more diffi- 
 cult, tedious, and expensive process, than 
 engraving on wood. With separable types, 
 and direct perpendicular pressure to produce 
 impressions, a different kind ' of ink or pig- 
 ment to that hitherto used by scribes, or 
 stencillers, or block-book printers, also became 
 necessary, as well as a different method of 
 applying it to the face of the types; and 
 many an experiment must have been made, 
 and much time and money lost, before these 
 difficulties were overcome, and success at- 
 tained in these as in the preceding step.* 
 
 * Linseed oil, rosins, shellac, pitch, mnndick, varnishes, 
 
76 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 The chief difficulty — the greatest obstacle 
 in the way of putting to a practical use the 
 Types as now designed, and, thus bringing 
 the Typogeaphic Art before the world, — 
 was the want of the Letter Press. To over- 
 come this obstacle, to conquer thi§ difficulty, 
 was Gutenberg's great task. There was, in 
 point of fact, no particular ingenuity or in- 
 ventive faculty required in making separable 
 letters. The keen perception which saw the 
 advantages to be gained from such separation, 
 was, no doubt, a sure indication that Guten- 
 berg was a man of mark, — one whose mental 
 gifts transcended those ordinarily possessed 
 by his fellow-men. But the realization of 
 
 nutgalls, turpentine, and Titriol, were made use of by the 
 early printers in manufacturing their ink. In applying 
 it, a small quantity was first taken up on a pair of 
 halls or dahbers made of sheepskins padded with wool ; 
 these were then well beaten together until finely and 
 CTenly covered, after which they were beaten on the types 
 until the pages were considered sufBciently inked. 
 
EAELY. TYPOGRAPHY. 77 
 
 the idea of separating the letters was a task 
 which mainly depended on the amount of 
 manual and mechanical dexterity brought to 
 bear upon its execution. The higher efforts 
 of genius, and the development of the inven- 
 tive faculties were displayed in the subsequent 
 steps, and in none more notably than in 
 the invention of the Press. 
 
 The question — Who invented the Printing 
 Press? — has never yet, it is believed, been 
 thoroughly considered or satisfactorily an- 
 swered. A writer in the Encyclopaedia Bri- 
 tannica says, "It is probable that one of the 
 difficulties which Gutenberg found insuper- 
 able at Strasburg was the construction of a 
 machine of sufficient power to take impres- 
 sions of the type or blocks then employed. 
 Nor is it at all wonderful that even the many 
 years during which he resided at that city 
 should have been insufficient, to produce the 
 requisite means ; for what with cutting his 
 type, forming his screws, inventing and com- 
 
78 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY, 
 
 pounding his ink, and constructing the means 
 for applying the ink when made, his time in 
 the Alsatian capital must have been fully occu- 
 pied." And he goes on to argue that the Press 
 was probably the joint production of Guten- 
 berg, Faust and Schoeffer, during the time of 
 their association in Mentz. But for such a 
 belief there is no real, ground whatever. 
 
 Mr. Hansard, although he devotes 166 
 pages of his voluminous work* to an ac- 
 count of Presses and Printing machines, 
 strangely enough heads his first chapter on 
 the subject "Construction of the Original 
 Printing Press by Blaew of Amsterdam." 
 But Blaew lived two centuries after the ori- 
 ginal invention, and was only an improver 
 of certain of its parts. Of the original in- 
 ventor he says not a word. 
 
 * Typogrwphia : An Historical sketch of the Origin and 
 Progress of the Art of Printing. By T. C. Hansard, 1825. 
 8vo. 1000 pp. 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHT. 79 
 
 Mr. M'Creery, a contemporary of Han- 
 sard, in his poem the "Press,"* reprinted 
 in the Typographia, apostrophises Gutenberg 
 and Mentz in the following terms: — 
 
 " Sire of our Aet, whose genius first design'd 
 
 This g]*at memorial of a daring mind, 
 
 And taught the lever with unceasing play, 
 
 To stop the waste of Time's destructive sway 1 
 « « * . * » 
 
 Mentz ! proud city, long thy fame enjoy. 
 For vrith the Press thy glory ne'er shall die ; 
 Still may thy guardian battlements withstand 
 The ruthless shock of War's destructive hand. 
 Where G-utenberg with toil incessant wrought 
 The imitative lines of vsritten thought; 
 And, as his Art a nobler efibrt made 
 The sweeping lever his commands obeyed:" — 
 
 But although, poetically, Mr. M'Creery thus 
 ascribes the invention to the man and place 
 to whom it rightfully belongs, I do not know 
 
 * The Press: a Poem; by John M'Creery. The 
 original edition, printed by the author, was beautifully 
 illustrated with wood engravings by Mr. Hole, a pupil of 
 the Bewicks. Mr. M'Creery's establishment was celebrated 
 for the excellence of its printing. 
 
80 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 (not having the original edition to refer to) 
 whether he intended anything more. I sus- 
 pect not, since otherwise Mr. Hansard would 
 scarcely have failed to have made use of any 
 information in the notes to the poem which 
 tended to throw light on a subject of so 
 much historical importance. 
 
 Other writers pass the subject by with 
 the remark, that "Of the; mechanical con- 
 struction of these presses there is little or 
 no record." One of the latest authorities, 
 Mr. Blades, the able palseotypographist, thus 
 dismisses it: — "The method of obtaining 
 an impression by a direct pressure down- 
 wards is generally supposed to have been 
 synchronous with the use of moveable types. 
 Mr. Ottley, however, describes several of 
 the earliest wood blocks, which he had no 
 doubt were printed by means of a press. Of 
 one he states 'I am in possession of a speci- 
 men of wood engraving, printed in black oil 
 colour on both sides the paper by a down- 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 81 
 
 right pressure, which I consider to have 
 been, without doubt, printed in or before the 
 year 1445.' There can be no question there- 
 fore that the earliest type printers found a 
 press ready to their hands."* But this is 
 a very iwconvincing method of reasoning ; 
 and a positive conclusion founded upon a 
 mere opinion given in regard to the supposed 
 age of an old engraving— a subject upon 
 which the ablest experts differ — is one which 
 is open to very considerable question. 
 
 It has already been stated, (pp. 42-43) that 
 before the invention of the press, impressions 
 were usually taken on one side only of the 
 paper or vellum ; although the possibility of 
 their being taken on both sides is admitted. 
 Mr. Ottley says "the best proof that the 
 printer knew how to print on both sides of 
 his paper, is that he did so;"f and he 
 
 • " Life and Typography of "William Caxton." vol. ii. p. xlv. 
 t " Inquiry concerning the Invention of Printing." p. 254. 
 
82 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 mentions two instances where, on a single 
 leaf, the text of .the Speculum is so printed.* 
 The inference which these writers intended 
 should be drawn from the above statements 
 is, that the press used by the printer of the 
 Speculum was essentially the same as that 
 subsequently used by the printers at Mentz. 
 But what is the evidence in the case ? All 
 that can be brought forward is the nature of 
 the ink, and the appearance of the printed 
 pages. As regards the ink, it differed from 
 that used at a later period in Germany, and 
 
 * These occur in what is known as the fourth edition, of 
 which only three copies exist, two in Haarlem, and one in 
 Lille. It is in the copy at Lille that a leaf is printed 
 on both sides. Mr. Humphreys, in his noble work, — the 
 greatest boon ever conferred in any age or country on 
 students of early Typography,— says, (p. 63) this leaf has 
 "an appearance of being printed on both sides, frota the 
 existence of a strong set off." But if the lines of the 
 supposed 'set-off' read in the usual way, they must have 
 been set-off from a set-off, or the impression would appear 
 reversed. Most probably the back of the original impres- 
 sion was printed on by an accidental oversight. 
 
EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 83 
 
 was certainly much more fljiid ; this is shewn 
 by its spreading over the edges, and filling 
 up the loops of the letters. By itself, how- 
 ever, the ink proves nothing as to how the 
 types were impressed; that is to be learnt 
 from the ^appearance of the pages ; and this 
 shews that impressions were taken by a rolling 
 process. A wooden or metallic roller, 7 inches 
 long, with a diameter of not less than 3 
 inches, and covered with two or three folds 
 of fine woollen cloth, rolled, with a sufficient 
 amount of pressure, over the back of the paper 
 when it was laid upon the types after they 
 had been inked, — or an uncovered roller, if 
 two or three folds of woollen- cloth were 
 laid over the paper, — would do all that was 
 needed, and be quite sufficient to account for 
 the practice of printing on one side of the 
 paper only. The statement how such an im- 
 pression might be taken, is not however a 
 proof that such was in reality the method 
 adopted. That proof lies in the fact, that 
 
84 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 the capital letters of the columns of text on 
 the left hand margin, and the end letters of 
 the lines on the right, are all more or less 
 blurred, and choked with ink, in a way which 
 only such a cylindrical method of printing -^ 
 would effect; that effect being caused by the 
 first and last contact of the roller with the 
 outer edges of the types. In cylindrical ma- 
 chine printing at the present day, where care 
 has not been taken to guard the edges and 
 ends of the types by 'bearings,' similar blur- 
 rings may at any time be seen. In the 
 ad«iittedly rude appliances of the earliest 
 printers such appearances wovild under such 
 a process be at least as plainly shewn. An J 
 in the absolute facsimile which Mr. Hum- 
 phreys gives, on plate 10 of his work, of the 
 page of the Speculum printed from separ- 
 able letters with black oleaginou.s ink, those 
 appearances are most plainly visible. Of 
 course it was possible to print sheets of paper 
 in this way on both sides ; but care would 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 85 
 
 have to be taken to guard the first printed 
 side by interposing between it and the roller 
 a waste or setting-off sheet, before the. pro- 
 cess was repeated. And, as already hinted, 
 by the use of 'bearings,' the blurring might 
 be avoided. The difference however between 
 svich a process and that invented and put in 
 practice by Gutenberg, is as great as that 
 which exists between the battering rams and 
 catapults of the ancients, and the siege .trains 
 of modern artillerists. 
 
 Admitting then that impressions from type 
 could be taken on both sides of a sheet, the 
 mere fact that a single leaf was so printed 
 in two editions of the same ancient work, is 
 no proof whatever that the said impressions 
 were made with a press such as was used by 
 the printers at Mentz, the invention of which 
 became a necessity in order to complete the 
 Typographic Art. What it does prove, is, 
 that the printer of the Speculum, with the, 
 appliances then at his command, preferred 
 
86 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 the easier, simpler, and safer method of print- 
 ing on one side only. 
 
 But in the consideration of this subject 
 there are other questions which ought not 
 to be overlooked ; — e. g. For what specjial 
 piurposes, and for whom, were the Donatuses 
 and Block-books printed? Certainly not for 
 the public at large. The Donatuses, — small 
 elementary Latin grammars, — would be for 
 a few of the superior monastic schools of 
 the day; and the Biblia Pauperum, Ars Me- 
 morandi, Speculum Salutis, &c., were avow- 
 edly for "the assistance of poor preachers," 
 — "propter pauperes predicatores." Editions 
 of these works would therefore be small 
 in number, and the time taken in their 
 production would not be an object of much 
 account. Mr. Ottley supposes (p. 283) that 
 they would not exceed 20, 40, or 60 copies 
 each. The market for them, consequently, 
 might very easily be overstocked. 'Now as 
 regards the most ancient Speculums printed 
 
EARLY TYPOGKAPHY. 87 
 
 in Holland, it is by no means improbable, 
 that, as two editions in Latin and two in 
 Dutch followed one another in quick suc- 
 cession, the printer did overstock the market, 
 and had to cease work in consequence. It 
 is at anji rate certain, that the cuts were 
 laid aside for a length of time, and were not 
 reprinted until 1483, when Veldener, then 
 printing at Culembom-g, issued an edition in 
 small 4to., sawing the pictorial headings in 
 two in order to suit his purpose. This branch 
 of the subject -is of some importance in its 
 bearings on the question of the origin of 
 block printing in Holland, and will be more 
 fully considered in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 Gutenberg we may fairly presume, (relying 
 upon documentary evidences for the pre- 
 sumption), aware of the nature and extent 
 of the demand that existed for such produc- 
 tions, foresaw how a new public want might 
 be created by means of new inventions for 
 further developing the new-born art. Separ- 
 
88 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 able types with the then known methods for 
 making use of them, were but as acorns in 
 comparison with stately full grown oaks, — 
 but sickly stunted bushes, instead of luxuriant 
 vines, from whose wide-spreading boughs the 
 thickly clustered bunches of ripe, refreshing, 
 life-giving fruit should be sought for far and 
 near. How to excite and satisfy this want 
 was the problem constantly revolving in his 
 mind. It soon became evident, that a machine 
 capable of rapidly striking off copies of 
 works that were to be set up in types, was 
 a necessity of the case; and to meet that 
 necessity all his energies were bent. The 
 time and money spent in working out his 
 ideas, — in constructing the original Letter- 
 press, — is shewn in the evidence which has 
 been preserved, the beating of which seems 
 to have been hitherto strangely misappre- 
 hended. 
 
 "The earliest printing press" says Mr. 
 Charles Knight, "was nothing more than a 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHT. 89 
 
 common screw-press, — such as a cheese press, 
 or a napkin press." He gives no authority 
 for the assertion, but he immediately adds, 
 thereby largely qualifying it, — "with a con- 
 trivance for running the forme of types under 
 the screw after the forme was inked,"* In this 
 'contrivance,' with some few others, which 
 were its necessary adjuncts, — however simple 
 the matter may seem now-a-days to eyes 
 accustomed to look upon machinery and me- 
 chanical appliances of all kinds and varieties, 
 — lay the chief difficulty. The screw, from 
 its power and adjustability, would naturally 
 suggest itself as the appliance best suited 
 to effect the purpose aimed at. But how to 
 contrive to make the screw an effective agent 
 in producing impressions from types, was 
 the question which Gutenberg had to consider. 
 His separable letters were ready to his hand ; 
 
 *"The Old Printer and the Modern Press." p. 102. 
 London, 1854. 
 
 K 
 
90 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 but without the press, which he had yet to 
 make, and to find out how to make, they 
 were as useless to him as unstrung harp- 
 strings are unmusical until they are keyed 
 and stretched and tuned, and made to emit 
 soul-thrilling harmonies at the master touch 
 of the fingers of the finished harpist. 
 
 Satisfied with the result of his experiments 
 as to types, a new series of experiments had 
 to be entered upon before he could hope to 
 realize his expectations in regard to them. 
 These he carried on in his residence at St. 
 Arbogaste, in the suburbs of Strasburg. 
 
 In his business as a stone polisher, we 
 learn, from his own declarations, that several 
 years previous to 1436, he had taught that 
 art to one Andrew Dritzehen. Subsequently, 
 "a long time afterwards," he engaged in 
 the manufacture of looking-glasses, along 
 with Johau EifFe, the prefect or mayor of 
 Lichtenow. Andrew Dritzehen, learning this, 
 requested Gutenberg to teach him that art 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 91 
 
 as well ; and a similar request was at the 
 same time made on behalf of Andrew Heil- 
 man, by his brother Anthonie. Upon their 
 entering into an agreement, whereby they 
 bound themselves to pay him certain pre- 
 miums foi» so doing, Gutenberg complied with 
 their requests. But one year, after making 
 preparations for attending the fair held at 
 the time of the pilgrimages to the shrines at 
 Aix - la - Chapelle, the journey was suddenly 
 put off until the year following, owing to the 
 postponement' of the fair. Deprived of the 
 opportunity of increasing their gains, the 
 two Andrews, with enforced unprofitable lei- 
 sure upon their hands, made an unexpected 
 visit to St. Arbogaste, where they found 
 Gutenberg busily engaged upon matters, the 
 secret of which he seemed determined to keep 
 to himself After much importunity, how- 
 ever, he consented to reveal to them, upon 
 certain conditions, "all the wonderful and 
 secret arts that he knew, without any ex- 
 
92 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 ception." The conditions were, that they on 
 the one side, and he and Riffe on the other, 
 should cancel the existing agreement, and 
 enter into a new one ; that they should con- 
 jointly pay to him the sum of 250 florins, 
 making, with 160 previously paid for being 
 taught the art of making looking - glasses, 
 410 in all; that 100 was to be paid imme- 
 diately, and the remainder at stated periods ; 
 and that their share of the profits was to be 
 one-third, the remaining two-thirds being 
 divided between Gutenberg and RifFe. It 
 was further agreed, that the partnership for 
 carrying on '■'■the wonderful art,'' should be 
 for a term of five years ; but that if any one 
 of the partners died before the expiration of 
 that period, the survivors should, at its ex- 
 piration, pay to the representatives of the 
 deceased the sum of one hundred florins, 
 retaining in their own hands " all the utensils 
 and implements of the art, and all works per- 
 fected by the instruments ^ 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 93 
 
 This partnership was entered into about 
 the year 1436. Upon the completion of the 
 agreement the implements and materials for 
 the new art were removed from St. Arbo- 
 gaste to the house of Andrew Dritzehen, 
 with whom, as perhaps the ablest mechanic 
 in the association, Gutenberg thenceforth 
 carried on his experiments. These seem to 
 have nearly approached completion, when 
 Dritzehen was unfortunately seized with an 
 illness which ended fatally. His death took 
 place in 1438, before the expiration of the 
 term allotted for the partnership, and while 
 he was still indebted to Gutenberg in the sum 
 of eighty-five florins. Gutenberg, as soon 
 as he heard of his death, sent his servant 
 Laurence Beildeck, to Nicholas Dritzehen, 
 the brother of the deceased, and requested 
 that no one might be admitted into the work- 
 shop, lest the secret should be discovered,, 
 or the materials be stolen. But they had al- 
 ready disappeared ; and this fraud, as well as 
 
the claims of George and Nicholas Dritzehen 
 to succeed to their brother's share, produced 
 a lawsuit with the surviving" partners. 
 
 In the prosecution of this lawsuit, out of 
 a large number of witnesses summoned, the 
 depositions of sixteen were taken ; and in 
 the following extracts from the evidence of 
 the most material, we may gather what the 
 secret was which Gutenberg was so desirous 
 to preserve. 
 
 "John Schultheissen deposed, that Lau- 
 rence Beildeck came to his house, to see 
 Nicholas Dritzehen, when Andrew Dritzehen 
 was lying dead, and that the said Laurence 
 Beildeck thus spoke to the said Nicholas 
 Dritzehen : — ' Your brother, Andrew Drit- 
 zehen, now happy, had four "stiicke" lying 
 underneath in a press. Therefore John 
 Gutenberg desires that you will take them 
 therefrom, and thoroughly separate them one 
 from the other, and lay them on the press, 
 so that it may not be seen what it is.' Then 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 95 
 
 Nicholas Dritzehen went and looked for the 
 'stticke,' but found nothing." 
 
 ■" Item, Hannsz Schultheisz hatt geseit das Lorentz Beil- 
 deck zu einer zit heim inn sin husz kommen sy zii Clans 
 Dritzehen als diser gezuge jn heim gefiirt hette, Als Andres 
 Dritzehen sin bmder selige von todes wegen abgangen was, 
 nnd sprach da Jjorentz Beildeck zu Glaus Dritzehen, Andres 
 Dritzehen uwer bruder selige hat iiij stiicke undenan inn 
 einer pressen ligeri, da hatt uch Hanns Gutemberg gebetten 
 das ir die darusz nement und uff die presse legent voii 
 einander so kan man nit gesehen was das ist, Also gieng 
 Glaus Dritzehen und suchete die stiicke do vant er nutzit." 
 
 "Conrad Sahspach deposed, that Andrew 
 Heilman came to him in Kremer street and 
 said, 'My dear Conrad, as Andrew Dritzehen 
 is departed, and as you made the presses, 
 and know about the matter, do you go thi- 
 ther and take the "stiicke" from the presses, 
 and disjoin them from one another, so that 
 no man may know what it is.' But when this 
 witness wanted to do so, and looked for them 
 on the morrow of St. Stephen's day, the 
 whole was gone." 
 
 " Item, Cunrad Sahspach hatt geseit das Andres Heilman 
 zu einer zit zu jme komen sy inn Kremer gasse und sprach 
 
zu jme lieber Cunrad als Andres Dritzehen abgangen ist 
 da hasfcu die pressen gemaht und weist umb die sache do 
 gang doMn und nym die stiicke usz der pressen und zer- 
 lege Bii von einander so weis nyemand was as ist, da nu 
 diser gezuge das tun wolte und also suchete das were uff 
 Sanct Steffans tag nehst vergangen do was das ding Mnweg." 
 
 "Laurence Beildeck declared, that he was 
 sent by Gutenberg to Nicholas Dritzehen, 
 after the death of Andrew his brother of 
 happy memory, to tell him, that he should 
 shew the presses he had under his care to 
 no man; and this the witness stated, he did. 
 He said moreover, that Gutenberg told him 
 to take good care to go to the press, and to 
 open the two 'wurbelin,' so that the 'stiicke' 
 should be separated from one another, and 
 that he should place the 'stiicke' upon the 
 press, so that no man seeing might under- 
 stand them." 
 
 "Lorenz Beildeck het geseit dae Johann Gutenberg in 
 zu einer zit geschickt het zu Glaus Dritzehen, nach Andres 
 sins bruders seligen dode und det Glausen Dritzehen sagen 
 das er die presse die er hiinder jm het nieman oigete zoigete, 
 Aas ouch diser gezug det, und rette ouch me und sprach er 
 
EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 97 
 
 Bolte sich bekumbem so vil nnd gon uber die presse und 
 die mit den zweyen wiirbelin ufF dun so yielent die stiicke 
 voneinander, dieselben stiicke solt er dann. in die presse 
 oder uff die presse lege so kunde darnach nieman gesehen 
 noch ut gemercken." 
 
 "Herr Anthonie Heilman deposed, that 
 being awa];p that Gutenberg was about to 
 take Andrew Dritzehen as a third partner 
 into the society for the manufacture of 
 looking-glasses for the Aix-la-Chapelle market, 
 he earnestly begged of him to admit therein 
 his brother Andrew, as he wished to serve 
 him." After some demur this was agreed 
 to. Witness supplied his brother with money 
 to the extent of 90 pounds, but at last said, 
 "What can you want with so much money, 
 seeing that the sum agreed upon was only 
 80 florins? — to which Andrew answered, 'that 
 he must have money for other purposes; 
 and that two or three days before the vigil 
 of the Annunciation, he was to pay 80 florins 
 to Gutenberg, which he, witness, must ad- 
 vance to him.' Gutenberg afterwards said 
 
98 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 to witness, that in acknowledgment of what 
 he had received, they (the partners) should 
 be upon the same footing in every thing, 
 and that in future nothing should be con- 
 cealed from any of them respecting the 
 remaining woi-k."...."A long time afterwards 
 Gutenberg repeated this." After which, a 
 document was drawn up by Gutenberg for 
 the other partners to sign, which they did 
 after considerable deliberation, Gutenberg, 
 before their doing so, telling them, "there is 
 as much stuff in the concern as quite equals 
 your money; so that, in fact, the knowledge 
 of the art is given you for nothing." The 
 terms of the agreement with Gutenberg were, 
 that in this matter they were to consider 
 themselves beholden to him alone, and not 
 to John Eiffe; and "that in case any one of 
 them should be removed from the partner- 
 ship by death, that then it should be well 
 understood — and so it was — that the matter 
 should be so arranged with his heirs, that, 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 99 
 
 for all things done or undone, for money ad- 
 vanced by or belonging to the share of such 
 person, for the value of the stock, the forms; 
 and all other implements and materials not ex- 
 cepted, they (the surviving partners) should, 
 after the eitpiration of five years, pay to his 
 heirs 100 florins. So that he, Gutenberg, as 
 he observed, gave them a great advantage; 
 for were he himself to die, after he had once 
 admitted them into the partnership, his heirs, 
 notwithstanding the sums previously expended 
 by him, would only have to receive 100 
 florins for his share, like those of any of 
 the others. All this was done, to the intent 
 that whosoever of them should die, the sur- 
 viving partners should not be obliged to 
 make known, or to shew to his heirs, any 
 thing concerning the art; which article was 
 approved by every one of them." 
 
 This witness also said, "that he well 
 knows that Gutenberg, not long before 
 Christmas, sent his servant to both the 
 
100 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Andrews (Dritzehen and Heilman) to fetch 
 all the 'formen,' that they might be taken 
 out, and that he should see it done, as he 
 was dissatisfied, and wished to renew [alter 
 or change] then*." 
 
 There is an obscurity in the original of 
 this last passage which makes it difficult to 
 translate ; but it is believed that the meaning 
 intended to be conveyed is that given above. 
 Oberlin, who thought the passage referred 
 to metal types, renders it "Gutenberg sent 
 his servant to bring together all the different 
 forms, which were [to be] pulled to pieces 
 before him, because there were some with 
 which he was not satisfied." Santander, 
 taking the same view as Oberlin, renders 
 the last clause of the sentence "parce qu'il 
 avait des choses a corriger : — because there 
 were things to be corrected ^ This I believe 
 to be an accurate translation, although I am 
 satisfied that the 'formen,' to be corrected 
 were not pages of type. The old German 
 
EAKLY TYPOGKAPHY. 101 
 
 runs thus: — 
 
 "Dirre gezuge hat ouch geseit das er wol wisse das 
 Gutenberg unlange vor Wihnahten sinen kneht saute zu den 
 beden Andresen, alle fonnen zu holen und wlirdent zur 
 lessen das er ess sehe, und jn joch ettliche formen ruwete." 
 
 Mydehart Stocher, after deposing to what 
 he knew of the facts of the partnership and 
 the illness and death of Andrew Dritzehen; 
 said that he had heard the deceased say "that 
 God helping them, the work when completed, 
 would find its way with the public, and that 
 then he hoped and trusted, he would be de- 
 livered from his difficulties." 
 
 John Niger von Bischovissheim deposed, 
 "that Andrew once came to him and said 
 
 that he wanted money this witness then 
 
 asked him what he was making? and he 
 answered he was a looking-glass maker." 
 
 Barbara von Zabern deposed, "that con- 
 versing once with Andrew Dritzehen, about 
 bed time, she asked him, why he did not at 
 last go to bed, and that he answered, ' I must 
 
102 EAELY TYPOaEAPHY. 
 
 first finish what I have in hand.' When she 
 continued 'But, God help me! what a sum 
 of money you seem to be spending; why 
 all these things must have cost at least 10 
 florins.' And he replied, 'You are a simple- 
 ton, Zabern! you think these things have 
 cost 10 florins. Listen ; if you had all they 
 have cost above 300 florins, you would have 
 enough to last you all your life. Why, they 
 have cost over 500 florins! and they would 
 be good for nothing, if they were not to cost 
 still more ; and that is the reason why I have 
 sunk both my own and my expected in- 
 heritance in the matter.' 'But,' said she, 'if 
 it should aU turn out badly, what would you 
 do then?' And he answered, 'Ttiatcan never 
 be ; before a year is over we shall have back 
 again all our capital, and be well off for 
 ever ; unless indeed, it should be the will of 
 God to ruin us.' " 
 
 Eeimbolt von Ehenheim said, "that a little 
 before Christmas he went to Andrew, and 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 103 
 
 asked him how he got on with the thing he 
 was about? Andrew, of happy memory, re- 
 plied, that it had cost him more than 500 
 florins, but he hoped that, when it should 
 be finished, he would make a great deal of 
 money, wherewith he would satisfy witness 
 and others, and relieve himself from his 
 cares ;" &c. 
 
 Fridel von Seckingen said, "that Guten- 
 berg had made a purchase,* and that he 
 became surety for the payment; that Guten- 
 berg, Andrew Heilman, and Andrew Dritzehen, 
 had ^sked him to become their surety for 
 101 florins to Stolz the son-in-law of Peter; 
 which he did, upon the condition that they 
 three should give an acknowledgment of 
 indemnity for the same ; that Gutenberg and 
 Heilman signed and sealed the indemnity, 
 but Dritzehen did not; and that Gutenberg 
 
 * Other witnesses also deposed to purchases, and in the 
 judgment given on the suit, some of these are referred to 
 as having been of lead. 
 
104 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 afterwards paid all the money, at the time 
 of the last Lent fair." 
 
 "Also, John Diinne, goldsmith, declared, 
 that about three years previous he had re- 
 ceived about 100 florins from Gutenberg, 
 solely for materials relating to printing (or 
 presses.") 
 
 "Item, Hanns Diiime der goltsmyt hat geseit, daa er 
 vor dryen joren oder doby Gutemberg by den hundert 
 gnldia abe verdienet habe alleine das zu dem trucken 
 gehoret." 
 
 On the part of George and Nicholas 
 Dritzehen it was shewn, that their brother 
 Andrew, when on his death-bed, stated to his 
 confessor that he had expended 200 or 300 
 florins in connection with the partnership, 
 and that he did not then possess a single 
 obolus.* 
 
 * The documents containing an account of the trial, 
 and the sentence of the magistrates of Strasburg, are dated 
 December 1439. They were originally published mth a 
 Latin version, by Schopflin, in his Vindica Typographicce, 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 105 
 
 The suit lasted for nearly twelve months, 
 but was decided against the Dritzehens ; the 
 magistrates adjudging the surviving partners 
 to pay to the heirs of Andrew Dritzehen, the 
 sum of 15 florins only, which, with the 85 
 he was indebted to Gutenberg at the time 
 of his death, made up the hundred they had 
 bound themselves, according to the contract 
 of partnership, to pay to the heirs of any 
 of their number who chanced to die during 
 the term for which it was to last. 
 
 Neither in the evidence quoted, nor in any 
 portion of the rest of the depositions, is 
 anything said about 'types' or 'letters.' 
 Mr. Humphreys, adopting the conjecture 
 first made by M. Paul Lacroix, argues, that 
 the evidence about looking - glasses to be 
 manufactured, and the partners terming 
 themselves looking-glass makers, is to be 
 
 1760, and have since been repeatedly printed with French, 
 Enghsh and Dutch translations. 
 
106 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 understood as meaning that they purposely 
 adopted that term as a ruse to conceal the 
 true meaning of their work, which was, in 
 fact, the manufacture or printing of 'Mirrors 
 of Salvation.' But this view can hardly be 
 considered tenable, inasmuch as Anthonie 
 Heilman shews, that his brother first entered 
 into the partnership to learn the Art of 
 making looking-glasses; and that it was not 
 until afterwards — "a long time afterwards" 
 — that the new arrangement was entered 
 into about the remaining work, — "The Art," 
 — the secret, in fact, for which they were to 
 consider themselves beholden to Gutenberg 
 alone, and not to RifFe. And this was the 
 view the magistrates took. In their summing 
 up of the case, they very distinctly state, that 
 after having for several years taught Andrew 
 Dritzehen the art of polishing stones, Guten- 
 berg admitted him and Andrew Heilman as 
 partners in a manufactory of looking-glasses, 
 which articles he and John Riffe had before 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 107 
 
 been accustomed to sell at the fairs at Aix- 
 la-Chapelle; and that it was not until one 
 year, when the fair had been unexpectedly 
 put off until the year following, that Guten- 
 berg agreed to reveal to them all the wonderfiil 
 and secret arts that he knew, without any 
 exception. The magistrates also referred to 
 the evidence adduced as to various purchases, 
 some or one of which was deposed to be of 
 lead; and from this it may be inferred that 
 the lead was intended for the manufacture of 
 type. But there is nothing to shew that 
 either Riffe or Dritzehen or Heilman was 
 entrusted with the secret of the separable 
 letters. If however, metal types had been 
 the secret to be preserved, the fact of their 
 being so would surely have somehow been 
 more or less distinctly stated. But it 
 was the four 'stiicke' under the press,-— 
 fixed or fastened by two 'wurbelin,' which, 
 when opened, and the 'stiicke' disjoined 
 and separated one from the other, no one 
 
108 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 would understand the meaning of, — as well 
 as the 'formen,' — that were the cause of 
 Gutenberg and Heilman's great anxiety. 
 These four 'stiicke' were certainly not four 
 pages, or a forme of types, fastened together 
 by two screws, which is the interpretation 
 given, with a note of interrogation attached, 
 by writers of repute, whose minds appear 
 to have been so filled with the importance 
 of the separable types, that they have failed 
 to see how the word 'stiicke' could apply 
 to anything else in connection with printing. 
 Had pages of type been meant, their being 
 separated, — either by being 'distributed' into 
 type-cases, or 'thrown into pye,' as it is 
 technically called, — would not have effected 
 the object of the direction given, "that no 
 man might know what it is;" for any one 
 seeing sundry boxes full, or heaps of small 
 pieces of wood or metal, all of the same 
 height and depth, and each with a letter 
 engraved on its upper end, would scarcely fail 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 109 
 
 to conclude that they were in some way- 
 connected with printing, — especially if he 
 knew of the existence of hlock-books, which 
 at that day were by no means uncommon ; 
 nor would two screws have sufficed to fix or 
 fasten a fo«me of four pages of type together. 
 Meerman thinks the fou.r " stiicke" alluded 
 to were parts of a press ; and Koning* is 
 much of the same opinion, believing that 
 Gutenberg was, at the time to which the 
 evidence refers, occupied in endeavouring to 
 construct a printing press of a more perfect 
 kind than had been before known. Ottley, 
 in his observations upon the evidence, dis- 
 agrees with these writers. He says (p. 24,) 
 " On the whole there is, I think, good reason 
 
 * In his "Dissertation Bur I'Origine, I'lnvention, et le 
 Perfectionnement de I'lmprimerie," printed at Amsterdam 
 in 1819. This work was the one which obtained the prize 
 offered by the Dutch Society of Arts and Sciences at Haar- 
 lem, about the year 1814, for the best Dissertation in 
 support of the ancient tradition that the Art of Printing 
 was inyented in that city. 
 
no EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 to conclude that the press so often men- 
 tioned by the witnesses in the processes (for 
 it appears to be the same identical press that 
 is spoken of throughout) was not a screw- 
 press. What was its construction, or what 
 the use to which it was applied, I cannot 
 conjecture." — (p. 35.) "We are led to sup- 
 pose by all the depositions... that there was 
 something about it, which Gutenberg feared 
 might enable some clever person, who 
 should chance to see it, to become pos- 
 sessed of one of his secret arts without the 
 regular initiation; and therefore upon the 
 
 death of Andrew Dritzehen he despatches 
 
 thither his servant Beildeck, with directions 
 to take all necessary precautions respecting 
 it. Why in a matter of such moment, and 
 upon which he was so anxious, Gutenberg 
 did not go himself, it is difficult to conceive ; 
 or why Andrew Heilman, one of the partners, 
 did not go and do what was needful, instead 
 of deputing Conrad Sahspach However, 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. Ill 
 
 Lawrence Beildeck was sent instead ; may 
 
 I suppose that upon this occasion he did as 
 Gutenberg directed him? If so, then I should 
 say that Gutenberg's mode of proceeding 
 was better calculated to awaken curiosity 
 respecting* his secret art, than to prevent 
 any dreaded discovery of it; and that al- 
 though he might be determined that no one, 
 if he could help it, should have become ac- 
 quainted with it for nothing, there was 
 mixed up with this feeling a secret wish, that 
 his mysterious acquirements should be talked 
 of; in the hopes of getting a fresh addition 
 of monied partners capable of paying good 
 premiums." — Very impartial this of Mr. 
 Ottley ! " But" he goes on (p. 37) "we will 
 suppose this press to have existed ; and 
 
 briefly remark upon what is said of it 
 
 The term 'wurbelin' used in Beildeck's 
 testimony has already been spoken of. The 
 two 'wurbelin' were not screws, but must 
 have been some other kind of fastening, or 
 
112 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 mode of pressure, with which the press was 
 provided. What the construction of the 
 press was, or how these fastenings or modes 
 of pressure were applied, I pretend not to 
 say: but all the depositions, if we except 
 that of And. Heilman, (which speaks as if 
 it were the press itself which, was to be 
 taken to pieces,) describe it as having within 
 it some pieces, which in some way were 
 connected with each other, and which 
 Gutenberg desired should be separated or 
 disjoined, (for there is nothing said of 
 dividing the pieces into pieces) in order that 
 people might not be able to guess the 
 use for which they were intended. Two 
 of the witnesses, namely, Schultheiss and 
 his wife, inform us that these pieces were 
 four in number, and that Nic. Dritzehen 
 was desired to take them out of the press 
 
 and separate them from each other This, 
 
 according to the natural meaning of the 
 words, is all that can be made of these de- 
 
EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 113 
 
 positions; and it is probable that no one 
 would ever have attempted to make more of 
 them, had not the name of Gutenberg ap- 
 peared in connection with them; for there 
 can be no doubt that presses of different 
 kinds were known, long before the invention 
 of typography, and applied to many othet 
 purposes, either of stamping or of continued 
 pressure; and the word 'stiicke,' employed 
 in this process to describe the things con- 
 taiued in the press, is as applicable to pieces 
 of one kind whether of shape or material as 
 of another." 
 
 But this is begging the question com- 
 pletely; for the discussion is not, whether 
 presses of different kinds were already 
 known; but whether the Letter press, — the 
 press for taking impressions from types, — 
 was previously known or not ; and in discus- 
 sing this questioUj the meanings of the words 
 "stucke," "formen," and "wurbelin," are 
 most important points. 
 
114 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 What then were the 'stiicke,' the 'formen,' 
 the 'wurbelin'? What do the words mean? 
 The German dictionary gives us the answer 
 i — "Pieces, parts, bits, fragments," &c: — 
 "forms, figures, shapes, frames, patterns, 
 models, ^^ &c: — "turning joints, tourniquots, 
 twirls, convolutions, pulley rolls, pegs (in 
 musical instruments)," &c.* And as the Ger- 
 man for types is "lettern," for pages "seiten," 
 and for screws "schrauben," instead of 
 looking to the types for the true inter- 
 pretation of the terms, we look to the press, 
 and especially to that portion of it which 
 Gutenberg was contriving, in order to utilize 
 the mechanical power of the screw for the 
 purposes of book-printing. As yet this con- 
 trivance was incomplete, for no books had 
 been printed, — no impressions taken from 
 
 * In certain parts of the north of Scotland augers and 
 high-pitched screws are to this day called 'wommels' or 
 'wombels,' by old folk. The word is no doubt the same as 
 the antiquated German 'wurbel.' 
 
either blocks or types. The invention, in 
 fact, had not been perfected : — there were 
 parts which needed to be changed, altered, 
 corrected. Under such circumstances it is 
 easy to understand that Gutenberg would 
 reserve tke secret of his separable types, 
 until the completion of the press should 
 enable him to introduce them as the crowning 
 triumph of his ingenuity. 
 
 Within the frame-work of the press then, 
 were fixed, — ^first, the screw; underneath the 
 screw, second, the platten, (the impression 
 block or plate,) to be brought down by the 
 screw upon the types ; third, the carriage, on 
 which the types were to be placed; and 
 fourth, the table or slide-rest supporting the 
 carriage, with its rounce, or spindle with crank- 
 handle, drum, and connecting girths to run the 
 carriage in and out before and after impres- 
 sions were made. These, or their original 
 substitutes, were the 'pieces, parts, or bits' 
 that formed the four 'stiicke' spoken of. 
 
116 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 But what were the 'wurbelin'? They 
 were two stout screw-bolts, working through 
 nuts in a cross-head, and fixing, immoveably, 
 the cross -block in which the centre screw of 
 the press was wormed. They were variously 
 made, but the object was invariably the same ; 
 to resist, by a counter pressure, the upward 
 thrust of the screw, when, by the working of 
 the bar or lever, it was brought down upon 
 the platten, and met the resistance of the 
 forme at the moment the impression had to 
 be taken. 
 
 Examine now the figure of the press in the 
 accompanying engraving, copied from wood- 
 cuts of presses used as printers' emblems 
 as early as 1498 and 1511 ; and observe 
 how easily its component pieces could be 
 separated by removing or opening (unscrew- 
 ing) the two long wurhelin fixed above the 
 working parts, which were probably merely 
 morticed and tenoned together. In the 
 following diagram, outlined from an engrav- 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 117 
 
 ing of the date of 1520, an older fashioned 
 press seems to be shewn, in which the two 
 wurbelin are differently shaped, while their 
 special use is stiU more plainly to be seen. 
 These unscrewed, the inner portions of the 
 press taken to pieces, and the parts sepa- 
 
 f2 
 
118 EAELY TTPOaRAPHT. 
 
 rated or laid aside, no one, unacquainted 
 with the secret, would be able to guess for 
 what object they were designed; or, in the 
 words of the evidence, "know what it is." 
 
 It may perhaps be said, that so apparently 
 simple a matter could surely not have taken 
 so long a time to contrive, nor have cost so 
 much as has been implied,, in the way of 
 preliminary experiments. But the printing 
 press, in its origin, was an entirely novel 
 invention. ' The whole contrivance, — although 
 the. idea, as we learn from. Arnold de Bergel, 
 (1541), was first suggested to Gutenberg's 
 mind by the wine-press,* — ^had to be thought 
 out by its inventor, step by step, unhelped 
 by any adventitious aid. Gutenberg, versatile 
 genius as he was, may not have been an 
 expert mechanic; he was certainly unable 
 
 • " Quid, si nunc justos, aeris ratione reducta, 
 Tentarem Ubros cudere mille modis? 
 Robora prospexit deMnc torculwria Bacehi, 
 Et dixit, preli forma sit ista novi." 
 
 Encomion GhalcograpMa, t.t. 65-69. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 119 
 
 to avail himself of the many appliances 
 which modern inventors find ready to their 
 hand at every turn, for they were non- 
 existent, and he had therefore to realize 
 his designs the best way he could, without 
 revealing Ifceir object to those whom he em- 
 ployed to carry them into execution. His 
 partners indeed might know that a new kind 
 of block or book printing was intended, but 
 yet be ignorant of the real purpose for which 
 the costly and stijl unfinished machines 
 were meant; for it is evident, judging from 
 the depositions of Anthonie Heilmann, con- 
 cerning the formen, ('frames or models'), 
 and of others who speak of presses (pressen) 
 in the plviral, that more than one had been 
 planned. Unless such knowledge had been 
 imparted to them, and was further supported 
 by specimens of block Alphabets, school 
 Grammars, and Vocabularies, it is difficult, if 
 not impossible, to understand how their faith 
 in the ultimate success of "the wonderful 
 
120 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 cr^," could have been so long sustained. 
 Now, bearing in mind that three hundred 
 and seventy years later, it cost a practical 
 printer and engineer, aided by other men's 
 ideas, and by every facility which science 
 could give for the quick and accurate produc- 
 tion of whatever his ingenuity designed, — no 
 less than seven years of labour, and an outlay 
 on the part of his employers of £16,000, 
 before he achieved success in the first cylin- 
 drical printing machine;* a machine which 
 was merely required to print off sheets 
 more rapidly than could be done by the 
 hand-press ; — the marvel is, not that Guten- 
 berg's invention cost him the time and 
 labour and money it did; but that in real- 
 izing his ideas, he perfected them so tho- 
 roughly, that the principles of his hand-press 
 
 * Kcenig's cylinder machine, erected for Mr. Bensley 
 the eminent printer, and first set in operation in April 
 1811, at the manufactory in Whitecross-street, London; 
 when it printed 3000 sheets of the Annual Register, to 
 the admiration of all who saw it at work. 
 
EAELY TTPOGEAPHT. 121 
 
 have not to this day been improved. Dif- 
 ferent adaptations of leverage power may 
 have been tried to produce the same eflPects, 
 and different materials made use of in the 
 manufacture of the machinery, but the hand- 
 press of 4;o-day is essentially the same as 
 that with which the first Typographer printed 
 his first book. The greater therefore is the 
 honor due to its inventor. 
 
 The annexed sketch represents a press in 
 its completed form, with tympans attached to 
 the end of the carriage, and with the frisket 
 above the tympans. The tympans, inner 
 and outer, are thin iron frames, one fitting 
 into the other, on each of which is stretched 
 a skin of parchment or a breadth of fine 
 cloth. A woollen blanket or two with a few 
 sheets of paper are placed between these, the 
 whole thus forming a thin elastic pad, on 
 which the sheet to be printed is laid. The 
 frisket is a slender frame-work, covered with 
 coarse paper, on which an impression is first 
 
122 
 
 EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 taken ; the whole of the printed part is then 
 cut out, leaving apertures exactly correspond- 
 ing with the pages of type on the carriage 
 of the press. The frisket when folded on 
 to the tympans, and both turned down 
 over the forme of types and run in under 
 the platten, preserves the sheet from contact 
 with any thing but the inked surface of the 
 types, when the pull, which brings down the 
 screw and forces the platten to produce the 
 impression, is made by the pressman who 
 works the lever,— to whom is facetiously given 
 the title of "the practitioner at the bar." 
 
 ^.^ij W 
 
EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 123 
 
 One of the consequences that ensued on 
 the termination of the. lawsuit with the Drit- 
 zehens, was a stoppage of the progress of the 
 invention. Very probably Gutenberg, an im- 
 poverished if not a disappointed man, felt 
 compelled t© lay his projects aside, and to 
 devote himself, for a time at least, to other 
 and more remunerative pursuits. Nothing 
 more at any rate is heard of the partnership, 
 or of types or presses, until after his return 
 to Mentz. And as printing was not prac- 
 tised at Strasburg untU after Mentelin set up 
 a press there, this sUence is pretty con- 
 clusive as to the correctness of the surmise, 
 that neither Dritzehen nor Heilmann nor 
 Riffe had been entrusted with the secret of 
 the separable types. 
 
 The inference which writers adverse to the 
 claims of Gutenberg draw from the silence 
 in the evidence in regard to types or letters, 
 is, that he had not then invented them. But 
 if the press was not designed, and made, for 
 
124 EAELY TYPOGKAPHY. 
 
 taking impressions from types, for what else 
 could it have been invented? Gutenberg must 
 have had types in his possession, before he 
 commenced experiments in connection with the 
 press. Now these experiments commenced 
 some time before 143^ ; how long cannot be 
 ascertained ; but it is clear that the original 
 making of the types must necessarily have 
 preceded the first attempt at making a press. 
 But when once a small stock of metal letters 
 had been engraved, (in itself a work of years 
 for a single individual,) and it was found 
 that they could not be availed of by what 
 was then the ordinary method of producing 
 prints, further progress with theifi would be 
 stopped, until the press, which was to make 
 them profitable, had been made.* The mere 
 making of the types, however tedious and 
 
 * " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; 
 and that which is done, is that which shall be done; and 
 there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything 
 whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 125 
 
 time-eating a work, was, as has already been 
 shewn, by no means so wonderfully ingenious 
 as some have stated it to be. 
 
 A period of ten years now passed by. 
 Gutenberg, true to his convictions, resumed 
 his typographic labours, and perfected "the 
 mightiest engine of human intellect — the 
 great leveller of power — the Demiurgus of 
 the moral world — The Press."* 
 
 The statement made by Wimpheling,f in 
 
 of old time which was before us." — Ecchsiastes, i. 9, 10. 
 Some days subsequent to that on which I had printed the 
 description of the process, which, after a careful examination 
 of Mr. Humphreys' fac-simile, I felt convinced was the one 
 which had been adopted for taking impressions of the 
 moveable types used in the Speculim, Hummm SalvuUonis, 
 I received an illustrated advertisement sheet of Fraacis 
 Donnison and Son, Printers' Engineers of Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne, in which is an engraving of an "Improved Galley 
 Proof Press," which exactly realises the idea I attempted 
 to convey to my readers on pages 83 and 84. 
 
 *"The Pilgrims of the Rhine," by Bulweb, (Lord 
 Lttton), p. 313.- 
 
 •f "Wimpheling, one of the most learned men of his time, 
 who narrowly escaped persecution for the Protestant ten- 
 dency of his writings, and who among other things which 
 
126 EAELY TYPOaEAPHY. 
 
 his Epitome Rerum Germanicarum, written 
 in 1502, that in the year 1440 the art of 
 printing was invented by John Gutenberg 
 in Strasburg, though afterwards brought to 
 perfection in Mentz, affords ground for be- 
 lieving that between the year 1439 and the 
 date of his leaving Strasburg, Gutenberg 
 actually printed a work or works in that 
 city. It also gives colour to the conjecture 
 of M. Bernard* that a "Donatus, printed in 
 characters very closely resembling those of 
 the Bible afterwards printed by Gutenberg 
 at Mayence, may possibly have been printed 
 by him at Strasburg." If M. Bernard be 
 right in his conjecture, Mr. Humphreys is of 
 opinion, (p. 74,) "that it would tend to prove 
 that the characters used were of lead, as in 
 
 proTed him to have been a thinker in advance of his time, 
 founded a literary society at Strasburg, which soon became 
 celebrated, and the tendencies of which were afterwards 
 praised even by the critical Erasmus." — Humphebys, p. 82. 
 * "De rOrigine de I'lmprimerie." Paris, 1853. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 127 
 
 the 'Donatus' in question the types show 
 such symptoms of spreading and blurring, as 
 would be sufficient to deter a man of Guten- 
 berg's taste and ambition from undertaking 
 the printing of a more important work." 
 
