Robert W. Woodruff Library Special Collections EMORY UNIVERSITY •ssand (1BMvavj) am or PRINTING. EDITED BY THOS. 0. SUMMERS, D.D. NajsftMILe, : SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 1859. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY A. A. STITT, SOUTHERN METHODIST PUBLISHING HOUSE, NASHVILLE, TENN PREFACE. This volume traces the progress of the art pre¬ servative of all art, from the impressions of the cylinders of ancient Babylon, to the beautiful pages produced by the stereotype plates and steam-power presses of our own age. It contains a great deal of curious and valuable information, which will scarcely fail to be interesting to the reader, whether young or old. It has been care¬ fully revised, and a few slight additions have been made by The Editor. Nashville, Tenn., March 21, 1855. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. Cylinders, the records of Babylon and Persepolis—Stamps used by the ancient Romans—Stencils employed in writing—Anti¬ cipation of the art of printing by the Chinese—Monograms— Story of the Cunios—The German fignre-cutters—Print of St. Christopher from a wood block—Various materials used to receive impressions—The Papyrus—A portion of the Book of Psalms written on this substance—Parchment—The writing of ancient manuscripts—Palimpsests—Costliness and rarity of manuscripts—" The Silver Book "—Cotton paper—Paper from linen rags—Early instances of its use—Books of images— " The Poor Man's Bible "—Labors of Lkurentius Coster—Gut- tenberg, Pust, and Schoeffer—The first printed Bible—The value of the Sacred Scriptures 7 CHAPTER II. The Weald of Kent—Birth of William Caxton—Oppressive law of Henry IV.—A school in the Weald—The Company of Sta¬ tioners—English literature in early times—Proclamation for abolishing the French language—Travels of sir John Mande- ville—The literature of the middle ages—The early trade in hooks—Geoffrey Chaucer—Caxton's acquaintance with his writings—His apprenticeship to Robert Large—Caxton, a Com¬ missioner—His service to the Duchess of Burgundy—Transla¬ tion and printing of his first work 46 CHAPTER III. Settlement of Caxton in England—The story of Atkyns—The first press set up in Westminster—Caxton's first book, "The Game of Chess "—His other works—Caxton's patron, the earl of Rivers—Why did he not print the Scriptures ? 66 CHAPTER IV. Wyken de Worde—Extension of the art of printing—The first books—Blaew's improvement of the printing press—Aldus Manutius—The Estiennes or Stephenses—Wolfe, the first king's printer—Immediate results of the art of printing— Advancement of literature 85 1* v vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER Y. Restrictions placed on the press—Bull of Pope Pius IY.—The Congregation of the Index—The Index Expurgatorius—Singu¬ lar results—Aonio Paleario—History of his hook, " The Benefit of Christ's Death "—Whitgift's complaint to Queen Elizabeth— Decrees of the Star Chamber—Incompetency of licensers of the press—Works seriously mutilated—Milton on the Liberty of the Press—Freedom of the press in the reign of William III. —State of the press on the continent of Europe 105 CHAPTER YI Facilities for publication—Singular collection of controversial tracts—Origin of newspapers—The Gazeta of Yenice—News first written—The correspondent of the wealthy—The " Eng¬ lish Mercurie " a forgery—"The Weekly Newes"—Nathaniel Butler—Increase of newspapers—Marchmont Needham—The British essayists—Ichabod Dawks—The first magazine—The first review—Rapid composition—The newspaper office—Slow composition—Various examples—John Foster 119 CHAPTER VH. Contrast between the printing office of Caxton and a modern typographical establishment—Type-founding—William Caslon —Chief improvements in the style of typography—The compo¬ sitor at work—The reader—Pressmen—Old-fashioned press—■ Improvements by the earl of Stanhope—Baskerville's improve¬ ment of ink—Invention of inking cylinders—Stereotype— Logographic printing—Machine printing—Mr. William Nichol¬ son—Printing by steam—Various improvements—Galvanic printing press—Fourdrinier's patent for contfnuous lengths of paper—Curiosities of printing—The Great Exhibition of 1851. 138 CHAPTER Yin. Marts for books—St. Paul's Churchyard—A Contrast—Little Britain—Paternoster Row—Pernicious productions of the press —London Religious Tract Society—American Tract Society— Publishing House of M. E. Church, South 174 THE ART OF PRINTING. CHAPTER I. It is interesting to notice the gradual improve¬ ment in the art of navigation. In the youth of the world, the trunk of a tree, hollowed out, formed, most probably, the first canoe. Slow were the advances towards the structure of a merchant vessel, and even when that point was gained, much remained to be accomplished. The invariable time for sailing was summer, when the heavens were genial and the light of day was longer than the darkness of night. Except with a smooth sea and a fair wind, mariners could not venture out of sight of land, lest they should be drifted about over the apparently interminable waste of waters till they