 Other wouks may also have been printed, 
 of which no trace remains, as in the case 
 of the Tracts of Peter of Spain, alleged by 
 Junius to be one of the two works first 
 printed at Mentz in the year 1442. Of the 
 other, the Doctrinal of Alexander Gallus, 
 there is a supposed fragment preserved in 
 the public Library at Treves, part of which 
 is figured by Wetter, in Tab. xii. of the 
 fac-simUes accompanying his work;* but it 
 is plainly the production of the printers of 
 the Speculum HumancB Salvationis, whoever 
 they were, and of whom more will be said 
 hereafter. The lines are irregular, the letters 
 
 * "Krifcische Geschichte der Erfindung der Buchdrticker- 
 kunst durch Johann Gutenberg zu Mainz." von J. Wetteb. 
 Maim, 1836. 8vo. pp. xvi. 808, with 13 Tables of fac-similes. 
 
128 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 appearing to be of wood, strung together with 
 a thread, a practice known to have been 
 adopted by the first printers, and to which 
 allusion is made by Theodor Bibliander 
 (1548), Heinrich Spiegel (1549-1612), and 
 other writers. 
 
 Angelo Rocca, in the Appendix to the 
 Account of the Vatican Library printed at 
 Rome in 1591, states, from personal know- 
 ledge, that "the types used by the inventors 
 of printing were perforated, and connected 
 together by a thread which was passed 
 through them, of which he remembered to 
 have' seen specimens at Venice,"* These 
 perforations were no doubt the origin of the 
 'nicks' in the shanks of the types, which 
 now enable compositors to place them in 
 their proper positions, without examining 
 
 * " Characteres enim a primus illis inventoribus non ita 
 eleganter et expedite, ut a nostris fieri solet, sed filo in Utter- 
 arum foramen immisso, connectebantur, sicut Yenetiis id 
 genus typos me vidisse memini." 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 129 
 
 their faces. But the threading of the letters 
 by means of such perforations must have 
 proved a great obstacle to progress in 
 printing, and the perforations must also have 
 greatly weakened the letters themselves. 
 This will be at once understood 
 from the annexed figures, shewing 
 the sides of the shanks of two 
 types, one perforated and the other 
 nicked as at present. Obviously it 
 was a great improvement to nick the type 
 instead of perforating it. The object in 
 view, that of keeping the letters in line, 
 would be better secured by laying a thin 
 wire in and along the nicks, than by string- 
 ing them together with a thread. Time in 
 composing and correcting would also be 
 saved by the alteration. As soon however 
 as Type - founding was established as a 
 scientific art, and types were made to adjust 
 together with mathematical accuracy, neither 
 threads nor wires were longer wanted; but 
 
 Q 
 
130 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 the nicks still served as a useful aid to the 
 compositor, in the speedier execution of his 
 work ; while the type - founder, by multi^ 
 plying their number and varying their posi- 
 tions, enabled him at once to distinguish 
 the differently -faced founts of the same class 
 of types. 
 
 However occupied in the five years aftef' 
 1439, Gutenberg's means became exhausted; 
 and having been obliged, in order to extricate 
 himself from his difficulties, to part with 
 a portion of his paternal property to the 
 Church of St. Thomas, he resolved to 
 leave Strasburg and return to Mentz, his 
 native city. This he did about the year 
 1444, taking up his residence in the 'Zum 
 Jungen,' the house of his uncle on the Platz 
 of the Franciscans. Here, still busily en- 
 gaged in the work to which he had now 
 exclusively devoted himself, he again ran 
 out of funds, and had to borrow 150 florins 
 from Reinhart Bromser and Johan Roden- 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 131 
 
 stein, for which sum his kinsman, Arnulphus 
 Gelthus, became security. His first busi-: 
 ness transaction with John Fust or Faust, 
 the banker and money-lender, seems to have 
 been in 1448, Faust's name appearing as a 
 witness to a deed of purchase made by 
 Gutenberg in that year.* Two years later 
 a contract was entered into between them, 
 which from that date has made their names 
 inseparable in the annals of the origin of 
 Typography. 
 
 In the year 1450, Gutenberg, having already 
 completed three, perhaps four, small founts of 
 
 * The family of the Fusts was one of great respectability, 
 It consisted at this time of three brothers ; John the banker 
 and momey-lender; James, the city architect, and subse- 
 quently a goldsmith as well; and Nicholas, a judge in one 
 of the Courts of law. John married his wife Margaret 
 about the year 1420; one son, Conrad, was the only issue 
 of the marriage. Conrad man-ied in 1 445, and his daughter, 
 Christina, was, in 1465, bestowed in marriage upon Peter 
 Schceffer of Gernszheim. It appears from some accounts 
 that John Faust was also a goldsmith; a business with 
 which banking and money-lending were usually combined, 
 
132 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 type, as well as presses that fully answered 
 his expectations, designed a work, the magni- 
 tude of which necessitated a large preliminary 
 outlay. To enable him to execute his 
 design, he had recourse to Faust. Faust, 
 having convinced himself of the worth of 
 his inventions, and the value of the pro- 
 ject in contemplation, agreed to "advance 
 to John Gutenberg 800 florins in money, as 
 a fixed sum, with which he was to perform 
 the work in question," on condition "that the 
 utensils were to be considered as security 
 to the said John Faust, and that he (Guten- 
 berg) was to give six florins per cent, interest 
 for these 800 florins." With this money 
 Gutenberg was bound "to prepare and make 
 utensils" to be employed for their joint use. 
 Faust also agreed to pay 300 florins annu- 
 ally "for expenses, as well as for the wages 
 of servants, rent, firing, parchment, paper, ink, 
 S)-c." It was moreover stipulated, "that if in 
 future they should disagree, Gutenberg was 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 133 
 
 to give back to Faust his 800 florins, and 
 that his utensils were then to be released."* 
 Supplied with funds, Gutenberg set ac- 
 tively to work.* Several assistants were at 
 once engaged, and amongst the rest Peter 
 SchoefFer of* Gernszheim. Their principal 
 occupation would be in connection with the 
 work for which Faust made the advance 
 
 * There is another version of the circumBtances attend- 
 ing the connection of Gutenberg with Faust. Gutenberg 
 senior, say the claimants of the honor of the invention for 
 the first printer at Strasburg, retiirned to Mentz in 1440, 
 having stolen the knowledge of the art from Mentelin, 
 their countryman, who they assert was the original inventor. 
 Dutch authorities however say, that Gutenberg's return 
 to Mentz, in 1440, was after he stole the types, &c., from 
 Coster, the original inventor at Haarlem. Like Sir Boyle 
 Eoche's bird, he was thus in two places at one and the 
 same time. After his return he printed, in 1442, the two 
 school-books ' Alexandri Galli Doctrinale,' and ' Petri His- 
 pani Tractatus,' and then, in 1443, took the house 'Zum 
 Jungen,' when he was joined in partnership by Faust, 
 J. Meidenbachius, J. Petersheimius, and others, whose 
 names have not been recorded, and in 1444 by Guten- 
 berg junior, who then quitted Strasburg for that express 
 
134 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY, 
 
 of 800 florins; but while that was progreS' 
 sing, several small matters were printed, 
 for which there would be a steady though 
 probably only a limited demand. The 
 Abbot Trithemius states, in his Chronicon 
 Hirsaugiense, that "a vocabulary called the 
 Catholicon,"* was the first work printed, 
 "with the characters of the letters carved 
 in wooden tablets in a series, and composed 
 
 puriDose. That in 1450 this partnership was dissolved, 
 wlien Faust and Gutenberg junior entered into a new 
 partnership, the senior being no longer heard of. These 
 statements are at best but conjectural, and have been made 
 with the view of affording support to the systems of writers 
 who deny to Gutenberg the honor of having invented the 
 Typographic Art. 
 
 The quotations in the text are from the record of legal 
 proceedings taken by Faust against Gutenberg in 1455. 
 This record was printed in German by Seckenburg in 
 "Selectis Jm-is et Historiarum," torn. i. pp. 269-277; by 
 WoLFius, in his "Monumenta Typographica," tom. i. p. 472 
 et seq., and by Wettbe, pp. 284-290. 
 
 * Trithemius derived * his information direct from 
 Schoeffer the [grand] son-in-law of Faust ; but did not write 
 his chronicle until thirty years after. The work usually 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 135 
 
 in forms : — imprimis agitur characteribus 
 litterarum in tabiUis lignis per ordinem scriptis 
 formisque compositis." Other writers make 
 mention of an Alphabet, engraved on a single 
 page, and two editions of Donatuses, also 
 cut in solid felocks. These were most likely 
 brought by Gutenberg from Strasburg, and 
 would be his earliest efforts. But besides 
 these, there were Donatuses in cut metal 
 
 referred to as the Catholicon, is one of some magnitude. 
 It was written by the monk John Balbi, or John of Genoa, 
 and consists of a Latin Grammar followed by a Vocabulary. 
 Gutenberg probably printed only the latter portion, and 
 perhaps but an abridgment of that. As the earliest pro- 
 duction of his press, after his coimection with Faust, a copy 
 would now be of immense value ; but as is the case with 
 the Tracts of Peter of Spain, no bibhographer has yet had 
 the good fortune to identify it, and possibly it may have 
 passed out of existence. There is no reason however to 
 doubt the correctness of the Abbot's statement on that 
 account. There can be no question but that multitudes 
 of works, issued from the presses of the early printers, 
 have been utterly destroyed. It is marvellous that so 
 many single, unique copies, have been preserved to the 
 present time. 
 
136 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 types, and, as some consider, "An Appeal 
 against the Turks," and "Letters of Indul- 
 gence," printed in the years 1454 and 1455.* 
 All these were doubtless the 'pot-boilers' 
 of the establishment for the time being. 
 
 At length the magnum opus, — the cele- 
 brated Biblia Latina Vulgata, — made its 
 appearance. This work is commonly known 
 as the "Mazaein Bible," from a copy having 
 been discovered in the Bibliotheque Mazarin 
 at Paris, about the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. It was recognised by the book- 
 seller and bibliopole De Bure, who gave a 
 minute description of it in the Bibliographie 
 Instructive, (vol. i. pp. 32 — 40.) There can 
 hardly exist a doubt that this is the work to 
 which Ulric Zell refers in his account of 
 the origin of Printing, where he says — "And 
 in the year m.cccc.l. which was a jubilee, 
 
 * These have been ftiUy described by Fischer, Yan Praet, 
 Wetter, Leon de Laborde, and other writers. 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 137 
 
 they began to print; and the first book 
 printed was the Bible in Latin."* Being 
 without a date, the exact year of its publi- 
 cation cannot be ascertained; but a copy 
 exists in the Royal Library in Paris, printed 
 on paper, and bound in two volumes, on 
 each of which is an entry, stating ' the date 
 when its binding and illuminating was 
 completed: and as the second entry gives 
 the information that this was finished at 
 Mentz on the Feast of the Assumption, 
 1456,f the work itself could not have been 
 issued from the press later than the year 
 
 * See post for Zell's account in full. 
 
 ■f The entry at the end of the first volume is — "Et sic est 
 finis prime partis biblia Scz. veteris testament!, lUuminata 
 sen rubricata & ligata per Henricum Albch alias cremer. 
 Anno dni M°occc°lvi festo Bartholomei apli — Deo gratias — 
 Alleluja." That on the end of the second volume: — "Iste 
 liber illuminatus', ligatus & completus est per Henricum 
 cremer vicariii ecclesie collegiate sancti Stephani maguntini 
 sub anno dni Millesimo quatringentisimo quinquagesimo 
 sexto, festo Assumptionis gloriose virginis Marie, Deo 
 graciaa. Alleluja, &c," 
 
 E 
 
138 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 preceding, 1455, which secures to it an 
 unimpeached priority in the records of 
 bibliography. 
 
 Strange to say, the existence of this work 
 was unknown until the discovery of the Ma- 
 zarin copy; since then about twenty copies 
 have been traced in various libraries, some 
 on vellum, and some on paper: twelve of 
 these are now in England, and in every place 
 where they are deposited, they are justly con" 
 sidered the most precious of bibliographical 
 treasures. The type is of a large handsome 
 Gothic character, fine and square and sharp, 
 imitative of the best manuscripts of the time, 
 the first letters of each chapter being painted 
 in by hand. The book consists of 637 
 leaves, with two columns each containing 
 forty-two lines printed upon each page.* 
 It is beautifully executed, and remarkable 
 
 * With the expeption of the first ten or eleven pages, 
 which contain but forty or forty-one lines in each column. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 139 
 
 for the blackness and brilliancy of -the ink 
 made use of. 
 
 "It is a very striking circumstance," says 
 Mr. Hallam, "that the high minded inventors 
 of this great art, tried at the very outset so 
 bold a flight^as the printing an entire Bible, 
 and executed it with astonishing success. It 
 was Minerva leaping on earth in her divine 
 strength and radiant armour, ready at the 
 naoment of her nativity, to subdue and de- 
 stroy her enemies. The Mazarin Bible is 
 printed, some copies on vellum, some on 
 paper of choice quality, with strong, black 
 and tolerably handsome characters, but with 
 some want of uniformity, which has led, 
 perhaps tmreasonably, to a doubt whether 
 they were cast in a matrix.* We may see 
 
 * The doubt wag not only natural, but there is an almost 
 absolute certainty that the letters could not have been cast 
 at the time. Schoeffer's invention of cast fusile types did 
 not take place, — or at any rate was not made use of, — 
 until after the lawsuit between Gutenberg and Faust. 
 
140 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 in imagination this venerable and splendid 
 •volume, leading up the crowded myriads of 
 its followers, and imploring as it were a 
 blessing on the new art, by dedicating its 
 first fruits tq heaven." 
 
 Whatever may have been the precise date 
 of the publication of this Bible, it is evident 
 that some short time before, a disagreement 
 took place between Faust and Gutenberg. 
 The first advance of 800 florins made by the 
 former, not having sufiiced for bringing out 
 the work, a second advance had been made 
 to the same extent, and for five years no 
 interest had been paid. Principal and in- 
 terest, or the forfeiture of the security, were 
 then demanded ; and the demand enforced 
 by an action at law. Why Faust waited so 
 long, and then, when the work was all but 
 ready for publication, made his demand, 
 amounting in all to 2020 florins, it may not 
 be difficult to determine as the narrative 
 proceeds. 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 141 
 
 Gutenberg did not appear in person at the 
 final hearing of the case, but empowered 
 "the respectable Sieur Henry Gunther, late 
 curate of St. Christopher's at Mentz, Henry 
 Keffer, and BertolfF of Hanau, his servant 
 and domestic;," to hear and see what was 
 done in the matter. He did not deny the 
 fact of the advances, but pleaded against the 
 demand for immediate payment, — "that it 
 was well understood that he was to com- 
 plete the work with the money which he 
 (Faust) had lent to him- upon his pledges, 
 but that he considers he was not obliged to 
 employ these 800 florins in the making of 
 books ; and although it be stated in the letter 
 of agreement, that he was to give six per 
 cent, interest; nevertheless Joh. Faust pro- 
 mised that he would not ask him for this 
 interest; and, further, that these 800 florins 
 were not paid to him, according to the tenor 
 of the agreement, all at one time, as he 
 pretends in the first article of his demand; 
 
142 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 and that with regard to the last 800 florins 
 he is willing to render an account. He 
 (Gutenberg) does not admit that he ought 
 to pay either interest or usury, and he 
 hopes he will not be obliged to do so by the 
 Court ; all which has appeared in the demand, 
 the answer, the reply, the rejoinder, and in 
 various other written papers, &c." 
 
 But the magistrates gave judgment against 
 him in the following terms: — "That when 
 Joh. Gutenberg shall have rendered an 
 account of all his receipts, and of the sums 
 expended by him for their joint advantage, 
 whatever further moneys he may have 
 received, over and above, shall be counted 
 in the 800 florins ; but that if it shall appear 
 by the account, that Faust has advanced to 
 him any money beyond the 800 florins, 
 which has not been employed for their joint 
 advantage, he (-Gutenberg) shall repay it to 
 him; and if Joh. Faust shall prove by oath 
 or other good evidence, that he borrowed 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 143 
 
 the said money at interest, and that he did 
 not advance it out of his own funds, then 
 Joh. Gutenberg shall also pay to him the 
 said interest, according to the tenor of the 
 letter of agreement." 
 
 Whereupon* the said Joh. Faust declared 
 upon oath as follows: "I, Joh. Faust, did 
 borrow fifteen hundred and fifty florins which 
 were delivei^ed to Joh. Gutenberg, and have 
 been employed for our joint advantage. I 
 have been obliged annually to pay interest 
 and usury for the same, and I stiU owe a 
 part; therefore I charge him, for each 
 hundred florins that I have borrowed, as is 
 said above, six florins annually for the money 
 borrowed, which he has received, and which 
 has been employed upon our joint work, as 
 appears in the account; I demand of him 
 the interest, according to the tenor of the 
 judgment ; and in proof that such is the fact, 
 I am willing to abide, as is just, by the tenor 
 of the judgment given upon the first count 
 
144 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 of the demand which I have made against 
 the said Joh, Gutenherg." 
 
 This closed the proceedings, which were 
 duly attested by Ulric Helmasperger, clerk 
 of the Bishopric of Bamberg, by Imperial 
 authority Notary Public, and sworn Notary 
 of the Holy See at Mentz, on the sixth day 
 of November 1455. The persons present as 
 witnesses were Pieter Grantz, Joh. Kilsen, 
 Joh. Knopff, Joh. Iseneckh, Jaques Faust, 
 Burgher of Mentz, and Pieter Gernszheim 
 and Joh. Bonne, Clerks of the city and 
 Bishopric of Mentz. 
 
 Gutenberg, not being able to meet the 
 demand, the mortgage on the materials was 
 foreclosed, and Faust thus became possessor 
 of types and presses in his own right.- 
 These, with "the stock of partially complete 
 Bibles, were removed from Gutenberg's resi- 
 dence, and taken to' the house of Faust in the 
 Schuster Gasse, (Shoemaker's street) which 
 was eventually styled 'The Printing Office,^ 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 145 
 
 as the house of Gutenberg had previously 
 been."* 
 
 Before proceeding further it will be well to 
 ascertain what there was in the plant of the 
 printing establishment at the Zum Jungen 
 which could* occasion so great an outlay. 
 We have already seen how much time and 
 money had been spent in the experiments at 
 Strasburg. It is not recorded how Guten- 
 berg, arranged with his partners there ; but 
 it may be fairly assumed, that in 1444 he 
 brought with him to Mentz his original 
 blocks, and types, as well as apparatus for 
 setting up presses. The making of new 
 founts of type would therefore be his chief 
 concern. If the small works attributed to 
 him by Fischer, Van Praet, and others, really 
 issued from his press, (and there is no reason 
 to doubt the fact,) three founts of type were 
 already made, before the one for the Latin 
 
 Humphreys, p. 84. 
 
146 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Bible was commenced. Now supposing that 
 these three founts consisted of 10,000 letters 
 in all, an equal number would, at least, be 
 required to complete four pages of the Bible ; 
 for the printing of such a work could hardly 
 have been begun with less type than would 
 suffice for two formes of two pages each. 
 How then were these letters made ? The 
 answer to this question is given in the state- 
 ment of the Abbot Trithemius, who says, 
 that to the engraved letters on solid blocks 
 "succeeded a more ingenious invention, for 
 they found out a way of stamping the shapes 
 of every letter of the Latin alphabet in what 
 they called matrices, from which they after- 
 wards cast their letters in copper or tin, hard 
 enough to be printed upon, which they first 
 cut with their own hands'^* This infor- 
 
 * "Post hsec inventis successemnt subtiliora, invene- 
 runtque modum fandendi formas omnium latini alphabet! 
 litterarum, qnas ipsi matrices nominabant ex quibus rur- 
 Bum aeneoB sive stanneos caracteres fundebant, ad omnem 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 147 
 
 mation was given to the Abbot by Peter 
 SchoefFer of Gernszheim, one of Faust's 
 witnesses in the lawsuit with Gutenberg, the 
 same who invented the art of type-founding 
 as at present practised, and who moreover 
 added, "tha* before the third quaternion 
 (twelve sheets) of the bible was completed, 
 no less a sum than 4000 florins had been 
 expended."* From this statement it is clear 
 that the matrices consisted of a number of 
 small troughs of uniform length, each one 
 the size, in regard to depth and thickness, of 
 the shape of a letter ; that these shapes were 
 stamped into a gr^epared mould of clay or 
 
 pressuram sufficientes, quas prius manibus sculpebant. Et 
 revera sicuti ante xxx. fenne annos ex ore Petri Opilionis 
 de Gemsheim, civis moguntini qui gener erat primi artis 
 inventoris, audivi, magnam a primo inventioniB suae hsec ars 
 impressoria habuit difflcultatem. Impressuri namque Bib- 
 liam, priusquam tertium complessent in opere quatemionem, 
 plusquam 4000 florenorem exposuerunt." 
 
 * This statement no doubt included Gutenberg's personal 
 outlay, in addition to the moneys advanced by Faust. 
 
148 EAELY TYPOGKAPHY. 
 
 plaster; that the fused metal was poured into 
 these matrices ; and that a considerable 
 number of small ingots, or cast 'blanks' might 
 thus be made at each pouring of the metal. 
 The accompanying diagram, in which the 
 border represents the rim of the mould, and 
 the inside figures the matrices, renders further 
 
 explanation unnecessary. On one end of each 
 of these cast 'blanks,' a le.tter would be cut 
 or engraved by hand, while the sides would 
 be 'dressed' (with perhaps a greater amount 
 of labour,) in the same way as ordinary type 
 now-a-days. It is not at all unlikely that this 
 method, called by some the fuso-sculpte, may 
 have been suggested by the goldsmith John 
 Diinne, the friend of Gutenberg at Strasbvirg ; 
 or if not, by Faust himself. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. . 149 
 
 With a ready method at hand for preparing 
 his blanks, let us now see how long the en- 
 graving of the letters would take. Assuming 
 that one, or say two, small founts had been 
 finished at Strasburg, comprising about 4000 
 letters, and th«.t 6000 were completed at Mentz 
 before the contract was made with Faust, 
 what length of time would be required to 
 complete them? An expert modern punch- 
 cutter can complete, in one day, two steel 
 types for striking matrices with.* Supposing 
 that with softer metal Gutenberg engraved 
 his blanks at the rate of four a day ; and 
 
 * "Most of the punch-cutters at present belonging to the 
 type-founding trade are English, and their earnings depend 
 in a great measure upon the abilities they display in the 
 work. A first-rate cutter will earn from £5. to £6. weekly, 
 and CTen more. 'When I first came to the trade,' said a 
 man to Mr. Mayhew, 'the punch-maker who worked for 
 my old master, had £5. a week for producing two punches 
 a day. This was all he was expected to do for his wages; 
 but for every punch he turned out over and above that 
 number he had his regular premiums.' "— Mayhbw's Trades 
 and Manvfactories of Great Britain, p. 250. 
 
that deducting Sundays and Saints' days, he 
 worked three hundred days a year; jive 
 years would be occupied in completing two 
 founts of 3000 letters each ; which, when 
 finished, might weigh about one hundred 
 pounds. With the additional funds placed 
 at his command by Faust in 1450, Guten- 
 berg would most probably engage another 
 engraver; and supposing that the two en- 
 graved eight letters a day, 10,000 letters 
 would keep them both fully occupied upwards 
 oi four years. With the making of presses, 
 type-cases, ink, and all the remaining para- 
 phernalia of a printing office, supposing 
 Gutenberg employed two or three assistant 
 engravers instead of one, and that the bible 
 was begun with type for one page only, 
 while the engravers still went on cutting 
 fresh supplies, his time would be amply 
 taken up; and the amount of money that 
 would thus be sunk would come in the long 
 run to something enormous. 
 
EARLY TTPOGEAPHY. 151 
 
 No wonder that Faust at last grew im- 
 patient, and was ready to foreclose his 
 mortgage over the plant, as soon as he saw 
 his way clear to something in the shape of 
 a return for his advances. 
 
 It is however not a little singular, that 
 Ottley, who published all the documents in 
 the case, and avowed his desire to treat the 
 subject with the impartiality of an umpire,* 
 should have allowed his Costerian proclivities 
 to develope themselves in the following 
 terms: — "On the whole I confess that after 
 
 * " I shall use my best endeavours to detect and expose 
 false or exaggerated statements and deceitful arguments, 
 come from whom they may ; leaving such good proofs and 
 reasonable grounds of belief, on the one side or the other 
 as may then remain, to be incorporated afterwards with 
 such further proofs as have resulted from my own researches. 
 Lastly I shall strive to merit the praise of not overstat- 
 ing the evidence one way or the other, and of not pressing 
 an argument farther than it will fairly go ; it being my sole 
 object to come if possible, at the truth, in this long disputed 
 question." — Inquiry concerning the Invention of Printing, 
 p. 5. 
 
152 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY; 
 
 perusing and re-perusing the above document 
 (the law process) with all the attention I ana 
 master of, the impression it leaves upon my 
 mind, and indeed the only idea I can forni 
 of the transaction it refers to, that seems 
 at all probable, is, that Fust, after four or 
 five years' patient trial, found that Gutenberg 
 was incompetent to perform the task he had 
 undertaken, whatever it was, or that ironi 
 indolence he had neglected it ; that his money 
 was going very fast, and there was little to 
 shew for it; and that he had discovered, as 
 is hinted in the sentence,"* [how or where?] 
 "that no small portion of it had been applied 
 by Gutenberg to his own private purposes ;" 
 especially when he wrote immediately after, 
 — "it is by no means improbable ... that, 
 some years before the date of the above 
 agreement, Fust had assisted with his wits 
 and hands, as well as with his money, in 
 
 * Inquiry, pp. 49 — 51. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 153 
 
 perfecting the art and bringing it into opera- 
 tion." • Improbable it may not have been, 
 but there is nothing whatever to shew that, 
 in fact, such was the case; on the contrary, 
 such facts as do appear lead to an opposite 
 conclusion. ' 
 
 We have now arrived at a point in the 
 narrative where Peter SchoeflEer comes to the 
 fore-front in the history of the art. Born in 
 Gernszheim, after completing his education 
 at the University of Paris,* and adopting, it 
 would seem, the profession of a scribe, — a 
 craft in which the more expert members 
 
 * In a book of notes, left with one Gerlach, and afterwards 
 purchased by Johan Rot, the brother in all probability of 
 Berthold Rot, the first printer at Basle, there occurs the 
 following memorandum, in Schoeffer's own handwriting: — 
 "Hie est finis omnium librormn tam veteris quam nove 
 logice, completi per me Petrum de Gernszheim, alias Mo- 
 guncia, anno m.cccc.xlix, in gloriosissima Universitate 
 Parisiensi." — (Humpheeys, p. 84.) His name, Tariously 
 spelt as Schoffer, Schoeffer, Schoiffer, and Schoiffher, and 
 signifying in English, Shepherd, is sometimes printed in its 
 Latin form, Opolio. 
 
154 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 combined with the art of writing that of illu- 
 minating the manuscript works they copied, 
 — he betook himself to Mentz, where he was 
 engaged by Gutenberg to assist in the print- 
 ing operations at the Zum Junghen. As the 
 first printed books were imitations of, and 
 avowedly sold as, manuscripts, three reasons 
 for- this engagement may be seen, — the 
 preparation of the MS, copy; the designing 
 of the characters for the types.; and the 
 illuminating of the books when printed. 
 
 "The afore-mentioned Peter Schoeffer," says 
 the Abbot Trithemius, "being a person of 
 great ingenuity, discovered an easier method 
 of casting letters, and perfected the art as 
 we now have it."* This "easier method" 
 was that of casting metal types complete, 
 instead of cutting the letters on the ends of 
 
 * "Petrus aufcem memoratus Opilio ...homo ingeniosus et 
 prudens, faciliorem modum ftmdendi caracteres excogitavit, 
 et artem ut nunc est complevit." 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 155 
 
 cast blanks ; and in its success, he perfected 
 an invention which formed the climax to the 
 Art of Typography — an invention which has 
 immortalized his name as the last, though 
 not the least, of the associated Three to whom 
 alone belong -the title of the Fathers of the 
 Typographic Art. 
 
 The eloquent author of an article upon 
 Printing in the Encyclopasdia Britannica, 
 writes as follows regarding this invention: — 
 "It is very likely that the combination of 
 character and qualifications of the three men, 
 John Gutenberg, John Faust, and Peter 
 SchoefFer, may afford a good clue not only 
 to the wonderfiil taste and beauty which 
 distinguished the works issued from their 
 press, but also to the general improvement 
 of the art during their connection with it. 
 The ingenuity of Gutenberg (the inventor of 
 the new mode of printing) would readily 
 suggest a novel and expeditious method of 
 manufacturing types;, the practical skill of 
 
156 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Faust as a worker in metals (for the working 
 of gold and silver had at that time attained 
 a most extraordinary nicety and cunning), 
 as well as his large pecuniary resources, 
 would promptly provide the necessary ap- 
 pliances ; while the taste of SchoeflPer, would 
 give all possible grace and missal-like excel- 
 lence to the new forms. For Schoeffer, it 
 should be borne in mind, was a scribe, — one 
 of that ancient and honorable craft whose 
 occupation was destined to fall before the' 
 new art, — a transcriber and perhaps an illu- 
 minator of the manuscript works in use before 
 books; and those who have had the happi- 
 ness of viewing the exquisite specimens of 
 skill which beguiled our ancestors into study 
 and devotion, will readily conceive that 
 SchoefFer's eye was already schooled for the 
 conception, and his hand for the execution, 
 of all the beauty which the trammels of a 
 new art and limited skiU would allow. Aided 
 by his own taste, Schoeffer, it is said, pro- 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 157 
 
 ceeded to a new enterprise — viz. the casting 
 of type. The entire conception and execu- 
 tion of this invention has generally been 
 attributed and allowed to Schoeffer. It seems 
 most probable, however, that where three 
 ingenious men are bound together by art 
 and interest, none of them can lay exclusive 
 claim to any invention or undertaking, exe- 
 cuted in the workshops for the benefit of all. 
 Allowing therefore to Schceffer the honor of 
 having suggested some such plan (as the 
 design of the types to be used) the other 
 two may fairly put in a claim for their portion 
 of the approbation attached to the invention, 
 on the score of their practical suggestions in 
 carrying it out; especially since Faust, as a 
 worker in metals, would have been the party 
 whose function it was to engage the workmen 
 necessary to carry out the particular design." 
 Mr. Mayhew, in his elaborate work upon 
 the Trades and Manufactories of Great Britain 
 says, — "The only evidence as to the origin 
 
158 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 of fusile types appears to shew that Guten- 
 berg, Faust, and Schoeffer, had for some time 
 practised a method of taking casts of types 
 in moulds of plaster.... "We are told, though 
 we know not what is the proof of the asser- 
 tion, that it was Schoeffer, who after the 
 failure of casting types in plaster moulds, 
 suggested the process which still continues 
 in operation. Schoeffer is said, therefore, to 
 have an xmdoubted claim to be considered as 
 one of the three inventors of printing ; for it 
 is asserted (but upon what evidence we have 
 yet to discover) that he first suggested the 
 cutting of punches, whereby not only could 
 the most beautiful form of letter which the 
 taste and skill of the artist could suggest, be 
 truthfully transferred to the matrix, but a 
 degree of sharpness and finish be given to 
 the face which was quite unattainable in type 
 cut in wood ; whilst to the shank of the type 
 the mould would serve to give the nicety of 
 angle requisite to enable any number of such 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 159 
 
 separate letters to be locked up into one 
 solid mass. Add to this, that the punch, 
 being once approved of, could be kept ready 
 to stamp a new matrix with precisely the 
 same form, and with the very same nicety as 
 the first, whenever another might be wanted, 
 and we have a ftdl sense of the benefits 
 which the first inventors of the means of 
 casting fusile types from matrices stamped 
 with punches, conferred upon humanity." 
 
 The writer in the Encyclopaedia Britanni'ca 
 seems to have been unaware of all the known 
 facts of the case, and to have allowed his ima- 
 gination full play when writing upon what 
 he considered its possibilities. Mr. Mayhew, 
 — misunderstanding the statement of Tri- 
 themius about the shapes of the letters being 
 stamped into moulds so as to form matrices, 
 in -vyhich similar shapes were then cast in 
 metal, to be afterwards engraved or cut into 
 letters, — is inclined to be sceptical in 
 regard to Schoefier's claims, although he 
 
160 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 does not venture to deny them. Neither of 
 these writers, nor any other with whose 
 works I am acquainted, has succeeded in 
 tracing, in a satisfactory manner, the steps 
 by which Schoeffer attained to the realization 
 of his idea. It is no doubt difficult to do 
 so in the absence of positive statements by 
 Schoeffer or his contemporaries; but the 
 following considerations, fairly and reason- 
 ably deducible from well established facts, 
 may help to a better understanding of the 
 subject than has hitherto been arrived at. 
 
 That attempts would be repeatedly made 
 to take complete casts of type, and that 
 such attempts led the way to the goal ulti- 
 mately reached, is extremely probable. The 
 labour of continually cutting separate letters 
 as they were required, must have seemed to 
 Schoeffer, a most irksome and unprofi|able 
 toil. Faust was undoubtedly of the same 
 opinion. It would appear from various 
 authorities that Schoeffer looked upon him 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 161 
 
 as his master. Faust certainly was the 
 paymaster to the establishment at the Zum 
 Junghen, and very probably placed Schoef- 
 fer there, not merely as an acquisition on 
 account of his abilities, but as a man whom 
 he could trust* to look after his interests. 
 
 Well aware of the position in which Guten- 
 berg and Faust stood toward each other, in 
 respect to the advances made for completing 
 the costly work they had in hand; and 
 knowing what heavy expenses were incurred, 
 and how much delay* was occasioned by their 
 method of proceeding, Schceffer's mind would 
 be constantly brooding over the possibility 
 
 • "John Schoeffer says, at the conclusion of the Historia 
 Francorum, printed in 1515, that the inventor did indeed 
 commence the art of printing in 1450 ; but did not perfect 
 and bring it to the stage when the use of the press was 
 required until 1452." — vide Wettbe, p. 350. Referring 
 the date 1450 to the original contract with Faust, this 
 statement shews that at least two years, possibly nearly 
 three, were spent in the preparatory arrangements, casting 
 and cutting the letters, &c. before a single page of the Latin 
 Bible was printed. 
 
 u 
 
162 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 of obviating, by some simple process, tbe 
 difficulties which perpetually beset them. 
 Every thing he saw which seemed likely to 
 lead to the attainment of the desired end 
 would be eagerly scrutinised and applied to 
 what might at this time be considered the 
 set purpose of his life. Wealth and fame 
 awaited success; and a desire to rival 
 Gutenberg as an inventor, and the hope of 
 contracting a family alliance with Faust, the 
 influential money-lender, may have acted as 
 spurs to quicken his ambition and animate 
 the resolution that determined his course. 
 
 It is to be remembered that Faust was a 
 member of a family of goldsmiths, and that 
 in their business, punches, dies, and moulds, 
 would be in frequent use. And although 
 the goldsmith's art, as all other arts then 
 were, would be conducted as a mystery, to 
 which none but the regularly initiated had 
 access, SchoefFer, in the opportunities for 
 intimacy with Faust which his position 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 163 
 
 afforded him, could hardly fail, sooner or 
 later, to observe such appliances. These 
 once observed, — and opportunities for obser- 
 vation, in his capacity of illuminator (an 
 art in which gold and silver were sometimes 
 largely used) would not be wanting, especially 
 when eagerly watched and waited for, — he 
 would not rest until he had ascertained the 
 uses to which they were put; and that 
 information gained, the practical application 
 would quickly follow. The punches he needed 
 were ready to his hand. Each letter then 
 in use, made of hard cut metal,* was, in 
 
 * Letters made of copper or tin alone would scarcely be 
 hard enough to use as punches, except for plaster moulds ; 
 but a mixture of metals forming brass, of which several 
 writers say the first cut metal types were made, would 
 answer the purpose, and could be struck into blocks of soft 
 copper or tin without the slightest difBculty. At a pinch, 
 however, Benjamin Franklin has shewn that even with 
 ordinary types, matrices of lead can be made and used with 
 success: "Our printing house," he writes, "often wanted 
 sorts, and there was no letter-foundry in America; I had 
 seen types cast at James's in London, but without much of 
 
164 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 fact, a punch. To strike a matrix in a softer 
 metal, or in clay or plaster, which could he 
 subsequently hardened, and to adapt a mould 
 to cast a type with a shank or body of 
 uniform height and accurately squared, were 
 the two steps that were required. The mould 
 would be his chief difficulty. This he had 
 to devise so that it could be adjusted to the 
 varying widths of the different letters and 
 characters required for a complete fount* of 
 types; and this could scarcely be effected 
 otherwise than by making it in corresponding 
 halves, with a provision for leaving in their 
 centre, when closed together, a small qua- 
 drangular channel or chamber, made of hard 
 
 attention to the manner ; howeyer, I contrived a mould, and 
 made use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the 
 matrices in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable 
 way the deficiencies." 
 
 * The word fount, here used to indicate a complete set of 
 types, was originally /mw^, and signified a casting or found- 
 ing of type. Hence also the terms founder and foundry, 
 derived, like the former, from the L&tin /undo. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 165 
 
 metal, the width of which could be regulated 
 by a slide and screw. The stamped part of 
 the matrix placed at the end of this channel, 
 would form the bottom of the mould; and* 
 when this was fixed, it would be ready for the 
 pouring in of ..the fused metal, which setting 
 almost instantly, a quick and slight opening 
 of the halves of the mould, enabled the 
 operator to shake out the cast type. The 
 type-founder could thus rapidly repeat the 
 process until he had cast as many letters as 
 he required. A little careful trimming and 
 dressing was all that was farther needed on 
 his part before he handed them over to the 
 printer ready for use. No doubt it required 
 much thought, and many experiments, before 
 the mould was finished to the satisfaction 
 of its inventor. But as soon as it was com- 
 pleted, the Type-founder's art commenced. 
 
 From the foregoing considerations it be- 
 comes apparent that as Faust found money to 
 enable Gutenberg fully to realise his ideas as 
 
166 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 to Letter-press printing, so in all likelihood 
 did the business which was the source of 
 Faust's wealth, furnish to Schceffer the clue 
 which enabled him to complete the invention, 
 without which Typography could never have 
 achieved the results that were effected by it 
 with such marvellous rapidity within the 
 lifetime of those by whom it was invented. 
 
 That Schceffer really originated the Type- 
 founder's art is further proved by the account 
 given of him by John Frederick Faust of As- 
 chaffenberg, * who after attributing the origin 
 
 * This Faust, whose ancestors came from Mentz, was 
 a son of the councillor and judge of the imperial tribtmal 
 at Frankfort, who died in 1619. Writing from family 
 papers and traditions, J. F. Faust (inheriting the jealousy 
 against Gutenberg which was engendered by the lawsuit, 
 his opposite politics, and the honours bestowed upon him 
 by the Elector- Archbishop) attributes the origiu of Typo- 
 graphy to Faust of Mentz, but admits that Gutenberg was 
 his assistant. With the exception of this change of persons, 
 the account he gives of the origin of the art accords 
 in its main facts with the statements made by Trithemius, 
 Zell, Wimpheling, Arnold de Bergel, and other early writers 
 
EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 167 
 
 of printing to his relative, Faust of Mentz, and 
 describing the difficulties experienced with 
 the ink in the earlier attempts ; as well as 
 the trouble and delay occasioned by the 
 want of a suitable press to obtain impressions 
 from the separable letters, proceeds as fol- 
 lows: — "He [Faust] had however, some 
 people who actively assisted him in print- 
 ing, composing, making ink, and so forth. 
 Amongst these was a certain Peter Schoef- 
 fer of Gernszheim, who entering into his 
 master's views, and being himself ardently 
 desirous to improve the art, found out, by 
 the good providence of God, the method of 
 
 on the subject. He mentions the block Alphabet and 
 Donatus, and the separate wooden types made by cutting 
 the engraved tablets into single letters, — which were all 
 for a long time preserved in Faust's house at Mentz; 
 where his grandfather Dr. Johan Faust, had seen them. 
 This Dr. Faust also left with the family a written de- 
 scription of these first beginnings of the art. J. F. Faust's 
 account, taken from Wetter, with some remarks by that 
 author, will be found in the Appendix. 
 
168 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 cutting (incidendi) the characters in a matrix, 
 that the letters might easily be singly cast 
 instead of being cut. He privately cut 
 matrices for the whole alphabet; and when 
 he showed his master the letters cast from 
 those matrices, Faust was so pleased with 
 the contrivance, that he promised Peter to 
 give him his only daughter [grand-daughter] 
 Christina in marriage, a promise which was 
 in due time fulfilled. But there were as 
 many difficulties at first with these letters, as 
 there had been before with those of wood; 
 the metal being too soft to support the force 
 of the impression ; but this defect was soon 
 remedied, by mixing the metal with a 
 substance which sufficiently hardened it."* 
 
 * Various metals were used in the manufacture of types. 
 Mr. Blades, at pages xx. and xxiv. of Ms second volume of 
 the Life and Typography of Caxton, gives extracts from the 
 "Cost Book" of the Directors of the Eipoli Press at Flo- 
 rence, 1474-1483, a document still extant in the Magliabechi 
 library at Florence, and printed in the "Notizie Storiche 
 
BAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 169 
 
 This sets the matter at rest, and shews 
 that neither to Gutenberg nor to Faust 
 was SchoefFer indebted for suggestions which 
 in their estimation were likely to lead to so 
 important an invention — the fourth grand 
 step in the laewly - discovered Art, — the 
 method of rapidly casting fac-simile types in 
 fusile metal.* 
 
 sopra la Stamperia di Eipoli, la quali possono servire all' 
 illustrazione della Storia Tipografica Fiorentina. Eaccolta 
 e pubblicate dal P. Vincezio Fineschl. 8to. In Firenze 
 MDCCLXXXi." From this it seems that for the steel required 
 (probably for punches) the price paid per lb. was equiva- 
 lent to 9s. of present current money ; for metal (not otherwise 
 described) 2s. 0|^.; brass, 2s. 3d.; copper, Is. 3d.; tin, 
 Is. 6d.; lead, b^d. ; and iron wire. Is. 6d. 
 
 * Eight great inventions may be enumerated in the 
 history of Typography. These are, first, the block books; 
 second, the separable types; third, the printing-press; 
 fourth, type-founding ; fifth, stereotyping, (taking plaster 
 moulds of whole pages of type, and from them castings in 
 solid metal plates); sixth, composition inking rollers; 
 seventh, cylindrical printing machines, to be worked by 
 steam-power; and eighth, steam type-setting machines. 
 As the four last are of modem date, they do jaot come 
 within the scope of the present work. 
 
 X 
 
170 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Giving then to Schoeffer all the honor to 
 which he is entitled, it may still be asked, 
 Why did he reveal the secret to Faust alone, 
 and not to Gutenberg as well ? — and the 
 answer to this question may possibly throw 
 some light upon the motives which actuated 
 Faust in prosecuting the lawsuit against 
 Gutenberg. SchoeflFer was at the time in a 
 subordinate position in the printing office, 
 and hardly likely to be able to command, 
 from his own resources, sufficient funds to 
 establish himself as a printer on his own 
 accoimt. He would consequently look rather 
 to Faust than to Gutenberg for his reward. 
 In the next place, if, as it is but reasonable 
 to suppose, he had made use of Gutenberg's 
 letters as his punches, (for it is by no means 
 clear that he cut punches for himself, and] he 
 was not, like either Gutenberg or Faust, a 
 worker in metals), he might well expect that 
 Gutenberg would object to the terms he was 
 resolved upon demanding; and moreover. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 171 
 
 resent the use of his letters for the pur- 
 pose to which, without his permission, 
 they had been applied. Such an unautho- 
 rised use of his original invention either 
 was, or might be deemed to be, injurious 
 to Gutenberg f and it is not exactly in 
 accordance with the average standard of 
 human nature for one man who has injured 
 another,* — especially in stealing a march 
 
 * That Gutenberg considered himself an injured man 
 is clear from statements which occur in both J. F. Faust's 
 and Arnold de Bergbl's accounts. The former states 
 that Gutenberg was greatly angered by the lawsuit, and 
 not only refused to be present at the close of the pro- 
 ceedings, but afterwards left Mentz for Strasburg, where 
 he established a printing ofiice of his own. This is not 
 exactly correct ; but as it shews the belief that existed in 
 the Faust family, it is probable that he may have supplied 
 Mentelin, the first printer there, with types and material 
 to commence with. Bergel states, that when the originator 
 of the contract (Faust) began to see some hopes of gain, he 
 raised a discord which led to a rupture: that Gutenberg 
 protested the strife was unjust, but the upshot was a 
 separation, each one trusting to himself and his own press. 
 The following lines shew this, and hint also at the belief 
 that the tribunal before which the lawsuit was tried, was 
 
172 EABLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 upon him in the matter of an important in- 
 vention, — ^to reveal to the party injured what 
 he has been doing detrimental to his interests. 
 Schoeffer at any rate was determined that 
 Gutenberg should be kept in ignorance of 
 his secret. The proceedings of the lawsuit 
 
 under influences adverse to Gutenberg; ttjp old grudge of 
 Burgher versus Noble, still making itself manifest. 
 " Hie dum cemebant raras procedere merces, 
 Sanxerunt dextris foedera pacta suis : 
 Quffi Deus, aut -fortuna dabit, communia sunto, 
 
 j^qualis nostrum sitque laboris onus. 
 Foedera sed lucri raro concordia nutrit, 
 Indiga sunt pacis dissidioque patent. 
 Sit postquam autores qusestus spes cepit habendi, 
 
 ' Ad lites vertunt pectora capta leves. 
 In partes' abeunt, sinceraque pacta resolvunt, 
 
 Et promissa cadunt, irrita fitque fides ; 
 Cuilibet ut propriis serviret pergula prelis, 
 Et sibi multijugas quisque pararet opes. 
 Non tulit injustas mens Gutenbergica rixas, 
 
 Testatur Superos foedera rupta Deos. 
 Caussa fori tandem pavidi defertur ad ora; 
 
 Scribitur ac illis dica nefanda fori. 
 Tempore sed longo res est tractata dicaci 
 Lite, hodie pendet judicis inque sinu." 
 
 Encomion Chalcogra^hm, v.v. 245-263. 
 
shew, that at the time it was pending, 
 Schoeffer was not in any way concerned in 
 the profits or losses attending the business ; — 
 in fact, his name does not, appear in con- 
 nection with it, except as a witness on behalf 
 of Faust. Wh*t more likely then, than that 
 knowing the heavy advances made by Faust, 
 for which no returns had as yet been received, 
 — knowing, too, how changed the aspect of 
 aflPairs would be by the application of his 
 invention, — he insisted upon Faust ousting 
 Gutenberg, as one of the stipulations for 
 the revelation of his secret. Whether it was 
 so or not, it is certain, that after Gutenberg 
 was got rid of, Faiist took Schoeffer into part- 
 nership, placed him in charge of the printing 
 establishment, betrothed him to his grand- 
 daughter, and conjointly with him, imposed an 
 oath of secresy upon all to whom a know- 
 ledge of the new invention was entrusted. 
 
 This view of the case completely meets 
 an objection which has been raised by Mr. 
 
174 EARLY TYPOGKAPHY. 
 
 Ottley. -^"If," says he, "Faust had been 
 brought ^p as a goldsmith, he may reason- 
 ably be supposed to have possessed acquire- 
 ments applicable to the art [printing] which 
 now engaged his attention, and among others, 
 the arts of carving, chiselling, and casting. 
 If we suppose Faust not to have busied 
 himself at all with the various details and 
 processes of the new art, during the above 
 five years' partnership, but that he left the 
 entire direction and management to Gutenberg 
 (as these writers would have us to believe), 
 he inust, one would think, have been but Ul 
 able to do without him, when in 1455, he 
 brought the above action for the recovery 
 of the monies he had advanced; and this 
 objection to their system, appears to me to 
 be worthy of consideration, nay to be almost 
 decisive." 
 
 The objection thus raised so far from being 
 decisive, is not only not so, but it has no solid 
 foundation in fact. Nothing in the law- 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 175 
 
 process shews that Faust had anything what- 
 ever to do with the management and working 
 of the printing establishment. It was entirely 
 in Gutenberg's hands; Faust merely con- 
 tracting with him to find the money to carry 
 it on, (fay wages, Sfc), for which he was to 
 receive usury at the rate of 6 per cent, and, 
 in addition, a share of the profits, whatever 
 they might ultimately be. As a partner, he 
 would have to bear his share of the losses, 
 as well as to be a participator in the gains 
 of the undertaking; but against the contin- 
 gency of loss he took good care to guard 
 himself. It is evident therefore, that to have 
 foreclosed his mortgage over the materials 
 before he was in a position to entrust them 
 to some one who could work them to his 
 advantage, would have been an act of folly 
 which he was far too shrewd a man of 
 business to commit. But as soon as Schoefier 
 revealed his invention, and stipulated his terms, 
 all objections to a foreclosure were removed. 
 
176 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 The money was demanded; the action 
 brought ; and we have seen with what results. 
 
 But whatever were the motives which 
 actuated either Faust or Schoeffer in their 
 treatment of Gutenberg, the immediate effect 
 of Schoeffer's invention would be, to cheapen 
 and facilitate the production of types, as much 
 as, if not more than, the effect of the ori- 
 ginal invention by Gutenberg in cheapening 
 and facilitating the multiplication of copies 
 of works previously only attainable in manu- 
 script. Printing was thus rendered at once, 
 what it was scarcely possible to have been 
 before, a profitable, if not a highly remu- 
 nerative pursuit. But with the success which 
 resulted from Schoeffer's invention, came the 
 downfall of the venerable GuUd of "Writers; 
 and the ancient copyists laid down their 
 pens in despair, intuitively feeling that thence- 
 forth the occupation of the scribe was gone. 
 
 Disastrous as was the lawsuit with Faust, 
 it was not so utterly ruinous in its results 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 177 
 
 to Gutenberg as most writers have supposed. 
 In the first place, Faust had, at the outset, 
 security for his advances. Gutenberg had 
 exhausted his own means in perfecting the 
 art before he sought assistance, and Faust 
 was not the man to lend him money without 
 having money's worth to guard against loss ; 
 secondly, the advances were for a specific 
 object, — for the joint advantage of both, — 
 but that object was likewise pledged to Faust 
 as a collateral secmrity ; and had been 
 partially, if not wholly accomplished, before 
 Faust made his demand. 
 
 In the lawsuit, it was to Faust's claim for 
 interest that Gutenberg principally demurred, 
 his plea being, that although the letter of 
 the agreement between them might justify 
 the claim, Faust had verbally promised not to 
 press it The magistrates however decided 
 according to the terms of the agreement, and 
 their judgment was not inequitable. They 
 ordered an account to be rendered of all 
 
178 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 moneys spent and received in connection with 
 the work which was undertaken for the joint 
 advantage of the litigants ; Gutenberg to be 
 credited with what was fairly his due, and 
 Faust to be repaid the principal and interest 
 to which he was entitled. 
 
 Now it by no means follows that the whole 
 of the types, presses, and plant of the print- 
 ing establishment at the Zum Junghen was 
 absorbed in the discharge of Faust's claim. 
 Doubtless it was no small share that went 
 for that purpose, including as it did all that 
 was printed of the folio Bible of 637 leaves, — 
 sufficient of itself, supposing the edition did 
 not exceed two hundred copies, to meet a large 
 proportion of the debt. The rupture, although 
 it broke up the establishment, left Gutenberg 
 with men and materials still at command. 
 Faust, as we have seen, removed the stock 
 that had been made over to him to his pre- 
 mises in the Schuster Gasse; and Gutenberg 
 went with the remainder to his dwelling at 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 179 
 
 the Zum Gutenberg, where he opened a 
 'printing house' on his own account.* 
 
 Gutenberg's position in Mentz was cer- 
 tainly one of influence, if not of wealth. It 
 is highly probable that at this time Dr. 
 Conrad Honjery,f the syndic of the city, 
 advanced him funds for the replenishment 
 of his stock of materials, since they were 
 claimed by, and made over to him, on Guten- 
 berg's death. With or without such aid he 
 
 * The division of the plant seems to have been made 
 with judicial fairness. A portion of the original imple- 
 ments or utensils were assigned to Faust, and according 
 to the testimony of J. F. Faust of Aschaffenberg, they 
 remained for a length of time in the possession of the 
 family (see note, p. 167). Bergel, or Bergellanus, who 
 published his Encomion ChalcograpMm in 1541, and was for 
 fifteen years a corrector of the press in a printing es- 
 tablishinent at Mentz, states, in the Dedication of his work 
 to the Archbishop Albert of Brandenberg, that "several 
 very old instruments were seen by him at Mentz, which 
 the citizens informed him had been used by Gutenberg in 
 the art;" from which it may be inferred, that they were 
 either preserved among the muniments of the city, or by 
 some of Gutenberg's family connections. 
 
 j Also spelt Hombracht, and Hoemborch. 
 
180 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 was speedily at work again, and palseo- 
 typographists have recognised the products 
 of his press in the "Tractatus de celebratione 
 Missarum;" the "Hermani de Saldis Spe- 
 culum Sacerdoti ;" a treatise in the German 
 language on Councils; the "Dyalogus inter 
 Hugonem Cathonem et Oliverivim super 
 Libertate Ecclesiastica," and a Kalendar or 
 Almanack for the year 1460, consisting of 
 a few leaves in 4to. printed in characters 
 resembling those used ini the first of the 
 above-named works. A sheet Almanack for 
 1457, the first printed with a date, has also 
 been attributed to him. Independently of 
 the special value of this document as a 
 relic of early printing, it proves that in 
 the neighbourhood of Mentz the year then 
 commenced with the month of January, 
 according to the Roman system, and not at 
 Easter as was the case in France and other 
 countries, or at Christmas as in some other 
 places. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 181 
 
 Strange to say Gutenberg attached his 
 name to none of his works. It has been 
 suggested that this was owing to his patrician 
 pride. Whether so or not he was well known 
 to his contemporaries both as a printer, and 
 the inventor of Printing. 
 
 The Typographer Philip de Lignamines, 
 in his "History of the Pontiffs" printed at 
 Rome in 1474, •■writing of the events of the 
 year 1458 — three years after the lawsuit, says 
 — "Jean Gutenberg of Strasburg, and an- 
 other, named Fust, skilful in the art of 
 printing with characters of metal, on parch- 
 ment, each print three hundred sheets per day 
 at Mentz," And in a document preserved 
 in the Library of the Arsenal at Paris, it is 
 stated, that on "the 3rd October, 1458, the 
 King (Charles V), having learnt that Messire 
 Gutenberg, chevalier, residing at Mentz, in 
 Germany, a man dexterous in the engraving 
 of letters and punches, had brought to light 
 the invention of printing by m'eans of such 
 
182 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 characters ; and being curious concerning 
 such valuable knowledge, the King ordered the 
 masters of his Mint to name to him persons 
 well skilled in such kind of engraving, that he 
 might despatch them to the aforesaid place, 
 in order secretly to inform themselves of the 
 said invention, and to understand, conceive, 
 and learn the art, &c." Whereupon, it was 
 directed that Nicholas Jenson, an expert 
 engraver, should be forthwith despatched to 
 Mentz, to learn the art in question, for the 
 purpose of introducing it to Paris. 
 
 It is believed by some writers, that Guten- 
 berg continued to the end of his career as a 
 Typographer to print with cut metal types. 
 Oaths of secresy were imposed by Faust 
 and Schoeffer upon all whom they employed, 
 by which means they hoped to secure the 
 knowledge of the art of type - founding to 
 themselves. But in the year 1462, when 
 Mentz was sacked by the troops of the 
 Elector- Archbishop, Count Adolphus of Nas- 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 183 
 
 sau, their workmen were dispersed, and the 
 arts of printing and type-founding were 
 generally made known all over Europe. 
 Gutenberg however must have seen at once, 
 upon an examination of the works that were 
 issued from Faust and Schoeffer's establish- 
 ment, that they were producing types in some 
 
 extraordinarily rapid manner; and acute as 
 
 I 
 
 he was, it is not likely that he would remain 
 long in ignorance of the method adopted. 
 There were no doubt intimacies among the 
 workmen of the rival establishments, who 
 had at first worked all together; and among 
 whom the secret would sooner or later ooze 
 out. The science of Johann Nummeister, 
 (whose name occurs in a document associated 
 with that of Gutenberg), may also have 
 been especially called in to assist in a 
 competing method of type-founding. Certain 
 it is, that two or three years before 1462, 
 Albrecht Pfister, and the brothers Henry and 
 Nicholas Bechtermuntze, with Wyngardum 
 
184 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Spyes de Otherberg, printed works with types 
 so evidently the same as those cut by Guten- 
 berg, that they have not unfrequently been 
 attributed to his press. Various suppositions 
 have been made, to account for »this, but no 
 one appears to have thought of that which 
 seems to be the most obvious ; namely, that 
 sets of matrices or types were sold by 
 Gutenberg to these early printers, who with 
 Keffer and Sensenschmidt and others, were 
 taught the art at his establishment. Where 
 suppositions must be resorted to in order to 
 account for facts, those which are the most 
 natural ought surely to be chosen in pre- 
 ference to others which are less or least so. 
 About the year 1800, some interesting 
 documents relating to Gutenberg and his 
 family were said to have been discovered by 
 M. Bodman the archivist of Mentz, The fol- 
 lowing, — ^the seals to which were copied by 
 Fischer in his " Essai sur le Monmnens Typo- 
 graphiques de Jean Gutenberg," is entitled: — 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 185 
 
 " Agreement between Gutenberg and his 
 brothers, &c., and the Nuns of the Convent 
 of St. Clair, at Mentz, a.d. 1459. 
 
 "We, Henne (John) Genszfleisch of 
 Sulgeloch, called Gudinberg, and Friele 
 Genszfleisch, brothers, affirm and publicly 
 declare by these presents, and make known 
 to all, that with the counsel and consent of 
 our dear cousins Johann and Friele and 
 Pedirmann Genszfleisch, brothers in Mentz, 
 we have renounced and do renounce by these 
 presents, for us and our heirs, singly, together 
 and at once, without fraud or reserve, all the. 
 property that has passed by our sister Hebele 
 to the Convent of St. Clair at Mentz, in which 
 she has become a nun ; whether the said 
 property has been received by her on the part 
 of our father Henne Genszfleisch, or been 
 given by himself, or in whatsoever other 
 manner, whether in grain, money, furniture, 
 jewelry, or of wha;tever kind it may be, which 
 the respectable nuns, the Abbess and sisters 
 
186 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 of the said convent have received, whether 
 as a body or individually, or which other 
 persons of the convent may have received 
 from the said Hebele, be it great or small; 
 and we have promised and do promise by 
 these presents, in good faith for us and our 
 heirs, that neither we nor any person on our 
 part, nor our aboVe named cousins nor their 
 heirs, nor any person on their part, shall 
 demand back or I'eclaim from the said convent, 
 or from the Abbess, or from the convent as 
 a body, or from any persons who reside there 
 individually, the said property, be it what it 
 may, either in whole or in part, and that we 
 will never demand it back, whether by the 
 ecclesiastical or civil judge, or without the 
 assistance of the judge, and that neither we 
 nor our heirs, will ever molest the said 
 convent by word or deed, either secretly or 
 publicly, in any matter whatever. And, with 
 respect to the books which I, the above named 
 Henne, have given to the library of the 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 187 
 
 convent, they are to remain there always, and 
 in perpetuity, and I the above-named Henne, 
 purpose to give also, and without fraud, to 
 the said convent for its library, for the use 
 of the nuns present and future, for their 
 religious services, whether in reading or 
 singing, or in whatever manner they may 
 please to make use of them, according to the 
 rules of their order, the books which I, the 
 above-named Henne, have already printed 
 up to the present hour, or that I may print 
 in future, so far as they shall be pleased to 
 make use of them; and in consideration of 
 this, the above-mentioned Abbess and the 
 nuns of the said convent of St. Clair, have for 
 themselves and their successors, declared and 
 promised, that they wiU absolve me and my 
 heirs from the claim which my sister Hebele 
 had to 60 florins, which I and my brother 
 Friele had promised to pay and deliver to the 
 said Hebele as her dower, and as the share, 
 coming from the estate of Henne our father. 
 
188 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 which he assigned to her as her portion, in 
 virtue of a certain instrument drawn up for 
 that purpose, without fraud or deceit. And 
 in order that this (agreement) may be held 
 firmly and ftiUy binding by us and by our 
 heirs, we have given to the said nuns, and 
 to their convent and order, the present letters 
 sealed with our seals. Signed and delivered, 
 the year of the birth of J. C. 1459, on the 
 day of St. Margaret." (July 20). 
 
 To this document four seals were attached 
 inscribed — S: hans genszfleisch vo Sorgeloch 
 
 S:friele genszfleisch vo loch 
 
 S: hen sch vo Sulgeloch , 
 
 frile genszfleisch. 
 
 Contradicting, as this agreement does, the 
 views held by Mr. Ottley, he says, "I con- 
 fess I have great doubts of its genuineness, 
 though perhaps they are ill-founded." M. 
 Ph. Berjeau,* in his introduction to Mr. 
 
 * Author of "Speculum Humanse Salvationis. Le plus 
 
EAKLY TYPOGKAPHY. 189 
 
 Ottley's work asserts that it is a forgery ; 
 and on the authority of M. de Laborde says, 
 "that Bodman, the Archivist of Mentz, 
 bothered by Oberlin, Fischer, and all the 
 bibliographers of his time, who wanted him 
 to discover sf)me new information about 
 Gutenberg, thought it worth his while to 
 forge two documents, which just helped 
 them to fiU the two gaps which occur in 
 his history, one from 1420 to 1430, the other 
 from 1455 to 1460." The other document 
 referred to by M. de Laborde is that already 
 given in the note on pages 71 and 72. 
 
 But it has already been shewn from con- 
 temporary authorities in Italy and France, 
 that Gutenberg was known in those countries 
 to be still printing at Mentz in 1458. The 
 motive imputed to M. Bodman as an induce- 
 ment to the criminal act charged against 
 
 ancien Monument de la Xylographie et de la Typographie 
 reunis reproduits en fac-simile, avec Introduction Historique 
 et Bibliographique. Londres, 1861. fol. 
 
190 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 him by MM. Laborde and Berjeau, cannot 
 therefore be correct. Writers on both sides, 
 in their eagerness to confute their opponents, 
 are much too apt to cry out "forgery!" 
 when documents are quoted which are fatal 
 to their pre-conceived views. There is how- 
 ever one point in this agreement which needs 
 explanation. 
 
 A certain Henne (John) Gensefleisch is 
 referred to as the father of the brothers John 
 and Friele. But it is well known that their 
 father's name was Frielo, and not Henne. 
 How then is this discrepancy to be accounted 
 for? Even supposing that M. Bodman was 
 tempted to forge a document like the one in 
 question, he would surely not have so worded 
 it that it should bear upon its face the proof 
 of its falsity. The property to which Hebele 
 the nun was entitled, and the reclamation 
 of which the two brothers and the three 
 cousins renounced, must have been a portion 
 of the ancestral patrimony, to a share of 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 191 
 
 which each member of the family had a well 
 defined claim. Now their common ancestor 
 was a certain Henne Gensefleisch, whose son 
 Frielo was Rathsherr or councillor of Mentz 
 in the year 1332, and played a very prominent 
 part when the great rising of the guUds against 
 the patricians took place in that year. The 
 preservation of the patrimony of a family 
 being an object in which all its members 
 were interested, no portion could be alienated 
 without the consent of all concerned. This 
 frequently led to the female members of a 
 family being placed in convents, for which 
 provision might be made in the original 
 entailment of the property. It also limited 
 marriages among the males ; since forfeiture of 
 his share of the patrimony was one of the pe- 
 nalties inflicted upon any who married without 
 the family consent. There does not therefore 
 appear to be any solid reason for rejecting 
 the document as spurious. Moreover, in a 
 copy of the " Tractatus de celebratione 
 
192 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Missarum," originally in the library of the 
 Chartreiix of Mentz, and afterwards in the city 
 library, M. Fischer the curator discovered 
 the following memorandum in Latin : — " The 
 Chartreux of ^entz possesses this book 
 through the liberality of Johann called Guten- 
 berg, the production of his art, and the science 
 of Johann Nummeister, completed (confecta) 
 on the 19th of the kalendar of July in the 
 year 1463." So that it is plain that Guten- 
 berg was printing in that year; and this 
 memorandum further proves, that he made 
 presents of his works to the ecclesiastical 
 establishments of the city ; a fact which 
 confirms, in that respect at least, the authen- 
 ticity of the previously cited agreement. 
 
 In 1465, the Elector Adolph appointed 
 Gutenberg a gentleman of his Court; and 
 by a public decree, dated the 18th January, 
 bestowed upon him an annual grant of 
 twenty "malters" of corn, two barrels of 
 wine for his household ; and an official court 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 193 
 
 suit; the honor was thus by no means 
 an empty one. He did not however long 
 enjoy it. After an active and eventful life, 
 he died in the year 1468.* The exact date 
 of his decease is not recorded, nor are there 
 any particular* known of the circumstances 
 attending ihis death. But that he was in 
 possession of a printing office up to the very 
 last, is proved beyond doubt by the following 
 acknowledgment of the receipt of the materials 
 by the Syndic Homery. 
 
 "I, Conrad Homery, doctor, make known 
 by this letter that his Highness my gracious 
 and well-beloved Prince Adolph, Archbishop 
 of Mayence, has graciously caused to be 
 delivered to me the 'forms,' characters, tools, 
 and other objects relating to printing, which 
 
 * Authorities differ in respect to Gutenberg's age, the 
 year of his birth not having been precisely ascertained. It 
 is broadly stated by Wbttee, that he was bom between the 
 years 1393 and 1400. He must therefore have been at least 
 68 years of age, and he may have been 75, at the time of his 
 
 death. 
 
 2 a 
 
194 EARLY TTPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Johann Gutenberg left at his death, and 
 which belonged to me, and belong to me still ; 
 but for the honor and for the pleasure of his 
 Highness, I have bound myself, and am so 
 bound by this letter, never to use them in 
 any other place than in Mayence ; and more- 
 over, only to sell them, in preference, to a 
 citizen of this place, who shall offer an equal 
 price with any other. In faith of which de- 
 claration, I have appended my seal to this 
 present. Given in the year 1468, the Fri- 
 day after the festival of St. Matthew (26th 
 February.)" 
 
 Thus ended the life of John Gutenberg ; 
 the first maker of separable metal Types; 
 the inventor of the Letter Peess; the 
 Founder of the Typographic Art. 
 
 His remains were interred at the church 
 in the convent of the Franciscans near the 
 house Zum Junghen, where, not long after, 
 one of his kinsmen erected a tablet, the in- 
 scription on which ran as follows: — 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 195 
 
 D. 0. M. S. 
 
 lOANNI GENSZFLEISCH 
 
 ARTIS IMPEESSORIE REPERTORI 
 
 DE OMNI NATIONE ET LINGUA OPTIME MERITO 
 
 IN NOMINIS SUI MEMORIAM IMMORTALEM 
 
 adIm GELTHUS POSUIT. 
 
 OSSA EJUS IN ECCLESIA D. FRANCISCI 
 
 MOGUNTINA FELICITER CUBANT. 
 
 About forty years later, another tablet was set 
 up at the house Zum Gutenberg, in the inner 
 court of the College of Lawyers, by Ives of 
 "Witigen or Venza, doctor of laws, and 
 professor of that University, on which was 
 the following inscription : — 
 
 JO. GUTENBEEGENSI MOGUNTINO 
 
 QUI PRIMUS OMNIUM LITERAS AEEE 
 
 IMPRIMENDAS INVENIT, 
 
 HAC ARTE DE ORBE TOTO BENE MEEENTI 
 
 IVO WITIGISIS HOC SAXUM 
 
 PEG MONUMENTO POSUIT M.D.VIII. 
 
196 EARLY TYPOGKAPHY. 
 
 The learned Wimpheling, his contemporary, 
 also commemorated his memory in the fol- 
 lowing eloquent epigram : — 
 
 "Foelix Ansicare, per te Germania foelix, 
 Annibns in terris proamia laudis habet. 
 
 Urb^ Mognntina, divino Mte Joannes 
 Ingenio, primus imprimis aere notas. 
 
 Multum relligio, multnm tibi Grseca Sophia 
 Et multum debet lingua Latiaa tibi."* 
 
 The study of the life of such a man, who 
 in his own person embodied, in a pre-eminent 
 degree, the leading characteristics of the 
 Teutonic race — Sense of Duty, Courage, Di- 
 ligence, and Perseverance, — so ably portrayed 
 by Professor Max Miiller in his oration at the 
 German Festival on the 1st of May 1871 ; 
 is one of deep and abiding interest. His 
 sense of duty to his convictions was mani- 
 fested in his boundless faith in the ultimate 
 success of his inventions ; his courage was 
 dauntless, — no difficulties could deter him from 
 
EAKLY TYPOGKAPHY. 197 
 
 following the path he was resolved upon 
 pursuing ; his diligence was unwearied ; his 
 perseverance indomitable. In spite of nume- 
 rous failures, or what seemed such to men 
 less hopeful than himself, he constantly 
 attracted new -friends and supporters, as old 
 ones fell away. Losses, lawsuits and ingrati- 
 tude dogged each step of his career ; but he 
 triumphed over every difficulty ; saw the Art 
 he had invented become the means of bringing 
 fortunes to men who had at different times 
 been his associates and opponents ; and died 
 esteemed and honored by the sovereign of his 
 native city. Well did he realize the truth 
 of the inspired proverb of the Royal Hebrew 
 sage, — " Seest thou a man diligent in his 
 business, he shall stand before kings ; he shall 
 not stand before mean men." 
 
 Great and noble by nature, his fame as 
 an original inventor has always stood deser- 
 vedlyJ high; but should the hypothesis of 
 Mr. Holt be established as a fact by the 
 
198 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 production of further evidence, his fame hence- 
 forth will stand much higher than it has 
 hitherto done. The genius with which he 
 was gifted will, in such case, prove to be of 
 the same order as that which first led to the 
 representation in visible symbols of the sound 
 of spoken thoughts ; and the pinnacle of glory 
 on which the memory of his name is raised for 
 the admiration of posterity must be elevated to 
 the same level as that of the yet unknown but 
 divinely inspired originator of the immortal 
 art of writing. 
 
 Not less interesting than the study of the 
 life of Gutenberg, is the contemplation of 
 the effects which the Art he invented almost 
 immediately produced. These can scarcely 
 be more eloquently or succinctly stated, than 
 in the words of the distinguished historian 
 Sir Edward S. Creasy, Chief Justice of 
 Ceylon, After speaking of the excitement 
 occasioned throughout Europe by the mari- 
 time discoveries of the Portuguese, and 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 199 
 
 other causes of intellectual movements in 
 the Fifteenth century, he adds: — "Still more 
 strongly was the advancement of intellectual 
 activity aided during the last half of the 
 fifteenth century, by the discovery and rapid 
 progress of the art of printing. The power 
 of swiftly and cheaply multiplying copies of a 
 book, in a more conveniently transmissible, 
 and a more easily legible form, than that of 
 the best manuscript, gave now to an author 
 an increase of mental and moral authority 
 over his fellow men, somewhat resembling the 
 increase in importance, and the extension of 
 operations, which the steam engine has in our 
 age given to invention in mechanics and 
 manufactures. The circulation of printed 
 books created hosts of readers, who otherwise 
 would have remained ignorant of any kind of 
 literature, ancient or modern. It gave an 
 immeasurable increase to the weight of public 
 opinion. It stimulated discovery. It pro- 
 moted discussion. It made the suppression 
 
200 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 of opinion difficult, and generally impossible. 
 It shook to the very base every institution 
 that was founded on fraud, or upheld by 
 unjust force. It gave also weapons to those 
 who seek violent changes merely from the 
 love of innovation and violence. Amone the 
 numerous causes which co-operated in giving 
 European history the altered character which 
 we discover in it during and after the close 
 of the fifteenth century, none have been more 
 operative than the invention of moveable 
 types."* [combined, we take the liberty of 
 adding, with the invention of the printing 
 press.] 
 
 History of England, vol. ii. pp. 526-7. 
 
^Hh i'M^^^H' 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 The claims of Costek and Haaelbm consideeed, as 
 
 OPPOSED TO THOSE OP GUTENBEEG AND MeNTZ. — 
 
 Claims based upon tradition. — ^No contbmpoeary 
 
 AUTHORITIES IN THEIE FAVOE. — ^ABUNDANCE OF SUCH 
 TESTIMONY IN FAVOE OF GrUTENBEEG AND MBNTZ. 
 
 — Peobable oeigin op teadition. — Block books. 
 
 — Speculum Humane Salvationis. — Evidence of 
 THE Types: wood oe metal, cut oe cast? — 
 
 — Books "jettez en molle." — ^Age of the Papee. 
 
 — Date of Costume. — Feateenity of Beetheen 
 AND Cleeks of the Common Life. 
 
 Clear and convincing as the evidence 
 appears to be, that the Art of Typography 
 originated in Germany, and that the honor 
 claimed for Gutenberg as its inventor is 
 rightly his ; both positions are stoutly con- 
 
 2b 
 
202 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 tested by the Dutch, who assert that the Art 
 originated at Haarlem, and was the invention 
 of one Laurence Janssoen, the Coster or 
 Sacristan of the great church of that city, 
 who according to some of their writers, was 
 not only the first engraver of block-books, 
 and cutter of separable letters, but also the 
 first who cast fusile metal types. It is neces- 
 sary therefore, before proceeding further, to 
 examine the grounds upon which these asser- 
 tions are based, and to ascertain what amount 
 of truth they contain. 
 
 The claim on behalf of Haarlem was first 
 made by Jan Van Zuyren, {b. 1517; d. 1591), 
 between the years 1549 and 1561, — (upwards 
 of a century, at least, after the appearance of 
 the first printed book in Germany), — in "A 
 Dialogue on the first Invention of the Art 
 of Typography," of which only a part of the 
 Dedicatory Preface remains. In this fragment, 
 i-eprinted by Scriverius, the writer says : — 
 
 "It is from the love of my country alone. 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 203 
 
 that I undertake this work, and that I insti- 
 tute further inquiries upon the subject of it; 
 as I cannot consent that our claims to a 
 portion of this glory ; — claims which are even 
 at this day fresh in the remembrance of 
 our fathers, to» whom, so to express myself, 
 they have been transmitted from hand to 
 hand from their ancestors, should be effaced 
 from the memory of men, and be buried in 
 eternal oblivion; claims of which it is our 
 duty to preserve the memorial, for the benefit 
 of our latest posterity. 
 
 " The city of Mentz, without doubt, merits 
 great praise, for having been the first to 
 produce and publish to the world in a becom- 
 ing garb, an invention which she had received 
 from us; for having perfected and embel- 
 lished an art as yet rude and unformed. Who 
 indeed, (although it be less difficult to add to 
 an invention already made, than to originate 
 a new one) would withhold the praises and 
 honor due to a city, to which all the world 
 
204 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 considers itself in a particular manner in- 
 debted for so great a benefit? 
 
 "For the rest, excellent Sir, you may 
 consider it as certain that the foundations 
 of this splendid art were laid in our city of 
 Haarlem, rudely, indeed, but still the first. 
 Here (be it understood without offence to 
 the people of Mentz) the art of Typography 
 was born and saw the light, with all her 
 members formed, so that she might hereafter 
 increase in strength and stature. Here, she 
 for a long time received the treatment and 
 the cares, which it is customary to use to- 
 wards tender infancy, and for a long series 
 of years was confined within the walls of a 
 private dwelling house, which, though some- 
 what dilapidated, is still standing; but which 
 has long since been despoiled of its precious 
 contents. The art of printing, indeed, was 
 here brought up, nourished, and maintained 
 at small expense, and with too great parsi- 
 mony ; until at length, despising the poor and 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 205 
 
 confined appearance of her humble abode, she 
 became the companion of a certain stranger, 
 and leaving behind her native meanness, 
 shewed herself publicly at Mentz, where after 
 having become enriched, she in a short time 
 rose to eminence."* 
 
 Theodore Volckart Coornhert, an engraver, 
 having in company with Van Zuyren estab- 
 lished a printing ofiice in Haarlem, published 
 on the year 1561, a Dutch translation of 
 Cicero's Offices. In the Dedication of this 
 work to the Burgomasters, Judges, and Sena- 
 tors of the city, he writes : — 
 
 " Most honorable and revered Sirs ; it has 
 often been related to me, bon^ fide, that the 
 most useful art of Typography was originally 
 invented in our city of Haarlem, although in a 
 somewhat rude manner; for it is easier to 
 perfect by degrees an art already discovered. 
 
 * SchriJTer, P. Laurecrans voor Laurens Coster. Har- 
 lem, 1628. 4to. 
 
206 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 than to invent a new one. This art, having 
 been afterwards carried to Mentz by an un- 
 faithful servant, was there perfected, and as it 
 was also first promulgated there, that city has 
 so generally acquired the reputation of having 
 first invented it, that our citizens can obtain 
 but little credence, when they assert them- 
 selves to have been the real inventors ; a fact 
 generally believed by the greater number of 
 them, and especially considered as undoubted 
 by our most ancient citizens. I am aware, that 
 in consequence of the blameable neglect of 
 our ancestors, the common opinion that this 
 art was invented at Mentz, is now so firmly 
 established, that it is in vain to hope to change 
 it, even by the best evidence, and the most 
 irrefragable >proof. But truth does not cease 
 to be truth, because it is known only to a few ; 
 and I for my part, believe this to be most 
 certain; convinced as I am, by the faithful 
 testimonies of men, alike respectable from 
 their age and authority; who not only have 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 207 
 
 often told me of the family of the inventor, 
 and of his name and surname ; but have even 
 described to me the rude manner of printing 
 first used, and pointed out to me with their 
 fingers the abode of the first printer. And 
 therefore, not ^because I am jealous of the 
 glory of others, but because I love truth, and 
 desire to pay that tribute to the honor of our 
 city which is justly her due, I have thought 
 it incumbent upon me to mention these 
 things." 
 
 In 1567, Ludovico Guicciardini printed at 
 Antwerp, a description of the Low Countries. 
 The work was in Italian, and writing of 
 Haarlem, he says: — 
 
 "According to the common tradition of the 
 inhabitants, and the assertion of the other 
 natives of Holland, as well as the testimony 
 of certain authors and other records, it ap- 
 pears that the art of printing and stamping 
 letters and characters on paper, in the manner 
 now used, was first invented in this place. 
 
208 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 But the author of the invention happening 
 to die, before the art was brought to perfection 
 and had acquired repute, his servant, they say, 
 went to reside at Mentz ; where, giving proof 
 of his knowledge in that science, he was 
 joyfully received; and where, he having 
 applied himself to the business with unre- 
 mitting diligence, it was brought to entire 
 perfection, and became at length generally 
 known, in consequence of which, the fame 
 afterwards spread abroad and became general, 
 that the art and science of printing originated 
 in that city. What the truth really is, I am 
 not able, nor will I take upon me, to decide ; 
 it sufficing me to have said these few words, 
 that I might not be guilty of injustice to this 
 town and country." 
 
 Eytzinger, in his work on the topography 
 of the Low Countries, printed in 1583, and 
 Braunius of Cologne, in his Civitates Orbis 
 Terrarum, printed in 1570 — 1588, assign to 
 Haarlem the origin of the art. These authors 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 209 
 
 had before them the statement already quoted 
 from Coornhert, as well as that of Ulric 
 Zell, which says that Block -book Donatuses 
 were originally printed in Holland; and they 
 assume that to be a fact which Guicciardini 
 will go no ftirther than to repeat as a tra- 
 dition, for the truthfulness of which he will 
 not vouch. 
 
 We now come to the account given by 
 Hadrian Junius,* in his work entitled Batavia, 
 printed in 1588, thirteen years after his death. 
 
 * Hadrian Junius was born at Hoorn, in 1511, and is 
 said to have been educated at a classical school of repute 
 at Haarlem. He also studied at Louvain. He soon shewed 
 himself a person of ability; and having embraced the 
 medical profession, was appointed physician to the Duke 
 of Norfolk, and afterwards to the King of Denmark. He 
 is said to have taken up his abode in Haarlem in 1560, 
 and to have resided there till 1572, when he quitted the 
 city on account of the siege that then took place. Ac- 
 cording to Lypsius, he was the most learned man in 
 Holland after Erasmus. His work Batavia was commenced 
 late in life, and completed in January, 1575. His death 
 took place at Middleburg, on the 16th June of the same 
 
 year. 
 
 ^ 2 C 
 
210 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 This account* is supposed, from the context, 
 to have been written in the year 1568, a,nd 
 in it the name of Coster appears for the 
 first time. 
 
 " About a hundred and twenty eight years 
 ago," he says, " Laurentius Janssoen Coster 
 inhabited a decent and fashionable house in 
 the city of Haarlem, situated in the market 
 place opposite the royal palace. The name of 
 Coster was assumed, and inherited from his 
 ancestors, who had long enjoyed the honorable 
 and lucrative office of Coster or Sexton to the 
 church. This man deserves to be restored 
 to the honor of being the first inventor of 
 printing, of which he has been unjustly 
 deprived by others, who have enjoyed the 
 praises due to him alone. As he was walking 
 in the wood contiguous to the city, which was 
 the general custom of the richer citizens and 
 men of leisure, in the afternoon and on holi- 
 
 * The original will be found in the Appendix. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 211 
 
 days, he began at first to cut some letters upon 
 the rind of a beech tree ; which for fancy's 
 sake, being impressed on paper, he printed 
 one or two lines as a specimen for his grand- 
 children (the sons of his daughter) to follow. 
 This having happily succeeded, he meditated 
 greater things (as he was a man of ingenuity 
 and judgment) ; and first of all with his son- 
 in-law Thomas Peter (who by the way left 
 three sons, who all attained the consular 
 dignity), invented a more glutinous writing 
 ink, because he found the common ink sunk 
 and spread ; and then formed whole pages of 
 wood, with letters cut upon them; — of which 
 sort I have seen some essays in an anonymous 
 work, printed only on one side, entitled 
 Speculum nostrce salutis: in which it is re- 
 markable, that in the infancy of printing 
 (as nothing is complete at its first 
 invention), the back sides of the pages 
 were pasted together, that they might not 
 by their nakedness betray their deformity. — 
 
212 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 These beechen letters he afterwards changed 
 for leaden ones, and these again for a mix- 
 ture of tin and lead, as a less flexible and 
 more solid and durable substance. Of the 
 remains of which types, when they were 
 turned to waste metal, those old wine -pots 
 were cast, that are still preserved in the 
 family house which looks into the market- 
 place, inhabited afterwards by his great- 
 grandson Gerard Thomas, a gentleman of 
 reputation, whom I mention for the honor of 
 the family, and who died a few years since. 
 A new invention never fails to engage curio- 
 sity. And when a commodity never before 
 seen excited purchasers, to the advantage of 
 the inventor, the admiration of the art 
 increased, dependents were enlarged, and 
 workmen multiplied ; the first calamitous 
 incident ! Among these was one John. Whe- 
 ther, as we suspect, he had ominously the name 
 of Faustus — unfaithful and unlucky to his 
 master, — or whether he was really a person 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 213 
 
 of that name, I shall not much inquire ; 
 being vmwilling to molest the silent shades, 
 who suffer from a consciousness of their past 
 actions in this life. This man, bound by 
 oath to keep the secret of printing, when he 
 thought he ^ad learned the art of joining 
 the letters, the method of casting the types, 
 and other things of that nature, taking the 
 most convenient time that was possible, on 
 Christmas eve, when every one was custom- 
 arily employed in lustral sacrifices, seizes 
 the collection of types, and all the implements 
 his master had got together, and, with one 
 accomplice, marches off to Amsterdam, thence 
 to Cologne, and at last settled at Mentz, as 
 at an asylum of security, where he might 
 go to work with the tools he had stolen. It 
 is certain that in a year's time, viz. in 1442, 
 the Doctrinale of Alexander Gallus, which 
 was a grammar much used at that time, 
 together with the Tracts of Peter of Spain, 
 came forth there, from the same types as 
 
2U EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 
 
 Laurentius had made use of at Haarlem. 
 These were the first products of his press. 
 These are the principal circumstances that 
 I have collected from credible persons, far 
 advanced in years, which they have trans- 
 mitted like a flaming torch from hand to hand. 
 I have also met with others who have con- 
 firmed the same."* 
 
 Junius's principal informant was, he says, 
 his tutor, Nicholas Galius, an old gentlemen of 
 very tenacious memory, who related that when 
 a boy, he "had often heard one Cornelius, 
 a bookbinder (then upwards of eighty years 
 of age, who had when a youth, assisted at the 
 printing office of Coster), describe with great 
 earnestness the numerous trials and experi- 
 ments made by his master in the infancy of 
 
 * The above translation is talcen from the article on 
 Priating in the Edinburgh edition (1815) of the En- 
 cyclopaedia Britannica, supplemented _ by that given in 
 Stower's "Printers' Grammar" (1808.) Both writers are 
 strong pro-Costerians. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 215 
 
 the invention. When he came to that part of 
 his narrative touching the robbery, he would 
 burst into tears, and curse with the greatest 
 vehemence those nights in which he had slept 
 with so vile a miscreant, declaring that were 
 he still alive, "he could with pleasure execute 
 the thief with his own hands." Junius 
 states, that he received a similar account from 
 Quirinus Talesius, the Burgomaster, who as- 
 serted that it was recited to him by the said 
 Cornelius: the latter died in 1515.* 
 
 Of Laurent Janssoen Coster, it seems to 
 be satisfactorily proved, that he belonged to 
 the most distinguished and wealthy class of 
 
 * Galius is probably the same who is called 
 Lottynz, Gael, Scalinus Haarlemi, as it is in the Fasti 
 of that city, in the years 1531, 1533, and 1535. Quirinus 
 in the same Fasti is called Mr. Quiryn Dirkszoon. He 
 ■was many years amanuensis to Erasmus, as appears from 
 his epistle 23rd July, 1529, tom iii. Oper. p. 1222. He 
 was afterwards Scabinus in 1537 et seq., and Consul in 
 1552, et seq. But in the troubles of Holland he was cruelly 
 killed by the Spanish soldiers, May 23, 1563. 
 
216 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 the inhabitants of the city. He was born, 
 it is supposed, about 1370, or 1371 ; and 
 notices of him appear in official records as 
 an officer of the city guard, a member of 
 the great council, sheriff, sheriff - president, 
 and treasurer, from 1417 to 1434. From 
 the treasurer's accounts he seems to have 
 enjoyed a rent- charge upon the city from 
 1422 to 1435. In 1440 an entry is made of 
 the payment of a similar charge to one 
 "Ymme, widow of Laurent Janssoen"; and as 
 Haarlem was visited by a contagious malady 
 in 1439, the probability is that Laurent was 
 one of its victims. Of his family the following 
 particulars have been handed down. His 
 daughter Lucetta married Thomas the son 
 of Pieter; and bore him two daughters and 
 three sons, Pieter, Andr6 and Thomas, all of 
 whom filled important public office. Pieter 
 the son of Thomas, had a son called Thomas 
 the son of Pieter, whose son Gerard, died 
 before Junius wrote his work. The last 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 217 
 
 descendant of the family was William the son 
 of Cornelius Kroon, who died the 24th March, 
 1724.* 
 
 As the account inserted in Junius's Batavia 
 is the groundwork upon which all subse- 
 quent writers* base their ai-guments in behalf 
 of the claims they advance for Coster, it 
 behoves us to note how far it agrees with 
 the statements previously made by others. 
 
 It is alleged that Coster (1,) first cut 
 letters on the bark of a beech tree for his 
 amusement; (2,) then, with letters so cut, he 
 made words and sentences for the instruction 
 of his grand-children; after which he (3,) 
 invented, with the assistance of his son-in- 
 law, a more glutinous ink, whereupon he (4,) 
 cut whole pages of letters on wood, and 
 printed them. He next (5,) made letters 
 of lead, and pewter, to supersede those of 
 
 * Meerman's Account of the family and descendants of 
 Laurent Janssoen, toI. i. p. 38, et seq. 
 
 2d 
 
218 EARLY TYPO&RAPHY. 
 
 wood; (6,) becoming known as a printer, 
 and a public demand arising for his pro- 
 ductions, he (7,) engaged numerous work- 
 men, one of whom (8,) stole all his materials, 
 and carried them off to Mentz. 
 
 Neither Van Zuyren, nor Coornhert, give 
 particulars on the first five points, and in 
 regard to the 6th and 7th, their statements 
 are opposed to those of Junius. They say 
 the art, as invented at Haarlem, was rude 
 and imperfect, and was not made public 
 there; and although Coornhert says he had 
 often been told of the family of the inventor, 
 his name and surname, of the rude manner 
 of printing first used, and had even had 
 shewn to him the abode of the first printer; 
 he neither gives his name nor describes the 
 method adopted. Gruicciardini gives his state- 
 ment, as a matter of hearsay, for the truth of 
 which he will not vouch ; but in it there is this 
 difference from those of Van Zuyren and 
 Coornhert, that the author of the invention 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 219 
 
 happening to die before the art was brought 
 to perfection and had acquired repute, his 
 servant, they say, went to reside at Mentz. 
 
 Here then are three writers, living at the 
 same time with Junius, all making inquiries 
 upon the same subject, and deriving their 
 information from a common source, who diff'er 
 from him on almost every point, and in some 
 of the most material plainly contradict him. 
 
 With reference to the 5th point, the inven- 
 tion of metal types, — ^whether cut or cast 
 Junius does not say, — Henry Spiegel, senator 
 of Amsterdam {b. 1549, d. 1612), states in his 
 Dutch poem Hertspiegel. 
 
 " Thou first, Laurentius, to supply the defect 
 of wooden tablets, adoptedst wooden types, 
 and afterwards didst connect them with a 
 thread, to imitate writing. A treacherous 
 servant surreptitiously obtained the honor of 
 the discovery: but truth itself, though 
 destitute of common and wide spread fame, 
 truth I say, still remains." 
 
This Spiegel was a personal friend of 
 Coornhert, and it may be presumed con- 
 sulted him respecting Junius' s account of the 
 origin of printing at Haarlem. Of metal 
 types he makes no mention ; but if the 
 traditions of Haarlem at that time gave 
 Laurentius the credit of their invention, it 
 is altogether unaccountable why Spiegel 
 omitted so noteworthy a circumstance. He 
 probably rejected, on Coornhert's authority, 
 what Junius had written on that part of 
 the subject. 
 
 Junius's story of the theft of Coster's 
 types and implements is confused and contra- 
 dictory. For supposing for a moment that 
 Coster was the printer of the Mirror of 
 Salvation, and that the types were made of 
 pewter ; if all that had been cast for printing, 
 (at the most not more than two pages at a 
 time), had been carried away, together with 
 the punches, matrices, &c., how came the 
 wine-pots, alleged to be still in existence 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 221 
 
 when Junius wrote, to be made of them when 
 they became waste metal ? These wine-pots 
 afford grounds for the assertion, by later 
 writers, that the art continued to be prac- 
 tised by the Coster family after the alleged 
 theft; but thftt assertion is contradicted by 
 the statements elsewhere made. Of the 
 theft itself there is no proof. The records 
 of the city have been searched in vain for 
 evidence of any such robbery. And the 
 search has been equally fruitless for evi- 
 dence of any such invention. As to the 
 latter, the wine-pots are the chief witnesses. 
 They were said to be kept in the house in- 
 habited by Laurent Coster's great-grandson 
 Gerard Thomas; they could be appealed to; 
 but what then ? their evidence is not even as 
 valuable as that adduced by the school boy 
 who claimed to be the carver of a certain piece 
 of wood-work, "and here," said he, "is the 
 very knife with which I did it." In the 
 boy's case it could at least be shewn, that 
 
222 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 the knife was one with which the carving 
 might have been executed; but it would be 
 utterly impossible to prove, without other 
 and more reliable evidence than the appear- 
 ance of the pots themselves, that they had 
 been the original prototypes of the art of 
 Typography. Meerman, however, insists upon 
 it that the Costers carried on the printing 
 business at Haarlem until about the year 
 1472, when a better method having been 
 introduced by disciples of the Mentz school, 
 they sold off their stock and retired. But 
 all these allegations are based upon sup- 
 positions ; there is no proof whatever that 
 such was the case : only, it is evident that 
 some such story must be contrived, in order 
 to account for the pewter wine -pots being 
 manufactured out of the waste and worn-out 
 types. But then the part of the narrative of 
 Junius where "the wine-pots are alluded to, 
 does not tally with that other part, wherein 
 it is stated that the thief and his accomplice 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 223 
 
 decamped with "the collection of types, and all 
 the implements his master had got together." 
 For Junius does not say, that Laurentius 
 Janssoen Coster got together fresh imple- 
 ments, and made new types ; nor does he in- 
 timate that his family did so after his decease. 
 On the contrary, he speaks of the theft as an 
 irreparable loss, the thought of which made 
 the old hook-binder Cornelius, curse with the 
 greatest vehemence. This irascible garrulous 
 old man is the same who, when a boy, is said 
 to have been employed in Coster's printing 
 office, and who, when upwards of eighty years 
 old, told the story to Nicholas Galius the old 
 gentlemen of tenacious memory, who in his 
 turn told it to his pupil Junius. It is plain 
 that the sole object of the original tellers of 
 the story of the stranger, servant, or thief, 
 was to account for the otherwise inexplicable 
 fact, that the world was persuaded that print- 
 ing originated at Mentz, instead of, as the 
 tradition-mongers would have it, at Haarlem. 
 
224 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 It is singular that Van Zuyren and Coorn- 
 liert make no mention of Coster and the 
 wine-pots. They had had the house pointed 
 out to them, where printing was said to have 
 been invented and first practised in private 
 and in a very rude and imperfect form ; and 
 if that house really belonged to the family 
 of Laurent Janssoen, copies of the books 
 printed, — the old types themselves, — the 
 original prototypes of the art of Typography — 
 ought surely to have been the pride and glory 
 of the house, rather than pewter wine-pots, 
 a common enough article of household 
 furniture. 
 
 "But," says Van Zuyren, "the house has 
 long since been despoUed of its precious 
 contents." In his days then, and he is the 
 earliest writer on the subject, the wine- pots 
 did not exist ; or if they did, and if they were 
 known to be the re-shaped relics of the ori- 
 ginal metal types, how is his ignorance of 
 their existence to be accounted for? He and 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 225 
 
 Coornhert were both living and writing in the 
 citj at the same time with Junius, with whom, 
 as one of the learned literati of the day, they 
 could not but have been well acquainted, if not 
 on intimate and friendly terms. After a long 
 absence, Junius returned to the city where the 
 others were born and bred, and where one 
 of them. Van Zuyren, filled the office of 
 Scabinus from 1549 to 1561, when he was 
 advanced to the dignity of Burgomaster, (in 
 which year his partner dedicated his work 
 to him and the other officials of the city). 
 How then came Junius alone to learn the 
 history of Laurent Janssoen's invention? 
 and how is Van Zuyren and Coornhert's 
 silence to be accounted for, in regard to such 
 important matters affecting Laurent the son 
 of Jans, who filled the lucrative office of 
 Coster of the great church; who was member 
 of the great council, sheriff, sheriff-president, 
 and finally treasurer of the city ; — whose 
 portrait was engraved, (or supposed to have 
 
 2 E 
 
226 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 been), along with those of Ouwater, Hemsen, 
 Mandin, and Volkert, all eminent Haarlemese 
 painters of the fifteenth century ; — and 
 whose history must have been well known 
 to both, when they wrote, the one declaring 
 " for the love of his country alone," — and 
 the other, " not because I am jealous of the 
 glory of others, but because I love truth"? 
 Where then was the love of country and 
 the love of truth, if they omitted, or sup- 
 pressed, the name of the man who invented 
 the art, the glory of which they '• could not 
 consent should be effaced from the memory 
 of men, and be buried in eternal oblivion ; 
 claims of which it is our dvity to preserve the 
 memorial, for the benefit of our latest 
 posterity"? 
 
 There can be no doubt but that con- 
 siderations of this nature have led older 
 writers to express suspicions in regard to the 
 authenticity of Junius's narrative, and to 
 believe that his manuscript was tampered with 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 227 
 
 between the time of his death, and the pub- 
 lication of the work in which it appears ; as 
 well as to induce "misgivings" in the minds 
 of learned Dutchmen of the present day " as 
 to the ultimate result of full inquiry into the 
 subject."* 
 
 Admitting with the writers on the Haarlem 
 side, that the Coster family was one of wealth 
 and influence, how comes it, on the one hand, 
 that the thief who stole the types and imple- 
 ments was not pursued, exposed and pun- 
 ished? or at any rate stripped of his stolen 
 plumes, when so early as 1457 works were 
 published in Mentz by printers who ascribed 
 the whole merit of the invention to them- 
 selves? — and on the other, that having 
 replaced the stolen types and other implements 
 by new ones, and continuing to print until 
 1472, the descendants of Laurent never 
 claimed the honor of the invention for them- 
 
 * Ottlbt's Inquiry, p. 308. 
 
228 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 selves or their sire, although they must have 
 known all along of what was taking place 
 at Mentz, — ^where Faust and SchoefFer were 
 yearly publishing books with their names 
 attached? How comes it that the family pos- 
 sessed no documents that in any way referred 
 to the invention? — that they never kept by 
 them copies of the works they are said to 
 have printed? — ^that none of such works were 
 known or found in Haarlem until 1654 or 
 1660, when a chestfuU of old books without 
 date or printer's name was bought by the city 
 authorities at a sale at the Hague — two cen- 
 turies later, and at once attributed to them? 
 How is it that no Dutch writer or printer, 
 from 1441 to 1588, claimed the honor of the 
 invention for his countryman Coster? — that 
 neither Nicholas the son of Peter of Haarlem, 
 who printed at Padu.a in 1476, and at Vicenza 
 in 1477 ; Henri of Haarlem, who printed 
 from 1482 to 1499 in different cities j and 
 Gerard of Haarlem, who exercised the art at 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 229 
 
 Florence in 1499, never claimed it for their 
 brother citizen and birthplace? How comes 
 it that the earliest known printers in Haarlem 
 itself, John Andriesson and Jacob Bellaert, 
 whose books are dated 1483 and 1485, are 
 silent upon thai subject? — that the first printers 
 in Utrecht in 1473 — and between that date 
 and 1498, those of Alost, Antwerp, Bruges, 
 Brussels, Culembourg, Delft, Deventer, Ghent, 
 Gouda, Hertogenbosch, Leyden, Louvain, St. 
 Maartensdyk, Niemegen, Oudenarde, Schie- 
 dam, Schoonhoven, ZwoUe, and elsewhere in 
 Holland and the Low countries, make no 
 mention of it? — and that nothing whatever 
 is known of any of the "multiplied work- 
 men," and "dependents," whom Laurent 
 Janssoen Coster, it is alleged, was obliged to 
 employ to meet the demands made upon him 
 by purchasers for copies of the products of the 
 newly invented art? How, finally, is it to be 
 accounted for, that while Coster's descendants 
 were living in Haarlem, when Van Zuyren, 
 
230 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Coornhert, and Junius, were writing their 
 works, those writers omitted to make inquiry 
 of any member of the family on a subject 
 respecting which the family were the parties 
 most interested, and could have given the 
 most authentic information? Perhaps they 
 did; and when they asked for the story 
 of the invention, discovered that the family 
 had, like Canning's knife-grinder, "no story 
 to tell." 
 
 To the objections, that no printed book 
 bears the name of Coster or his descendants, 
 and that neither he nor they ever entered 
 their protest against the pretensions of Mentz, 
 Koning replies:* — "We agree that no such 
 book has been found ; but neither is any book 
 to be found bearing the name of Gutenberg. 
 Must we, on this account, strike his name out 
 of the list of the first printers? The aim of 
 the first printers was to imitate manuscripts. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 231 
 
 and to make their printed books pass for 
 such ; and therefore, lest their art should be 
 found out, it behoved them to keep their 
 names a profound secret .... The first in- 
 ventor could have no idea of the astonishing 
 influence whioii his art would have in the* 
 world in future ages ; and no person can feel 
 surprise that he did not aflSx his name to his 
 first essays. 
 
 " Besides, the printers of the fifteenth 
 century very commonly omitted to put their 
 names to the editions printed by them. The 
 number of books existing of this century, 
 without either the name of the printer or the 
 place of their publication is prodigious. 
 Ulric Zell, for example, according to San- 
 tander, printed eighty books, and, out of this 
 number, has only put his name to two or 
 three. With what appearance of reason is it 
 insisted, that the works, which are attributed 
 to Laurent Janssoen Coster, are not his, 
 because they are not signed with his name? 
 
232 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 " But it is said, that neither Coster nor his 
 descendants ever vindicated their claims, 
 against the pretensions put forth by the Mentz 
 printers .... Neither did Gutenberg vindicate 
 his, against Faust and Schoeffer; who, in the 
 .colophon of the Psalter of 1457, and in the 
 subscriptions of numerous other books, took 
 all the honor to themselves, making no mention 
 of him whatever; although it is not doubted 
 that Gutenberg set up a printing office of his 
 own in 1455, and he is regarded by the writers 
 on the side of Mentz as the inventor and 
 perfector of the art of printing." 
 
 As to the inventor having no idea of the 
 astonishing influence which his art would have 
 in the world in fature ages, it is plain from 
 the evidence given in the Strasburg law- suit, 
 that Gutenberg and his partners were fully 
 persuaded, that the work they had under- 
 taken was one by which they would make, 
 their fortunes. And, although it is asserted 
 that Gutenberg never vindicated his claim 
 
EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 233 
 
 against Faust and Schoeffer, yet it is certain 
 that his merit as the inventor of printing was 
 known to the Elector of Mentz, and the King 
 of France, and it is also expressly admitted^ 
 not only by his contemporaries, in Germany, 
 Italy, and elsewhere, but by Peter SchoeflPer 
 himself, who besides the detailed account of 
 the origin of the invention which he gave 
 to the Abbot Trithemius in the year 1484, 
 allowed the insertion of the following among 
 other Latin verses at the end of the " Institutes 
 of Justinian^'' printed by him in 1468 : — 
 
 Hos dedit eximios sculpendi in arte magistros, 
 
 Cui placet en mactos arte sagire viros, 
 
 Quos genuit ambos urbs moguntina Johannes 
 
 Librorum insignes protocaragmaticos ; 
 
 Cum quibus optatum Petrus yenit ad polyandrum, 
 
 Cursu posterior, introeundo prior ; 
 
 Quippe quibus prsestat sculpendi lege sagitus 
 
 A solo dante lumen et ingenium. 
 
 These lines are thus translated by Hum- 
 phreys, — "He who is pleased to create high 
 talents has given us two great masters of the 
 
 2 F 
 
234 EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 art of engraving, both bearing the name of 
 John, both being natives of the city of 
 Mayence, and both having become illustrious 
 as the first printers of books. Peter advanced 
 with them towards the desired goal, and, 
 starting the last, arrived first, having been 
 rendered the most skilful in the art of en- 
 graving by him who alone bestows light and 
 genius." There can be no doubt but the 
 two Johns and the Peter here referred to were 
 John Gutenberg, John Faust, and Peter 
 SchoefFer. * 
 
 Up to the date of Junius's publication, 
 1588, no writer had claimed the honor of the 
 
 * The writer of these Terses was one of the correctors 
 of the press employed by Schoeflfer, though his name does 
 not appear. He concludes with the expression of a desire, 
 which to this day finds a responsive echo in the bosom of 
 every author and printer whose soul has been vexed by the 
 blunders of copyists and compositors: — "Oh!" is his 
 pathetic exclamation, — "if they could succeed in purging 
 the texts of all their faults! — those who arrange the 
 characters, as well as those who read the proofs ; the friends 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 235 
 
 iavenflon for Coster; and but three, who 
 wrote between 1549 and 1567, had asserted 
 Haarlem to have been its birthplace ; — and 
 one of these, as we have seen, expressly 
 declines to vouch for the accuracy of the 
 tradition. 0» the other hand, we learn from 
 the researches of Dean Mallinckrot,* that up 
 to the date of Junius's publication no less than 
 sixty-two writers had awarded the honor of 
 the invention to Gutenberg, and fixed its 
 birthplace, and the place of its promulgation 
 to the world at the cities of Strasburg and 
 Mentz. Although abundant proof has already 
 been given upon these points, the following 
 selection from contemporary and historic 
 
 of literature would then infallibly award to them a crown of 
 glory, who thus come in aid by their books to thousands of 
 seats of learning." It is not at all unlikely that these 
 verses were the origin of Junius's assertion, that the name 
 of the workman who stole Coster's types and implements, 
 and carried them off to Mentz, was John. 
 
 * Mallinckeot, de Ortu et Progressu Artis Typo- 
 graphicse. Colonm, 1639. 
 
236 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 evidence is added, in order to shew the 
 strength and solidity of the basis upon which 
 those claims rest, and how thoroughly it 
 outweighs all that has been brought forward 
 by writers on the opposite side. 
 
 In 1457, on the publication of their Psalter, 
 Faust and Schoeffer ascribed to themselves the 
 merit of the new invention. 
 
 After Faust's death, Schoeffer inserted in the 
 imprint or colophon on the last page of his 
 works, the words "in nobili urbe Magentise 
 ejusdem (i. e. artis imprimendi) inventriae 
 elimatriceque prima." 
 
 In 1480, William Caxton, in his continuation 
 of Higden^s Polychronicon, printed at West- 
 minster, says "About this time [1455] the 
 craft of imprynting was first fovind in Mo- 
 gunce in Almayne."* 
 
 * In order to eyade the force of Caxton's testimony, 
 Costerian writers assert that he merely recorded the popular 
 belief of the time. But Caxton, as he himself tells us in 
 one of his works, had been residing from 1441 to 1476 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 237 
 
 In the Fasciculi Temporum printed by 
 Quentel at Cologne in 1478 and 1481, it is 
 stated that the art of printing originated at 
 Mentz. 
 
 "in the countriis of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and 
 Zealand." During the greater portion of this time he 
 was the Governor of the Company of Merchant Adven- 
 turers, trading in Brabant, Flanders, &c., and his principal 
 place of residence was Bruges, not far distant from Haarlem. 
 The merchandise of those days was not confined to silks 
 and woollens, but included the manuscripts and books of 
 the period. Gaxton, after his appointment to the household 
 of the Duchess of Burgundy, gave his mind to literary pur- 
 suits, and practised the art of printing at Bruges. He was 
 also well acquainted with TJlric Zell of Hainault, the first 
 printer of Cologne, at which city some suppose, on the 
 authority of Wynkyn de Woorde, his successor, he also 
 printed a book. He could not therefore be ignorant of the 
 facts of the case. His position and pursuits gave him every 
 opportunity for ascertaining them ; and he was not a man 
 who neglected opportunities for acquiring knowledge. He 
 must consequently have known and been well satisfied of 
 the accuracy of the statement he gave currency to. Had 
 Coster or any of his descendants been printing at Haarlem 
 from 1428 to 1472, as many of these writers allege, Caxton 
 must have known of it, and would not in such a case have 
 asserted that the "craft of imprinting was first found in 
 Mogunce in Almayne." 
 
238 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 In the Black book or Register of the Garter, 
 it is said with reference to the 35th year of 
 the reign of Henry VI, anno 1457, "In this 
 year of our most pious king, the art of print- 
 ing books first began at Mentz, a famous 
 city of Germany." And in FahiavUs Chro- 
 nicle^ the writer, a contemporary of Caxton, 
 says, "This yere (35th of Henry VI,). after 
 the opynyon of dyverse wryters, began in a 
 citie of Almaine, namyd Mogunce, the crafte 
 of empryntynge bokys, which sen that tyme 
 hath had wonderful encrease." It was in 
 this year 1457, that the first book appeared 
 which has the printer's name, date, and place 
 of printing, affixed. This is the celebrated 
 Psalter printed by Faust and Schceffer. 
 
 In 1486, Berthold, Archbishop of Mentz, in 
 a mandate which will be quoted at length in 
 a subsequent chapter, states, "this art, [print- 
 ing] was first discovered in this city of Mentz." 
 
 A single testimony similar to either of the 
 above in favor of Haarlem, would have been 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 239 
 
 hailed with delight by any of the writers in 
 the latter half of the sixteenth century, and 
 their tribe of followers who advocate the 
 claims of that city; but what follows is 
 much more forcible and decisive. 
 
 " Of all the,authors to whom the world is 
 indebted for a particular account of the dis- 
 covery of printing," say, Mr. Palmer,* "Abbot 
 Trithemius justly claims pre-eminence; both 
 upon account of his living nearest to the 
 time when the art originated, which he tells 
 us was in his younger years ; as well as his 
 care to derive his intelligence on the subject 
 from the purest sources. We have two 
 noble testimonies out of his chronicle ; one 
 from the first part entitled Chronicon Span- 
 heimense, wherein, speaking of the year 1450, 
 he says: 'That about this time, the art of 
 
 * A General History of Printing, by S. Palmer, 4to. 
 London, 1733. This work, although ostensibly written by 
 Mr. S. Palmer, a London printer of some eminence, was in 
 fact the production of the learned Psalmanazar. 
 
240 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 printing and casting single types was found 
 out anew in the city of Mentz, by one John 
 Gutenberg, who having spent his whole 
 estate in this difficu.lt discovery, by the as- 
 sistance and advice of some honest men, 
 John Faust and others, brought his under- 
 taking at length to perfection ; that the first 
 improver of this art, after the inventor, was 
 Peter SchoefFer de Gernsheim, who afterwards 
 printed a great many volumes ; that the said 
 Gutenberg lived at Mentz, in a house called 
 Zum-junghen, but afterwards known by the 
 name of the printing house.' 
 
 " The next passage, which is fuller, and for' 
 its singularity and decisiveness deserves to be 
 set down at length, is taken out of the second 
 part of Trithemius's chronicle, entitled 
 Chronicon Hirsaugiense : — 'About this time 
 (anno 1450) in the city of Mentz in Germany 
 upon the Rhine, and not in Italy, as some 
 writers falsely affirmed, the wonderful and 
 till then unknown art of printing books by 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 241 
 
 metal types (characterizandi) was invented 
 and devised by John Gutenberg, citizen of 
 Mentz, who, having almost exhausted his 
 whole estate in contriving of this new method, 
 and labouring under such insuperable diffi- 
 culties, in one ifespect or other, that he began 
 to despair of and to throw up the whole 
 design ; was at length assisted with the advice 
 and purse of John Faust, another citizen of 
 Mentz, and happily brought it to perfection. 
 Having therefore, begun with cutting cha- 
 racters of the letters upon wooden planks, in 
 their right order, and completed their forms, 
 they printed the vocabulary called the Catho- 
 licon ; but could make no further use of those 
 forms, because there was no possibility of 
 separating the letters, which were engraven 
 on "the planks, as we hinted before. To this 
 succeeded a more ingenious invention, for 
 they found out a way of stamping the shapes 
 of every letter of the Latin alphabet, in what 
 
 they called matrices, from which they after- 
 
 2g 
 
242 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 wards cast their letters, either in copper or 
 tin, hard enough to be printed upon, which 
 they first cut with their own hands; It is 
 certain that this art met with no small diffi- 
 culties from the beginning of its invention, 
 as I heard thirty years ago from the mouth 
 of Peter Schoeffer de Gernsheim, citizen of 
 Mentz, and son-in-law to the first inventor 
 of the Art. For when they went about 
 printing the Bible, before they had worked ofi" 
 the third quire it had cost them already above 
 4000 florins. But the afore -mentioned Peter 
 Schoeffer, then servant, (famulus,) and after- 
 wards son-in-law, to the first inventor John 
 Faust, as we hinted before, being a person of 
 great ingenuity, discovered an easier method of 
 casting letters, and perfected the art as we 
 now have it. These three kept their manner 
 of printing very secret for some time, until 
 it was divulged by their servants, without 
 whose help it was impossible to manage the 
 business, who carried it first to Strasburg, and 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 243 
 
 by degrees all over Europe. Thus much will 
 suffice concerning the discovery of this won- 
 derful art, the first inventors of which were 
 citizens of Mentz. These three first disco- 
 verers of printing, viz. John Gutenberg, John 
 Faust, and Pgter Schoeffer his son-in-law, 
 lived at Mentz, in a house called Zum-Junghen, 
 but ever since known by the name of the 
 printing house."* 
 
 Equally clear and to the point, if not more 
 so, as well as the first published in point of 
 time, is the statement given by Johan. KoelhoflP, 
 who in 1499 printed the following particulars 
 in the Cologne Chronicle, on the authority of 
 Ulric Zell of Hainault, by whom the art of 
 
 * As the Chronicle in which this account is given, is 
 said to have been finished in the year 1514, Trithemius (J. 
 1462; d. 1516,) would have heard the particulars from 
 Peter Schceflfer, about the year 1484. The abbot would 
 then have been twenty-two years of age. — Meerman, vol. ii. 
 p. 101, n. The manuscript of the Chronicle was not dis- 
 covered until near the close of the seventeenth century, 
 when it was printed at St. Gall in the year 1690. 
 
244 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 printing was first introduced to Cologne. Zell 
 learned the art directly from the first Mentz 
 printers ; and in the colophons of two small 
 works printed in the years 1466 and 1467, 
 he styles himself a clerk of the diocese of 
 Mentz. The statement is as follows : — 
 
 " Of the printing of Books, and when and by 
 whom, this Art was discovered, of which the 
 utility cannot be too highly appreciated, &c. 
 
 " Item : This most important art was first 
 found out in Germany, at Mentz on the Rhyne. 
 And it is a great honour to the German nation 
 that such ingenious men were found in it. 
 This took place about the year of our Lord 
 M.cccc.XL., and from that time to the year L., 
 this art and whatever appertains to it were 
 rendered more perfect. And in the year 
 M.cccc.L. which was a jubilee year, they began 
 to print ; and the first book that was printed 
 was the Bible in Latin, and it was printed with 
 larger characters than those which are now 
 used for printing Missals. Item: Although 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 245 
 
 this art, as we have said, was found out in 
 Mentz in the way in which it is commonly 
 used; nevertheless the prototype of it {^ vur- 
 bildung,' praefiguratio) was found in Holland, 
 in the Donatuses (den Donaten) which had 
 been before prpited there ; and it is from and 
 out of these, that the beginning of this art was 
 taken. And this manner has been found 
 much more masterly and subtle than that 
 which before existed, and it has become more 
 and more ingenious. Item : A person named 
 Omnibonus writes in the preface to Quinctilian, 
 and in other books, that a certain Frenchman, 
 called Nicholas Genson, first discovered this 
 important art ; which is clearly not true. For 
 there are persons now living, who can attest, 
 that books were printed at Venice before 
 Nicholas Genson went there, and began to 
 sculpture and set up type. But the first in- 
 ventor of printing was a citizen of Mentz, born 
 at Strasburg, called Johan. Gudenburch, 
 Gentleman. Item : From Mentz the said art 
 
246 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 was first carried to Cologne, then to Strasburg, 
 and then to Venice. The commencement and 
 progress of this art has been told me expressly 
 by word of mouth, by the revered master 
 Ulrich Tzell of Hainault,* the printer, 
 still living at Cologne in the present year 
 M.cccc.xcix., by whom the art was first brought 
 to Cologne. Item : There are ill - informed 
 persons who say that books were printed in 
 more ancient times ; but that is contrary to 
 the truth, as in no country are books to be 
 found printed in those times." 
 
 * This fact is much overlooked by writers who invariably 
 refer to Zell as a German authority. Hainault is a pro- 
 vince adjoining South Brabant and West Flanders, in 
 which provinces are situated the towns of Haarlem and 
 Bruges, where Coster and Caxton resided. Along with 
 Holland, Hainault was forcibly annexed by Philip of 
 Burgundy in 1426. No doubt many of the families op- 
 posed to the annexation sought safety in flight, and among 
 these may be included that of the Zells. But it is hardly 
 to be credited that TJlric's love of Fatherland was ex- 
 tinguished by his expatriation ; or that he would give to 
 Germany and Mentz, the honor that rightly belonged to 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 247 
 
 Zell's account is confirmed by the writer 
 of the Nurimberg Chronicle^ printed by 
 Koburger in 1493, who states that in the year 
 1450, the noble art of typography was first 
 invented by John Gutenberg at Mentz. 
 
 To the like effect is the testimony of Marc 
 Ant. Coccius Sabellicus {b. 1436; d. 1506,) 
 in the sixth chapter of his Universal History, 
 printed at Venice in 1504. 
 
 In 1502, Wimpheling, the earliest writer 
 in favour of the pretensions of Strasburg, 
 states, in his Epitome Rerum Germanicarum, 
 
 Holland and Haarlem. All that he says, amounts to the 
 statement, that Block-book Donatuses were printed in 
 Holland, before printing, in the way it is corriinonly used, was 
 invented at Mentz. If, as Oosterians contend, "printing 
 in the way it is commonly used" was known and practised 
 by Laurent Janssoen in Haarlem from 1428 to 1440, 
 both Caxton and Zell must have known of it ; and would 
 have stated it as a fact. The only inference therefore that 
 can be drawn from what they say, as well as from what 
 they do not say on the subject, is, that Typography was 
 invented at Mentz, and was not known at Haarlem until 
 after the advent of the iirst printer there in 1483. 
 
248 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 that Gutenberg was " the inventor of a 
 new art of writing (ars impressoria) , which 
 might also be called a divine benefit, and 
 which he happily completed at Mentz." 
 
 In 1505, John SchoelSfer, eldest son and 
 successor to Peter, Faust's son-in-law, declares 
 in a Dedication to the Emperor Maximilian of 
 an edition of Livy, printed that year, that the 
 admirable art of Typography was invented 
 at Mentz in the year 1450, by John Gutenberg, 
 and afterwards improved and perfected by the 
 study, perseverance and labour of John Faust 
 and Peter Schoefier.* This work was edited 
 by the learned Dr. Ivo Wittig, the same 
 who in 1508 erected the memorial tablet in 
 front of the house Zum Gutenberg, the 
 inscription on which is given at page 198. 
 
 * "Admiranda ars typographica ab ingenioso Johanne 
 Guttenbergio, anno a nativitate Ohristi, Domini nostri, 
 1450, inventa, et posthac stadio, sumtu et labore Johannis 
 Fust et Petri Schceflferi Moguntias, emendata et ad posteros 
 propagata est." 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 249 
 
 About 1510, Mariangelus Accursius, a 
 Neapolitan scholar of distinction, wrote on 
 the first page of a Donatus, printed on vellum, 
 " Johan Faust, a citizen of Mentz, the maternal 
 grandfather of Johan SchoefFer, first found out 
 the art of printing with types of brass, for 
 which he afterwards substituted those of lead ; 
 his son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer, greatly assisting 
 him in perfecting the art. But this Donatus 
 and Confessionalia was first of all printed in the 
 year 1450. It is certain that he took the idea 
 from a Donatus which had been before printed 
 from engraved wooden blocks in Holland." 
 The Donatus in which this was written was 
 in the possession of the younger Aldus, who 
 shewed it to Angelo Rocca, by whom the 
 memorandum was copied, and printed in the 
 year 1591. 
 
 Erasmus of Rotterdam, who was intimate 
 with the most learned men and principal 
 printers of Germany, Holland, Italy, and 
 France, and whose inquisitive mind led him 
 
 2h 
 
250 BAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 to obtain information on every possible topic ; 
 who had beside him for many years in the 
 capacity of Secretary, the same Quirinus 
 Talesius from whom Junius obtained the 
 confirmation of the story of Nicholas Galius ; 
 who greatly eulogised the productions of the 
 Fleming, Jodocus Badius, a printer in France, 
 and moreover wrote the epitaph over his 
 friend Theodore Martens, the first printer in 
 Belgium, and who was as jealous of the 
 honor of his fatherland ^.s any Hollander 
 could be ; nevertheless repeatedly declared 
 Faust to be the earliest printer, and Mentz 
 the city where printing was first practised. 
 This he did in 1518, in his dedicatory Epistle 
 to an edition of Livy, published by John 
 Schoeffer, and again in his own edition of 
 the Epistles of St. Hieronymous, published 
 at Leyden in 1530. 
 
 Arnold de Bergel, in his Encomion Chalco- 
 graphicB, previously referred to, describes the 
 first printing of books by John Gutenberg 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 251 
 
 at Mentz in the year 1450. The idea 
 originated, he says, by Gutenberg observing 
 while at Strasburg the impression made by 
 his signet ring in soft wax.* 
 
 * Hie ubi postremo descendit gurgite Moenus, 
 Excipit et socias littore Ehenus aquas 
 Hanc peperit captis antiqua Moguntia muris 
 Horrida dum tristis fata canebat avis. 
 
 Ssecuk bis septem nmnerabant ordine fati 
 
 Christigense, hinc illis lustra decemque dabant, 
 Tertius ac orbis Fridericus frena regebat, 
 
 Olarus Joannes en Gutenbergius hie est, 
 
 A quo, eeu viro flumine, manat opus. 
 Hie est Aonidum custos fidissimus, hie est, 
 
 Qui referat latices, quos pede fudit equus, 
 Quam veteres nobis Aigenti voee notarunt, 
 
 A puero fertur sustinuisse virum ; 
 Ilia sed huic civi largita est munera grata, 
 
 Cui clarum nomem Mogus habere dedit. 
 Primitias Ulie coepit formare laboris, 
 
 Ast hie matui-um protulit artis opus. 
 Stemmate prsestabat ; Yicit virtute sed illud ; 
 
 Dieitur hine verse nobilitatis Eques. 
 Annulis in digitis erat illi occasio prima, 
 
 Palladium ut caelo soUicitaret opus. 
 
252 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Sebastian Munster, in his Universal Cosmo^ 
 gi-aphy, printed in 1571, states that in the 
 years 1440 to 1450 the art of printing was 
 invented and first practised in Mentz by John 
 Gutenberg, afterwards assisted by John -Faust 
 and John Medinbach. 
 
 Peter Van Opmer,* a fellow-countryman 
 and contemporary of Junius, and a writer of 
 repute, says with reference to the sudden 
 
 Ilium tentabat moUi committere cersB, 
 
 Redderet ut nomen llttera scnlpta sunm. 
 Eespicit archetypos, auri vestigia lustrans, 
 
 Et secum tacitus talia verba refert : 
 Quam belle pandit certas hsec orbita voces, 
 
 Monstrat et exactis apta reperfca Ubris. 
 Quid, si nunc justos, seris ratione reducta, 
 
 Tentarem libros cudere mille modis? — v. v. 19 — 66. 
 
 * Van Opmer was born at Amsterdam in 1526. He 
 studied the classics at the Universities of Louvain and Delft ; 
 and also made himself a proficient in painting, engraving 
 and architecture. He was known to V§in Zuyren in 1561, 
 the year when Coomhert published Bis edition of Cicero's 
 Offices ; and was for some years a resident at Leyden. In 
 1578 he returned to Amsterdam. He is supposed to have 
 died about the year 1595. 
 
EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 253 
 
 outburst of learning at the commencement of 
 the fifteenth century : — " This was effected 
 by the assistance of that art, which from metal 
 characters of letters ingeniously cast, disposed 
 in the order in which we write, spread over 
 with a conveaient quantity of ink, and put 
 under the press, has ushered into the world 
 books in all languages, and multiplied their 
 copies like a numerous offspring, and has 
 obtained the name of Typography. This Art 
 of Printing was most certainly invented and 
 brought to light by John Faust in the year 
 1440. It is amazing that the author of so 
 important a discovery, and so generous a 
 promoter of divine and human learning, should 
 be unworthily forgotten, or only casually 
 remembered as a mere artist. Surely such a 
 person deserves a place amongst the greatest 
 benefactors of mankind."* 
 
 * I am indebted to Hansard's Typographia (p. 60) for 
 the aboTe quotation; it is there quoted from Lemoine, 
 (p. 99) without any further reference. 
 
254 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 A goodly number of similar testimonies 
 might easily be collected, in not one of which 
 is any reference made to either Coster or 
 Haarlem. Not a single Dutch or Flemish 
 annalist or chronicler or historian, previous to 
 1560, ever makes the slightest allusion to the 
 man or the place in connection with the art 
 of printing. Even Jan Gerbrant, Prior of the 
 Carmelite Order at Haarlem, who died there 
 in 1504, knew nothing of the matter. Yet 
 he is the compiler of the Chronicle of the 
 Counts of Holland and Bishops of Utrecht; 
 and if printing had been the invention of his 
 contemporary Coster, and practised in the 
 city of Haarlem, he could not have been 
 ignorant of the facts, nor would he have failed 
 to record them in his Chronicle. 
 
 Meerman and his followers vainly try tq 
 evade the force of this fatal silence ; all their 
 learning and ingenuity are brought to bear, 
 but without effect; for if, as they maintain, 
 the historians of that time considered the 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 255 
 
 attempts made at Haarlem so crude and 
 imperfect, as not to be worthy their notice, 
 what is to be made of the statement of Junius, 
 that the invention attracted notice ; that the 
 works printed were publicly sold, and the 
 business incr^sed so much, that numerovis 
 workmen and assistants had to be engaged? 
 The number of works said by Koning and 
 others to have issued from the Coster press, 
 indicates anything but a crude and imperfect 
 state of the art ; and if those works had been 
 printed by the sacristan of the great Church 
 of Haarlem, the Prior of the Carmelites, 
 living in the city at the same time, must have 
 known of their existence. How then is his 
 silence to be accounted for? 
 
 The only rational conclusion to which one 
 can arrive, is, that the tradition, which, after 
 the growth of a hundred years was moulded 
 into historic narrative by Junius, had neither 
 existence nor foundation in the days of Prior 
 Gerbrant. As an aid to history, in the elu- 
 
256 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 cidation of facts otherwise obscure, tradition 
 is a valuable auxiliary ; but as opposed to 
 history and well known facts, there is no 
 more unreliable source of information. Every 
 one is aware how witnesses of the same 
 occurrence will differ in their statements of 
 the particulars of what they saw ; and all who 
 have taken the pains to unravel old traditions 
 well know how wholly unlike their origin 
 they ultimately and all but invariably prove 
 to be. There is no reason for supposing 
 that thd traditional account of the origin of 
 printing in Haarlem is an exception to the 
 rule. The age was one prone to the in- 
 vention of legends ; and in the early days of 
 printing in that city, and after Ulric Zell 
 had published his account at Cologne, and 
 attributed to Gutenberg the taking of the 
 idea from the Donatuses first printed in Hol- 
 land, it is by no means unlikely that an old 
 printer, or an old book -binder, in Haarlem, 
 who had when a boy seen a specimen of a 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 257 
 
 Biblia Pauperum or a Donatus, in the. hands 
 of the Sacristan of the Church, wovJd say, 
 first, that he had seen the proof that printing 
 originated in Holland, there, in that city; 
 then, stretching a point, that printing ori- 
 ginated there ; •others, repeating this, would 
 assert that the proof that such was the 
 fact existed ; that it had been seen in the 
 hands of the Coster; that the Coster printed 
 it; that there was the house he lired in; 
 that it was a shame the Grermans, who 
 stole the idea of the separable types from 
 the Dutch, should get all the credit; that 
 they had robbed Coster of his fame; nay 
 robbed him of his types ; that it must have 
 been one of the Johns of Mentz who was 
 the thief; and so on, varying and ampli- 
 fying the tale, until the time of Junius, who 
 finding the poem of Arnold de Bergel im- 
 parting a fresh halo of glory to Mentz and 
 her three first printers, adopted and embel- 
 lished the tradition, and borrowing certain 
 
 2i 
 
258 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 ideas from Virgil as well as from Bergel, gave 
 in his Batapia an account of the first con- 
 ception and ultimate realization of the idea, 
 which should stand as a rivalto the account 
 given in the Micomion Chalcographies. 
 
 The documents upon which the Haarlemese 
 mainly rely, prove of themselves that the 
 tradition grew within the space of a few years 
 almost as rapidly as the pillar-like flower-stalk 
 of" the gigantic American aloe, and effloresced 
 as abundantly in the narrative of Junius — 
 the prolific progenitor of a host of subsequent 
 writers: — for first, (in say 1555,) the art 
 only " became the companion of a certain 
 stranger;"* — then (1561) it "was carried to 
 Mentz by an unfaithful servant ;"f — next, 
 (1567) "the author of the invention hap- 
 pening to die before the art was brought to 
 perfection and. had acquired repute, his servant 
 they say went to reside at Mentz: '.'J — finally, 
 
 * Van Zuyren. f Coorrihert. | Gufcciardini. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 259 
 
 (1568) the foresworn workman, the thief 
 John, while his master was still alive . . . seizes 
 the collection of types, and all the implements 
 his master had got together . . . marches 
 off to Amsterdam, thence to Cologne, and at 
 last settled at Mentz ; — and Coster, lamenting 
 his losses, tells his woes to the httle boy 
 Cornelis, who used to help the book-binder; 
 and Cornelis is so powerfully affecteid by the 
 tale, that seventy - two years after, whenever 
 he was askfed to repeat it, he would fall into 
 passionate weepings, and curse and execrate 
 the miscreant John, and vow nothing would 
 please him more, were he but alive, than with 
 his own hands to hang him outright.* These 
 
 * Dutch writers in accepting this tale of Junius as a 
 genuine historical fact, hare expended a vast amount of 
 ingenuity in endeavouring to identify the workman and 
 fix the date of the felony. The result is curious. Scriverius, 
 writing in 3 628, indicates John G-utenberg, in the year 
 1428; Boxhom,in 1639, says it was John Faust, iu 1420; 
 Seiz, in 1740, says it was John Gutenberg, between the years 
 1428 and 1467; Meerman, in 1765, says it was John 
 
260 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 are the bases upon which are built "the 
 accumulated and still accumulating evidence 
 in favour of Coster," — the "vast mass of 
 unanswerable evidence, in his favour," — in 
 presence of which "the advocates of Guten- 
 berg's claim to priority are slow to give way ;" 
 and for which slowness they are accused of 
 " closing both eyes and ears to testimony of 
 every kind, refusing to acknowledge that there 
 is the slightest ground for the claims oi*Hol- 
 land as against the, asserted, overwhelming 
 evidence in favour of Germany."* With such 
 
 Gensfleisch the elder, in 1430; Westreenen, in 1809, says, 
 about 1436, but does not give any name; Koning, in 1816, 
 says it was Frielo Gensfleisch, between 1420 and 1436; 
 De Vries, in 1822, says it was Johan Gensfleisch, in 1423; 
 and Alb. Thijm, in 1867, says it was one Hans, in 1423. 
 It is observable that all these writers decline to adopt the 
 date which Junius fixes upon, antedating the occurrence 
 from four to twenty years. This, however, they were com- 
 pelled to do, in order to get rid of certain facts, which 
 proved that the date 1440 was an impossible one, if either 
 Faust or Gutenberg was to be criminated. 
 * Humphreys, pp. 45 and 50. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 261 
 
 writers, the array of facts on the Gutenberg 
 
 side of the question goes for naught. Pinning 
 
 their faith to Junius they 
 
 " with power (their power was great) 
 
 Hovering upon the waters what they met 
 Solid or slimy, as in raging sea 
 Toss'd up and^own, together crowded drove 
 From each side shoaling." 
 
 Labouring thus, they from Meerman to Van 
 
 Meurs* 
 
 .... "following his track 
 Paved after him a broad and beaten way 
 Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf 
 Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length." 
 
 And patriotic Dutchmen in the nineteenth 
 century, with a full reliance on the stability 
 of the structure thus raised, have struck 
 medals, put up tablets, and erected- monuments, 
 commemorative of the memory of the "im- 
 mortal and incomparable Laurent Janssoen," 
 
 * " De Keulsche Kroniek en De Costerlegende van Dr. 
 A. Van der Linde, te zamen" getoetest door Dr. P. Van 
 Meurs." Haarlem, 1870. 
 
262 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 and the art he is alleged to have invented, with 
 an enthusiasm strangely at variance with their 
 utter ignorance of the man and his invention 
 for upwards of a century after his death.* 
 
 Of a very different opinion however was 
 Erasmus, who, it may fairly be presumed, was 
 not left unacquainted by his secretary, Talesius, 
 with the tradition which assigned to Haarlem 
 and Coster the origin of printing; but who 
 shewed, by his public declarations assigning 
 that honor to Mentz, that he deemed the 
 tradition unworthy of belief, and destitute of 
 even a basis of truth. Of a different opinion 
 too, was Van Opmer, who must have been 
 
 * " The recently erected statue of Koster at Haarlem, 
 is one of the finest works of its class that I have ever had 
 the good fortune to examine. The dimensions are colossal, 
 the work of a French sculptor, M. Eouger. I could wish 
 the artist were a Dutchman. The attitude of the statute, 
 nobly draped, and wearing the head gear of the time, is very 
 impressive. The lefb handclasps a book, while the right 
 hand holds aloft, vsdth an air of triumphant satisfaction, a 
 "type," by means of which the book has been,- as it were, 
 magically produced." — Humpheeys, p. 216. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 263 
 
 aware of the statements put forth in Coorn- 
 hert's edition of Cicero's Offices, and had 
 opportunity of judging of their truth ; although 
 Spiegel, living at the same time and in the 
 same city with Opmer, adopted them, and 
 asserted LaurQjitius to be the inventor of 
 separable wooden types. Carl Van Mander, 
 however, a later writer, pursuing his investi- 
 gations in the city of Haarlem, while preparing 
 the materials for his History of the Lives of 
 Painters and Engravers, which was printed 
 there about 1605, is as silent on the subject 
 of Coster, as Prior Gerbrant. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, Meerman and the 
 multitude who follow in his wake, cling to their 
 faith in Junius. His assertions, contradictory 
 as they have been shewn to be, to those of 
 writers immediately preceding him, outweigh 
 with them all other evidence. Enough for them 
 the support he receives in the testimony of 
 Ulric Zell and Mariangelus Accursius. The 
 reader has that testimony before him, and 
 
264 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 can form his own estimate of its weight on 
 the Costerian side of the balance. Zell is the 
 only authority for the statement that Block- 
 book Donatuses were first printed in Holland. 
 Accursius but recapitulates Zell's words, upon 
 a Donatus which he states was printed by 
 Faust at Mentz in 1450. Zell was a Fleming, 
 and although he learned the art of printing 
 at Mentz and carried it thence to Cologne, he 
 had without doubt his national partialities; 
 his account is not however borne out by that 
 of SchoefFer, given to Abbot Trithemius in 
 1484, although the two statements are not 
 contradictory. Neither do they contradict 
 the account of the origin of the art as stated 
 by Bergel. Each may supplement the other. 
 The first idea of printing may have occurred 
 to Gutenberg from the impressions made in 
 wax by his signet ring, and his cogitations 
 upon the subject have been further confirmed 
 by Block - books bought at Aix - la - Chapelle. 
 It may therefore be admitted, that Block- 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 265 
 
 book Donatuses were printed and sold in 
 Holland, prior to 1436. But what then? 
 Haarlem is not Holland, any more than Liver- 
 pool is England. And to argue that if such 
 books were printed in Holland, they must 
 therefore have Jaeen produced at Haarlem;* 
 and if the work of a Hollander, why not of 
 
 * "If," says Santandbr, "we examine all the authors 
 without exception who have written in favour of Haarlem, 
 we shall not find the smallest proof, the least contempo- 
 raneous document, in support of their pretensions ; all that 
 we read in them, all that they allege, reduces itself to the 
 narrative of Junius, which was itself composed from light 
 hearsay evidence, and which each writer comments upon 
 according to his fancy." &c., &c. 
 
 "What!" exclaims Ottlet, "ai'e the fragments of 
 Donatuses, found in Holland, and printed in the same type 
 as the Speculum, to be considered as no evidence whatever 
 of early printing in that country" &c., &c., &c. — Invention 
 of Printing, p. 117. 
 
 " Goster was the first to use moveable [cast metal] types 
 
 This view is not only supported by one of the earliest 
 
 writers on the subject, but by . . . Ulric Zell," who says 
 "Item: although this art was discovered at Mentz at first 
 in the manner in which it is now commonly used, yet the 
 first example of it was found in Holland," &c. — Blades's 
 Life, dec. of W. Caxlon, vol. i. p. 59. 
 
 2k 
 
266 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Coster?* is simply to attempt to cut through a 
 difficulty which has defied every other effort to 
 penetrate or solve ; and moreover it leaves un- 
 touched the question, whether separable types 
 were first made in Germany or Holland, which 
 is the hinge whereon the whole controversy 
 in regard to the origin of Typography turns. 
 
 * After enumerating Beveral works "printed with, whab 
 may be termed Kosterian types," Mr. Humphreys says : — 
 " Thus it is proved, not only that Koster is not a myth 
 invented by the Dutch to glorify themselves, and that the 
 ' Speculum ' is not an isolated and unauthenticated monu- 
 ment ; but that there was in all probability, a Koster (and 
 if not, some other native of Holland) who was the printer 
 of at least three out of the four editions of the ' Speculum,' 
 and that his family successors, or pupils and workmen, 
 continued to print in the same style after his death." — 
 Hist, of Art of Printing, p. 65. 
 
 " The third edition [of the Speculum] has a much more 
 important character than the second, being a Dutch trans- 
 lation in prose, printed by the same double process as the 
 preceding, all the text being typographic, and only printed 
 on one side of the paper. The issue of this edition (evi- 
 dently from the same establishment), in the Dutch language, 
 is an all sufiicient proof of the celebrated 'Speculum' being 
 beyond doubt, the production of a Dutch artisan, or rather 
 artist, and if so, why not of Kost&r?" — Ih. p. 63. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 267 
 
 But Junius specifies the " Mirror of Human 
 Salvation," as a work, the like of which, or 
 of which sort, was the work which had been 
 printed by Coster: — a work with wood-cut 
 figures and descriptive text below, and printed 
 on one side only. There were several works 
 of this kind known ; and although some have 
 been alluded to in the previous chapters, a more 
 extended notice of them may here be given. 
 
 Temptationes Demonis ; a large block cover- 
 ing one side of an entire sheet of paper, and 
 containing texts of Scripture, with figures of 
 angels and devils. 
 
 Donatus, de Octo Partibus Orationis. 
 
 Biblia Pauperum, consisting of forty leaves 
 of small folio ; each leaf contains a central 
 design of three scriptural subjects, with two 
 half-length figures of prophets or holy men 
 both above and below; on either side of 
 these are explanatory descriptions, while 
 beneath are their names, with additional 
 inscriptions on scrolls. 
 
268 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Historia Sancti Johannis Evangelistce, 
 S^usque Visiones ApocalypticcB ; folio designs 
 of scenes from the Apocalypse, two subjects 
 on each page, with labels and scrolls contain- 
 ing descriptive matter. 
 
 Historia seu Providentia Virginis Marice, 
 ex Cantico Canticorum, or the Book of 
 Canticles ; consisting of eight blocks, each 
 containing four designs, with Latin inscrip- 
 tions on scrolls interspersed among the 
 figures. 
 
 Historia Beatse Marise Virginis ex Evan- 
 gelistis et Patribus excerpta et per Figuras 
 Demonstrata. 
 
 Defensorium inviolatse Virginitatis Mariffi 
 Virginis. 
 
 Der Entkrist, or the Book of Antichrist; 
 consisting of thirty-nine cuts with text. 
 
 Ars Memorandi ; a quarto work of fourteen 
 pages, consisting of whole page engravings 
 of symbols of the four Evangelists, with ac- 
 companying pages of explanations. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 269 
 
 Ars Moriendi; a series of quarto cuts, 
 exhibiting the deaths of good and bad men, 
 with descriptive pages of text opposite the 
 cuts. 
 
 A quarto work of thirty-two cuts, containing 
 subjects of Sacred writ; under each cut are 
 fifteen verses in the German language. 
 
 Speculum Humance Salvationis; fifty-eight 
 leaves, each containing two designs, mostly 
 from the Old or New Testament ; each design 
 has a Latin inscription of one line engraved 
 on it. Beneath is placed the descriptive text. 
 In the Latin edition there are five leaves of 
 preface, and in the Dutch four. 
 
 Die Kunst Cheiromantia ; a work treating 
 of palmistry. 
 
 Planetenbuch ; treating of the influence of 
 planets on human life. 
 
 Mirabilia Romae; a guide to the principal 
 shrines in Rome; 
 
 Opera nova contemplativa. 
 
270 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Of the above, Koning ascribes all those 
 printed in italics to Coster,* together with the 
 Catonis Disticha, and Horarium, the latter 
 a book of eight small pages discovered by M. 
 Ensched^ of Haarlem, containing the letters 
 of the Alphabet, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave 
 Maria, the Apostles' Creed, &c., printed with 
 moveable characters .f Including separate 
 
 * Baron Heinecken, Santander, and others, assign a 
 German origin to them. 
 
 f'The Horarium (or more correctly A B C Darium) 
 rendered so celebrated by the detailed notice of so many 
 learned Bibliopolists, as one of the earliest efforts of Koster, 
 and by some considered positively his first experimental 
 work with moTeable types, either of bark (?), wood (?), or 
 metal, I have examined very closely, and do not consider 
 that it has any claim whatever to be so considered. It is 
 true, that both type and printing are rude, but that is no 
 sufacient reason for assigning to it a strictly primitive 
 character, as many rudely executed works might be cited 
 long after the practical establishment of the Printing Press. 
 The fact is, that its being printed on both sides, and the 
 imposition for folding being arranged after the regular 
 manner adopted when printing with moveable types was in 
 general use, induce me to believe that it was printed long 
 after the 'Speculum,' probably by the successors of Koster 
 
EARLY TYPOaEAPHY. 271 
 
 editions, Koning gives Coster the credit of 
 printing seventeen works. Now the time, as 
 well as labour, involved in designing and 
 engraving these works must have been very 
 great. In the Biblia Pauperum there are 200 
 designs, beside^ the text; in the Book of 
 Canticles, 32 ; in the Speculum Humanoi Sal- 
 vationis, 116 ; besides those in the Ars Moriendi, 
 
 who used Ms types. Even the specimens of Donatnses, 
 which I have examined in Holland (and elsewhere) especially 
 in the Royal Library of the Hague, under the learned 
 guidance of Dr. Holtrop and Mr. Campbel, lead me to the 
 conviction that they were not essays by Koster anterior to 
 the production of the ' Speculum.' It is true, that I was 
 shewn a specimen of a Donatus printed on vellum, and on 
 one side only, which has been recovered from the binding of 
 an old Dutch book. But I look upon it as a rough 'proof,' 
 that was never completed, and eventually used like ordinary 
 waste to stiffen bindings." — Humphreys, p. 215. This 
 Horarium was discovered in the binding of an old book, 
 forming in fact a portion of the binding. The pages are 
 printed on vellum on both sides ; and it has been pointed 
 out that the letter i has a modern peculiarity in being 
 dotted, instead of having, as in the ancient manuscripts 
 and printed books, a stroke above it, thus, i. Enschede 
 who discovered the work, published a fac-simile of it in 
 
272 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 and the Apocalypse. These are among the 
 very earliest specimens of design and engrav- 
 ing on wood that are known to exist. If 
 then these were executed, as alleged, by- 
 Coster in Haarlem,* how came it, that his 
 contemporaries knew nothing of them; that 
 Van Mander, — himself an artist and an en- 
 graver, who describes in his History, written 
 and printed at Haarlem, the works of Flemish 
 
 1768. Chatto, who critically examined it, says, ia Jack- 
 son's Treatise on Wood-engraving (2d edit. 1861, p. 162,) 
 " It is certainly such a one as he was most wishM to find, 
 and which he in his capacity of type-foimder and printer 
 would find little difficulty in producing. I am firmly con- 
 Tinced that it is neither printed with wooden types, nor 
 a specimen of early typography. I suspect it to he a 
 Dutch typographic essay on popular credulity." — This I 
 thiuk a harsh judgment; and, of the two, I prefer to 
 belieye, with Humphreys, that Enschede was mistaken in 
 supposing the pages he found to be a work, perhaps the 
 earliest work, of Coster, rather than with Chatto, to suspect 
 that he forged it himself. 
 
 * The Town-hall at Haarlem possesses a collection of 
 Costerian relics, but Mr. Humphreys says (p. 215) "they 
 are not, as it seems to me, so important as many writers 
 have deemed them." 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 273 
 
 and Dutch -artists living both before and after 
 Coster's time, — is silent in regard to both the 
 man and his works ? — although he says that 
 the city of Haarlem "dares to pretend to the 
 glory of having invented printing." 
 
 By this expression it is contended by Coster's 
 advocates, Van Mander " intended to say, that 
 the claims of Haarlem were well founded." And 
 furthermore, that his silence is to be accounted 
 for from the fact, that "none of these wood 
 engravings bear the initials of the artists who 
 designed or engraved them, and that he may 
 have been uncertain as to their names." But 
 what a lame and impotent conclusion is this 
 to arrive at. Van Mander, it is plain, knew of 
 the tradition about the origin of printing in 
 Haarlem. His own work was carried down to 
 the year 1604, and Junius's BatSvia was 
 printed in 1588 — sixteen years previously. He 
 could not therefore have been ignorant of what 
 was said in that work about Coster, and his 
 printing works with woodcuts similar to those 
 
 2l 
 
274 EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 of the Mirror of Salvation. Knowing that, he 
 must have made inquiry concerning both, and 
 have arrived at the same conclusion as Eras- 
 mus and Van Opmer. Otherwise, how is his 
 silence to be accounted for ? The very fact 
 of the woodcuts being without initials should 
 have stimulated inquiry,. They are the work 
 of an artist of no mean skill; and to sup- 
 pose that he passed them by yvithout notice, 
 or without an attempt to discover their de^ 
 signer, engraver, or printer, who was alleged 
 to have been a wealthy and influential burgher 
 of the city in which he was writing, is to cast 
 a slur on Van Mander's reputation as an his- 
 torian which he does not appear to deserve. 
 Even as the works of an unknown artist 
 they demanded, and would have received, 
 notice, hSd they been printed and sold in the 
 manner described by Junius, and those who 
 have subsequently amplified his narrative. 
 
 With regard to the engravings in the "Poor 
 Man's Bible," Ottley says (p. 87,) "the style 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 275 
 
 of these cuts has considerable resemblance 
 to that of the two Van Eycks," and he con- 
 siders that the designs in this work, together 
 with those in the Book of Canticles, and the 
 Mirror of Salvation, were, with the exception 
 of the last tan cuts of the latter, the production 
 of the same artist, or at any rate of artists of 
 the same school; all the others being of a 
 different style, and of inferior merit. He 
 regrets his inability to speak with certainty 
 upon their age, but relies upon the following 
 note in Dr. Dibdin's Bibliotheca Spenceriana, 
 (vol. i. p. 4.) 
 
 " Mr. Horn, a gentleman long and well known for his 
 familiar acquaintance with ancient books printed abroad was 
 in possession of a copy of the Biblia Pawperum, of the Ars 
 Morimdi, and of the Apocalypse, all bound in one volume, 
 which volume had upon the exterior of the cover, the 
 following wprds stamped at the extremity of the binding, 
 towards the edge" of the squares: — 'Hic liber Relegatus 
 FtriT PER Plebaijum Ecclesie — Anno Domini 142[8].' 
 Mr. Horn having broken up the volume and parted with its 
 contents, was enabled to supply me with the foregoing 
 vaiovm&iion. upon the strength of his memory alone; but he 
 is quite confident of the three following particulars: — 1, 
 
276 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 That the works, contained in this yolume, were as have 
 been just mentioned: — 2, That the binding was the ancient 
 legitimate one, and that the treatise had not been sub- 
 sequently introduced into it: — and 3, That the date was 
 142. ..odd — ^bnt positively anterior to the year 1430." 
 
 This testimony Mr. Ottley considers it un- 
 gracious to question; but "with all this," he 
 says, "I wish that the volume still existed 
 entire, or that, at least, the coVer had been 
 
 preserved But, whatever the antiquity of 
 
 the first block-books, which almost all writers 
 are of opinion preceded the first attempts to 
 print with moveable characters, it is certain, 
 that for many years after the invention of 
 typography, the engravers in wood continued 
 to publish works of this kind."* 
 
 The most interesting of these works is the 
 Speculum Humance Salvationis, which in one 
 of its four folio editions has the text partly 
 in block, and thus forms a connecting link 
 between Xylographic and Typographic print- 
 
 * Inquiry, pp. 202—203. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 277 
 
 ing. The whole of these four editions are 
 thought by many to have been printed previous 
 to Gutenberg's first production at Mentz. 
 They are attributed to Coster and his de- 
 scendants solely on account of the obscure 
 passage in reference to them which occurs in 
 the narrative of Junius ; and because of that 
 reference, and their manifest superiority over 
 others of the same class, all those which 
 resemble them in general appearance and style 
 of types, and that have neither initial, date, 
 name or place, to indicate by whom and when 
 and where they were printed, are in like 
 manner claimed as the product of Coster's 
 Press, by every writer who from the days of 
 Meerman to the present, has advocated the 
 pretensions of Haarlem in opposition to those 
 of Mentz to be the seat of the origin of the 
 Typographic Art.* 
 
 * " The works which may ahnost to a certainty be ascribed 
 to the Costerian press after the death of the inyentor, and 
 
278 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Of these four editions, tlie first and third, 
 says Ottley, are those in the Latin language ; 
 the second and fourth those in Dutch. The 
 engravings are the same in each ; but differ- 
 ences exist in the texts ; and it is on the 
 assumption that the text was printed previous 
 to taking the impressions of the cuts, that he 
 deduces the order of the editions from the 
 condition and appearance of the cuts. Ac- 
 cording to this arrangement, the text of the 
 second edition is printed with the same type 
 that was used in the first, with the exception 
 
 the publication of the Speculum, are various editions of the 
 Donatus, Catonia Disticha, Laurentii Vallensi Facecie 
 Morales, Ludovici Pontani de Roma Singularia in Causis 
 Criminalibus, Gulielmus de Saliceto de Salute Corporis, 
 Horarinm, Alexandri Galli Doctrinale, Petri Hispani Trac- 
 tatus, Francisci Petrarchse de Salibus Virorum Illustrium 
 et Faceciis Tractatus, &c., all of which are without date or 
 name of printer, but are issued from the same press, and 
 the types of which, perfectly like those in the Speculum, 
 cannot be attributed by any such similarity to any other 
 printing office either in Germany or even in Holland and 
 the Low Countries." — P. H. Bbejeau, p. xxxvi. Introd. to 
 Ottlby's Inquiry. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 279 
 
 of two pages containing cuts 45 and 56, the 
 type of which is inferior to that of the rest 
 of the book. In the third edition (the second 
 Latin) twenty pages of the text are engraved 
 on solid blocks. The types of the text of the 
 fourth edition, although similar in appearance 
 to those of the three preceding, are some- 
 what smaller and coarser.* 
 
 To account for these differences, Mr. Ottley 
 has framed a theory which exactly fits the 
 narrative given by Junius, viz: — that while 
 the second edition (the first Dutch) was in 
 
 * Mebeman considered that this edition was the &st, and 
 only one printed by Coster, between the years 1430 and 
 1440 ; that the L^ktin edition with twenty pages of block- 
 printing came ■ next ; then the other Dutch, and lastly the 
 second Latin. Humphreys (p. 56,) concludes that all four 
 editions were printed by Coster, the first being the one 
 with twenty pages of xylographic text. Ottley allows him 
 one, and the greater part of another. Of the first edition 
 (following Humphreys' classification), ten copies are known 
 — two in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, one in the 
 British Museum, one in the Bodleian library at Oxford, 
 one in the Spencer library, and five in Holland. Of the 
 second edition there are six copies — one in the Imperial 
 
280 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 progress and nearly finished, the original 
 printer died and his types were stolen, which 
 compelled his successor, who was unable to 
 replace the original types, either to use some 
 older discarded ones, or to avail himself of 
 a supply of an inferior description in order 
 to finish it ; that while the first Dutch edition 
 was in progress a second Latin one was 
 demanded, to meet which, and to bring both 
 the Dutch and the Latin out as quick as 
 
 library at Vienna, one in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence, the 
 third, without preface, in the Town Hall at Haarlem, the 
 fourth with but 40 pages, in the library at Hanover, the 
 fifth in the Royal library at Brussels ; and the sixth and 
 most perfect, the Inglis copy in the possession of Mr. 
 Quaritch. Of the third edition (the first . Dutch) copies 
 are in, the libraries of Lord Spencer, and Mr. Westreenen 
 Von Tiellandt at the Hague ; the fine copy formerly in the 
 Enschede collection is now in England. Of the fourth 
 edition, only three copies are known — one in the Town 
 Hall of Haarlem, the second in the public library of that 
 city, and the third in the library at LiUe. It is possible 
 there may have been a larger number of early folio editions, 
 as several of the above copies appear to have been made up 
 from more than one. 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 281 
 
 possible, the wood engraver was employed 
 to make fac-similes of the texts of 20 pages ; 
 and that for the fourth edition, an old inferior 
 fount was used. And upon this theory he 
 says, (p. 298,) " I am of opinion that the 
 concluding passage of his ( Junius's) narrative, 
 wherein, upon the authority of Nicholas Galius 
 and Quirinus Talesius, he relates the story 
 of the robbery which they had formerly more 
 than once heard from the mouth of Old 
 Cornelius the book-binder, who in his youth 
 had lived in the service of the printer who 
 was robbed, merits to be considered as one 
 of the best attested accounts that we possess 
 respecting the early history of typography." ! 
 But Messrs. Berjeau, Bernard,* Paiele,f 
 and Humphreys, who have also made the 
 Speculum a special subject of study, do not 
 
 * "De rOrigine et des Debuts de I'lmpriinerie. en 
 Europe." Paris, 1853. 
 
 f "Essai Historique et Critique sur I'lnvention de 1' 
 Imprimerie." Paris-Lille, 1859. 
 
 2 M 
 
282 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 admit the assumption that the text was printed 
 before the cuts ; they adduce good arguments 
 to shew that the impressions of the cuts 
 might have been, and probably were, rubbed 
 off before the text was printed; and the 
 character of the Gothic framework of the 
 cuts that surmount the pages with solid text, 
 being much plainer than that in those where 
 moveable type is used, aflfords strong ground 
 for the belief that the edition in which they 
 occur was the first instead of the third ; the 
 first, that is, that was issued in a completed 
 form ; for there can be no doubt but that 
 the splendid copy owned by the late J. B. 
 Inglis, Esq., was the first as regards the 
 impression of the cuts, — the body of some of 
 the scrolls in . that copy having been left 
 untouched by the wood engraver, while in 
 all others it is cut away. This peculiarity 
 it was that led Mr. Ottley to the belief 
 that it was the first completed edition, 
 both as regards cuts and texts ; while 
 
Mr. Humphreys, with more reason on his side, 
 considers that the edition with the twenty 
 pages of xylographic text was the first. 
 "The execution of the subjects," he says, 
 (p. 60,) "is not equal to those of some of the 
 pages with .the typographic text, and there 
 is no foliage in the architectural spandrils. 
 This may serve to prove that the entirely 
 xylographic pages were older than the 
 typographic ones ; and that only a few of 
 the best of them were used in the edition 
 which has typographic texts to most of the 
 illustrations."* The conclusion to which these 
 
 * Mr. Humphreys concludes from his examination of the 
 Dutch -copy of the Speculum, formerly in the Enschede 
 collection at Haarlem, that this edition was "by far the 
 most finely executed." It was sold, on the dispersion of 
 the Ensched6 collection in 1867, for 700 guineas. The 
 purchaser, Mr. Quaritch of Piccadilly, it is understood has 
 since resold it in England at a considerable advance. 
 The same spirited bibliographer bought the Inglis copy 
 (sold in 1871) — a specimen of the Latin edition with all 
 the text in moveable types, in the most fine and perfect 
 condition, — ^for £525. 
 
284 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 writers have come, upsets Mr. Ottley's theory, 
 and renders nugatory his opinion, that 
 Junius's story of the thief "is one of the best 
 attested accounts that we possess respecting 
 the early history of typography." 
 
 The weight which is attached to Mr. Ottley's 
 deliverances on the siibjects upon which he 
 has written, (and particularly in regard to the 
 Speculum, to which four chapters of his work 
 are devoted,) makes it necessary to consider 
 with care whatever he advances upon matters 
 wherein he is largely quoted as an authority 
 by those who have not had similar oppor- 
 tunities for examining the documents upon 
 which he bases his conclusions; and as he 
 does not scruple to denounce those as sophists 
 whose arguments run counter to his own, 
 and to triumphantly expose any slips or 
 inconsistencies which he can detect in the 
 writings of those to whom he opposes himself, 
 it will be well to see whether he is himself 
 free from the failings he so ruthlessly exposes 
 
EAKLT TYPOGRAPHY. 285 
 
 in others. On tlie question of the separable 
 types which were used in the various editions 
 of the Speculum, I shall therefore give his 
 argument entire. He first says — "this type 
 appears to have been formed vipon the exact 
 model of the genuine black letter, commonly 
 used from an early period in Holland, and 
 which is of almost constant occurrence in old 
 Dutch manuscript Missals, and other books 
 of prayer. It is similar, in the forms and 
 joinings of the letters, and in the contractions 
 used in it, to what we often find in the most 
 highly embellished books of devotion of the 
 
 fourteenth century this broad-faced 
 
 type, this genuine black-letter, is a charac- 
 teristic of early Dutch typography. This, 
 indeed, is now so generally acknowledged 
 by Bibliographers, that it is unnecessary to 
 insist upon it further; as every judge of old 
 printing will at once declare, upon looking 
 at the Speculum, that the type it is printed 
 with, is Dutch type." To all which a ready 
 
286 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 assent may be given. He proceeds as 
 follows : — 
 
 "Any person at all conversant with printing, upon first 
 viewing the Speculum, naturally determines that, except 
 the twenty 'pages of block-printing, so often noticed, in one 
 of the Latin editions, it was printed with cast metal, types. 
 Upon an attentive examination of a page, however, he dis- 
 covers small, but yet, sometimes, very evident variations of 
 form in different specimens of the same letter, which it 
 appears dif&cult to account for: he finds, perhaps, by 
 measurement, that the same word, although spelt exactly in 
 the same manner, does not always occupy the same space ; 
 he is induced perhaps, to hesitate as to the correctness of 
 his first judgment, and to suspect that the type was 
 prepared by the painful and tedious operation of cutting 
 each individual character on a separate piece of metal by 
 the hand. 
 
 " If he embrace the latter opinion, he finds, in the work 
 before him, ample cause to admire the invincible patience, 
 the skill, and the exactness of the artist, who could succeed, 
 not only in giving to the sculptured characters that general 
 uniformity of appearance, which at first occasioned him to 
 consider them as cast type ; but even so strict a resem- 
 blance between perhaps a dozen specimens of the same letter 
 in the first six lines of a page, as to baffle the exertions of 
 the most correct eye to detect any sensible difference 
 between them,- except such as must necessarily occur even 
 in the ordinary method of printing with cast type ; either 
 in consequence of one letter happening to have been more 
 used and worse than another, more charged with printing 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 287 
 
 ink, or from an irregularity not unfrequent in ordinary 
 presBwork, forced deeper into the paper than the rest." 
 
 Having been "conversant with printing" 
 for more than forty years, during thirty-two 
 of which I have been constantly engaged m 
 superintending the passing of works through 
 the press, and in the general management 
 of extensive private and public printing estab- 
 lishments, and having besides a practical 
 knowledge of the arts of wood-engraving, 
 stereotyping, and type-founding, I must own, 
 that the impression made on my mind upon 
 examining the fac-similes of the Speculum 
 given in Wetter's, Ottley's, and Humphreys' 
 books, was, that the separable types used 
 in printing that work were cut in wood, and 
 were not made of cast metal ; and the longer 
 I have studied the subject, the more satisfied 
 I am, that Meerman was right in rejecting 
 the opinion of Ensched^,* who was strenuously 
 
 * From the fact that Enschede was a printer and type- 
 founder, his opinion has had great weight with subsequent 
 
288 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 opposed to the idea of wooden types having 
 been used. The eye that has been trained 
 to trace out and instantly detect the most 
 minute differences in the shapes of letters 
 of different founts of the same sized types, 
 from the largest of those ordinarily^ used 
 in book-work to the smallest employed in 
 newspapers, — to mark out for correction n's 
 and p's and q's that have been turned upside 
 down in order to serve for u's and d's and b's, 
 and vice versa, as well as to reverse turned s's 
 and o's — all common enough occurrences with 
 careless compositors, and which only practised 
 eyes can detect; — ^the eye of a "reader" who 
 has had only a few years' experience of 
 such work cannot but note the multitudinous 
 differences, the variations in shape externally 
 and internally, of specimens of the same 
 
 writers. I hare no doubt, howeyer, but that his eagerness 
 to secure for his own countryman and birth-place the honour 
 of the invention of metal types, blinded him to the evidence 
 which the letters in the Speculum present to the contrary. 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 289 
 
 letters which occur in every line of the 
 fac-simile pages of the Speculum given in 
 the books quoted ; and which cannot be 
 accounted for by one being more worn than 
 another, or more Or less charged with ink, 
 or more deeply ' pressed into the paper than 
 the rest. Such imperfections are of a totally 
 different character, and produce appearances 
 altogether dissimilar to those which distin- 
 guish the different specimens of the same 
 letters in the same lines of the Speculum 
 one from the other. Looked at through a 
 magnifying glass, these differences are of 
 course much more easily discernible, and 
 as they are of precisely the same kind that 
 are found in the letters in the solid xylo- 
 graphic blocks, the conviction finally forces 
 itself upon the mind, that such types could 
 not have been cast, but must have been cut, 
 and cut in wood. In an examination of this 
 nature, the letters of a single page, or at the 
 most those of the two pages of a single sheet, 
 
 2n 
 
290 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 are all that can be attended to; for in their 
 early efforts, the oldest printers usually printed 
 but one small folio page, and seldom if ever 
 more than two such pages at a time ; and 
 when as many copies as were wanted were 
 struck off, the types were broken up for 
 the next page, or two, and so on until the 
 work in hand was completed. The types 
 therefore that were used in the two pages 
 first printed would constantly recur in all the 
 following pages; and it is principally owing 
 to this recurrence of particular letters bear- 
 ing on their faces some special peculiarity, 
 that the fact is detected that such ancient 
 books as the Speculum are printed with 
 moveable letters. Mr. Ottley goes on: — 
 
 "But let him (the person at all conversant with printing) 
 turn from the page which he has 'been, examining, to one of 
 those printed from a wooden ilock; and he will soon be 
 CONVINCED, ly the amipa/rison, that the uniformity of appear- 
 ance which he witnessed in the characters of the former, could 
 not have been produced by means similar to those used in the 
 execution of the latter; for in the page printed from the 
 engraved block he will discover, throughout, a sensible 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 291 
 
 diflference of form, as well as dimensions, between the 
 various repetitions of the same letter: and in the capital 
 letters especially, he will find this difference so material, as 
 to render it easy for him to trace with a point the precise 
 variations of form by which, for example, each of a dozen 
 letters, S, is to be distinguished from all the others. It 
 will then occur to him, that it must have teen a task of 
 less difficulty ta preserve uniformity in the shapes and 
 dimensions of the letters, in a page of text engraved upon a 
 plain block of wood, which would have afforded the artist 
 not only the means of a constant comparison, but also a con- 
 venient and steady rest for his hand during the operation of 
 engraving, than it could have been to cut the num^ous cha- 
 racters required, with so strict a resemblance to each other, 
 on small separate pieces of wood or metal; and he will per- 
 ceive his second opinion to be untenable." — (pp. 257 — 259.) 
 
 The means of such a comparison are af- 
 forded in the absolute fac-similes in Mr. 
 Humphreys' book, and the differences of form 
 and dimensions in the various repetitions of 
 the same letter are not by any means so 
 material as Mr. Ottley intimates. He more- 
 over assumes, that if the separate letters were 
 cut by hand, they must have been cut on 
 "separate pieces of wood or metal," and there- 
 fore, he argues, there could not have been 
 
292 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 preserved the same uniformity "in the shapes 
 and dimensions Of the letters," as in a page of 
 text engraved upon a plain block of wood, 
 because there would be lacking "the means 
 of a constant comparison," as well as "the 
 convenient and steady rest for the hand dur- 
 ing the operation of engraving." But this 
 assumption is utterly uncalled for. What was 
 to hinder the engraver, after calculating the 
 probable number of each kind of letter he 
 required, to trace the whole in alphabetical 
 order on his blocks of wood, and to engrave 
 them all, before he cut them into separate 
 pieces ? He would thus have the best possible 
 means for constantly comparing every speci- 
 men of the same letter, as he proceeded with 
 his task, and be able to preserve a steady and 
 convenient rest for his hand until all were 
 sculptured out, leaving the minor operation of 
 separating the letters for use in combination 
 to the very last moment. But Mr. Ottley 
 forgets himself; for in the next chapter, after 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 293 
 
 pointing out sundry differences in the ortho- 
 graphy of the pages printed with moveable 
 types in the two Latin editions, he writes 
 (p. 294):— 
 
 "If the pages printed" from engi-aved blocks, in the 
 Second Latin Edjtion, be compared with same pages in the 
 First Edition, we shall not find these changes. 
 
 " Although, when I wrote upon this subject twenty years 
 ago, I was fully satisfied, as I then said, that the twenty 
 pages of block printing in the Second Latin Edition, were 
 of later date than the rest of the work, and that they had 
 been engraved for the express purpose of completing the 
 copies of this edition ; still I was not then awaxe that such 
 undeniable eyidence existed of the fact, as I afterwards 
 discovered. Suffice it to say, that, upon an opportunity 
 being afforded me of comparing this edition with the First 
 Latin, I immediately perceived (and I was rather gratified 
 than surprised at the discovery) that those twenty pages in 
 the Second Latin are no other than facsimile imitations of 
 the same pages, as printed with type in the first edition. 
 
 " The printer, or his successor, as has been said, having 
 been deprived of the type hitherto used in the work, printed 
 the two pages wanting to complete his Dutch edition with 
 the remains of some old type, a little different, which had 
 previously been thrown agide, as no longer fit for use. But 
 in doing it, he experienced, perhaps, more trouble than he 
 anticipated; and as twenty pages, instead of two, were 
 wanting to complete the second Latin edition, he now be- 
 thought himself of another mode of procedure. Having 
 
2U EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 taken from a copy of the first Latin edition the ten sheets 
 containing the twenty pages wanting to complete the second 
 edition, and having corrected with a pen a letter here and 
 there misprinted, he delivered those sheets to a wood en- 
 graver, with directions to copy them exactly; and the 
 engraver executed the commission, by first glueing these 
 ten sheets with their face downwards upon ten prepared 
 blocks of wood (according to the method then used), then, 
 rendering the paper transparent by oil or otherwise, and 
 lastly, by cutting away the wood around the letters." 
 
 The whole of the last of these paragraphs, 
 it is to be remembered, is purely conjectural ; 
 there is not the slightest foundation for it, 
 beyond the necessity for thus accounting for a 
 certain fact, and making that fact dove-tail 
 in with the writer's theory that the edition with 
 twenty-pages of xylographic text was the 
 second, and not the first; a theory which 
 equally able writers, writers too on the Cos- 
 terian side of the controversy, deny ; main- 
 taining, with a better show of reason on their 
 side, that the xylographic (edition was the first. 
 But apart from this consideration, if the twenty 
 pages engraved on blocks, are fac - simile imi- 
 tations of the twenty corresponding pages in 
 
EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 295 
 
 the other Latin edition, what are we to think 
 of Mr. Ottley's previous assertion, that in these 
 identical pages, there is '■throughout, a sen- 
 sible difference of form as well as dimensions 
 between the various repetitions of the same 
 letter ; and iu the capital letters especially, this 
 difference is material.^'? Both statements 
 cannot be correct; and how they are to be 
 reconciled I know not. 
 
 After confessing that the changes of opinion 
 he had previously described were those which 
 had taken place in his own mind, Mr. Ottley 
 proceeds : — 
 
 "At length the following mode occurred to me of ac- 
 counting satisfactorily, as I still think it does, for the 
 dissimilarities above noticed in the type of that work. 
 The type of the Speculum was, I conceire, made by pouring 
 melted lead, pewter, or other metal, into moulds of earth 
 or plaster, formed, whilst the earth or plaster was in a moist 
 state, upon letters cut \)j the hand in wood or metal; in 
 the ordinary maimer used, from time immemorial, in casting 
 statues of bronze and other articles of metal, whether for 
 use or ornament. The mould thus formed could not be 
 of long duration like a matrix, cut or stamped in metal, 
 since it was obviously subject to fracture ; nor could it be 
 
296 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY; 
 
 equally trne and perfect in other respects, as it was liable 
 to warp in drying. From moulds thus constructed, but a 
 small number of specimens of each letter could be taken, 
 before they would require to be renewed. This it is rea- 
 sonable to suppose, was effected ly forming new moulds upon 
 the various pieces which had been cast out of the old ones. 
 Those characters however, before they could have been fit 
 for use, it had been necessary to clear, by means of the 
 graver, from certain small particles of extraneous metal 
 left upon them by the process of casting; so that the small 
 accidental dissimilarities in different specimens of the same 
 letter, originally occasioned by this imperfect mode of 
 casting them, were necessarily augmented by the after 
 process of finishing or clearing them with a sharp instrument, 
 (the marks of which are very clearly to be perceived in the 
 type of the Speculum); and thus the renewed moulds, 
 formed upon the letters thus prepared, would necessarily 
 differ, and in some cases very materially, from the former 
 moulds, and also (for these moulds could be multiplied at 
 pleasure) from each other. That a book, printed with type 
 thus manufactured, should present a never ending variety 
 in the forms of the different specimens of the same letter, 
 is therefore not surprising; it is rather a subject for our 
 admiration that the dissimilarity in the characters in the 
 work before us is not greater and more immediately 
 apparent." 
 
 The above mode of accounting for the 
 discrepancies in the appearances of the 
 different specimens of the same letter, is 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 297 
 
 opposed to that put forward by Koning, who 
 takes it for granted that the types were cast 
 by the printer of the Speculum in the same 
 way, and with the same kind of apparatus, 
 as that now used by type-founders, only that 
 the punches were made of hard wood, and the 
 matrices of lead or pewter ; and he accounts 
 for certain peculiar fractures he had perceived 
 in several instances on the top of the capital 
 i£ as well as in a number of the capital ^Si 
 in which a part of the central upright stroke 
 was broken in the middle, by supposing that 
 some of .the punches had been continued in 
 use after they had received small injuries. 
 
 On the supposition that the types of the 
 Speculum really were of cast metal, Koning's 
 idea is much more reasonable than that of 
 Ottley; but he is wrong in his notion that 
 matrices could be struck in lead or pewter, 
 from punches of hard wood on which letters 
 of the size and character of those used in 
 the Speculum had been engraved. A few 
 
 20 
 
298 EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 
 
 indifferent matrices might indeed be struck 
 from some of the larger letters, say the letter 
 m, but of the smaller ones, and those which 
 had fine hair strokes, both capitals and mi- 
 nuscules, the fine strokes and faces of the 
 letters would invariably be crushed. That, 
 at any rate, is the result of a series of 
 experiments made by the writer, with the 
 view of ascertaining whether with letters so 
 engraved on wood and with the softest pro- 
 curable sheet lead, matrices could be struck 
 from which types might be cast ; and in which 
 he was not successful in a single instance. 
 
 Admitting, however, for the moment, that 
 the printer of the Speculum succeeded in 
 striking a complete set of matrices ; it has 
 been proved by experiments, that from ma- 
 trices of soft lead as many as from 120 to 
 150 letters can be cast,* before they are 
 rendered useless ; only after 50 or 60 had 
 
 * Pkunelle, au Magazin Encyclopidique de 1806. 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 299 
 
 been made, the fine strokes would begin to 
 thicken. Now it has already been shewn, 
 that the oldest printers did not put to press 
 more than a single page, or at most two 
 pages, at a time, in their earliest attempts in 
 the new art^ This is a fact, acknowledged 
 by every one who has made the Incunabula 
 of the Fifteenth century a subject of special 
 study. Admitting then that two pages of 
 the Speculum were printed together, what 
 amount of type, and how many of each letter 
 would be required for those two pages ? 
 
 An analysis of the fac-simile given in Mr. 
 Humphreys' work yields the following results. 
 About 1430 separate types in the one page 
 gives 2860 as the number required for two. 
 The following figures (twice the number 
 occurring in the specimen page) shew the 
 numbers required of each of the letters most 
 commonly used, a 44, e 122, i 182, o 146, 
 u 74, d 44, h 28, m 60, n 100, s 84, t 82 ; there 
 are, besides, the following duplicate and 
 
300 BAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 triplicate characters, of which no other printed 
 work shews so large a number, — an, ca, ca, cc, 
 ce, ch, ci, ci, co, co, ct, cti, cu, cu, cp, cy, da, 
 da, de, de, do, du, dii, ee, et, ect, fa, fa, fe, 
 ff, fi, fl, fo, fr, fu, ga, ge, ge, gi, go, gu, gu, 
 SV, gi"> gJ, iij ib) in, la, le, le, li, 11, He, Hz, 
 oe, ori, no, no, nu, pe, pp, ra, ra, re, re, ri, 
 ro, ro, ru, rii, ria, sa, se, si, so, ss, st, ssi, 
 ssz, ste, ta, ta, te, te, ti, to, tu, tii, tri, — varying, 
 in the frequency of their occurrence from 
 twice to twenty-two times, leaving but 1082 
 other letters for the rest of the alphabet, 
 including the capitals: and of these last 
 from 6 to say 40 would be the utmost of 
 each required. It is thus shewn, that out of 
 the whole number of matrices, upwards of 
 300, which would be required for a complete 
 fount, not more than eight would be used 
 up to or beyond the point where the fine 
 strokes (supposing the matrices to have been 
 of soft lead) would begun to thicken ; and 
 of these it would be a most easy matter to 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 301 
 
 provide duplicates or triplicates, in order to 
 preserve the uniformity of character aimed 
 at by the first printers, in imitation of the 
 manuscripts they intended their works to 
 supersede. All the letters thus cast, would 
 moreover, be m/ac- similes of ehch other, and 
 would not, nay could not, present those 
 dissimilarities of appearance observable in 
 .specimens of the same letter occurring in 
 every line of the Speculum. Koning's idea 
 is thus proved to be erroneous. 
 
 But Ottley's is much more so. Types of 
 the size of those u.sed in the Speculum could 
 no doubt be cast in the way he describes, 
 either in plaster, or in the fine prepared sand 
 or earth used by workers in metal. The ori- 
 ginal letter cut by hand would be the pattern 
 type, from which every mould for that de- 
 scription of letter would be made ; but the 
 mould so made would suffice for but one 
 specimen of that one letter; for after it had 
 dried, and the fused metal had been poured 
 
302 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 in and cooled, the cast letter could only be 
 extracted by breaking away the earth or 
 plaster in which it had been moulded; and 
 if the mould had been made with ordinary 
 care by an expert workman, the letter would 
 turn out an exact fac-simile of the pattern 
 on which the mould had been made. There 
 would not be the slightest necessity for 
 clearing off particles of sand or plaster ad-» 
 hering to the face of the letter, so as to 
 leave upon it marks of the graving tool, 
 nor yet of continually re -casting new types 
 in moulds made from others so disfigured. 
 From the one pattern type first made of 
 each letter, as many moulds as were wanted 
 for the whole supply of every letter could 
 be made, before the operation of casting a 
 single type was commenced ; and whatever 
 defect was observed in any of the types 
 after the casting, could be much more 
 satisfactorily remedied by a ft'esh cast in a 
 mould from the original pattern, than by 
 
EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 303 
 
 graving the face of the letter and so altering 
 its appearance. The main object of casting 
 the types was to make every letter the exact 
 counterpart of its fellow ; and if the mode 
 of casting was so imperfect, that each one 
 had to be tomched up and cleared out with 
 a graver, before it could be used, that object 
 was defeated. But for so complicated a 
 •process there was no need, for wooden types 
 can be cut and completed in much less time 
 than would be occupied by the moulding, 
 drying, casting, clearing and touching up, 
 necessitated by the Ottley - method of pro- 
 ducing metal types. This has also been 
 proved by actual experiment: and my pre- 
 vious conviction that the separable letters 
 used in the Speculum were, and could only 
 be, hand-cut wooden types, was thus still 
 further confirmed. The marks of the graver, 
 which, as Mr. Ottley points out, "are very 
 clearly to be perceived in the type of the 
 Speculum,'' are just those that were produced 
 
304 EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 
 
 by the " letter- snyder" in the course of cutting 
 out his letters, which, as they were finished, 
 were sent direct from his hands to those of 
 the printers.* 
 
 The extraordinary number of duplicate 
 and triplicate (logographs) as well as liga- 
 tured letters, that are made use of in the 
 Speculum, has already been referred to. 
 Mr. Ottley considers that they are a proof 
 
 * In plate 10, opposite page 295 in Mr. Ottley's work, 
 fac-similes are given of the types of the Speculum, taken 
 from the text beneath cuts 17 and 18. In these the capital 
 D occurs twice, three times, Q three times, S twice, 
 T thrice, and V twice. And in every instance the diflfer- 
 ences are such as to shew that it was impossible for the 
 several specimens of each of these letters to have been cast 
 from a mould taken from either a pattern or a touched- 
 up-type. .What is true of the capital^ is equally true of 
 the smaller letters. The word 'Tres' for instance, occurs 
 three times running, repeated exactly one under the other, 
 thus affording the best possible condition for comparison. 
 Each of the T's — each of the compounded re's, — and each 
 of the s's diifer ; they could not have been cast from the 
 same matrix, nor could any one of them have stood for the 
 original of successive mouldings for the rest, as suggested 
 by Mr. Ottley. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 305 
 
 of the antiquity of that work; but in that 
 direction they only exhibit a peculiarity which 
 is not observable in other works : they furnish 
 however a strong argument in proof of the 
 types of the Speculum having been cut in 
 wood. For, taking into account the limited 
 number of letters required for that work 
 (printed but two pages at a time), to cut 
 ninety separate punches, and to strike the 
 same number of matrices, when one-third of 
 that number would suffice, was a gratuitous 
 waste of labour; whereas, in cutting wooden 
 types sufficient for the composition of two 
 pages, a great saving of time would be ef- 
 fected by duplicating and triplicating as many 
 characters as possible ; and not only would 
 time and labour be thus saved, but the types 
 themselves, by being double or treble the 
 thickness of single letters, would be so much 
 the stronger and more durable. 
 
 But, say certain writers, amongst whom 
 
 is Wetter: "It is impossible to print with 
 
 2p 
 
306 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 such small wooden types" as those used in the 
 Speculum* Now Wetter's object was to shew 
 that the Speculum was of a much later date 
 than is attributed to it by Dutch authorities,! 
 and he argues that the types used must have 
 been metal, although Meerman insists upon 
 it that they were of wood. It is singular that 
 Wetter should have committed himself to such 
 a statement, when in Tab. II. of his work he 
 has printed a whole column from wooden-types, 
 some of which are of the same size as those 
 
 * " Der Heilsspiegel und alle andere Druckwerke, welche 
 Meerman dem Laurens Koster und seinen Erben zu- 
 Bchreibt, sind alle mit gegossenen Typen gedruckt, und 
 zwar gar nicht schlecht. Es ist unmoglich, mit holzernen 
 Buchstaben von solcher Kleinheit zu drucken." — Krit. Oesch. 
 der Erf. der BwhdrticJcerJcunst, p. 590. 
 
 ■f For the whole of his argument see pages 620 — 692 
 of his work. His object is to shew the probability that 
 all the four folio editions may have been the work of 
 Veldener at Utrecht. At page 654 he says, "that almost 
 all the types used in the Netherlands have their original 
 in those of the Ehine " Officinen," is seen from the re- 
 semblance of the types of the Brethren of the Common 
 Life at Marienthal on the Rhine, to those of Therhoemen 
 
in the Speculum. Possibly he considered that 
 the numerous hair strokes, and particularly 
 those which front the capital A and the 
 minuscule t, (peculiarities found only in letters 
 of the Speculum school) were too fragile to 
 withstand the. pressure of printing. 
 
 Baron Heinecken,* from whom Wetter in 
 all probability borrowed some of his ideas, 
 is of opinion that all the separable letters used 
 in the four folio editions of the Speculum 
 were of cast metal, and that they were printed 
 
 of Cologne, and the Brethren at Brussels. Witness the 
 fac-similes 1, 2, and 3, of Tab. 11, and especially aU the 
 fac-similes of Tables 9, 10, 11, and 12, (with the exception 
 of Nos. 4 and 8 of Tab. 12.) Even the types of the 
 Speculum are nothing else than a diminntion of the types 
 of the 42-line (Mazarin) Bible, with sundry alterations in 
 the capital letters. — The Dutch work of Ludovicus de Eoma, 
 'Singularia in causis crimiaalibus,' (1471,) is printed with 
 types, which, with the exception of the capital letters, are 
 almost all such exact copies in size and shape of those 
 of the Mazarin Bible, that they could cover each other 
 reciprocally." 
 
 * " Idee Generale d'une collection complete d'Estampes." 
 8vo. Leips. 1771. 
 
. , ^ — 
 
 308 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 by Germans who imitated the Gothic style of 
 type first used by Gutenberg at Mentz. In 
 one place he writes: — "It is almost certain 
 that the Speculum Salvationis in Latin was 
 first printed in Germany ; and that it was 
 afterwards translated and printed in the Low 
 Countries." Elsewhere he says, "I come at 
 last to the new edition of the Speculum, which 
 the printer Johan Veldener published in 1483, 
 with his name, in the Flemish language. The 
 vignettes which are placed at the head of each 
 discourse, are the same as those we see in the 
 ancient editions. He cut the engraved blocks, 
 which represented always two sacred or his- 
 torical subjects, sawing through the middle of 
 the central pillar which divided them, so as 
 to make them into two pieces, in order to 
 insert them in this new edition, which is in 
 small 4to." "It was probably Theodore 
 Martens," he remarks further on, "that 
 brought these vignettes with him from Ger- 
 many, or from France We may also 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 309 
 
 conjecture that Johan of Westphalia was the 
 printer of the first Flemish editions, and that 
 
 Veldener received the blocks from him 
 
 Veldener, after having learned Typography 
 at Cologne, went to live at Louvain, where 
 he printed in«1476, among other books, the 
 Fasciculus Temporum in Latin, with figures 
 engraved in wood. This same printer after- 
 ward went to Utrecht, where in 1480, he 
 published the same work in Flemish, intro- 
 ducing also the same cuts which he had 
 
 brought with him from Louvain 
 
 Nothing seems more natural than that he 
 should have brought with him from Cologne 
 the ancient moulds or matrices, from which 
 the rude type of the two first Flemish editions 
 of the Speculum already spoken of was cast ; 
 nothing more reasonable, than that he should 
 afterward abandon that type at Louvain or at 
 Utrecht, or rather at Culemborch, after having 
 made better; for he was certainly a man of 
 enterprise and genius." 
 
310 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Heinecken concludes this part of his ar- 
 gument by saying, "I trust that this extra- 
 vagant notion of finding books, and sometimes 
 even large volumes, printed with these 
 moveable characters of wood, will by degrees 
 cease, and that able printers may be found, 
 who will shew the impossibility of it." 
 
 There is not however, any impossibility in 
 the matter. Box wood will bear printing from 
 better than soft lead; and Mr. Blades has 
 demonstrated that types of unhardened lead 
 can be used at an ordinary printing press, — 
 the half of plate ix. b, in the 2d volume of 
 his Lije and Typography of William Caxton 
 being printed from such types. Argument 
 however is needless in the presence of a fact, 
 and in the word ^f tl here given, each of 
 the three letters is separately engraved on 
 a piece of box-wood, the shanks of the letters 
 being two sizes smaller than those of the 
 Speculum, while a portion of the upper part 
 of the capital overhangs its shank ; each letter 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 311 
 
 is also perforated and nicked, and is therefore 
 altogether weaker than a letter of the same size 
 as in the Speculum would be. As a proof that 
 it was perfectly possible for such works as the 
 Speculum to have been printed with wooden 
 types, three swch letters are as good as three 
 thousand; and letters with the finest strokes 
 most exposed to damage have been purposely 
 selected, in order to demonstrate the fact. 
 
 The existence in the middle of the Fifteenth 
 century of Guilds or confraternities of trades 
 connected with book - making, in Antwerp, 
 Bruges, and Brussels, amongst whom were 
 included 'Prenters,' 'Letter-,' and 'Form- 
 snyders,' and ' Beelde-makers ;' — Letter and 
 Form and Figure engravers, and those who 
 printed them ; — is brought forward as a part 
 of the "vast mass" of so-called "unanswer- 
 able evidence," which sustains the claims of 
 Coster and Haarlem to be the man and 
 the place by whom and where the Art of 
 Typography was invented. 
 
312 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 "The 'figure engravers' (writes Mr. Blades,) 
 were doubtless the artists of the playing cards, 
 the images of saints, and the block-books, 
 then manufactured to a great extent in 
 Holland and Flanders, The term 'letter 
 engraver' may have been applied to the 
 sculptor of the legends on the block-books, 
 when not executed by the same artist as the 
 figure itself, but of this there is no evidence, 
 and it seems far from impossible that the term 
 was used to denote artists employed to pro- 
 duce moveable types. The 'printers' were 
 doubtless workmen who took the impressions, 
 whether by friction or a press, from the en- 
 graved blocks delivered to them; but there 
 is no reason to restrict the meaning of the 
 word, and the same term was from the com- 
 mencement always applied to printers from 
 moveable types. There is therefore, prima 
 facie, evidence to support the supposition that 
 at a very early period there were workmen 
 in Bruges who employed themselves, albeit 
 
EAELT TYPOaRAPHY. 313 
 
 in a very rudimentary way, in printing from 
 moveable types." 
 
 But if moveable types were at this date 
 in use at Bruges or elsewhere in Holland, 
 and if these were of cast fusile metal, how 
 comes it that* "Letter- zetters" and "Letter- 
 geiters," — compositors and type-founders, — 
 are not included among the crafts incorpo- 
 rated by the Guilds? How comes it, too, that 
 no mention is made of the "Drukker," and 
 the "Drukkers-maker" — the press and press- 
 maker? "Printer" is a common enough term 
 applied to pressmen how-a-days, but as late 
 as 1454 it had an exclusive reference to the 
 producer of prints — the printers of the figures 
 sculptured by the " Beelde-makers" on the 
 solid blocks; and it may safely be inferred 
 that these prints were produced after the 
 Chinese manner, by friction, seeing that the 
 term "Drukker," is that which is applied 
 amongst the Dutch to letter -press printers, 
 — the pressmen of modern days. 
 
 2 Q 
 
314 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 If, moreover, from the mention of "letter 
 engravers" and "printers" in the records of 
 the Dutch Guilds referred to, we are to under- 
 stand that there is "prima facie evidence to 
 support the supposition that at a very early- 
 period there were workmen . . . who employed 
 themselves in working from moveable types," — 
 typographic printers in fact, — then, upon the 
 same ground, it must be admitted that there 
 is prima facie evidence for admitting the 
 priority of the art in various parts of Germany, 
 for as early as 1428 we find a record of a 
 "letter-printer," one Wilhelm Kegler, at 
 Nordlingen, besides card-makers at Augsburg 
 in 1418. And in 1440 there is found a record 
 of Henne Cruse of Mayence, one of the frater- 
 nity, on the roll of the citizens of Frankfort* 
 But so far from there being any such prima 
 facie evidence, the inference to be drawn lies, 
 I think, in an opposite direction; and the 
 
 See Wetter, p. 23. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 315 
 
 absence of all mention of " Letter-zetters," 
 " Letter-geiters," "Drukkers," and "Drukker- 
 makers," is rather to be considered a proof 
 that they were not then known ; that naove- 
 able types and presses had not at that time 
 been introdwced; and that "Letter-snyders," 
 and "Prenters" were wholly and solely en- 
 gaged upon block-books, just as much as the 
 "Beelde-makers," the figure-engravers were. 
 " The general opinion of late writers,"* Mr. 
 Blades continues, "is, that the art was first 
 'perfected at Mentz but that neverthe- 
 less the earliest use of moveable types must 
 be recognized in the rude specimens attri- 
 buted to Laurence Coster of Haarlem. Coster 
 died in 1440, and nothing is known to' have 
 issued from his press between that period 
 and 1483; but what became of his assistants? 
 
 * M. Bernard ; and P. C. Van der Mbersch, in his 
 "Recherches sur la Vie et les Travaux des Imprimeurs 
 Beiges et Neerlandais, dtablis a I'etranger." 8vo. Gand, 
 1856 : — are here referred to. 
 
316 EAELY TYPOGKAPHY. 
 
 Did they, after gaining some insight into 
 the curious effects of Coster's trials, resign 
 all further attempts, or did they seek to 
 imitate him, some in one town, some in 
 another?" These are very pertinent ques- 
 tions, inasmuch as if they are asked in 
 reference to the assistants of Guttenberg, 
 Faust and Schoeffer, they can be answered 
 in the affirmative, and their respective move- 
 ments traced. But asked with reference to 
 Coster, the disappointing answer is, "No one 
 KNOWS ; yet it seems more than probable 
 that experiments in the direction of printing 
 from moveable types were making about this 
 period in every city where wood engraving 
 
 and block-printing were practised The 
 
 idea was simple enough, in the execution 
 was the difficulty; Nor need the opinion 
 that at Bruges there existed at a very early 
 period rude printers, be based on the notice 
 of 'letter - snyders' and 'prenters' only; 
 there has fortunately been preserved in the 
 
EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 317 
 
 Archives at Lille an original manuscript, 
 containing a diary of Jean le Robert, Abb6 
 de S. Aubert de Cambrai, among the entries 
 in which the two following are especially 
 worthy of notice : — 
 
 "Item pour"j. doctrinal gette en moUe anuoiet querre a 
 Brug. par Marquet .j. escripuain de Vallen. ou mois de 
 jenuier xlv. pour Jaq. xx. s.t." 
 
 "Item enuoiet An-as .j. doctrinal pom* apprendre ledit 
 d. Girard qui fa accatea a Vallen. et estoit jettez en moUe 
 et cousta xxiiij. gr. Se me renuoia led. doctrinal le jour 
 de TouBS. Ian. .Ij. disans quil ne falloit rien et estoit tout 
 faulx. Sen anoit accate .j. x patt. en. papier."* 
 
 "Item. For a printed Doctrinal (doctrinal gette en 
 molle) that I haye sent for to Bruges, by Marquet, a writer 
 of Valehciennes, in the month of January, 1445 {i. e. 1446) 
 for Jacquet, xx sous toumois." 
 
 "Item. Sent to Arras a Doctrinal for the instruction 
 of dom. Gerard, which wee purchased at Valenciennes, and 
 was printed (jettez en molle) and cost xxiiij. gros. The 
 same Doctrinal he returned to me on Christmas Day 1451, 
 saying ' it was worthless, and full of errors ;' he had bought 
 one on paper for xx patards." 
 
 * The manuscript from which these extracts are taken 
 was brought to light by the Abbe Ghesquiere of Cambrai, 
 in the year 1772. See "Esprit des Journaux," June 1779, 
 Nov. 1779, and April 1780. 
 
318 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 In these memoranda, says Mr. Humphreys, 
 (pp. 66 — 67) "we have positive proof that 
 printed Doctrinals were commonly sold in 
 Flanders in 1445 ; and M. Bernard was the 
 first to elucidate the fiiU value and bearing 
 of this passage, of which M. Van Praet,* 
 who had already mentioned it, failed to see 
 the drift, from not understanding the mean- 
 ing of the term gette, or rather jette, en 
 molle, which simply means cast in a mould, 
 in reference to the metallic types, which 
 were so cast. That M. Bernard is correct 
 in his explanation of the term, is clearly 
 proved by many passages having reference 
 to the same subject, ,in which the term is 
 used as one well understood. For instance, 
 in the letters of naturalization accorded to 
 the first printers with moveable types estab- 
 lished in Paris, a document dated 1474 (old 
 
 * "Notice sur Colard Mansion, Libraire efc Imprimeur de 
 la Ville de Bruges." 8vo. Paris, 1 829. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 319 
 
 style) the terms ecriture en molle or writing 
 by means of moulds, or moulded letters, is 
 used. Also, in 1496, on the occasion of the 
 purchase of two books of prayer by the 
 Duke of Orleans, the Constable describes 
 them as bo*h escrites en moule. Also, in the 
 list of furniture and books of Anne of 
 Britanny about the same time, books are 
 mentioned ' tant en parchemin que en papier, 
 d la main, et en molle;' that is, both on vellum 
 and on paper, both manuscript and printed." 
 
 Commenting upon these memoranda, Mr. 
 Blades exclaims, '•'•Jettez en molle! — Cast in 
 a mould! What can this expression mean, 
 except that the 'Doctrinals' were printed 
 from cast types ? As applied to manuscripts, ' 
 or to stencilling, or to block-printing, ^jettez 
 en molle' has no meaning whatever." 
 
 "Drowning men," it has well been said, 
 "will clutch at a straw," and surely a 
 consciousness of the peril in which their 
 argument stood, must have made the abeve 
 
writers clutch at Abb6 Jean le Robert's 
 memoranda in the way they have. It may 
 be admitted, that the phrase "k la main, et en 
 molle," means "both manuscript and printed ;" 
 but upon what fair principle of philology M. 
 Bernard and Mr. Humphreys make out that 
 the words "jettez en molle," "ecriture en 
 molle," and "escrites en moule," mean "cast 
 in a mould, in reference to the metallic types 
 which were so cast," and "writing by means 
 of moulds, or moulded letters;" is more than 
 I can make out. They may certainly be 
 understood in such a sense now, but when 
 originally used they could only have referred 
 to the moulded appearance, — the indented 
 impressions on the leaves of the book, 
 totally irrespective of the types or blocks by 
 which such appearance was produced. 
 
 Certainly, as applied to manuscripts, the 
 phrase "jettez en molle" has no meaning. 
 But with all deference to Mr. Blades, whose 
 "Life and Typography of William Caxton," 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 321 
 
 is a work of the highest possible merit with 
 reference to all that concerns the introduc- 
 tion of Printing into England, — the words in 
 question are pregnant with meaning in regard 
 to both block-printing and stencilling. Every 
 one acquainted with the ordinary processes 
 of printing must know, that freshly -printed 
 paper has exactly the appearance of having 
 been moulded; the damped paper, in fact, 
 is actually moulded on the type or wood- 
 engraving, by the forcible pressure brought to 
 bear upon it, and on being released from 
 that pressure, the paper cast that has been 
 made brings away with it, on removal, the 
 colouring matter with which the blocks or 
 types have been inked. In the old solid 
 blocks, when the hollows cut to leave in 
 relief the characters used for the School- 
 books — the Donatuses and Doctrinals — would 
 be wider, deeper, and more irregular than 
 in the more modern types, this indented 
 
 and moulded appearance would be much 
 
 2r 
 
322 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 more apparent, especially when impressions 
 were taken by the Chinese method of rubbing 
 the back of the paper, and the printer was 
 careless about smoothing out and obliterating 
 the evidences of indentation, in the manner 
 adopted by typographers now- a- days. In 
 stencilling too, the perforated plate, when laid 
 upon the paper, became to all intents and pur- 
 poses a mould. The bottom of the mould was 
 the surface of the paper on which, through the 
 perforations in the plate, the ink or pigment 
 would be brushed, the paper being thus 
 made to take a coloured cast of the hollows 
 in the plate. With reference to either process 
 therefore, the phrase ^^jettez en molle" might 
 most naturally be used to express on the 
 part of any one ignorant of the process of 
 printing, the appearance of a book which he 
 knew was not written, but which bore upon 
 its face the evidence of having, in some way 
 or other, been cast or moulded. As this 
 evidence would appear the same, or nearly 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 323 
 
 so, whether produced from engraved blocks, 
 or from separable letters, the phrase would 
 be just as applicable in the one case as in 
 the other. When thus examined, the asser- 
 tion that "jettez en molle" means, and can 
 only mean, • "printed from cast types, ^' is 
 deprived of all its weight, and the phrase 
 itself is valueless as an evidence that cast 
 types were in use at Bruges, or elsewhere 
 in Holland, at the time when Abb6 Jean 
 le Robert wrote his diary. 
 
 Xylographic and typographic productions, 
 as well as that edition of the Mirror of Human 
 Salvation which partook of the nature of both, 
 may therefore be described alike, as books 
 "jettez en molle." 
 
 But in endeavouring to ascertain the time 
 when ' this latter work was printed, there are 
 still two important points to be considered; 
 and these are, the age of the paper, and the 
 date of the costume and armour of the figures 
 represented in the vignettes. On both of these 
 
324 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 points Mr. Ottley's writings are most instructive. 
 As regards the first, the only guides are the 
 paper-marks, and as the same marks continued 
 to be used by manufacturers for many suc- 
 cessive years^ it follows, that although the 
 Speculum might possibly have been printed 
 when peculiar marks were first made use of, 
 the printing may, just as likely, not have taken 
 place till many years later : the only certainty, 
 therefore, that an undated paper -mark af- 
 fords, is, that the work in which it appears 
 could not have been printed prior to the time 
 when it has been ascertained that that parti- 
 cular mark was originally introduced. 
 
 The marks observed in the paper on which 
 the earliest edition of the Speculum is printed, 
 consist of a fleur-de-lis (or anchor) an uni- 
 corn, two keys side by side, a hand, a St. 
 Catharine wheel, a circle enclosing the letters 
 M A with a coat of arms beneath; and the 
 letter P; and in the later Latin edition, the 
 letter Y. These three last are considered 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 325 
 
 the most important, and are dealt with as such 
 by Mr. Koning. 
 
 As to the circle with the letters and coat 
 of arms, he says, the initials signify without 
 doubt, the initials of Margaret, widow of 
 William, CoiMit of Holland, and the mother 
 of the Countess Jacqueline, the arms being 
 those of Bavaria, whence he concludes, that 
 the paper was manufactured during the reign 
 of the Countess Jacqueline in Brabant and 
 Hainault, after her marriage with the Dauphin, 
 and before the treaty of transfer made to 
 Philip of Burgundy in 1433, it being the 
 custom of manufacturers of paper in the 
 fifteenth century to put the arms of their 
 sovereigns in their marks. Mr, Ottley, how- 
 ever, points out, that this usage was rare- 
 before the latter part of the century, although 
 afterwards the practise became common. 
 
 The letter P, which Koning considers to 
 have been the initial of Philip of Burgundy 
 (who reigned in Brabant from 1430 to 1467,) 
 
326 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 was found by him, he says, in a memorandum 
 of accounts of the date 1432 ; and he remarks 
 further, that "a large proportion of the 
 books printed in Holland in the latter part 
 of the fifteenth century, have this paper-mark, 
 which will never be found in any book, nor 
 in any paper, coming from Germany or from 
 Italy." 
 
 This last assertion Mr. Ottley disproves, 
 by citing several instances of its occur- 
 rence in various works of Zell, as well 
 as the marks of the unicorn, the two keys, 
 and the capital Y, &c., shewing, as he says, 
 that Koning has "erred egregiously ^ He 
 also says (note, p. 160,) "The supposed 
 initial of Philip the Bold is very doubtful. 
 I have reason to believe that the paper on 
 which it is found was made in Italy." And 
 he moreover shews, that he could not find it 
 in any of Mr. Koning's tracings, earlier than 
 1453. He himself saw it "in company with 
 other papers which he thought not to be older 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 327 
 
 than 1438 ; but in a dated book he did not 
 find it earlier than 1445." 
 
 "The letter Y," says Mr. Koning, "is, 
 without doubt, the initial of Ysabel of Portugal, 
 who was married to Philip le Bon in 1430." 
 
 Mr. Koning sums up the third chapter of 
 his book by saying, "the paper-marks prove 
 that the said works were published between 
 the years 1420 and 1440; since it appears 
 from what has been said above, that the paper 
 of the first Dutch edition (of the Speculum) 
 which is evidently the most ancient, bears 
 alone the marks which are the most ancient ; 
 that is to say, the arms of Bavaria which 
 were used by the paper-makers in the reign 
 of the Countess Jacqueline, and conse- 
 quently, before the year 1428 ; and that the 
 paper of the second or third edition of the 
 Speculum bears the letter P, *the mark of 
 the sovereign Philip of Burgundy, which 
 certainly was not in usage until the year 
 1425." 
 
328 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Upon all this Mr. Ottley thus comments : — 
 
 (pp. 163—164). 
 
 "Now, with respect to the Gothic letter P, which was so 
 much used on paper, from the middle of the fifteenth to the 
 early part of the sixteenth century, I shall not take upon 
 me to deny Mr. Koning's assertion, that it is to be con- 
 sidered as the initial of Philip of Burgundy; although, 
 as it appears to have been used in other parts, as well as in 
 his dominions, and continued so long after his death (as 
 was the Y also, after that of Tsabel, the wife of Philip), 
 the fact may be doubted. As to Mr. Koning's hypothesis, 
 concerning the two paper-marks with the arms of Bavaria, 
 it is certainly ingenious : and, had he proved that the paper 
 so marked, was manufactured in the dominions of Jacque- 
 line, or of her mother Margaret, at the early period he 
 speaks of, I should have thought it so strong a circum- 
 stance, in favour of that edition of the Speculum in which 
 those paper-marks occur, that I should have felt disposed 
 to carry back the three preceding editions of that work 
 (for it certainly is the fourth) to a very remote period 
 indeed, rather than have denied that it was printed at the 
 early date he has assigned to it. But first, Mr. Koning 
 has brought no evidence to shew that the paper was made 
 in Brabant; (for the circumstance, supposing it true, that 
 all the paper used in those times, at Haarlem, came from 
 that great commercial depot, Antwerp, proves nothing, 
 since paper coming from different parts, was doubtless 
 sold there) ; and, secondly, we have no proof that it was 
 made at that early period. Suf&ce it for me to add, that 
 neither of these paper-marks was to be found among the 
 
BAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 329 
 
 tracings, made by Mr. Koning from the ancient registerB of 
 Haarlem, which, as I have said, he was so good as to lend 
 to me ; and that after a diligent search of several months 
 in the extensive collections of original Books of Accounts, 
 from 1352 to about 1470, in the archives at the Hague, 
 I was unable to discover either of them; though at length 
 I chanced to find them both, in a book in sq. fol. obligingly 
 lent to me by Mr. J)e Jonge, now the principal archivist at 
 the Hague ; viz. the Fasciculus Temporum in Dutch, printed 
 at Utrecht, by Joh. Veldener, in 1480 ; though perhap"S the 
 paper was not made from the same identical sieves or 
 moulds, as the paper that is found in the Speculmn." 
 
 Thus then, Mr. Ottley, who "shews a 
 determined inclination to favour • the claims 
 of Laurent Coster,"* also shews, that M. 
 Koning, who obtained the prize from the 
 Dutch Society of Arts and Sciences at Haarlem, 
 for the best dissertation in support of the 
 ancient tradition that the Art of Printing was 
 invented in that city, — is wrong in his asser- 
 tions in regard to the paper -marks ; and that 
 the earliest instances of the occurrence of those 
 
 * M. Bbrjeau, in Introduction to Ottley's Inquiry con- 
 cerning the Invention of Printing, p. xxxvii. 
 
 2s 
 
330 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 to which Koning chiefly refers, the Gothic P, 
 and the arms of Bavaria, are in the years 
 1445, 1453, and 1480. ' 
 
 It follows therefore, from the evidence of 
 the paper-marks, that the printing of the Spe- 
 culum could not have taken place before 1445 ; 
 that most probably it was not printed earlier 
 than 1453 ; and that it may not have issued 
 from the press before even 1480. Consequently, 
 as the Speculum was the first Dutch work 
 printed with separable types, it cannot claim 
 priority over the invention of Gutenberg, 
 which, as has been shewn in the preceding 
 chapter, must have been previous to 1436. 
 
 As to the costume and armour of the figures 
 in the vignettes of the Speculum* the fol- 
 lowing extracts from Sir Samuel Meyrick's 
 letter to Mr. Ottley, and the observations 
 
 * The discussion of this subject occupies the last 65 pages 
 of Mr. Ottley's work, the carefal perusal of wliich will well 
 repay the student of this most interesting branch of archaeo- 
 logical research. 
 
of the latter thereon, are most pertinent. 
 Sir Samuel says: — 
 
 " Next to actual dates, there is no criterion of age so 
 sure as Costume, which, changing on an average within every 
 ten years, fixes the real period, almost precisely; especially, 
 as, all its parts not varying at the same moment, the one 
 rectifies the vagugjiess of the other. After costume, orna- 
 ment is a fair guide, as is architecture ; and next to these, 
 the style of writing, where the subject is a manuscript. 
 
 " You are, no doubt, well aware that the designers of the 
 middle ages, until the latter part of the seventeenth century, 
 -always dressed their figures from the objects before their 
 eyes ; and those writers who would fabricate descriptions of 
 what they vnshed should be supposed to have occurred 
 before their times, always used the terms of costume appli- 
 cable to their own period." 
 
 Then follows numerous illustrations and 
 references, in proof of the position laid down ; 
 amongst which are the different articles of 
 armour used from the reigns of Edward I, to 
 Henry VIII. With reference to some of these 
 articles. Sir S. Meyrick continues : — 
 
 "On comparing these with what appears in the woodcuts 
 to the Speculum, the identity will be evident. It is true 
 that their use continued till the close of the fifteenth 
 century; but this authority shews that they were also 
 
332 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 known at its commencement ;..... 
 
 " On a careful review and consideration of the whole, 
 I am inclined to think, that the wood-blocks of the Specu- 
 lum cannot be of later date than 1435, and that they may 
 be a little earlier; nor is this opinion in the least degree 
 shaken on an examination of the rest, besides that of which 
 you more particularly asked it." 
 
 But Mr. Ottley will not venture to assign 
 to the woodcuts so early a date. He says : — 
 
 "I belieye all will agree with Dr. Meyrick, that the 
 artists of the times we are speaking of, and of earlier as well 
 as much later periods, were universally accustomed to dress 
 their figures according to the fashion of their own day, 
 whatever the age of the subject they had to represent; and 
 that, therefore costume (and I might add, . the style of art) 
 affords, next to actual dates, the surest means of deter- 
 mining the age of an illuminated manuscript or other 
 monument. 
 
 " But, I suspect, if Dr. Meyrick means to speak generally, 
 that he goes too far, when he says that, by such means, 
 the true date of a work of art is to be ascertained to within 
 the short period of five or ten years. 
 
 "In the early times we are speaking of, the main articles 
 of dress continued so nearly the same for great part of a 
 century, that the same suit of armour, and the same gown, 
 descended from father to son, and from mother to daughter, 
 and when altered, perhaps, in 'certain small details, render- 
 ing them so far conformable to the particular fashion of the 
 day, served even for a third generation. These small details, 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 333 
 
 I admit, may in many cases greatly help us ; and will some- 
 times point to a period of very small duration. But I 
 suspect, that the exact date when one fashion had its com- 
 mencement, and another went out, is known but in very 
 few instances ; and it can scarce be doubted but that in one 
 country — nay in one part of the same country — certain 
 fashions continued to prevail for some time after they had 
 been discontinue^ in another. 
 
 " In addition to this, it seems probable, from the great 
 costliness of arniour, that when a suit, or part of a suit, 
 had become too much out of fashion to be any longer worn 
 by a man of rank, it would, instead of being thrown aside 
 as useless lumber, be often handed over to one of his depen- 
 dents: and in consequence, in designs and illuminations 
 done in these times, it might happen that subordinate 
 figures would here and there appear, dressed in costume 
 of a more ancient character than the principal personages. 
 
 " Again, I think, that an artist advanced in years, when 
 illuminating a manuscript, or making designs to engrave 
 from, would often be likely, from habit, to represent his 
 figures in costume more or less resembling that which had 
 prevailed in his younger days, when he made his studies ; 
 and, hence, although he would scarcely fail to introduce also 
 certain new changes of fashion,- too remarkable to be over- 
 looked, his work on the whole, would savour more of the 
 costume of former days, than would be the case with the 
 performance of a younger artist, executed at the same time. 
 
 " But our means of forming a correct judginent of the 
 date of these cuts, are not in all respects so complete, as 
 those which enable us to determine the country . . . Holland 
 has no monumental efiigies of these times, to which we may 
 
334 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 refer as authorities .... still, did Holland herself furnish 
 us with more numerous authorities, we should, I think, be 
 enabled to determine the date of the work in question, with 
 fuller confidence than we can do under the existing circum- 
 stances. 
 
 "To conclude — I have found nothing in the costume of 
 the cuts of the Speculum, that appears to me to militate 
 directly against the supposition that they niay be of the 
 early date Dr. Mejirick has assigned to them, and, although 
 the argument produced by that gentleman to shew that they 
 cannot be later, is not perhaps in all respects conclusive, 
 still, considering all the circumstances, I could with difficulty 
 persuade myself that the work was not commenced, at least, 
 within a few years of the period he has supposed, and 
 certainly, I should say, not later than 1450." 
 
 These reasons, and the conclusion they lead 
 to, on the part of a writer so decidedly Cos- 
 terian as Mr. Ottley undoubtedly is, are very 
 important in a controversy of the kind such 
 as that with which we are dealing. The 58 
 cuts of two designs each, and their engraving 
 on wood, together with the twenty pages of 
 texts, similarly engraved, must haye taken 
 a very considerable time to complete, on 
 the part of the artist " Beelde-maker," and 
 "Letter-snyder," employed upon them. Sup- 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 885 
 
 posing then the work of engraving the cuts 
 was commenced in 1450, and the whole work 
 was completed in three years, we are brought 
 back to the same date for the earliest probable 
 original printing of the Speculum, that we 
 reached frona. a consideration of the paper- 
 marks, a few pages previous ; that is, at least 
 thirteen years subsequent to the death of 
 the man, whom Junius calls the first printer, 
 and who, all those who have adopted his 
 narrative, insist upon it, was, by the printing of 
 that book, the original inventor and first 
 practiser of Typography in Europe ; but 
 which, as we have seen, could not have ap- 
 peared until more than seventeen years had 
 passed away from the time when Gutenberg 
 first made his separable metal types at 
 Strasburg. 
 
 Enough, and more than enough, has al- 
 ready been stated, to prove that Laurent 
 Janssoen Coster was not the inventor, nor 
 Haarlem, the birthplace of the Typographic 
 
336 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Art ; and that tlie Speculum Humance Sal- 
 vationis, the first Dutch book printed with 
 separable letters was not, and could not have 
 been, printed at the place where, and by 
 the man to whom, frona 1588 to 1871, a 
 host of writers, following the lead of Junius, 
 have attribiited it. 
 
 But it may fairly be asked, — If that work, 
 as well as the others which have been imputed 
 to Coster, were not the products of his press, 
 by whom then were they printed? This ques- 
 tion, although one of those seemingly more 
 easily asked than answered, is yet one that 
 need not be shrunk from, inasmuch as in the 
 far-oif vista of antiquity, and amid the dim 
 mists of uncertainty which encompass it, 
 certain ancient landmarks are perceivable, 
 which may serve to guide the inquirer, and 
 possibly help him to arrive at convictions 
 capable of enduring the test of examinations 
 as potent and searching as the touch of an 
 Ithuriel's spear. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 337 
 
 Reference has more than once been made 
 to the impulse given to learning at the end of 
 the fourteenth and the beginning of the fif- 
 teenth centuries. This movement was helped 
 forward by no one in Holland and Germany- 
 more than b^ Gerhard Groote, or Magnus, 
 of Deventer, {b. 1326, d. 1370), who after 
 studying theology at Paris, became a canon 
 of Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle, and founded 
 the Order of the Brethren and Clerks of the 
 Common Life, generally known as the "Ge- 
 meineslebens," or " Frferes de la Vie Commune," 
 but sometimes confounded with the Beghards 
 and LoUhards of an earlier time. The head- 
 quarters of the Brotherhood was at Deventer, 
 where a College was built and inhabited by 
 them in the year 1400. Receiving the ap- 
 proval of the Council of Constance, the Order 
 was propagated throughout Holland, Lower 
 Germany, and other provinces. "It was 
 divided into the literary Brethren or Clerks, 
 
 and the unlearned Brethren, who lived in 
 
 2t 
 
338 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 different houses, but in bonds of the greatest 
 friendship. The Clerks devoted themselves 
 to transcribing books, the cultivation of polite 
 learning, and the instruction of youth; and 
 they erected schools wherever they went. The 
 Brethren laboured with their hands, and pur- 
 sued various mechanic trades. Neither were 
 under the restraint of religious vows ; but still 
 they ate at a common table, and had a 
 general community of goods. The Sisters 
 lived in nearly the same manner, and the 
 time which was not employed in prayer 
 and reading, they devoted to education of 
 female children, and to such labours as were 
 suitable for their sex. The schools of these 
 Clerks of the Common Life were very cele- 
 brated in this century, and in them were trained 
 nearly all the restorers of polite learning in 
 Germany and Holland ; and among others the 
 great Erasmus of Rotterdam, Alexander 
 Hegius, John Murmelius and others." Thus 
 far Mosheim. Hallam, in his "Introduction to 
 
EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 339 
 
 the Literature of Europe," says, "they were 
 distinguished by their strict lives, their com- 
 munity, at least a partial one, of goods, their 
 industry in manual labour, their tendency to 
 mysticism. But they were as strikingly dis- 
 tinguished by .the cultivation of knowledge, 
 which was encouraged in brethren of sufficient 
 capacity, and promoted by schools, both for 
 primary and for enlarged education. These 
 schools were, says Eichhorn, 'the first genuine 
 nurseries of literature in Germany, so far as 
 it depended on the knowledge of languages ; 
 and in them was first taught the Latin, and 
 in the process of time the Greek, and Eastern 
 tongues.' Some of them, such as that of 
 St. Edward's at Groningen, and the one at 
 ZwoU, presided over by Thomas a Kempis, 
 were of considerable reputation. In the year 
 1430 they had established as many as forty- 
 five houses in Germany and the Low Countries, 
 and in 1460 they had more than thrice that 
 number. Amongst other occupations, they 
 
340 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 busied themselves in copying and binding 
 books." 
 
 Bound to live by labour, and under a semi- 
 ascetic discipline, self-abnegation was a dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic of the Freres de la 
 Vie Commune ; while the instruction of youth, 
 and the promotion of piety, were the objects 
 to which they devoted their lives and labours. 
 The multiplication of books, which formed 
 a portion of their occupations, could not but 
 prove a powerful means for assisting them to 
 the attainment of the objects which they had 
 at heart. These books were naturally divided 
 into educational and devotional, according to 
 the classes of individuals for whose use they 
 were designed. Among the former would 
 be A B C Dariums, Catonis Disticha, Dona- 
 tuses, Doctrinals, and such like.- Among the 
 latter, the Poor Man's Bible, the Apocalypse 
 of St. John, the Book of Canticles, the His- 
 tory of the Virgin, the Arts of Memory and 
 Dying, and the Mirror of IJuman Salvation. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 341 
 
 As the operations of the Brotherhood ex- 
 tended, and their schools increased, the greater 
 would be the demand for the above works, and 
 the more laborious the efforts of the copyists 
 to meet that demand. At their establishments, 
 whether at Deirenter, Bruges, Brussels, Zwolle, 
 or elsewhere, artists and illuminators would 
 be found among their ranks. And as Zwolle 
 is known to have been a very early seat of the 
 engraver's art, such pictorial embellishments 
 as these artists designed would speedily be 
 transferred to wood. That such was the case, 
 and that Zwolle was the place where Block- 
 books were first produced, seems to be certain, 
 from the fact that in 1489 the Brethren there 
 used the original blocks of the Biblia Pau- 
 perum in printing the work "Passye ende 
 dat Leven van onsers Kefs hern." The silver 
 cross and arms of Zwolle are also to be 
 found in the cuts of the Book of Canticles. 
 As the labours of the copyists increased, 
 and as scrolls and inscriptions were added 
 
342 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 to the engraved figures, and tlie art of the 
 'letter-snjder' was called in to assist that 
 of the 'beelde-maker,' and the 'formen-' and 
 'figure-snyder,' there can be no question but 
 that it not unfrequently occurred to the minds 
 of thoughtful copyists, that whole texts of 
 books could be so engraved. A represen- 
 tation to that effect to the chief of the 
 brotherhood would lead to an order to carry 
 the idea into execution. In the descriptive 
 text of the Ars Moriendi and like works, 
 and in the twenty xylographic pages of 
 the first Latin edition of the "Mirror of 
 Salvation," we see the realization of the idea. 
 But in the course of continually cutting the 
 letters on the wood, an intelligent 'letter- 
 snyder' would be struck by the constant 
 recurrence of certain letters and combinations 
 of letters, — a fact much more likely to attract 
 his attention than a copyist's, — and he would 
 find, in counting over these letters, that his 
 fiiture labours could be greatly abridged, by 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 343 
 
 merely cutting as many separate letters and 
 combinations of each sort, as would suffice 
 for printing a page or two at a time; the 
 same letters answering again and again for 
 the work in hand, or for any other that 
 might be required. In the reduction of this 
 idea to practice, the reason may be seen why 
 the first edition of the Speculum is partly 
 xylographic and partly typographic. 
 
 The success attending these first Dutch 
 efforts at printing with separable types would 
 at once lead to further applications of the art 
 in the production of elementary educational 
 books ; and as the reputation of the Brethren 
 as schoolmasters was great, and they were 
 often invited and sent for by the magistrates 
 of cities to open schools in Germany as well as 
 in HoUand, they would carry such books with 
 them. The fact of fragments of early Dona- 
 tuses and Doctrinals being found in Germany 
 is thus accounted for, without any necessity 
 for supposing, with Junius and his followers, 
 
344 EAKLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 that the types from which they were printed 
 were stolen from Coster of Haarlem, andgjar- 
 ried away to Mentz: while sets of types cut 
 by different 'letter-snyders' would also account 
 for the differences observed in the typography 
 of the four folio editions of the Speculum. 
 
 Bearing in mind then, the objects to which 
 the Brethren and Clerks of the Common Life 
 devoted themselves; — ^the classes of books, 
 educational and devotional, of which the block- 
 books consisted, and their special adaptability 
 to promote the objects of the fraternity: — 
 the fact, that ZwoUe was one of the earliest 
 seats of the engraver's art, as well as a central 
 station of the brotherhood ; — ^that the original 
 blocks of the Biblia Pauperum were repro- 
 duced at the Brethren's printing press there 
 in 1489 ; — ^that large editions of these works 
 were never required,* and that therefore one 
 printing establishment might suffice for the 
 
 * See ante, p. 86. 
 
EAELY TYPOaEAPHY. 345 
 
 needs in this respect of tlie whole fraternity; — 
 that the arms of the city were engraved on 
 one of these books, the Song of Songs; — 
 that all those with pictorial embellishments, 
 claimed as Costerian productions, are, in the 
 opinion of so competent a judge as Ottley, 
 the work of the same artist, or at least of 
 the same school, as regards design and exe- 
 cution, as the Biblia Pauperum;-— and that 
 from the paper-marks, as well as the cha- 
 racter of the costume and armour of the 
 figures in the Speculum, that work could 
 not have been printed until about the year 
 1453, or later: — the conclusion seems rea- 
 sonable, that all the works which from 1588 
 have been traditionally attributed to Coster 
 and his alleged successors, came in reality 
 from the establishment of the Brethren and 
 Clerks of the Common Life at ZwoUe: — 
 and if so, this satisfactorily accounts for 
 there being neither name nor initial nor date, 
 to indicate either author, designer or printer ; 
 
 2U 
 
346 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 the principles of the fraternity being such 
 as to merge the individual in the brotherhood,- 
 and to make the work of one a portion of 
 the common work of all. 
 
 Setting aside, therefore, the conclusions of 
 Baron Heinecken and Wetter in regard to the 
 party by whom, and the date when, the 
 Speculum was originally printed, (which ne- 
 vertheless are not without grounds for their 
 support), this view of the question gives 
 to some unknown brother or brethren the 
 merit of having independently worked out 
 the idea of separable letters on wood about 
 the years 1450—53; thus adding one more 
 to the number of known instances, when at 
 certain historic periods the minds of individuals 
 wholly unknown to each other, and in widely 
 different parts of the world, have almost 
 simultaneously worked out the same invention, 
 or made the same discovery. Instances of 
 such coincidences will no doubt at once occur 
 to the minds of intelligent readers ; I shall 
 
EARJ.Y TYPOGKAPHY. 347 
 
 therefore only refer by way of illustration to 
 the invention of Photography by M. Niepce 
 and Mr. Fox Talbot, and the discovery of 
 the planet Neptune by the English and French 
 astronomers, Adams and Leverrier. 
 
 The rarity ©f copies of works in which the 
 types used in the Speculum have been re- 
 cognised, is accounted for ^by the fact of their 
 speedy supercession by cast fusile metal types, 
 when a knowledge of the Arts of Typography 
 and Typefounding became spread throughout 
 Europe by the dispersion of the workmen at 
 Mentz, on the capture and sack of that city 
 in 1462. Most, if not all of the early printers, 
 were men of learning. Many of those who 
 first practised the art in the-Netherlands would 
 conseqviently have been educated by the Bre- 
 thren and Clerks of the Common Life; and 
 amongst these some were very probably mem- 
 bers of that fraternity. It is certain that at 
 Brussels (1476) and at Zwolle, as well as at 
 Rheingau (1474) and Kostock (1476), the 
 
348 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Brethren speedily practised the new art as 
 first brought to perfection at Mentz. And at 
 one or other of these places, it is much more 
 likely that Veldener obtained the cuts of the 
 Mirror of Salvation, which he reprinted at 
 Culembourg in 1483, than that he purchased 
 them from the descendants of Coster at Haar- 
 lem ; — a statement which, however much 
 insisted upon by Dutch, and reiterated of late 
 by French and English writers, is purely 
 suppositious, and utterly void of the slightest 
 foundation in fact. 
 
^Hh ^lm^^H' 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Works of Faust and Schoefper. — Legend of 
 THE Printer's Devil. — ^Monuments in G-ermany to 
 Gutenberg, Faust and Schcbffer. — Separable Let- 
 ters FIRST invented IN ChINA. — CHARACTERISTICS 
 OF ANCIENT PRINTED BoOKS. — ThE " CoMPOSING- 
 
 stick" and "Setting-rule." — Early Bindings. 
 
 The first book published by Faust and 
 SchoefFer, after their separation from Guten- 
 berg, was a beautiful folio edition of the 
 Psalter, finished on the 14th August, 1457. 
 This is the celebrated work, so often alluded 
 to, the first to which the name of the printer 
 was affixed, as well as that of the place where, 
 and the date when, it was printed. It is 
 from this circumstance that the origin of the 
 Art of Typography has been by certain early 
 writers attributed to Faust rather than to 
 
350 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Gutenberg. The fine large Gothic type with 
 which the book is printed, (22 lines to a foot,) 
 is exactly double the size of that cut for the 
 'Mazarin' Bible. The initial capital letters, of 
 which there are in all 288, are from four to six 
 lines in depth, printed in red and blue, with 
 ornamental flower -work and figures cut in 
 the body of the letter, and bordered with 
 scroll-work running into the margins. In 
 the case of the commencing initial, the letter 
 B, this scroll - work extends from the top 
 to the bottom of the page. The capitals 
 commencing each sentence in the body of 
 the work, are also in red ink, as well as 
 whole lines interspersed here and there. The 
 music is on a staff' of four lines instead 
 of five, the notes square-headed and diamond- 
 shaped, the words beneath being in roman 
 characters. These portions of the work are 
 engraved on solid blocks. At the end of 
 the Psalter is inserted the Faust and Schoef- 
 fer badge, which thenceforth appeared in all 
 
their works.* This consisted of two shields 
 (on which were their coats of arms) suspended 
 from the branch of a tree. Beneath this was 
 the following imprint or colophon: — 
 
 " Presens spalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratuB 
 Rubricationibus que Bufficienter distinctus, Adinventione 
 artificioBa imprimendi et caracterizandi absque calami uUa 
 exaratione sic eflBgiatus. Et ad eusebiam Dei industrie est 
 consummatuB f Per Johannem Fust Civem moguntinum Efc 
 
 * " The early printers generally marked their publications 
 by some monogram or cipher peculiar to themselves, and 
 containing their initials, their arms, or some curious device. 
 These are all well known to the initiated bibliopole, and 
 their presence on a title-page is received as evidence of the 
 genuineness of a scarce copy. The oldest of them is that of 
 Faust and Schoeffer, annexed to their &st Psalter, and 
 consisting of two shields tied together and hanging from a 
 branch. Eaphelengius, of Leyden, adopted the anchor; 
 Sporinus of Basle, chose the arion ; Jansen of Amsterdam, 
 the sphere ; the Elzevirs exhibited the olive tree, and the 
 celebrated Aldus had for a device, the anchor and dolphin."— 
 ("History of Printing," published by the Society for Pro- 
 moting Christian Knowledge). Gotfridus de Os, of Gouda, 
 had for his device an elephant and castle, combined with 
 the arms of the city. 
 
 f In the colophon to the second edition of this Psalter, 
 printed in 1459, the word 'spalmorum' is corrected to 
 'psahnorum,' and instead of the words "ad eusebiam Dei 
 
352 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 Petrum Schoffer de Grernszheim. Anno domini Millesimo 
 ccccLVii. In vigilia Assumpcionis." 
 
 The declaration contained in this colophon 
 seems incompatible with the truth, as well as 
 with the admissions of Schceffer himself, on 
 other occasions, unless it be understood as 
 applying to the exquisite initial letters, these 
 being printed wholly in colours, instead of 
 being sketched in by the hand of the rubrica- 
 tor or coloured by illuminators. These very 
 letters however, it is believed by some, in- 
 cluding Mr. Humphreys, (see p. 86 of his 
 work,) were the work of Gutenberg; and 
 M. Fischer in his interesting essay* has shewn, 
 that in several small worksf which issued 
 
 induBtrie est consummatus" etc., the following occur: — "ad 
 laudem Dei ac honorem sancti Jacobi est consummatuB per 
 Johannem FuBt, ciTem mogimtinem et Petrum Schoififer de 
 Gemszheim clericum. Anno Domini milleBimo cccclix, 
 XXIX die mensis Augusti." 
 
 * "EBBai BUT leB Monumens Typographiqnes de Jean 
 Gutfenberg, a Mayence, I'an X." [1801.] 
 
 I Among the works referred to was a Donatus. Mr. 
 HuMPHEEYS, remarking upon these letters, says : — "If these 
 
EAELY TYPOGKAPHY. 353 
 
 from Gutenberg's press before the forfei- 
 ture of his plant to Faust, the identical 
 letters (the smaller initials) used in the 
 Psalter, as well as some of those printed in 
 two colours, and of which he has given fac- 
 similes, appear. But if, as there is abund- 
 ant reason to believe was the case, Schoeffer 
 was engaged as an assistant at the Zum 
 Jungen at, or soon after the year 1450, 
 when Gutenberg first obtained advances from 
 Faust, these capitals, the beauty of which 
 is undisputed, may have been, and most pro- 
 bably were, designed by him for the projected 
 
 initials, of which M. Fischer gives admirable fac-similes, 
 were really executed under the direction of Gutenberg, they 
 must of necessity greatly enhance the wonder and admiration 
 felt for the author of the marvellously perfect workmanship 
 of the first Bible ; and also detract, to an equal extent, from 
 the repute long held by Schoiffher as the Printer of the 
 famous Psalter, with its fine coloured initials vaunted as the 
 work of the press alone, and not produced by the illumina- 
 tor's pencil; for if M. Fischer be correct in attributing the 
 work in question to Gutenberg, then the credit of the initials 
 printed in colours in the Psalter must also be given to 
 Gutenberg, as all the lesser initials in that noble specimen 
 
 2x 
 
354 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 works for which the money was advanced ; 
 and, as his 'inventions,' and not the work 
 of Gutenberg, they would be included in the 
 
 of the printer's art, are the identical letters found by M. 
 Fischer illustrating the ' Donatus ' attributed by him without 
 hesitation to the press of Gutenberg, as being printed with 
 the same type as the first Bible. The fine free style of these 
 
 letters, and their perfect execution, is very remarkable 
 
 That the 'Donatus' in question was printed, not only before 
 Schoiffher's Psalter, but also before the Bible, appears 
 incontrovertibly proved by the fact, that the five leaves in 
 question of this ' Donatus,' were found in the cover of a 
 book of accounts dated 1451. The testimony of M. Fischer 
 is above suspicion ; but it is to be regretted, that this most 
 important and interesting monument of the labours of 
 Gutenberg is now no longer to be found. At the time that 
 M. Fischer's examination and description were made, it was 
 in the public library of Mayence ; but at that time several 
 national monuments were removed to Paris, and others lost 
 in the general ransacking that took place, and the interesting 
 'Donatus' described by M. Fischer is among the documents 
 now no longer to be found either at Paris or Mayence. 
 Although it would thus appear that the credit of the letters 
 in question is due to Gutenberg, I shall have some further 
 remarks to make on the subject in describing the famous 
 Psalter of Schoiffber. The Bibliotheque Nationale possesses 
 two leaves of a ' Donatus' printed with Gutenberg's Bible 
 type." — Hist, of Art of Printing, p. 77. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 355 
 
 property which was transferred to Faust on 
 the termination of the law-suit. Looked at 
 from this point of view, they may be thought 
 to justify the assertion in the colophon of 
 the Psalter of 1457, although there can be 
 no doubt but that that work was partly com- 
 pleted while the whole property was still in 
 the possession of Gutenberg, and that there- 
 fore to him must be attributed the honour 
 of planning, and cutting the fount of types 
 with which it was executed. 
 
 " The most perfect copy known of this work, 
 (says Mr. Timperley,) is that in the Imperial 
 Library of Vienna. It was discovered in 
 the year 1665, near Innspruck in the castle 
 of Ambras, where the Archduke Francis 
 Sigismund had collected a prodigious quantity 
 of manuscripts and printed books; taken 
 for the most part from the famous library 
 of Mattliias Corvinus, King of Hungary, from 
 whence it was transported to Vienna. The 
 book is printed in folio on vellum, and of 
 
356 EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 
 
 such extreme variety, that though not more 
 than six or seven copies are known to be 
 in existence, all of them differ from each other 
 in some respect. The Psalter occupies one 
 hundred and thirty-five, and the recto the 
 hundred and thirty-sixth, and the remaining 
 forty -one leaves are appropriated to the litany, 
 prayers, responses, vigils, &c. The Psalms 
 are executed in larger characters than the 
 hymns ; the capital letters are cut in wood, 
 with a degree of delicacy and boldness which 
 are truly surprising: the largest of them — 
 the initial letters of the Psalms — which are 
 black, red, and blue, must have passed three 
 times through the press." 
 
 From 1457 to 1466 the following works were 
 printed by Faust and Schoeffer. 
 
 (1) The Psalter, 2d edition.— 1459. 
 
 (2) Rationale divinorum Officiorum Guil- 
 lelmi Durandi. — 1459. 
 
 A folio work consisting of 160 leaves, with 
 the text in two columns of 63 lines each. For 
 
EAEL^ TYPOGRAPHY. 357 
 
 this work two new founts of type were cast, 
 of smaller sizes than those used for the Psalter 
 of 1457, and Bible of 1455. The first was of 
 the depth of 53 lines to a foot; the smaller 
 66, equivalent to the English of type-founders 
 of the present day. The latter was used for 
 the body of the work. 
 
 (3) Constitutiones dementis V. Papse 
 cum Apparatu Joannis Andrese. — 1460. 
 
 This consisted of 51 leaves of folio, two 
 columns to a page. The text was in the larger 
 of the above two types, surrounded by a 
 glossary or commentary, ten times its bulk, 
 in the smaller type. Of this work two sub- 
 sequent editions were published in 1467 and 
 1471. 
 
 (4) Manifest des Erzbischofs von Mainz, 
 Diether von Isenburg, gegen Adolph von 
 Nassau. — 1462. 
 
 (5) Biblia Sacra Latina Vulgatse editionis, 
 ex translatione et cum prsefatione S. Hie- 
 ronymi. — 1462. 
 
358 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 This is the Bible commonly known as 
 the 'Mentz,' in order to distinguish it from 
 the 'Mazarin.' It is the first published with 
 a date; the colophon being nearly the 
 same as that appended to the Psalter of 
 1457. It is, however, believed that it was 
 originally issued with the intention of sell- 
 ing it as manuscript; that portion of the 
 colophon containing the words "artificiosa 
 adinventione imprimendi seu caracterizandi 
 absque calami exaratione," being omitted from 
 some of the copies. The subsequent insertion 
 of the above words, it is supposed, was owing 
 to the compulsion of circumstances, which 
 will be hereafter alluded to. The book con- 
 sists of 1001 pages, each in two columns of 
 48 lines of the same type as that used for 
 the text of the ' Constitutiones.' Copies wer'e 
 printed on both vellum and paper, many of the 
 larger initials being beautifully illuminated, 
 
 (6) Bulla cruciata Sanctissimi Domini 
 nostri Papse (Pii 11.) "contra Turchos. — 1464. 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 359 
 
 The heading is in the Psalter type, the text 
 in that of the 'Rationale.' 
 
 ( 7 ) Liber sextus Decretalium t)oniini Boni- 
 facii PapsB VIII. cum glossa. — 1465. 
 
 A work of 141 leaves of large folio, in 
 double coluBans. The type of the text is the 
 same as that of the Bible of 1462 ; the glossary 
 is in that of the 'Rationale.' 
 
 (8) M. T. Ciceronis De Officiis Libri III 
 Paradoxa et Versus XII sapientium. — 1465. 
 
 This work, "the first tribute of the new 
 art to polite literature," and the first in which 
 Greek characters (cut in wood) appeared, 
 is a handsome quarto (or small folio) of 88 
 leaves* with 28 lines to a page, in the same 
 
 * Wetter, p. 527 ; but Humphebts, p. 88, says " twenty- 
 eight leaves." Not being in a position to make a reference 
 to any copy of the work itself, I am unable to say which 
 of these authorities is right. One of the finest specimens of 
 this work extant, is that in the celebrated Astor Library at 
 New York. The paper is as clean and the ink as fresh as 
 the day on which it was printed. There are also in this 
 Library several other Typographical treasures. Amongst 
 
360 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 type as the 'Rationale.' The striking pecu- 
 liarity of this book is, that it is the first in 
 which 'leads,' spacing the lines apart from 
 one another, are vised. Great care seems to 
 have been taken to print it with the utmost 
 elegance. The fine large initial letters of the 
 Psalter of 1457 were again used, printed in 
 blue and red inks ; and in some copies the 
 blank spaces left for illuminated letters were 
 filled up in the highest style of art. The 
 most elaborately finished specimens are de- 
 corated with borders round the pages, in the 
 same style and evidently by the same hand 
 that was employed for that purpose, on the 
 superb copies of the Mazarin Bible of 1455. 
 That the printers were growing proud of their 
 
 them will be found the "Catholicon" of John of Genoa, 
 printed at Augsburg in 1469; two specimens of Caxton, 
 one of them a few leaves of the " Recuyell des Histories de 
 Troye," printed in 1471, and the other, Higden's "Poly- 
 chronicon," printed in London, 1482. Glanville's "De 
 Proprietatibus Rerum," printed by Wynken de Worde, the 
 successor of Caxton, in 1494, is also a handsome specimen. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 361 
 
 art is evident by the colophons they now 
 used. That to the Decretals is in the fol- 
 lowing terms: — 
 
 "Presens hujus sexti Decretalium opus alma in urbe 
 Magontia inclyte nationis Germanice, quam Dei dementia 
 tam alto ingenii lumine donoque gratuito ceteris terrarum 
 nacionibas pref(*re illustrareque dignatus est. Non atra- 
 mento, plumali canna, neque serea, sed artificiosa quadam 
 adinventione imprimendi, etc. etc. per Job. Fust civem et 
 Petrum Schoiflfer de Gernsbeym. Anno. Dom. mcccclxv. die 
 ver6 17, mensis decembris." 
 
 The colophon to the ' Offices ' differs. It is 
 
 as follows: — 
 
 " Presens Marci Tuly clarissimum opus. Johannes Fust 
 Mogintinus civis non atramento plumali canna neque asrea, 
 sed arte quadam perpulcra, Petri manu pueri mei feliciter 
 effeci finitum Anno mcccclxv." 
 
 (9) Grammatica vetus rhytmica. — 1466. 
 
 A work of eleven leaves of small folio, 
 in the type of the 'Eationale.' The con- 
 cluding lines are as follows: — 
 
 " Actis ter denis jubilaminis octo bis annis 
 Moguntia Eheni me condit et imprimit amnis 
 Hinc Nazareni sonet oda per Ora Johannis 
 Namque sereni luminis est scatuiigo perennis." 
 
 2 Y 
 
362 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 In the same year the book " S. Aiigustini 
 Liber de Arte Predicande" appeared. It is 
 attributed to the press of Faust and SchoefFer, 
 but I have no means of further particu- 
 larising it. 
 
 The year 1462 was memorable for the siege 
 and sack of Mentz by the Elector Archbishop, 
 Count Adolphus of Nassau. After the capture 
 of the city, Faust proceeded to Paris with a 
 supply of Bibles, amongst which were no 
 doubt a goodly number of the edition only 
 just then completed. Tradition has it, that he 
 sold one of these Bibles to the King for 750 
 crowns, and another to the Archbishop for 
 300 ; and that gradually lowering his prices 
 he at last disposed of copies for 50 and 40 
 crowns a-piece.* The King and the Arch- 
 
 * The differences in these prices lead to the conclusion 
 that the higher prices must have been given for copies of the 
 Bible of 1455, and the lower for those of 1462; the charge 
 made for each varying according to the amount of orna- 
 mentation in illuminated letters and marginal decorations. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 363 
 
 bishop, comparing their purchases, which they 
 had bargained for as manuscripts, found so 
 exact a conformity between them, as to be 
 convinced that they were produced by some 
 other method than that of transcribing ; besides 
 which, it w^ impossible that two such Bibles 
 covJd be executed by the same hand in a 
 lifetime. Upon inquiry, it was found that a 
 considerable number of similar copies had been 
 sold in the city. Hereupon orders were given 
 to apprehend Faust, who was accordingly 
 seized, tried for witchcraft, and condemned to 
 be executed as a wizard in league with the 
 Devil. So runs the tale ; in which fact and 
 fiction have been strangely blended, the latter 
 greatly predominating, — John Faust the 
 banker, and one of the three first printers 
 of Mentz, being confounded with Jean Frederic 
 Faust, a charlatan and almanac maker of the 
 sixteenth century, who to ensure his almanacs 
 a large sale, advertized them as actually dic- 
 tated to him bv Beelzebub. It was thus that 
 
364 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 the legend obtained currency, that Faust of 
 Mentz invented printing in consequence of a 
 compact entered into between himself and the 
 Evil One. The diabolical stigma once at- 
 tached to the profession, the monks and 
 scribes, the 'brief-men' of the day, took care 
 that it should remain. Hence the origin 
 of the term "Printer's Devil," the by no 
 means complimentary honorific bestowed upon 
 youngsters on their first initiation into the 
 mysteries of the Divine and Noble Art. 
 
 No doubt the sale of his Bibles in Paris, the 
 great book-mart of the day, excited a consider- 
 able cabal against Faust, on the part of the 
 scribes ; who would readily enough assert that 
 such workfe could only have been produced 
 by the aid of witchcraft. An assertion of 
 this nature was, at that time, dangerous in 
 the extreme to the party against whom it 
 was made. Authors, writing shortly after 
 the time of Faust's visit, say that such a 
 charge was made, and that he had to leave 
 
EAKLY TYPOGEAPHY. 365 
 
 the city in consequence. The most effectual 
 way of rebutting it would be the avowal of 
 the method adopted in bringing out the 
 work, and this was done by the insertion, 
 in freshly printed leaves, of the words men- 
 tioned in page 358 as having been omitted 
 from the early copies. It has been urged, that 
 it was impossible for Faust to have attempted 
 the imposition of passing these Bibles off as 
 manuscripts, inasmuch as he had already 
 divulged the fact of his printing such works 
 in the imprint to the Psalter of 1457. But 
 that imprint applied to that work alone ; and 
 Faust, who was a sharp man of business, would 
 not have purposely omitted from the imprint 
 to the Bible, that part of the sentence which 
 notified that the work was done "by a newly 
 invented art of casting letters, printing," &c., 
 unless he had intended to derive a profit by 
 so doing. There does not however, seem to 
 be any foundation for the assertion that he 
 was brought to trial. His absence from Paris 
 
366 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 was a very temporary one. It is certain he 
 was well received by persons of eminence 
 there, and ultimately succeeded in establishing 
 an agency for the sale of his books in the 
 city, in spite of the opposition of the scribes. 
 In 1466, he made another business visit 
 to Paris, where he was taken ill, and died, 
 as some suppose, of a pestilence which was 
 raging at the time, to which, as he was 
 then seventy-one years of age, he would 
 have fallen an easy victim. His remains 
 were interred with honor, in the Church 
 of St. Victor. "An anniversary mass was 
 afterwards appointed to be said for the repose 
 of his soul, on the presentation by Peter 
 Schoiffher and Conrad Fust of a copy of 
 the 'Epistles of Jerome,' printed on parch- 
 ment, and considered so important a work, 
 that the Abbe of St. Victor deemed it right 
 to pay back the sum of twelve gold crowns, , 
 the work exceeding by that sum the value 
 of the fees due for the annual masses. This 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 367 
 
 fact is contained in an entry in the 'Necro- 
 logy of St. Victor,' which is preserved at 
 Paris, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, (MSS. 
 fonds St. Victor). The copy of the 'Epistles 
 of St. Jerome' here alluded to is now in 
 the library, of the Arsenal."* 
 
 After Faust's death, Schoeffer continued the 
 business in partnership with his father-in-law 
 Conrad Faust, wh.o did not however take an 
 active share in its management, and who died 
 about the year 1479. Conrad Helif and Dr. 
 Humery seem also to have been for a time 
 connected with him. From 1467 to 1503, 
 the date of Schoeffer's death, he printed, ac- 
 cording to Wetter, 49 works,f several of 
 
 * Humphreys, p. 89. 
 
 f The following is a brief list of these works : — 
 
 1. Thomas de Aquino, secunda secunde, 1467. 
 
 2. dementis V. Constitutiones, 2d edit. 1467. 
 
 3. Institutiones Justiniani, 1468. 
 
 4. Grammatica vetus rhytmica, 2d edit. 1468. 
 
 5. Thomas de Aquino, Expositio quarti libri senten- 
 
 tiarum, 1469. 
 
368 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 which were second, third, foiirth, fifth and 
 sixth editions of those previously issued. The 
 agency which John Faust the elder had es- 
 tablished in Paris for the sale of his books, 
 became an emporium to which other printers 
 
 6. Bonifacii VIII. Liber Sextiis decretalium, 2d edit. 
 
 7. Hieronymi Epistola, 1470. [1470. 
 
 8. Mammotractus, sive Dictionarium vocabuloruin, 1470. 
 
 9. Decretalium liber Sextus, 3d edit. 1470. 
 
 10. Valerius Maximus, liber factorum, etc. 1471. 
 
 11. Clementis V. Constitutiones, 3d edit. 1471. 
 
 12. S. Thomas, Prima pars secunde, 1471. 
 
 13. BibHa Sacra Latina, 1472. 
 
 14. Decretum Gratiani, 1472. 
 
 15. Justiniani Institutiones, 2d edit. 1472. 
 
 1 6. Bonifacii VIII. liber Sextus decretalium, 4tli edit. 1473. 
 
 17. Augustiaus, de civitate Dei, 1473. 
 
 18. Gregorii IX. nova compilatio decretalium, 1473. 
 
 19. Turrecremata, Expositio psalterii, 1474. 
 
 20. Henrici Herp Speculum aureum, 1474. 
 
 21. Justiniani codex institutionem, 1475. 
 
 22. S. Bernardi Sermones, 1475. 
 
 23. Bonifacii, &c., 5th edit. 1476. 
 
 24. Turrecremata, &c., 2d edit. 1476. 
 
 25. Justiniani, &c., 3d edit. 1476. 
 
 26. Bonifacii, &c., 6th edit. 1476. 
 
 27. Decisiones rote Romane, 1477. 
 
EAELT TYPOGBAPHY. 369 
 
 besides Schoeffer sent the productions of their 
 presses. This was managed by one Her- 
 mann de Stathoen, who had been appointed 
 by SchoeflPer ; but he dying in Paris, in 1474, 
 an unnaturalized foreigner, the whole stock 
 
 28. Justiniani NoTellaa constitutiones, 1477. 
 
 29. Pauli Burgensis Scrutinium Scripturarum, 1478. 
 
 30. Turrecremata, Bxpositio super psalterio, 1478. 
 
 31. Bartholomsei de Chaymis confessionale, 1478. 
 
 32. Gregorii IX. Decretales, 1479. 
 
 33. Turrecremata Meditationes, 1479. 
 
 34. Joannis de Wesalia Paradoxa, 1479. 
 
 35. Agenda Moguntina, 1480. 
 
 36. Herbarius, 1482. 
 
 37. Missale Moguntinum, 1483. 
 
 38. Herbarius cum herbarum figuris, 1484. 
 
 39. Ortus sanitatis, 1485. 
 
 40. Missale Ecclesie Misniensis, 1485. 
 
 41. Breyfarium Moguntinum, 1487. 
 
 42. Missalium opus ad usum Ecclesie Cracoviensis, 1487. 
 
 43. Legenda et miracula 8. Goaris, 1488. 
 
 44. Psalmorem Codex, 1490. 
 
 45. Chronecken der Sassen, 1492. 
 
 46. Missale Moguntinum, 2d edit. 1498. 
 
 47. Ordnung des kaiserl. Kammergerichts, 1495. 
 
 48. Missale Wratislaviense, 1499. 
 
 49. Psalterium, 1502. 
 
 2z 
 
370 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 of books in his charge was confiscated by 
 the King, Louis XI. Schoeffer at once made 
 such representations to the monarch as led 
 to a royal decree, awarding him the sum of 
 2425 crowns-, by way of compensation for 
 the confiscated proj)erty. Besides the agency 
 at Paris, Schcefier established business re- 
 lations at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, where in 
 1479, he was entered on the roll of burghers. 
 In 1489 he became one of the secular judges 
 of Mentz. A wealthy, an honoured, and an 
 influential citizen, he died, it is supposed, in 
 the year 1503. His last work was a fourth 
 edition of his celebrated Psalter, published in 
 1502. The next year, his eldest son, John, 
 issued the "Mercurius Trismegistus,". which is 
 declared in the imprint to be his first work, 
 and by him the business was continued until 
 1538.* 
 
 * Another son, or perhaps a grandson, Peter, established 
 himself as a printer in the city of "Worms, not far distant 
 from Mentz. It was at his press that William Tydnale's 
 
EARLY TYPQGEAPHY. 371 
 
 The death of Schoeffer brings us to a point 
 in the narrative, where we may pause a 
 moment, to note the progress of the art, of 
 which, next to Gutenberg, he was the most 
 eminent founder. Perhaps no art ever rose 
 to perfectipn with such rapidity, after its 
 groundwork had been completed, as that of 
 Typography. Little more than thirty years 
 had elapsed from the time of printing the 
 Biblia Pauperum from wooden blocks, when 
 Gutenberg's separable hand -cut letters were 
 followed and superseded by Schoeffer's cast 
 fusile metal, types. The art, which with 
 Faust's assistance, Gutenberg founded and 
 Schoeffer perfected, remains to this day essen- 
 tially the same that it was in 1455. Steam 
 power and machinery may to a large ^extent 
 have superseded the old hand-press invented 
 
 version of the first English translation of the New Testament 
 was printed (in 1525 or 1526), after failing to get it done 
 at the press of P. Quentell of Cologne. A press was es- 
 tablished at Friesingen in 1495, by Joann. Schaaflaer. 
 
372 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 by Gutenberg; and the art of stereotyping 
 may also have multiplied the power of the 
 types in disseminating and cheapening useful 
 knowledge ; but the foundation and principles 
 of Letter-press Printing remain unaltered and 
 unalterable. Types, ink, and pressure, still 
 produce books as they were first produced, 
 and the finest productions of the present 
 day are not superior in Typographic beauty, 
 or aught else that stamps a work a master- 
 piece, to the best eff'orts of the Fathers of 
 the Art, four hundred years and more ago. 
 
 It has been reserved for the Nineteenth 
 century to render due honor to the "grand 
 Typographical Triumvirate," as they have 
 been termed, for the noble Art by which 
 
 " New shape and voice the immaterial thought 
 Takes from the invented speaking page sublime ; 
 The Ark which mind has for it refuge wrought, 
 Its floating Archive down the floods of Time." 
 
 With this object in view, the Gutenberg 
 Society, to which all the writers of the 
 
EARLY TYPOaRAPHY. 373 
 
 Rhenish provinces belong, meet yearly at 
 Mentz, there to celebrate the fame of Guten- 
 berg, the chief inventor. And in 1837, a 
 grateful posterity, animated by similar senti- 
 ments, erected in the same city, in commemo- 
 ration of the Four Hundredth anniversary 
 of the Origin of the Art, a monumental statue 
 to his memory. On the festival at the inaugu* 
 ration of the statue (August 14, and following 
 days), the Provost of Mentz published an 
 address, to the following sentences from 
 which every reader will doubtless most cor- 
 dially assent. "If," says the ardent Provost, 
 "the mortal who invented that method of 
 fixing the fugitive sounds of words which 
 we call the Alphabet, has operated on man- 
 kind like a divinity, so also has Gutenberg's 
 genius brought together the once isolated 
 inquirers, teachers and learners, — all the scat- 
 tered and divided efforts for extending God's 
 kingdom over the whole civilized earth, — 
 as though beneath one temple. Gutenberg's 
 
374 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 invention, not a lucky accident, but the golden 
 fruit of a well considered idea, — an invention 
 made with a perfect consciousness of its end, 
 — has, above all other causes, for more than 
 four centuries, urged forward and established 
 the dominion of science ; and what is of the ut- 
 most importance, has immeasurably advanced 
 the mental formation and education of the 
 people. This invention, a true intellectual 
 sun, has mounted above the horizon, first 
 of the Eurbpean Christians, and then of the 
 peoj)le of other climes and other faiths, to 
 an ever -enduring morning. It has made the 
 return of barbarism, the isolation of mankind, 
 the reign of darkness, impossible for all future 
 times. It has established a public opinion, — 
 a court of moral judicature common to all 
 civilized nations, whatever natural divisions 
 may separate them, as much as for the pro- 
 vinces of one and the same state. In a word, 
 it has formed fellow-labourers at the never- 
 resting loom of Christian European civilization 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHT. 375 
 
 in every quarter of the world, in almost every 
 island of the ocean." 
 
 The example set by the citizens of Mentz 
 was a few years later followed by those of 
 Strasburg, in which city, as already stated, 
 Gutenberg's earliest efforts were made ; nor 
 were the inhabitants of Frankfort - on - the - 
 Maine long behind, — excelling even those of 
 Strasburg and Mentz, by combining in one 
 grand group the statues of Gutenberg, Faust 
 and Schoeffer. Of these several specimens of 
 the sculptor's art Mr. Humphreys gives the 
 following account: — 
 
 "It was not till the nineteenth century that worthy 
 memorials of the great founder of the Printing-Press in 
 Germany were erected. The first was that at Mayence. As 
 a statue it is not equal to the one of Coster at Haarlem, 
 although the work of Thorwaldsen. It was executed at 
 Eome in 1835, and cast in Paris in 1837. The gown of the 
 period with its fur collar, or rather cape, is effective enough 
 as a mere matter of costume, and so is the furred cap closely 
 copied from supposed authentic portraits of Gutenberg. One 
 hand holds a book, and the other, types ; but the general 
 effcct is tame and unimpressive. It is well that the great 
 name of Thorwaldsen should be thus allied to that of Guten- 
 
berg, but it is not one of the great Dane's most successM 
 works. The inscription, stating that it was erected by the 
 citizens of Mayence, with the concurrence of the whole of 
 Europe, is grandly simple, as it ought to be. 
 
 "The statue at Strasburg, the scene of Gutenberg's first 
 typographic efforts, is the work of the celebrated French 
 sculptor David d' Anger, and the market-place in which it is 
 erected is now called La Place Gutenberg. The position of 
 the figm-e is fall of Ufa and spirit; a proof-sheet is held 
 proudly forward, bearing the inscription, as though in an- 
 swer to one of the first fiats of Creation — 'Let there be 
 light.' It is intended to express that, through the medium 
 of the Printing Press, intellectual light came, as expressed 
 in the words, 'And there was light.' On the pedestal are 
 four bassi-relievi, in which the dissemination of knowledge 
 by means of the Printing Press is illustrated. In the one 
 on the front, aU the gi'eat authors of modem Europe are 
 gi'ouped round a Printing Press ; among them Shakespeare, 
 Corneille, Bacon, Dante, Voltaire, and Goethe, are con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 "The Memorial at Frankfort is, on the whole, more 
 impressive than either of the preceding. It consists of 
 three separate statues, forming together a single group. 
 The statues are those of Gutenberg, Faust and Schceffer, 
 who each assisted in the first great work of founding the 
 Printing Press in Germany, and whose memorials found 
 a fitting place in the imperial city, which was still the seat 
 of the Germanic Diet at the time of the Memorial in 1837. 
 The subsidiary figures which embellish the face of the 
 structure, — Literature, &c., &c. — are very good and ap- 
 propriate. The entire composition is imposingly raised on 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 377 
 
 steps connected with the secondary pedestals, which support 
 the allegorical figures. Altogether, the memorial is a fine 
 one. But it has one defect — there is no name nor de- 
 scription of any kind — so that travellers unacquainted with 
 the subject, might mistake the group for that of any other 
 celebrated triumvirate. A statue, even of Shakespeare, 
 should be accompanied at least by the simple name." • 
 
 Still, altffough Gutenberg is most justly 
 entitled to the honour of being considered 
 the inventor of the Art of Typography, as 
 now practised in Europe, he was not, in fact, 
 the first who printed books from separate 
 moveable types. In this, as in block printing, 
 the Chinese again bear away the palm. For, 
 singularly enough, it is ascertained that al- 
 though the general mode of printing in China 
 is, and always has been, from wooden blocks, 
 yet separable letters were known to the Chinese 
 as early as the Eleventh century. For a 
 time, single characters "made of clay arid baked 
 hard were used in that empire, but were 
 soon abandoned for the mode now almost 
 
 * Hist, of Art of Printing, p. 216. 
 
 3 a 
 
378 EAKLY TYPOaRAPHY. 
 
 universally practised, except for the Imperial 
 Calendar, published once a quarter, and the 
 Pekin Gazette, issued daily, which are still 
 wretchedly printed from moveable types made 
 of a plastic gum. 
 
 The account of the invention is too inter- 
 esting to be omitted. In the period King-li 
 (between 1041 and 1048) one of the people, 
 a blacksmith named Pi-ching, invented another 
 manner of printing with ho-pan, or tablets 
 formed of moveable types. This name is still 
 retained in the Imperial Printing Office at 
 Pekin. On a fine and glutinous earth, formed 
 into plates, Pi-ching engraved the characters 
 most in use. Each character was a type. 
 These he burnt in the fire to harden them. 
 When he wished to print he took a frame 
 of iron, divided interiorly and perpendicularly 
 by strips of the same metal (Chinese being 
 read vertically) ; this he laid on a table of 
 sheet iron coated with a fusible gum composed 
 of resin, wax, and lime ; he then inserted 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 379 
 
 the types, placing them one close against 
 the other. Each frame, when filled, formed 
 a tablet. This was brought near the fire to 
 make the gum melt, after which a level piece 
 of wood was pressed forcibly on the surface 
 of the types, by which means they were 
 pushed down into the gum and became firm 
 and even as a stone. The tablets were then 
 printed from in the usual manner. When 
 a new character was wanted it was immediately 
 prepared on the spot, and the inventor shewed 
 the advantage of clay over wood; there was 
 neither grain nor porosity, with a greater 
 facility of separation from the gum when 
 required for distribution. 
 
 At Pi-ching's death, all this apparatus was 
 carefully preserved by his successors. Print- 
 ing, however, went on in the old way, the 
 reason being that the Chinese has not, as 
 other languages, an alphabet made up of a 
 few characters, with which all sorts of books 
 may be printed, but a separate type is wanted 
 
380 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 for every word ; and as the language is divided 
 into classes of 106 sounds, so 106 cases (part 
 of the furniture of a Printing Office) would 
 be required, each one to contain a prodigious 
 number of types, thus rendering the mechanical 
 task of composing and distributing, one of 
 enormous difficulty and labour. It was easier 
 and cheaper to follow the usual method, and 
 print either from blocks of wood or plates 
 of stereotyped copper.* 
 
 All honour to the memory of Pi-ching, the 
 Chinese blacksmith! One might almost be 
 tempted to suppose, did we but believe in 
 
 the doctrine of metempsychosis, that after 
 
 . : f. 
 
 ■ * "One of the most remarkable typographical displays in 
 the great Exhibition of 1851 was the collection of Chinese 
 types, or at least types to represent Chinese characters, in 
 the Zollverein department. They were manufactured by 
 Beyerhaus of Berlin, for the American Missionary Society. 
 The Chinese vocabulary is made up of a number of distinct 
 words, which are not bui|t up fix)m component letters, as 
 in European languages, but have a good deal of the hiero- 
 glyphic effect about them. To imitate these words or 
 characters by moreable types has always been deemed a 
 
a lapse of 400 years, disgusted at the neglect 
 of his invention in the East, his spirit migrated 
 to thie West, and that in Gutenberg he was 
 permitted to be born again. A like spirit 
 animated them both, and to the end of time 
 their labomfs will live and their memories be 
 blest. 
 
 The account given in the foregoing descrip- 
 tion of the methdd of composing his types 
 used by Pi-ching, is not very dissihailar to 
 that said to have been adopted by the first 
 Typographers of the Western World. Frames, 
 or coffins, were made of planks of wood, in 
 which rectangular hollows were cut the size 
 
 difficult matter. M. Beyerhaus has analyzed the lines and 
 dots of the Chinese language, so as to make 4200 letters out 
 of them, or elements which wiU serve the compositor in lieu 
 of letters. The steel punches of all these 4200 types were 
 shewn ; and by various combinations of them, about 24,000 
 Chinese , words or chai-acters can be imitated ; and it was 
 very interesting to see copies of the Bible and the New 
 Testament printed in Chinese by the aid of these types." 
 — Curiosities of Industry — Printing ; its Modern Varieties, 
 by G. DoDD, p. 4. 
 
 -2- 
 
382 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 of the pages to be printed; and in these 
 the types, after having been strung together, 
 were placed in horizontal lines, the ends of 
 the lines and the bottoms of the pages being 
 tightly wedged in, to prevent slips and damage 
 while on the press. 
 
 All works printed during the first few 
 years after the invention of Typography, 
 were of the size of large or small folio. 
 The latter was what is now- a- days called 
 quarto, from the sheets being folded into 
 four ; — then, for the smaller size, whole 
 sheets were cut into two, on each of which 
 two pages were printed, in order to suit the 
 presses, and the stocks of type the printers 
 possessed. ' These sheets, or half sheets, were 
 printed in sections of 3, 4, or 5, called ter- 
 nions, quaternions, and quinternions. On the 
 backs of these sections strips of parchment 
 were sometimes pasted, to guard against tears 
 when the sheets were stitched together by 
 the book-binder. The first and third pages 
 
EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 883 
 
 so printed were called those on the recto of 
 the sheet, the second and fourth those on 
 the verso. A quaternion consisted of eight 
 formes; the first, containing pages 1 and 16, 
 and the second 2 and 15, formed the outer 
 sheet ; the ijext sheet consisted of pages 3 and 
 14, 4 and 13, the third and fourth formes ; 
 the third sheet consisted of pages 5 and 12, 
 6 and 1 1 , the fifth and sixth formes ; the 
 fourth sheet consisted of pages 7 and 10, 8 
 and 9, the seventh and eighth formes: the 
 next quaternion commenced with pages 17 
 and 32, and so on. When all the formes 
 were printed, the sheets of which the qua- 
 ternion consisted were folded one inside the 
 other, the pages then reading regularly on 
 from the first to the sixteenth. So long as 
 books represented fac-similes of manuscripts, 
 — which was the object originally aimed at, — 
 to print in this way was a matter easily ac- 
 complished. But as the new art drove out 
 the old, and scribes turned compositors and 
 
384 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 pressmen, and manuscripts came to be care- 
 lessly written, this could no longer be done. 
 Larger founts of type then became necessary, 
 to enable the printer to complete the whole 
 number of pages contained in the section ; 
 and to avoid this necessity as much as pos- 
 sible, quartos, octavos, and duodecimos would 
 be resorted to, a single sheet folded and re- 
 folded serving equally as well in binding as 
 a ternion, quaternion, or quinternion of folio 
 sheets. This, of course, led to the ' impo- 
 sition' of pages in formes oF4, 8, and 12 pages 
 and upwards, according to the size of the book 
 printed. 
 
 Title-pages, folios, running head-lines, catch- 
 lines, signatures, and imprints with dates and 
 names, were matters about which the Fathers 
 of Typography did not at first much concern 
 themselves. Their orthography, as well as 
 their divisions of words, was arbitrary ; their 
 abbreviations abominable, and their punctuation 
 absurd; the comma and the semicolon were 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 385 
 
 unknown, the points made use of being an 
 oblique dash (/) the colon (:) and the full 
 point (.) ; these were occasionally varied as 
 follows, ./ /. /• ./• ■/.//.•..:. .-.:.■. &c. A 
 straight dash | supplied the place of a hy- 
 phen, and ,a parallel || indicated the end of 
 a paragraph. The first leaf of a book was 
 generally left a blank, and a blank space was 
 left at the head of the commencing chapter 
 of a work, to be filled up with a vignette or 
 an illuminated scroll. Spaces were also left 
 for initial capitals, and for capitals commenc- 
 ing sentences, when small letters were not 
 used instead. These were so left in order to 
 be filled in by the rubricator, who sometimes 
 carelessly inserted a wrong letter. Names of 
 persons and places were printed indifierently 
 with or without capitals.* But in all these 
 
 * This may sometimes have been owiag to a scarcity 
 of capital letters. An amusing story is told of a jobbing 
 printer, who was seen printing the label "Lodgings to let," 
 in gold capital letters on a blue ground, with the second 
 
 3b 
 
386 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 matters the printers merely followed bad ex- 
 amples — that of the scribes whose downfall 
 they were effecting. One feature is especially 
 characteristic of the oldest books, viz. the 
 irregularity of the lines on the right hand 
 margin of the columns or pages, particularly 
 when the larger kinds of type were used. 
 This arose from the mode of composing, which 
 interfered with the spacing out of the words 
 to the ends of the lines. When however that 
 ingenious implement, the metal composing 
 stick — the printer's space-compelling gauge^ — 
 was invented, this defect was remedied; and 
 before the first generation of printers passed 
 away, all the blemishes above recounted had 
 disappeared from the works of those who de- 
 serve to be distinguished as Masters in their 
 Art. The engraving given below will explain 
 
 G- left out. Upon the omission being pointed out to him, 
 he said "Pshaw ! I should like to know why a printer should 
 not spell Lodgings with one G, when he has but that one 
 in his fount!" 
 
EAKLY TYPOaRAPHY. 887 
 
 the nature of this implement better than any- 
 written description. The slide, running par- 
 allel with the head, with its slotted foot 
 
 o o o o 
 
 into which was inserted the nut for the screw 
 which passed through and fastened it down 
 to the ledge on which the types rested, enabled 
 the compositor to 'set' his types with accu- 
 racy to any measure required, and to space out 
 the words to the right hand, so as to make 
 them line in the margin as straight and even 
 as the commencing letters on the left hand. 
 With the aid of the useful adjunct to the 
 'stick,' the 'setting-rule,' — (a strip of brass 
 the height and length of the line, with a 
 projecting neb at the top right hand corner) 
 — he could compose line after line with ease 
 and speed. . The special use of the 'rule' 
 was to prevent the letters as they were lifted 
 
388 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 into the ' stick,' catching on those of the line 
 below, which, without the interposition of 
 the polished strip of brass, they were liable 
 to do from the nicks in their shanks. When 
 the 'stick' was full, he could also with the 
 assistance of the 'rule' empt out its number 
 of lines into his 'galley,' where, when a suf- 
 ficient number was collected, they would be 
 made into pages, ready for the forme. The 
 inventor of the composing stick is not known ; 
 but as it appears in the hands of the com- 
 positor in the engraving facing page 116, and 
 the original of that engraving was first printed 
 about 1498, and the 'stick' must have then 
 been in use for some time ; and as the prin- 
 ciple of the slide is analogous to that which 
 would be adopted in regulating the width of 
 the chamber in the moulds for casting types, 
 it is highly probable that the credit of its 
 invention is due to Schoeffer, who had pre- 
 viously immortalized himself by inventing the 
 art of type-founding. 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 389 
 
 Besides the appearance of the insides of 
 early printed books, their ordinary outside 
 bindings demand attention here. Many of 
 the finer specimens were cased in sumptuous 
 covers, in which the art of the goldsmith and 
 jeweller was richly displayed; but for com- 
 mon use a stiflF sheet of parchment generally 
 sufficed, the edges of which were folded in, 
 a blank leaf being pasted over them. Others, 
 somewhat superior, had boards of beech or 
 oak for their sides, over which was pasted a 
 sheep-skin leather, on which figures were 
 stamped or embossed;* while others again 
 had stiff covers made of waste sheets, or 
 remnants of unsaleable copies, cut down and 
 pasted together. These last have furnished 
 
 * Some of these bindings were wonderful specimens of 
 patient labour. Wooden' boards as thick as the panels of a 
 door, studded with large brass nails with ornamented heads 
 and "massive metal corners, for sides, the backs solid with 
 paste and glue, and the fronts fastened with heavy clasps, 
 were by no means rare. Sometimes these covers were so 
 
390 EAJILY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 many unique specimens of the works of the 
 earliest printers ; and whenever any such are 
 suspected to lie beneath an ancient book- 
 cover, the cover is carefully removed and sub- 
 jected to a variety of processes to separate 
 its parts, and compel it to give up to the 
 ardent gaze of the palaeotypographist, its 
 possible treasure of an invaluable unique 
 specimen of the work of a Gutenberg, a 
 Schoeflfer, a Zell, a Jenson, a Martens, a 
 Caxton, or some other worthy of the olden 
 time. 
 
 made as to serve as receptacles for relics. Scaliger tells us 
 that Ms grandmother had a printed Psalter, the cover of 
 ■which was two inches thick, the inside forming a kind of 
 cupboard in which was a small silver crucifix; and Mr. 
 Hansard relates having seen an ancient book, in the cover 
 of which was a recess for a relic — a human toe ! 
 
%i^yt\\&h. 
 
EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 393 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I- — AcCOTJfTT OF THE OkIGIN OF PRINTING, BY 
 
 J. F. Faust of Aschaffenbeeg. 
 
 Joh. Fried. Faust, ein Sohn des im Jahre 
 1619 verstorbenen SchbfFen des Reichsgeriehtes 
 und Rathes zu Frankfurt, erzhalt, aus den 
 Familienpapieren, welche die Fauste von 
 AschaflFenberg (Abkbmmlinge der Fuste von 
 Mainz) in ihrem Archive aufbewahrten, die 
 Geschicbte der Erfindung in folgender Weise : — 
 
 "Diese jetzt erwahnte und andere mehr 
 Scribenten, welche es von Horensagen theils 
 genommen, theils von einander entlehnet, seind 
 nicht allein an dem Ort und der Zeit, sondern 
 auch an der Person vom ersten Anfenger 
 zweifelhafflig, ja gar ohngewis, und ist uns 
 Teutschen nicht ein geringer Spott, dass wir 
 solche edle Kunst zu allererst von Gott em- 
 pfangen, und so mancherlet frembde Historien 
 und Auctores lesen und schreiben, den unter 
 anderen vortrefflichen Sachen, nicht eine Ge- 
 wissheit des ersten Anfengers, ihme und gant- 
 zem Teutschland zu ewigen unsterblichen 
 Ruhm und Lob, solten auch in getruckten und 
 
 3c 
 
394 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 also unsterblichen Zeugntissen beglaubt machen 
 und beweisen, und so lange Zeyt im ZweifFel 
 haben stecken lassen. Darumb habe ich 
 nicht unterlassen konnen, dieser Sachen und 
 Kunst gantzen Verlauf und Anfang, so viel ich 
 dessen aus glaubhafFten alten Zeugntissen 
 und Documentis, wie auch von meinem Yatter 
 seelig, und der von seinen Eltern und also 
 fortan, quasi per aures et manus eingenommen, 
 auch zum Theil aufgazeichnet hinterlassen, der 
 Wahrheit und Kunst ja vielmehr Gott zu 
 ehren, ettwas umstendlich zu erzehlen und 
 zu beweisen." 
 
 "Und ist anfanglich wahr, dass ein Burger, 
 eines ehi"barn Geschlechts und Herkommens 
 zu Mentz gewohnet, so Johann Faust 
 geheissen; dieser den Studiis sehr ergeben, 
 hat betrachtet, wie manch edles ingenium aus 
 Mangel der Bticher, die sogar eine lange Zeyt 
 und hohen Verlag abzuschreiben erfbrdert, und 
 nicht in eines jeden Beutel gestocken, ohnbillig 
 verliegen, ja gar verderben mussen, und dero- 
 wegen lang nachgesonnen, wie doch allerhand 
 ntitzliche Bucher mit weniger Muhe geman- 
 nigfeltigt, und um geringen und billichen 
 Preys mitgetheilt werden konten. Solchem 
 seinem wohlmeinenden nutzlichen Wunsch und 
 Vorhaben hat Grott wohlerspriesliches Mittel 
 und Modell gezeiget, also dass er eine Alpha- 
 bet TafFel, erstlich in einem Format mit 
 erhoheten Buchstaben geschnitten. Es hat 
 ihm aber grosses Nachsinnen erfordert, bis er 
 besondere Tinten darzu erfunden; dann die 
 
EARLY TYPOGKAPHY. 395 
 
 gemeine Tinte ist in den Buchstaben von Holtz 
 und in Holtz geschnitten, verflossen, und hatt 
 alle Buchstaben zusammengehengt, so haben 
 auch die Licht-Flammen, daren Rus er sich 
 auch zu gebrauchen unterstanden, ob sie wohl 
 einen ziemlichen Abdruck geben, dannoch 
 keinen Bestandt haben woUen, bis endlich eine 
 schwartze zahe Tinten erfunden worden, die 
 einen Bestandt gehabt. Als solche erfunden 
 und solche TafFeln mit kleinen Pressen 
 leichtlich zu trucken erst an Tag kommen 
 seynd sie mit groser Verwunderung umb 
 geringen Preys von jedermanniglich erkaufiifc 
 und beriihmt, und er darauf welters fortzu- 
 fahren verursacht worden, und den Donat 
 ebenmassig an Tag gegeben. Weil aber 
 derselbige auf gantze Bretter geschnitten, 
 ohngleich an Buchstaben gefallen, und auch 
 sonst sich bald abtruchen lassen, hatt Erfin- 
 der der sich erinnert, das es besser were, 
 mit eintzlichen Buchstaben und A. B. C. 
 ein Buch zu setzen, als mit gantzen columnis 
 oder paginis zu schneiden. Derowegen hat 
 er die Bretter von einander geschnitten, die 
 gesammten Buchstaben herausgenommen, und 
 damit die Setzerey angefangen, und die abge- 
 gangene Buchstaben mit newen ersetzet."* 
 
 * As wooden types were the first with which the original 
 printers made their earliest essays in the art of Typography 
 in Europe, it is interesting to learn that in America such 
 types are now being used to so great an extent, that it 
 requires the aid of the most finished, machinery to supply 
 the demand that has arisen for them. The following ac- 
 
396 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 "Weil aber solches mit ohnaufhorlicher 
 Arbeyt geschelien miissen, und sehr langsam 
 von statten gehen wollen, hatt es abermahl 
 nicbt geringe Hindernuss der angefangenen 
 
 count of their manufacture is condensed from a narrative in 
 the Boston Weekly Spectator (Oct. 12, 1871).— About 1853 
 Mr. William H. Page, originally a printer, entered into the 
 employ of Mr. J. Gr. Cooley, a wood type cutter at Greenville. 
 Noticing the many defects of the process he busied his mind 
 in devising and inventing methods for its improvement. 
 Succeeding in his eflPorts, he started in business on his own 
 account; and in 1869, having bought out Mr. Cooley, trans- 
 ferred the whole of the works to Norwich, Eastern Con- 
 necticut. Here, with 'extensive and perfect machinery, and 
 from 35 to 40 workpeople, one-seventh of whom are females, 
 he supplies the gTcater part of the wooden types used through- 
 out the United States. The process of manufacture is as 
 follows: — All ordinary wood type is made of rock -maple, 
 which grows abundantly in Connecticut. The logs are first 
 sawed across the grain into blocks an inch and an eighth 
 thick, then steamed to force out the sap, and when dried, 
 packed away in the seasoning house for two years. When 
 wanted for type, they are taken to dressing machines, where 
 horizontal revolving cutters rapidljt smoothe and reduce 
 their size with perfect uniformity ; they are then skilfully 
 planed by hand, next gum-shellaced, and dried for half a 
 day, and sand papered, which process is again repeated. 
 After this, they are taken to felt buffing wheels, covered 
 with beeswax and taUow, which, revolving with exceeding 
 swiftness, thoroughly polish the surfaces on which the 
 letters are to be cut. The blocks are then sawed into 
 the desired shapes, and transferred to the letter makers. 
 These place the prepared blocks in a machine not much 
 unlike in its appearance to an eccentric lathe, although it 
 is not one. Set in one angle of a horizontal frame like a 
 pentagraph, is a pencil or tracer, moved by the hand of the 
 operator exactly in the lines of a stationary pattern or 
 model letter. In an opposite angle, and directly over the 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 397 
 
 Kunst, auch der Pressen halben, geben wollen, 
 dariiber der Erfinder nicht in geringe Soi-g 
 und Scbwermuth gerathen. Nun hatt er aber 
 bey solcher Invention etliclie Diener gehabt, 
 
 block to be carved, is a corresponding pencil of fine steel, in 
 reality a small bit, or gouge, which is belted to the driving 
 power, and makes from 17,000 to 20,000 revolutions a 
 minute, folBwing minutely all the lines and flexions of the 
 tracer on the pattern. A skilful operator can thus make a 
 letter in half a minute. This part of the work is chiefly 
 performed by girls. After leaving the cutter the letters are 
 further dressed by a trimmer who gives them their finishing 
 touches, when they are thoroughly oiled with linseed oil, 
 and packed for transport to wherever ordered. The ordi- 
 nary size of letters, used for Advertising placards, is 1 ft. 
 8 in., though occasionally some are ordered 14 ft. long, 
 [made and printed in sections it is presumed]. These 
 monster letters are made of a softer white wood, and gouged 
 out on a great machine called a "router." The smallest 
 size manufactured is about one-third of an inch. [i?. W. S.'] 
 This is just the size of the types used for the "Appeal to 
 Christendom against the Turks," printed at Mentz in 1454 
 or 1455. What steam-driven machinery is doing for 
 wooden types it is also doing in another form for types of 
 cast metal. The greatest number that an expert work- 
 man could cast by the hand-mould process was about 1800 
 in an hour. After many years of costly experimentalizing, 
 and frequent but not wholly fruitless failures, a machine 
 was at last perfected in 1862, by which as many as 7600 
 letters an hour are turned out. With type manufactured 
 at this rate, with steam type-composers that put together 
 40,000 letters an hour, (the invention of Mr. A. Mackie 
 of Warrington), and with steam printing machines capable 
 of perfecting 12,000 sheets (equal to 24,000 impressions) 
 in the same space of time, (the Times " Walter" machine, 
 invented by Mr. J. C. Macdonald) ; the latter half of the 
 nineteenth century is truly an era of marvels in all that 
 concerns Letter-press Printing. 
 
398 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 die ihm solch Truckerei verrichten und in 
 andern nothigen Sachen, als Dinten sieden, 
 setzen, und dergleichen fleissige Hand und 
 Hiilfte gebotten. Unter denen ist einer Peter 
 SchofFer von Gernsheimb genannt, gewesen, 
 welcher als er seines Herrn V orhaben erlerntt, 
 und selbst Lust darzu bekommen, hatt ihm 
 Gott das Gliick und Gab eingeben, wie man 
 nemlich die Buchstaben in Buntzen schneiden 
 und nachgiessen, und also vielmahls mannig- 
 faltigen konne, und nicht jeden Buchstaben 
 oftmahls einzeling schneiden miisse. Dieser 
 hat in geheim eine Buntzen von einem gantzen 
 Alphabet geschnitten, und seinem Herrn sampt 
 den Abgus oder Matricibus gezeyget, welches 
 dam seinem Herrn Johann Fausten so wohl 
 gefallen, dass er vor Frewden ihme sobald 
 seine Tochter Christinam zur Ehe zu geben 
 versprochen, und balden nachmalen auch 
 solches wiircklich voUzogen." 
 
 "Es hatt aber mit dem Abdruck oder Nach- 
 guss dieser Buchstaben eben so viel Miihe 
 genommen, also mit den Holtzern, dann man 
 lang gekiinstelt, biss man eine gewisse Mixtur 
 so der Gewalt der Pressen eine gute Zeyt 
 ausstehen konne, erfunden. Als solches auch 
 gliicklich erfolget, damit solch edle Gab Gottes 
 in geheimb verbleiben moge, haben Schwaher 
 und Tochtermann ihre Gewerken mit Eyd- 
 pflichten verbunden, solch Sachen alle in 
 hochster Geheim und Verschwiegenheit zu 
 halten, haben auch die Bretter und ersten 
 Anfang, wie auch die holtzern Buchstaben in 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 399 
 
 Cortel oder Schnur eingefasst, aufgehoben und 
 zu zeyten guten Freunden gezeiget. Quae 
 primordia avum meum Doctorem Joh. Faust 
 inque manibus suis Donati primam partem 
 inter csetera vidisse MSStum posteris nobis 
 relictum testatur."* (D. h.: Dass mein Gross- 
 vater, der Doctor Johann Faust, diese Anftlnge 
 und, unter andern, den ersten Theil des Donats 
 gesehen und in Handen gehabt habe, bezeugt 
 eine uns Nachkommlingen zuriickgelassene 
 Handschrift.) 
 
 " We hart aber sie ibre Gewerken verkniipfet, 
 und sich diese Kunst in geheim zu halten 
 unterstanden, hat es doch aus sonderlicher 
 Schickung Gottes nicht seyn woUen noch 
 sollen. Uann es hat sich begeben, dass Johann 
 Faustens nechster Nachbawer Johann von 
 Gutenberg (man ist auch der Meinung, dass 
 Johann Faust und Gutenberg zusammen in 
 einem Haus genannt zum Jungen in Mentz, 
 gewohnet haben, dahero solch Haus den 
 Nahmen auch von der Truckerey nachmahlen 
 
 * Dr. Van Der Linde treats this writer with but scant cere- 
 mony. He says, (p. 76 of Hessels' Translation) "The 
 father of this arch-liar had written frankly and in accordance 
 with truth — 'Joh. Faust (Fust) war Mitverleger der Buch- 
 druckerei in der gtadt Mentze ; etliche woUen wider seiner 
 Dank ihn zu einem Inventorem haben und macken, so aber 
 nur mit seinem Vermogen und guten Rath in der That 
 geholfen.' — ' Joh. Faust was partner in the printing ofiice 
 at Mentz ; some persons would make an inventor of him 
 against his own wish; he really helped only with his money 
 and good advice.' " 
 
400 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 behalten) innen worden dass solche edle Kunst 
 nicht allein einen grossen Ruhm bey aller 
 Welt gemacht, sondern auch einen guten und 
 erlichen Gewin gebracht, darumb er sich 
 freundlich zu gemelten Fausten gethan, und 
 seine Dienste mit Darscbiessung notbwendiges 
 Verlags anerbotten, welches er Faust gerne 
 angenommen, bevorab well das Werk, so er zu 
 trucken vorhatte uff Pergament zu verfertigen, 
 einen grosen Kosten erforderte darob sie sich 
 vereiniget urid einen aufgeschnittenen Zettel 
 oder Contract nachfolgend beygesetzen Inhalts 
 aufgerichtet, dass was auf solch Werk gehen 
 wiirde, zu Verlust und Gewinn ins gemein 
 gehen, und alles was darzu gehorete, uiF gemei- 
 nen Sold entlehnet und aufgenommen werden 
 solte. Weil aber er Faust mehr aufgenommen 
 und der Unkosten hbher geloffen, als Guten- 
 berg vermeinet, hatt er solchen halben Theil 
 nich zahlen woUen, dariiber sie beyde vor das 
 weltliche Gericht zu Mentz gerathen, das hatt 
 auf alles Ein-und Vorbringen, auch geschenen 
 Beweistum erkannt wurde Johann Faust mit 
 lieblichen eyd betewren, dass solch uflFgenom- 
 men Geld auf das gemeine Werk gegangen, 
 und nicht ihme allein zu Nutz kommen sey, 
 solte Johann von Gutenberg solches zu erlegen 
 schuldig, seyn. Solchem Rechtsspruch hat 
 Johann Faust im Refender zu Mentz zun 
 Barfussern ein Geniigen gethan wie aus copey- 
 lich beygesetzten Instrument griindlich und 
 wahrhafftig zu ersehen. Aber Johann von 
 Gutenberg ist dariiber sehr zornig worden, 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 401 
 
 darurab er nicht allein bei Anhorung des eydt 
 nicht gewesen, sondern auch bald darauf von 
 Mentz sich hinweg gen Strasburg gethan, viel- 
 leicht daselbst seinen eygenen Verlag gehabt, 
 und sindt ihm dahin etliche Gefahrde nachge- 
 folget, und eine gantzliche Trennung gesche- 
 hen, dass solche herrliche Kunst nicht mehr 
 ist geheimb behalten blieben, sondern allen- 
 thalben von dato angeregten Instruments, so 
 An. 1455 datiret ausgebreitet worden. Und 
 Hans von Petersheim, ein Diener Johannes 
 Fausten und Peter SchofFers, im vierten Jahr 
 hernach Ao. 1459, zu Frankfurt, andere, son- 
 derlich als Mentz ; Ao. 1462 verrathlichen 
 erobert, und umb ihre Freyheit kommen, 
 folgends anderstwo sich niedergethan, und 
 solche Kunst ohngescheuet getrieben, ofFenbah- 
 ret, und gemein gemacht haben. Est ist auch 
 diess Ungliick mit zugeschlagen, dass als sie 
 ein vornehm Juristisch Buch gen Paris in 
 Frankreich ufF Pergament gedruckt, gefuhret 
 und die Wahlen [Wallischen oder Walschen] 
 ihnen solche Kunst missgonnet, das Buch in 
 Laugen gestossen, und mit Kratzbiirsten aus- 
 zuthun, aber vergeblich, unterstanden, sie 
 solche Exemplaria alle, unter dem Schein als 
 ob der Trucker eine frevnbde Waar ohne 
 Special Erlaubnuss des Konigs in Frankreich 
 gebracht, confiscii-t, darauf er repressalias vom 
 Kayser Fridrichen III. verlangt, und soviel 
 frantzozische Kaufleute niedergeworfen, dass 
 er seines Schadens wohl zukommen, und viel 
 Franzbsische Waare in sein Haus allerhant 
 
 3d 
 
402 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Sorten bekommen, dass die Sach endlich durch 
 beyde Potentaten verglichen, ufFgehoben, ut 
 er Peter SchofFer befriediget worden." 
 
 Man siebt, dass in diesem Berichte iiber den 
 Gang der Erfindung der objektive Thatbestand, 
 besonders was die Anfange betrifft ganz richtig 
 erzahlt wird, und dass er nur quoad personas 
 verfalscbt ist; indem Fusten das zugeschrie- 
 ben wird, was Gutenbergen angehort. Es 
 erbellt ferner daraus, dass er weder aus Tri- 
 thems Werken noch aus dem Lobgedichte des 
 Bergellanus geschopft ist ; da er umstandcber 
 als beide in's Einzelne der Verfahrungsweisen 
 eingeht. Aucb die Angabe, Fust und Schoffer 
 batten nach Erfindung der gegossenen Buchsta- 
 ben ihre Arbeiter mit Eiden zur Geheimhaltung 
 der Kunst verbunden, die ersten Holztafeln 
 aufgehoben, die einzelnen hblzernen Buchsta- 
 ben in Schniire gefaszt und nur zu Zeiten guten 
 Freunden gezeigt, deutet, als auf ihre Quelle, 
 auf handschriftliche oder miindliche Ueberlie- 
 ferungen, die sich in der Familie Fust erhalten 
 haben miissen. So haben sich in dem an die 
 Herren von Glauburg iibergegangenen Fami- 
 lienarchive des mainzischen, nach Frankfurt 
 ausgewanderten Patriziergeschlechtes zum 
 Jungen viele die Familie Gutenberg betreffen- 
 den Urkunden, und darunter auch das bei dem 
 Prozesse zwischen Gutenberg und Fust errich- 
 tete Notariatsinstrument .erhalten. In dem 
 Archive der Familie Faust, welche von Aschaf- 
 fenberg nach Frankfurt gekommen, und dort 
 durch Heirath unter die Patriziergeschlechter 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 403 
 
 aufgenommen worden ist, batten sich gewiss 
 ahnliche Urkunden und Nachrichten iiber die 
 Angelegenheiten der FamilJen Fust und 
 Schoffer erhalten, wie auch in dem Berichte, bei 
 1 und 2, ausdriicklich gemeldet wird. Job. 
 Friedrich Faust, durcb Familieneitelkeit ver- 
 leitet, verfalscbte sie nur in Betreff der 
 Personen, indem er (so wie Jobann ScbbfFer in 
 seinen Scbluszschri§;en die Erfindung allein 
 seinem Grossvater Fust zuschreib) demselben 
 Fust, den er mit Recbt fur seinen Abnen bielt, 
 alle Ebre zuwendete, und zu diesem Bebufe 
 sogar das Instrument des Notars Helmasperger 
 verdrehte. — Wetter, pp. 271 — 277. 
 
404 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 II. — Account of the Origin of Printing, by 
 Hadrian Junius. 
 
 Dicam igitur quod accepi a senibus et auto- 
 ritate gravibus et Reipiiblicse administratione 
 Claris, quique a majoribus suis ita accepisse 
 gravissimo testimonio confirmarunt, quorum 
 auctoritas jure pondus habere debeat ad faci- 
 endam fidem. Habitavit ante annos centum 
 duo de triginta Harlemi, in sedibus satis 
 splendidis (ut documento esse potest fabrica, 
 quae in hunc diem perstat integra) foro immi- 
 nentibus e region e Palatii Regalis, Laurentius 
 Joannis cognomento Aedituus Custosve (quod 
 tunc opimum et honorificum munus familia eo 
 nomine clara haereditario jure possidebat) is 
 ipse, qui nunc laudem inventse artis Typogra- 
 phicse recidivam justis vindiciis et sacramentis 
 repetit, ab aliis nefarie possessam et occupa- 
 tam, summo jure omnium triumphorum laurea 
 majore donandus. Is forte in suburbano 
 nemore spatiatus (ut solent sumpto cibo aut 
 festis diebus cives, qui otio abundant), coepit 
 faginos cortices principio in litterarum typos 
 conformare, quibus, inversa ratione sigillatim 
 chartse impressis, versiculum unum atque 
 alterum animi gratia ducebat, nepotibus, generi 
 sui liberis exemplum futurum. Quod ubi 
 
feliciter successerat, coepit animo altiora (ut 
 erat ingenio magno et siibacto) agitare primum- 
 que omnium atramenti scriptorii genus glu- 
 tinosius tenaciusque, quod vulgare lituras 
 trahere experiretur, cum genere suo Thoma 
 Petro qui quatuor liber os reliquit, omnes ferme 
 consulare dignitate functos (quod eo dico, ut 
 artem in familia honesta et ingenua, baud 
 servili, natam intelligant omnes), excogitavit, 
 inde etiam pinaces tptas figuratas additis carac- 
 teribus expressit. Quo in genere vidi ab ipso 
 excussa adversaria, operarum rudimentum, 
 paginis solum adversis, baud opistographis. 
 Is liber erat vernaculo sermone ab auctore 
 conscriptus anonymo, titulum prseferens : 
 Speculum nostrce saluiis, in quibus id observa- 
 tum fuerat inter prima artis incunabula (ut 
 nunquam ulla simul reperta et absoluta est) 
 uti paginse aversse glutine cohserescerent, ne 
 illae ipsse vacuae deformitatem adferrent. Pos- 
 tea faginas formas plumbeis mutavit, has 
 deinceps stanneas fecit, quo solidior minusque 
 flexilis esset materia durabiliorque ; e quorum 
 typorum reliquiis, quae superfuerant, conflata 
 oenophora vetu.stiora adhuc hodie visuntur in 
 Laurentianis illis, quas dixi sedibus, in forum 
 prospectantibus, babitatis postea a suo prone- 
 pote Gerardo Thoma, quem honoris causa 
 nomino, cive claro ante paucos bos annos vita 
 defuncto sene. Faventibus, ut fit, invento novo 
 studiis hominum, quum nova merx, nunquam 
 antea visa, emptores undique Bxciret, cum 
 uberrimo quaestu creuit simul artis amor, 
 
406 EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 creuit ministerium, additi familisB operarum 
 ministri, prima mali labes, quos inter Joannes 
 quidam, sive is (iit fert suspicio) Faustus fuerit 
 ominoso cognomine, hero suo infidus et infaus- 
 tus, sive alius eo nomine, non magnopere 
 laboro, quod silentum umbras inquietare nolim 
 contagione conscientise, quondam dum viverent, 
 tactas. Is ad operas excusorias sacramento 
 dictus, postqu,am artem jungendorum charac- 
 terum, fusilium typorum peritiam, quseque alia 
 eam ad rem spectant, percalluisse sibi visus 
 est, captato opportuno tempore quo non potuit 
 magis idoneum inveniri, ipsa nocte, quae Cliristi 
 natalitiis solennis est, qua cuncti promiscue 
 kistralibus sacri operari solent, choragium 
 omne typorum involat, instrumentorum heri- 
 lium, ei artificio comparatorum, supellectilem 
 convasat, deinde cum fure domo se proripit, 
 Amstelodamum principio adit, inde Coloniam 
 Agrippinam, donee Magontiacum perventum 
 est, ceu ad asyliaram, ubi quasi extra telorum 
 j actum (quod dicitur) positus tuto degeret, 
 suorumque furtorum aperta officina fructum hu- 
 berem meteret. Nimirum ex ea intra vertentis 
 anni spacium, ad annum a nato Christo 1442, 
 iis ijisis typis, quibus Harlemi Laurentius ' 
 fuerat usus, prodisse in lucem certum est 
 Alexandri Oalli Doctrinale, quae Grammatica 
 celeberrimo tunc in usu erat, cum Petri 
 Hispani tractatihus, prima fcetura. Ista sunt 
 ferme, quae a senibus annosis, fide dignis, et 
 qui tradita de manu in manum, quasi ardentem 
 taedam in decursu acceperant, olim intellexi, 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 407 
 
 et alios eadem referentes attestantesque com- 
 peri. Memini narasse mihi Nicolaum Galium, 
 pueritise mese formatorem, hominem ferrea me- 
 moria et longa canitie venerabilem, quod puer 
 non semel audierit, Cornelium quendam bibli- 
 opegum ac senio ^avem, nee octogenario 
 minorem (qui in eadem ofRcina subministrum 
 egerat) tanta animi contentione ac fervore 
 commemorantem rei gestae seriem, inventi (ut 
 ab hero acceperat) rationem, rudis artis poli- 
 turam et incrementum, aliaque id genus, ut 
 invito quoque prse rei indignitate lachrymse 
 erumperent, quoties de plagio inciderat mentio : 
 turn vero ob ereptam furto gloriam sic ira 
 exardescere solere senem, ut etiam lictoris 
 exemplum eum fuisse editurum in plagiarium 
 eum fuisse editurum in plagiarium appareret, 
 si vita illi silperfuisset : tum devovere consue- 
 visse diris ultricibus sacrilegum caput, noctes- 
 que illas damnare atque execrari quas una 
 cum scelere illo communi in cubili per aliquot 
 menses exegisset. Quae non dissonant a 
 verbis Quirini Talesii Cos, eadem fere ex ore 
 librarii ejusdem se olim accepisse mihi confessi, 
 etc. — Batavia, p. 253, et seq. 
 
408 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 III. — The Haarlem-Coster-Legend. 
 
 [The Haarlem Legend of the Invention of 
 Printing by Lourens Janszoon Coster, 
 critically examined by Dr. A. Van Der 
 LiNDE. Translated from the Dutch by 
 J. H. Hessels, with an Introduction and 
 a Classified List of the Costerian Incuna- 
 bula. London, Blades, East, and Blades. 
 1871. Koy. 8vo. pp. xxvi. and 170.] 
 
 A copy of the above work having reached 
 me while the preceding sheet was being pre- 
 pared for press, I am singularly gratified to 
 find, that by means of a wholly independent 
 process of investigation, I have a-rrived at a 
 conclusion, almost identical, on the main point, 
 with that to which other and more direct 
 sources of information have led Dr. Van Der 
 Linde. Writing for English readers, and 
 dealing chiefly with the statements and argu- 
 ments of the leading English Costerians, the 
 confirmation thus, given to my views is as 
 great as it was unexpected. 
 
 Dr. Van Der Linde shews, most conclusively, 
 that the whole story of the Origin of Printing 
 in Haarlem arose from the fabrication of a 
 pedigree by an innkeeper named Gerrit 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 409 
 
 Thomaszooh, who was sheriff of Haarlem in 
 the year 1545, and who died about the year 
 1563 or 1564. This pedigree, made a few 
 years before his death, traces his descent from 
 one Thomas Pieterssoen, by Lucye "his second 
 wife, who was the daughter of Louris Jans- 
 soens Coster, who brought the first print into 
 the world Anno 1446." Authority for this 
 statement there is absolutely none ; and no 
 proof whatever exists that Lucye the daughter 
 of Louris Janssoens, ever existed otherwise 
 than by her creation in the fertile fancy of the 
 pedigree maker. But proof there is in abund- 
 ance, that one Lourens Janszoon Coster kept 
 a tallow- chandler's shop in Haarlem between 
 the years 1440 and 1450 ; that about the latter 
 year he transferred that business to his sister, 
 Ghertruit Jan Costersdochter, who died in 
 1454 ; he himself starting as an innkeeper in 
 1451, in which occupation he continued until 
 1483, when he left Haarlem with all his goods, 
 and is heard of no more. This Lourens Coster 
 was a member of a festive body, called the 
 "Holy Christmas Corporation." It consisted 
 of 54 brethren and sisters, each one of whom 
 possessed a chair specially set apart for him 
 or her at their regular meetings. These chairs 
 passed by inheritance or purchase from one 
 to another ; the corporation apparently having 
 had its origin in a family gathering. Its trans- 
 actions were minutely recorded, and particular 
 care was taken to note the transmission of the 
 chairs from one holder to another, Lourens 
 
 3 E 
 
410 BAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 Coster's chair passed in 1484, (the record does 
 not state how), into the. possession of Frans 
 Thomas Thomaszoon, and in 1497 Gerrit 
 Thomaszoon Pieterszoon inherited it from his 
 father. This is the individual who kept the 
 inn on the market place, and was made sheriff 
 in 1545. Now Jan Van Zuyren and Coornhert 
 were partners in business, and "sworn book- 
 printers" to the town in 1561, in which year 
 Van Zuyren also became Burgomaster. They 
 could not but have been intimate with the 
 sheriff and innkeeper Gerrit Thomaszoon, who 
 lived to the year 1563 or 1564. He would 
 also be well known to Junius, living as he did 
 in Haarlem from 1560 to 1572. In one of the 
 rooms of his inn Gerrit Thomaszoon hung up 
 the pedigree he had had made, and in which 
 was set forth his descent from "Lucye, second 
 wife of Thomas Pieterszoon, daughter of Louris 
 Janssoens Coster, who brought the first print 
 into the world Anno 1446." ' Here then, as in 
 a nutshell, lie the whole of the circumstances 
 which Junius, in 1568, worked up in his Batavia 
 into an account of the Origin of Printing in 
 Haarlem, by Laurens Janszoon Coster ; but 
 with the date of the pedigree altered from 
 1446 to 1440. ■ The cogent reasons for this 
 alteration are fully shewn by Dr. Van Der 
 Linde. 
 
 The statements of Van Zuyren and Coorn- 
 hert ; the story of the family mansion, and the 
 wine-pot relics ; the cursings of the old book- 
 binder Cornelis ; the confirmations of the tale 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 411 
 
 to Junius by Nicholas Galius and Quiryn 
 Dirksz Talesius, are all now easily understood, 
 — they were tavern gossip, suggested by the 
 pedigree, which passing through the alembic 
 of Junius's brain, issued thence in the shape of 
 a circumstantial history, which national, vanity 
 has been induced to accept as a record of 
 indubitable facts. 
 
 From first to last, the Coster -legend forms 
 a very singular chapter in the history of na- 
 tional credulity. Scriverius, writing in 1628, 
 and not knowing the source of Junius's infor- 
 mation, makes one Lourens Janszoon, sheriff 
 of Haarlem, who died in 1439, the Laurens 
 Janszoon Coster, — (these names being as 
 common in Haarlem as those of Brown, Jones 
 and Smith in London,) — to whom was attri- 
 buted the origin of printing ; and to whose 
 memory a stone statue was erected in 1722. 
 In 1823 and 1824 bronze and silver jubilee 
 medals were struck in honor of the same 
 supposed first typographer, and two memorial 
 stones put up ; and in 1851, a third tablet was 
 placed in front of the rebuilt Coster-house. 
 But meanwhile, the pedigree is discovered, and 
 Koning and others strive hard to identify the 
 Lourens Janssoens Coster it mentions, with 
 the Lourens Janszoon of Scriverius. Junius's 
 account is unscrupulously amended and altered 
 and corrected, in order to make room for the 
 views of subsequent writers ; and another 
 statue in bronze is resolved upon, which is 
 erected in 1856 ; but this one, in the secret 
 
412 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY, 
 
 knowledge of the Committee engaged in its erec- 
 tion,* is to the memory of the tallow-chandler 
 and innkeeper, and not to that of the alleged 
 sheriflF. Finally, the pedigree is published, all 
 other documents connected with the persons 
 named in it, and in the history by Junius, 
 are critically examined ; and in 1870 the fair 
 lacy of the whole affair is thoroughly exposed. 
 The conclusion to which Dr. Van Der Linde 
 arrives in his chapter on " The Spread of Ty- 
 pography in the Netherlands," is as follows: — 
 
 "The harvest of history on the field of typography con- 
 cerning Haarlem may be scanty ; it does not yield anything, 
 as far as xylography goes. There existed there already very 
 early a Lucasguild, like that at Antwerp, and like the 
 Johannesgild at Bruges; but, however rich in painters, 
 sculptors, and goldsmiths, the Haarlem Corporation may 
 have been, it produces, notwithstanding the most patient 
 researches, not a single ^rm^er (hriefpr enter) or xylographer. 
 The manufacture, therefore, of a whole series of blockbooks 
 of the 15th century, ascribed, two, three, and four centuries 
 afterwards, without any shadow of evidence, to a Haarlem 
 innkeeper, has to be referred to the empire of fiction." 
 
 Mr. Hessels (a native of Haarlem, as is also 
 Dr. Van Der Linde) says, in his very able 
 Introduction: (p. vii.) 
 
 "Whatever may be said about the discrepancies and 
 absurdities of the Coster-legend, now that we possess a full 
 knowledge of it, there is one circumstance which has given, 
 
 * The name of Lourens Janszoon, the sheriff of Haarlem 
 who died in 1439, is mentioned seventy-six times in the 
 archives of the city, but never with the name of Coster. The 
 name of the tallow-chandler Lourens Janszoon Coster, 
 
EARLY TYPOGEAPHY. 413 
 
 and will give, an air of probability to the story, even now 
 that it is deprived of its hero, so long as this circumstance 
 cannot be sufiiciently accounted for. I mean the existence 
 of a comparatively large number of works — blockbooks 
 and incunabula — which are of an incontestably early, and 
 Dutch origin, and which cannot, even at present, be ascribed 
 to any known printer, but of which it is certain that they 
 belong to the printer who produced the four editions of the 
 Speculum HumcmcR Salvationis, the book referred to by 
 
 Junius." 
 
 • 
 
 He then gives, on pages xi. to xvi., a classi- 
 fied list of the Costeriana as far as known, 
 amounting in all to 43 separate works and 
 editions, distinguishing seven different types 
 used in their production. 
 
 " The earliest date (he says) we can assign for the present 
 to the Costeriana is 1471 — 74. Mr. Holtrop tells us on 
 p. 31 of his Monuments, that the Hague copy of the Saliceto 
 (No. 25 of his list) contains two MS. annotations: 1st, 
 'Hunc librum emit dominus Conrardus abbas hujus loci 
 XXXIII., qui obiit anno mcccclxxiiii, in profesto exaltationis 
 sanctae crucis, postquam profuisset annis fere tribus.' 
 Another inscription indicates that this copy had belonged 
 to the convent of St. James, at Lille. Now, the abbat Conrad, 
 who bought this book for his convent, was Conrad du 
 Moulin, who was abbat only from 1471 to 1474. 
 
 "This is the only date we can use at present. It is, as 
 Mr. Bradshaw observes in his ' List,' mentioned above, ' a 
 singular circumstance that this one fact should compel us 
 to place the printer of the Speculum at the head of the 
 Dutch printers, though it only just allows him to take pre- 
 cedence of Ketelaer and De Leempt,' from whom we have 
 
 appears much later, (as late as 1483) ; hut his name was 
 never drought before the public, in connection with the origin 
 of printing, until the year 1867. — See Haarlem Legend, 
 pp. 124, 125. V 
 
414 EARLY TYPOaRAPHT. 
 
 the date 1473, found in Peter Comestor, Scholastica 
 hysteria." — pp. xvii.-xviii. 
 
 The above considerations go far towards 
 supporting the suggestions I have thrown out 
 (see pages 323 — 348) in regard to the dates 
 when, and the parties by whom, the Speculum, 
 Donatuses, &c., were printed. And these 
 suggestions are further confirmed by the 
 extracts cited by Dr. Van Der Linde from 
 the archives of Utrecht, in a note on p. 85 
 of Hessels' Translation, where it is stated 
 that in the year 1466, the name of Peter 
 Dircxsz, described as a " beeldedrucker " — a 
 prenter, — appears. "Perhaps/' adds Dr. Van 
 Der Linde, "the printer of the plates of the 
 Speculum." 
 
IV. — Cut Wooden, versus Cast Metal Types. 
 
 However much my views may be found to 
 coincide ^with those of Dr. Van Der Linde, 
 Mr. Hessels, and Mr. Bradshaw, upon the 
 Origin of Printing, and the date of the produc- 
 tion of the so-called Costeriana, there may be 
 wide differences of opinion on the question, 
 whether the types made use of in the produc- 
 tion of those works were made of wood or of 
 metal. Dr. Van Der Linde writes upon this 
 point in very dogmatic strains. In his eleventh 
 chapter, — "A Beech in 'Den Hout,' " — the 
 object of which is to shew the impossibility of 
 Junius's statement about Coster having printed 
 with wooden types, he quotes the following 
 from Ensched^, written about the year 1770. 
 
 " ' I have exercised printing for about fifty years, and wood 
 engraving for about forty-five years, and I have cut letters 
 and figures for my father's and my own printing office in 
 wood of palm, pear, and medlar trees ; I have now been a 
 type-founder for upwards of thirty years ; but to do such 
 things as those learned gentlemen (Junius and Meerman) 
 pretend that Laurens Coster and his heirs have done, 
 neither I nor Papillon, (the most clever wood engraver of 
 France) are able to understand, nor the artists Albrecht 
 Durer, DeBray, and Iz. Van Der Vinne either; but such 
 learned men, who dr.eam about wooden, moveable letters, 
 make Laurens Janszoon Coster use witchcraft, for the 
 hands of men are not able to do it. To print a book 
 
416 EAELY TYPOGEAPHY. 
 
 with capitals of the size of a thumb, as on placards " House 
 AND G-EOUND," which are cut in wood, and which I hare 
 cut myself by hundreds, would be ridiculous ; to do it with 
 wooden letters of the size of a pin's head is impossible. I 
 have made experiments with a few of a somewhat larger size. 
 I made a wooden slip of Text Corpus, and figured the letters 
 on the wood or slip ; thereupon I cut the letters ; I had left 
 a space of about the size of a saw between each letter on 
 purpose, and I had no want of fine and good tools ; the 
 only question now was to saw the letters mathematically 
 square off the slip. I used a very fine little saw, made of a 
 very thin spring of English steel, so cleverly made, that 
 I doubt whether our Laurens Janszoon had a saw half 
 as good ; I did all I could to saw the letters straight and 
 parallel, but it was impossible : there was not a single letter 
 which could stand the test of being mathematically square. 
 What now to do? it was impossible to polish or file them; 
 I tried it, but it could not be done by our type-founder's 
 whetstones, as it would have injured the letters. In short, 
 I saw no chance, and I feel sure that no engraver is able to 
 cut separate letters in wood, in such a manner that they 
 retain their quadrature (for that is the main thing of the 
 line in type-casting.) If, however, I wished to give my 
 trouble and time to it, I should be able to execute the three 
 words ' Spiegel onzer Behoudenis,' better than the Eotterdam 
 artist has done in the Latin work of M. Meerman ; but it is 
 impossible, ridiculous, and merely chimerical, to print books 
 in this manner.' " 
 
 The above quotation, in the opinion of Dr. 
 Van Der Linde, settles the matter once for all ; 
 and certainly such a statement, from such a 
 man, is enough to deter any one from attempt- 
 ing a similar experiment. Dr. Van Der Linde 
 cliriches Ensched^'s statement, with the 
 following remarks : — 
 
 " We cannot wish for a more decisive and competent criti- 
 cism of the story of Junius than this, given by a Haarlemer 
 and a Costerian; for Junius represents Coster as having 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 417 
 
 printed the Speculum in Dutch with wooden types ; he makes 
 him, in other words, do something impossible, ridiculous, 
 and chimerical. It is true that the wooden types have been 
 patronized until our times ; that Camus has given a speci- 
 men of printing with wooden types of two lines. Wetter of 
 one column, Schinkel of half a page ; that we are able to do 
 much more with the means of the nineteenth than with 
 those of the fifteenth century ; but none of those specimens 
 have proved what they should have proved; the practicability 
 of printing a book with moveable wooden letters, i. e. to 
 distribute tUfe forms, to clean the ink from the letters, to 
 submit them to frequent strong pressing, and to retain the 
 usefulness of the letters employed, and without the aid of 
 modern apparatus. They have only proved what men are 
 willing to do for a favorite opinion, for a prejudice which 
 they insist, for once and all, ought to be true." ..." It is 
 high time for criticism to make a fire of these imaginary 
 wooden letters." 
 
 Determined that the advocates of wooden 
 letters shall be beaten completely out of the 
 field, the Dr. adds, in a note upon Schinkel 
 in the above quotation. 
 
 "In a brochure entitled 'Tweetal Bijdragen,' Schinkel 
 gives some 'experiments of his foreman H. le Blansch, 
 namely, seven lines, printed with types of palm wood. The 
 xylotypographic text runs: — 'That the first Dutch Spiegel 
 onzer Behoudenis was printed with cast types, is not to be 
 doubted. Is it possible to print a book of some extension 
 with moveable letters cut of wood? Yes. — Le Blalisch, sculp.' 
 This Yes is an unproved dictum, the contrary of which is 
 evident already from the dancing lines of the experiment. 
 Let a hooTc be produced printed with moveable wooden letters, 
 
 instead of all those experiments which signify nothing 
 
 But apart from all this Costerian talk, the question may not 
 be put as Schinkel did, but simply : "Were ever books printed 
 with moveable wooden letters? No." — pp. 72-73. 
 
 It may however be retorted upon the Dr. 
 
 3f 
 
418 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 that his No ! is also an unproved dictum. But 
 he says again, pages 78 and 79 : — 
 
 "Those fatal unhistorical wooden types! Wetter spent 
 nearly the amount of ten shillings on having a number of 
 letters made of the wood of a pear tree, only to please 
 Trithemius, Bergellanus, and Faust of AschafiFenburg, the 
 first two, falsifiers of history in good, the last in bad, faith. 
 His letters, although tied with string, did not remain in the 
 line, but made naughty caprioles. The supposition — that 
 by these few dancing lines the possibility is demonstrated of 
 printing with 40,000 wooden letters, necessary to the print- 
 ing of a quaternion, a whole folio book — ^is dreadfully silly. 
 The demonstrating fac-simile demonstrates already the 
 contrary. Wetter's letters not only declined to have them- 
 selves regularly printed, but they also retained their pear-tree- 
 wood-like impatience afterwards. He says, ' I have deposited 
 the wooden types with their forms in the town-library, where 
 they may be seen at any time.' Nothing is more liberal." 
 "I not only deny" [with M. Bernard] adds the Dr., "that 
 they [books printed with moveable wooden characters] exist 
 at present — I deny that they ever have existed." 
 
 Nothing can be more emphatic. But, in the 
 first place, "40,000 wooden letters" are not 
 " necessary to the printing of a quaternion, a 
 whole folio hook," — and if they were, the 
 supposition is not " dreadfully silly," for it was 
 quite within the power of letter -snyders to cut 
 that number if required. But they were not 
 required. I have already shewn (p. 299), that 
 to print two pages of the Speculum the number 
 of letters necessary was under 3,000. It has 
 also been shewn, that the early printers never 
 printed more than one or two pages of their 
 books at a time ; while the impressions taken 
 of such productions as the Speculum would in 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 419 
 
 their diiFerent editions vary from but 20 to 60 
 copies each ; — 3,000 letters therefore were ample 
 for bringing out a whole folio book or quater- 
 nion, and the pressure the types were subjected 
 to in the course of a dozen or twenty editions 
 would not more than equal the strain brought 
 to bear upon a single edition of a thousand 
 copies in modern times. It is however " dread- 
 fully silly" to insist, that wooden types, if 
 capable of being used at all in an experiment 
 which proves their capability of printing a 
 portion of a book, ought also to be proved 
 capable of being used for printing a whole book 
 with. In other words, that a whole book should 
 be printed with such types, in order to prove, 
 that as a whole book has been, therefore, a 
 whole book may have been, printed with them. 
 It requires, moreover, no great profundity of 
 wisdom to profess a disbelief in the making and 
 use of wooden types by the inventors of Typo- 
 graphy, and to deny the assertions of older and 
 contemporary writers, that they were so made 
 and used. A whole book could just as easily 
 be printed with wooden types, when they were 
 once prepared and ready for use, as half a 
 book, or half a page, or a single word. 
 The real question at issue is not. Can a single 
 book, or has a single book, ever been printed 
 with wooden types ? — a question answered with 
 an emphatic, although an unproved No! by 
 Dr. Van Der Linde and other anti-xylo-typogra- 
 phers ; — but. Did the earliest Typographers, in 
 their first experiments, make use of wooden 
 
420 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 types or not? Trithemius says, on information 
 derived from Schoeffer senior, that they did. His 
 statement is borne out by that of Zell, who says 
 Gutenburg got the beginning of this art from the 
 Donatuses, i. e. block-books, printed in Holland. 
 Bergellanus, an independent inquirer a gene- 
 ration later, and for fifteen years a corrector of 
 the press at Mentz, confirms the statement of 
 Trithemius ; while Faust of AschaflFenburg de- 
 clares that the family papers in his possession 
 bore evidence to the same effect. What the first 
 German printers did, it was most natural that 
 the first Dutch printer would also do ; and, as 
 I have already pointed out (p. 346,) there are 
 reasons for believing that wherever the Spe- 
 culum* was printed, (and later information 
 
 * Dr. Van Der Linde infers that the Latin edition of the 
 Speculum, wholly printed with separable types, was the first, 
 and the one with the twenty pages of solid blocks, the 
 second. From the fact, that the curious manuscript of the 
 " Spiegel der iehoudenis," (written on 290 8vo. leaves of 
 vellum), which is preserved at Haarlem, has the following 
 inscription at the end, " Dit boec is gheeyndet int jaer ons 
 herew MCCCC ende III ende tsestich optere XVI dach in 
 Jul. Een ave Maria om God voer die scrijver;" and that 
 another inscription in it states, that it belonged to " Cay- 
 man Janszoen of Zierickzee, living with the Carthusians 
 near Utrecht;" the Dr. comes to the following conclusion: 
 " Therefore, the Speculum was written, and finished in the 
 Dutch language at Utrecht in 1464, in the days iefm-e the 
 introduction of the art of printing." ..." Utrecht had an 
 ■ episcopal see, a gymnasium, a Burgundian prince, — indeed, 
 if hypotheses are allowed, then is that of an Utrecht origin 
 of the Specula provisionally, the only reasonable one." — 
 pp. 34, 38. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 421 
 
 seems to indicate that Utrecht may have been 
 the place), the types used were the work of a 
 letter-synder, and the material of which they 
 were made was wood. It is quite a different 
 question, Could a continued series of works,, 
 be produced by the use of wooden types, in 
 a manner equal, or nearly equal, to that by 
 which works are produced with metal types? 
 To such' a question, the advocates of the use, 
 first, of wooden types by the earliest Typo- 
 graphers, reply, No ; -wooden types would 
 only answer for a while ; and because of their 
 fragile nature, metal types, cut or cast, became 
 Sooner or later a necessity.* It is, besides, if 
 not "dreadfully silly," at least unwise, to argue 
 against the possibility of the original use of 
 wooden types, because the specimens given 
 
 * Seven difFerent kinds of types of the Speculum school 
 have been identified, and these are used in 43 different 
 specimens, many of which are second and sabsequent edi- 
 tions. It is not however, material to the validity of the 
 argument, that the whole of these seven different kinds of 
 types should be proved to have been made of wood ; it is 
 enough, in the absence of the actual types themselves, that 
 there is reasonable evidence, from their appearance in print, 
 as well as from the probabilities of the case, that some of 
 them were so made. To argue, that because Trithemius, 
 Bergellanus, J. F. Faust, or others, may have misrepresented, 
 unintentionally or otherwise, some of the leading facts in 
 connection with the origin, or the inventors, of typography, 
 therefore, on this one point of the original use of wooden 
 letters, in which they all agree, they are not to be believed, 
 is unworthy of one who assumes the functions of, and desires 
 to be looked up to as, a sound historical critic. 
 
422 EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 by Schinkel and Wetter are crooked and irregu- 
 lar, and do not line, although tied or strung 
 together with string. Schinkel and Wetter 
 both maintained that the Speculum was printed 
 with metal types ; so did Ensched^. For either 
 of the three, therefore, to have thoroughly 
 succeeded with his experiment, would have been 
 fatal to his argument and preconceived opinion. 
 Doubtless, it was scarcely possible for Ensched^ 
 to succeed in making wooden letters of " a size 
 somewhat larger than a pin's headj' His mode 
 of stating that part of his experiment is not at 
 all so straightforward or clear as it might and 
 should have been. But he says further, " I 
 made a slip of Text Corpus, and figured the 
 letters on the wood or slip," &c. Now, what is 
 the size of the Text Corpus ? I am rather at a 
 loss to understand this expression, as I find that 
 the Dutch type called Tea:t, is that which cor- 
 responds to the English Great Primer, which 
 contains 51^ lines to a foot, while the Garmond, 
 corresponding to the German Corpus, is equal 
 to the English Long Primer, which has 89 lines 
 to a foot. Neither does Ensched^ say what 
 particular wood he used in his experiment. But 
 at any rate he avows, that, using the best and 
 finest tools he could procure, he failed. 
 
 On the opposite side of the question, I have 
 but to place my own experience ; and I may say 
 at the outset, that I have not practised wood 
 engraving for nearly twenty years, that at best 
 I was but an amateur, and that the only tools 
 I had, when I ventured upon the experiment 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY. 423 
 
 a few months ago, were a common graver, an 
 ordinary tenon saw, a penknife, and a rasp and 
 file. With these implements then, I made, 
 precisely in the way I have described the 
 method I supposed the earliest printers would 
 follow, the letters inserted in page 310. They 
 are of box wood. Pica-size (71^ lines to a foot) 
 and are squared and line well, and are per- 
 forated S-nd nicked, and are two sizes smaller 
 than the letters used for the Speculum, which 
 are only 54 lines to the foot. The letter Jl I here 
 insert again. More than 1,600 impressions have 
 been taken from it ; and it scarcely yet seems 
 anything the worse for wear. Calculating by 
 the time the cutting of the three letters occu- 
 pied, I could, without difficulty, finish in nine 
 months 3,000 letters equally good, as mathe- 
 matically square, as true to line, as capable of 
 being used again and again, and therefore as 
 capable of printing a book, a whole folio, with. 
 An expert Chinese 'chop' cutter (the modern 
 letter- snyder) would with his simple tools, com- 
 plete the same number in less than a third of 
 that time : and I know of no reason why similar 
 types of the Corpus or Long Primer size could 
 not be cut on wood. Certainly there is nothing 
 "impossible, ridiculous or chimerical" in the 
 idea. Where then i« the "silliness" — the 
 "dreadful silliness" — of supposing that a whole 
 book could be printed with such wooden types, 
 even supposing, further, that 40,000 would be 
 required in all ? The " dreadful silliness" lies 
 in the cry of those who argue on the opposite 
 
424 EAELY TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 side — " Let a book be produced, printed with 
 moveable wooden letters, instead of all those 
 experiments which signify nothing." The 
 answer to that cry is, Cui bono f — Why should 
 a book be printed, when 3 letters are as good 
 as 3,000, or 30,000, or 300,000, to demonstrate 
 the fact, that words are and can be, and that 
 therefore pages and whole books may be, (and 
 therefore also that they may have been,) printed 
 from such separable wooden types? As well 
 might the demand be made that a whole suburb 
 of London should be lighted up with obsolete 
 oil -lamps, in order to demonstrate to the 
 rising generation the fact, that in that manner 
 the streets of the city were lighted up in the 
 days of their forefathers, before the introduc- 
 tion of coal gas. In the one case, as in the 
 other, a single specimen, one demonstrative 
 example, ought to be sufficient to carry, to 
 every candid and reasonable mind, a conviction 
 of the truth of the asserted fact. But perhaps it 
 "signifies nothing" to a certain class, who are 
 determined not to believe, how great or how 
 small the , demonstrative experiments may be. 
 Of such, the voice of supreme wisdom has 
 long ago declared, — "neither will they be per- 
 suaded, though one rose from the dead." 
 
 
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 ad Vindicice 
 
 Page 104 last line, for Vindicie re 
 
 „ 153 
 
 »• 
 
 , Opolio 
 
 , Opilio 
 
 
 , 175 line 10, 
 
 , have to 
 
 , have had to 
 
 
 , 181 , 
 
 8, 
 
 , History 
 
 , History 
 
 
 , 239 , 
 
 , 8, 
 
 . say, 
 
 , Bavs 
 
 
 , 331 „ 17, 
 
 , follows 
 
 , follow 
 
Dedicated, hj Rpecial Permission, to 
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 Foolscap 4to. 412 pages. 
 
 ADAM'S PEAK. 
 Leoekdabt, TnADiTioNAL, AND HISTORIC NoTicEs of the Samanala and Sri'-Pa'ca ; 
 
 with a Descriptive Account of the Pilgrims' Route from Colombo to the 
 
 Sacred Foot-print; to which are added, copious Notes, Appendices, and an Index. 
 
 Illustrated by a Map of the Mountain District, and 10 wood-engravings. 
 
 By William Skeen. 
 
 Edward Stanford, 6 & 7, Charing Cross, London, S. W. 1871. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 " Adam's Peak may be considered the most interesting mountain in the world ; not 
 only from its height, position, and appearance, but as being sacred to the members of 
 three out of the four great religions of the world. The origin of this singular agree- 
 ment to regard the same place as holy by these three religions is to some extent 
 obscure; but Mr. Skeen has collected a mass of evidence upon the subject, and has 
 conveyed the result in a form interesting alike to the student and the general reader. 
 Tlie lovely scenery surrounding Adam's Peak, its general features, and its perilous 
 ascent — so steep that near the summit chains are fastened into the rock by which 
 pilgrims pull themselves up — are graphically described by Mr. Skeen, who accom- 
 plished the ascent three times. The book is of great interest, and we can warmly 
 recommend it to our readers." — Standard. 
 
 "There is, perhaps, no mountain in the world of which so wide-spread a knowledge 
 exists, and yet of which so little is generally and definitely known, as Adam's Peak, 
 in the Island of Ceylon. A description of this mountain, held sacred by far the 
 Inrgest portion of mankind, cannot fail to be of interest to the scholar ; while the 
 pleasing and anecdotal manner it which it is handled by Mr. Skeen, will attract the 
 attention of even the most superficial reader. All classes will read the book with 
 interest. It is brimfull of rich stores of original translations from rare M SS of Indian 
 and Sinhalese literature, while the strange legends recorded are singularly romantic, 
 and full of weird Eastern imagery. The author enters into a lull and searching 
 inquiry into the origin of the sanctity of the mount, and shows much discrimination 
 and mastery of Oriental literature, in the progress of his inquiry. Much valuable 
 information is imparted to the reader, not dry and dull as might be imagined, but 
 invested with an interest which catches and retains the attention. The legends 
 attached to this mount of expiation are singularly beautiful, and are related very 
 felicitously by the author. Much interesting information is given about the inhabi- 
 tants of Ceylon, and of the various religious beliefs which are held by them, from the 
 serpent worship of the aborigines, to the present time, when Christian churches are 
 scattered throughout the island. The civil and political history of the Sinhalese is 
 also accurately and interestingly traced. The narrative of the pilgrims' route from 
 Colombo to the shrine crowned mount is very graphically described. The work is 
 excellently illustrated with maps, plans, and views. In every particular it deserves 
 commendation, and the author much praise for the successful manner in which he has 
 
 3G 
 
hanilled his materials, and presented the public with a book at once interesting and 
 instructive; profound in the researches contained in it, and giving much valuable 
 information on a subject on which so little has hitherto been known. — Irish 'limes. 
 
 " We believe this is the first time that a complete work has been devoted to this 
 subject. The narrative portion of ihe work is supplemented by copious notes and 
 appendices referring to the early history of the religions the members of which regard 
 the Peak as a hallowed spot. These are of immense value to the historian and 
 anliquarian, and prove that the author is no idle member of the Koyal Asiatic 
 Society." — London and China Express. 
 
 " Mr, SKEENjiuhis monogram entitled "Adam's Peak," has shewn that the subject 
 was by no means exhausted by his predecessors, and has given us an interesting 
 volume of Eastern lore and travel. Commencing with history, he fortifies his narrative 
 by extracts from the antient Mahawanso, and various other native and foreign writers 
 down to the present day. Having amply ti-eated of its history, he proceeds to describe 
 his own three visits to it, giving very full particulars of his route, and of places of 
 interest in the vicinity. The volume does credit to both author and printer." — 2'riib- 
 Iter's American and Oriental Literary Record. 
 
 " A very valuable monograph on Adam's Peak, embodying a vast amount of 
 interesting information. Mr. Skeen has, in connection with this work, cleared up a 
 mystery which had baffled all previous writers on Ceylon." — Ceylon Observer. 
 
 "It has long been a wonder, and the wonder is a growing one, that so small an 
 Island as Ceylon should attract so many writers. All the Books on Ceylon, about 
 Ceylon, and touching Ceylon, if collected into one group, we are certain, would make 
 a goodly library of itself, but the subject appears to be inexhaustible. The most 
 recent contribution to this accretion of works on Ceylon, or rather touching Ceylon, 
 is Mr. Skeen's Book on Adam's Peak, which, without laying ourselves open to the 
 charge of indiscriminate or extravagant praise, we feel justified in pronouncing 
 wortSy the subject, and worthy the writer. Mr. Skeen has at last got into his 
 natural groove, the exploration and elucidation of the romantic traditinns, legends, 
 and folk-lore which cluster round the sacred places of Ceylon. Adam's Peak is pre- 
 eminently a land-mark in the history of the Island, and while it serves to bridge 
 twenty centuries of the past with the present, it has never lost its own peculiar 
 distinctive character, which as the central object of a nation's faith it has for so long 
 occupied. As it is the most conspicuous and remarkable object in the physical 
 geography of the Island, so has it stood the everlasting monument of a tradition, 
 pointing to the mission of that great philosopher who, more than twenty centuries 
 ago, succeeded in revolutionizing the faith of a whole continent. It is somewhat 
 remarkable that a religion which aspires after annihilation and extinction of all 
 corporeal existence, should yet recognize the imperishable, rock-crowned mountain, 
 as one of the symbols of its faith. Mr. Skeen does not enter into the metaphysics of 
 this question. His business has been to trace out the old traditions and legends, and 
 while refraining from expressing an opinion himself, he has supplied the reader with 
 abundant material from which to draw his own conclusions. He carries us throughout 
 the whole range of ancient Eastern lore ; and from the great Hindu epic, the Ramayana, 
 down to the most recent works on the Island, he has ransacked the dark recesses 
 of oriental literature, to illustrate his subject. Mr. Skeen has entered on his task 
 in a spirit of research, and influenced by the strong poetic vein for which he has 
 hitherto been so well known, he has embellished his subject — a subject which in the 
 hands of a mere antiquarian threatened to become dull and prosy— with the life and 
 spirit of romance. 
 
 Mr. Skeen, as we have already observed, has ransacked all the authorities, ancient 
 and modern, that could throw light on his subject, and it is no small praise to state, that 
 he has added to a great power of research an admirable talent for condensation, while 
 his own narrative of personal investigation and exploration, written in flowing easy 
 
of the pilgrims. It is hai'clly jiossible to imagine, looking at the heads of chapters 
 in the table of contents, how Mr. Skeen could manage to reduce the heterogeneous 
 mass of subjects indicated into one harmonious whole, but the reader has only to 
 take up the narrative, and he scarcely perceives the transition fi-om one to another. 
 
 We have great pleasure in recommending the Book to the Public. It is even 
 worthy to stand by the best that has been written of Ceylon, and its value as a very 
 readable book is enhanced by the use to which it may be put as a work of reference, 
 not only wilh regard to the Peak itself, but also, to the History of the Island generally. 
 The hook is illustrated with a map of the Peak range, and ten well-executed wood- 
 cuts illustrative of the Peak and its accessories; and, with a copious and well-arranged 
 Index, it is admirably calculated to serve as a guide to those whom Mr. Skeen's 
 Book may inspire with the desire of exploring the mountain region which has con- 
 tinued to attract to its sacred pinnacle the Traveller, the Historian, and the Pilgrim, 
 from the days when Sindbad the Sailor " made a pilgrimage to the place where Adam 
 was confined after his banishment from Paradise." — Colombo Examiner. 
 
 "The author of 'Adam's Peak,' has accomplished a most difEcult task un- 
 commonly well." 
 
 " The book opens with introductory remarks on the origin of Buddhist, Hindu, and 
 other pilgrimages lo Adam's Peak. With Chapter III. the author commences an 
 account of a pilgrimage to the holy mountain made by himself and three companions, 
 and which forms a kind of cabinet made to contain the curiosities, with an inspection 
 of which the author indulges us. In a pleasant chatty style the literary pilgrim- 
 author describes the road to Aviss4wela, dwelling upon all objects worthy of remark 
 by the way, and noting all historical facts and curious legends connected with the 
 towns and villages through which he passed. Leaving AvissAwela, the pilgrimage is 
 continued towards what was for long considered the loftiest mountain in Ceylon, 
 Adam's Peak; entertaining details beii^ given of " Sita's bath," the Mdmyaggama 
 vihira or rock temple, and the Saman Dewile, where the author mentions finding a 
 most curious mural stone. After giving us a description of the curious old town of 
 Ratnapura, the pilgrims again start onwards. After passing Palabaddala, where the 
 travellers obtain a view of the Peak, which is greeted by cries of " Sadhu ! " by all 
 true pilgrims, the most enjoyable portion of the journey appears to begin. We can 
 only pause long enough to draw the reader's attention to the interesting passages 
 about elephants contained in chapter VI., and their supposed habit of retiring (o one 
 spot when about to die, and the curious legend of the B6na Samanala, or "False 
 Peak," in the same chapter. Space will not allow us to do more than glance at the 
 Kuruwita Falls, and the halt at Heramitipana, where the congregation of pilgrims 
 is graphically described. 
 
 There are many men who have determination and curiosity sufficient to induce 
 them to set out on three ditl'erent pilgrimages, which in spile of the pleasant places 
 through which the way lies, plainly entailed much fatigue and inconvenience, but 
 there are few gifted with the great powers of observation which the writer of " Adam's 
 I'eak" evidently possesses, or the ability to express their impressions v^hich he 
 evinces. Whether toiling over a mountain, rambling amidst the ruins of an old 
 Buddhist temple, or excavating those curiosities of fact and tradition of which but 
 for this literary pilgrim we should have remained in ignorance, tjie author has in 
 almost every page got something new to tell us about, which he relates in a remarkably 
 happy way. 
 
 Havinn- attentively perused "Adam's Peak," it remains for us to pass upon it our 
 carefully formed opinion. In a former notice we said that the author had " accom- 
 plished a most difficult task uncommonly well," and we reiterate our statement. To 
 have compressed so much useful knowledge into so small a compass can only be the 
 result of deep research ami hard and persevering study. Mr. Skeen has collected a 
 number of local traditions, legends, and facts, which he has elaborately arranged, 
 
and by a pleasant account of incidents connected with his three pilgrimages to the 
 holy mountain, unites the whole in a, pleasing and sightly form. I'he book abounds 
 in quotations which are generally apt and appropriate. The foot notes and copious 
 appendix form by no means the least valuable part of the work." — Ceylon Times, 
 
 " In a careful perusal of the above production [Adam's Peak] we have been most 
 favorably impressed with its general character and ability; the labour that produced 
 it must have been most painstaking, and involving great research. Nearly a hundred 
 authors are quoted or referred to for confirmation or illustration of the text, which, 
 with well executed engravings, a large and interesting Appendix, and an excellent Index 
 for facility of reference, becomes a most useful addition to Eastern literature. Besides 
 the direct textual matter of the book concerning the Peak, its history, and tlie pilgri- 
 mages made to it, we have a large amount of very interesting particulars respecting the 
 Geology, Botany, and History of the Island, and the religions, manners and customs of 
 the people, with much legendary and traditional lore, which, if not always reliable, is not 
 without either interest or importance, in the assistance it affords to a fuller knowledge 
 of the country and its inhabitants. Indeed the book is almost of encyclopedic utility 
 concerning Ceylon. 
 
 For a knowledge of the route, via Ratnapura, and of its many interests and attrac- 
 tions of scenery, &c., and also for the many delights of the Peak itself, as given by our 
 author, we recommend a careful perusal of his most interesting and able work." — 
 Colombo Friend. 
 
 MOUNTAIN LIFE AND COFFEE CULTIVATION IN CEYLO>J;— A 
 
 Poem on the Knuckles Range, with other Poems. By William Skeen. 
 
 1870. Foolscap 4to. 182 pp. Edward Stanford, Charing Cross, London. 
 
 " Adam's Peak," and "Mountain Life and CotFee Cultivation in Ceylon," — two oompanion 
 
 volumes devoted to one of our most interesting though least known Eastern possessions 
 
 abound in local colour and atFord life-like glimpses into the industry of the society of an island 
 ivliich the Anglo -Cingalese not unpardonably regard as the centre of the earth." — Daily Telegraph. 
 
 " The poem contains interesting historical records which evince considerable research and 
 extensive reading ; also a very full account of the processes of planting the Coffee tree, of 
 collecting the berries, and preparing them for use and exportation. As a picture of Eastern 
 life and industry this book is not only interesting but instructive. — The Messenger. 
 
 "Is the main poem Mr. Skeen records the impressions derived from a visit to the Knuckles 
 District, and in the text alludes to, while in the notes he affords, valuable information respecting 
 historical personages and events. The specimens quoted will give our readers some idea of a poem 
 in which, clustered round the scenery of the Knuckles, we have described to us a large portion of 
 the incidents of coffee planting life, much history, ancient and modern, more or less connected 
 with the coffee enterprise, with striking references to Hindu mythology. The notes, which 
 explain the brief allusions in the poem, embody a fund of interesting and curious information. 
 Ilie work is probably the most beautifully got up that has ever issued from the local press, 
 and we trust the venture will be largely encouraged." — Ceylon Observer. 
 
 "The main poem treats of a well known Coffee District, its magnificent scenery, its hospitable 
 planters, and its prosperity. There is abundant evidence in tlie poem that Mr. Skeen does not 
 now come before the public for the first time. He has at least the assurance, gained from ex- 
 perience, to encourage him in his aspirations j and if he has not quite succeeded in establishing a 
 poetic reputation of the highest order, he yet gives ample promise of better results in the future. 
 With a wonderful facility for versification, and an inexhaustible resource for rhyme, Mr. Skeen 
 has amplified his subject in a manner which less practised or more timorous hands would hardly 
 have dared. We can recommend the book as well worthy perusal, not only for the sake of its 
 poetic beauties, but also on account of the valuable mass of information it contains both in the 
 body of the main poem, and the copious notes at the end." — Colombo Examiner. 
 
 " One of the most attractive volumes of flowing verse that Ceylon has ever sent forth. 
 Tlie typography is perfect, the general getting up of the book all that could be desired, and the 
 ver.ses are Jiighly descrijitive." — Ceylon Times. 
 
EARLY TYPOGRAPHY, A Lecture on Lettee-Phess Peintikg in the Fif- 
 teenth Century. By William Skeen. 1853. Sm. 8vo. 48 pp. (om/ o/^ri'.t) 
 
 "This little work, issued from the [Cej'lon] Government Press, does credit to the author and 
 printer a!iUe...We can say in all truth and honesty, that the worlt of Mr. SIteen would reflect 
 credit on any Printing Office in the world. He has certainly illustrated what has been done for 
 the improvement of Printing in Ceylon by himself, for to him it is entirely due. He has issued 
 a pamplilet of sound historical matter, carefullj' written, admirably printed, and on excellent 
 paper. The matter consists of a hislorj' of the discovery of the Art of Printing and its various 
 improvements, down to the clo.se of the Fifteenth Century ; and while it contains much new and 
 interesting matter, there is but one fault to find with it ; — it is too short, and stops at a very 
 interesting point. ..We welcome such works with the right hand of fellowship ; and in conclusion, 
 we will only add, that we hope Mr. Slseen will have the inclination and leisure to complete this 
 history of the Art of Printing, in the first part of which, now published, he has imparted his 
 information in so agreeable a manner, and illustrated the present state of the Art by so perfect 
 an examole." — Colombo Examiner, [1853.]