perished. Unless, too, under very favorable circumstances, they did not continue sailing during the night, but, anchoring (7) 8 THE ART OP PRINTING. in some cove or sheltered spot, drew up their vessels on the beach, and gave themselves to repose until the orb of day once more arose on the earth. As, however, the knowledge of astro¬ nomy advanced, and various observations of the heavenly bodies were made and collected, the situations and bearings of places were imperfectly surmised. The loadstone at last, with its mar¬ vellous powers, was discovered, and very gra¬ dually, navigation attained its present enlightened and enterprising condition. In a somewhat analogous manner, was the art of printing invented by mankind. " The images of men's wits," says lord Bacon, "remain un- maimed in books for ever, exempt from the inju¬ ries of time, being capable of perpetual renova¬ tion. Neither can they be properly called images, because they cast forth seeds in the minds of men, raising and producing infinite actions and opinion in succeeding ages; so that if the inven¬ tion of a ship was thought so noble and wonder¬ ful, which transports riches and merchandise from place to place, and consecrates the most distant regions in participation of their fruits and commodities — how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships passing through the vast seas of time, connect the remotest ages of THE ART OE PRINTING. 9 wits and inventions in mutual traffic and corre¬ spondence." Lord Bacon's observation is a correct one) yet, as thousands of years elapsed after the infancy of the human race, before any of them were borne along by — " the Heaven-conducted prow Of navigation bold, that fearless braves The burning line, or dares the wintry pole," —so, as we shall now proceed to show, similar cycles of years revolved before the art of print-. ing arose, and became an engine of incalculable power. In the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, there is an object on which an intelligent stranger will look with peculiar attention. It is a solid figure, about seven inches high, and three inches in diameter at each end, increasing gradually in circumference from the extremities to the middle, and thus bearing some resemblance to the form of a wine-cask. On its surface are insci'ibed characters, very minutely and finely wrought, and arranged in vertical lines. These may be easily examined, as the visitor causes the object to re¬ volve on its marble pedestal; while, if he be a lover of antiquity, his interest will be heightened by the consideration that it is probably not less than four thousand years old. 10 THE ART OE PRINTING. The article in question has long been regarded, on satisfactory grounds, as a cylinder found amidst the ruins of Babylon or Persepolis, and it furnishes a specimen of one of the modes adopted in ancient times of preserving memorials of mat¬ ters of national or family importance. In its date, as well as in its use, it is analogous to those Babylonian bricks of which there are so many specimens preserved; but its rounded surface fitted it to contain a multiplicity of items much more compactly than a flat tablet could have done, while its figure preserved it also from injuries to which other objects were liable. Here, then, is an example, belonging to a remote age, of an in¬ dented surface, produced by some applied means of impression. Boman antiquities furnish us with a specimen of an impression of a different kind, and in a more advanced stage. In the British Museum, there is a metallic stamp, the letters of which, as well as the border, are cut in relief. At the back of it is a ring, answering the purpose of a handle, or perhaps intended to enable the owner to wear it as a signet. Its inscription is comprised in two lines : the letters of which are Boman capi¬ tals, well proportioned, but neither spaced nor divided, according to the practice in our own THE ART OF PRINTING. 11 times. As tlie letters are reversed, the inscrip- sion is nearly as follows :— CICAECILI HERMIAE.SN. Which would he thus given according to the modern practice:— C. I. CvECILII HERMLE SIGNUM. Caii Julii CcEcilii Hermice Signum. This signet of Caius Julius Caacilius Hermias resembled in some respects the rings of the an¬ cient Romans, the figures engraved on which were employed for the same purposes as those upon modern seals. - The ring of a Roman em¬ peror was indeed a kind of State seal, allowed sometimes to he used by persons who were spe¬ cially appointed to he his representatives, and the keeping of which, like that of the great seal of England, was intrusted to a particular officer. The engravings on seals of a more ordinary char¬ acter were very various : sometimes there was the name of its owner, at others there were portraits of ancestors, or friends; figures connected with the popular mythology, and the worship of the gods; while in many instances, a person had engraved* on his seal symbolical allusions to the real or fabulous history of his family. Accus¬ tomed, then, as the ancients were to make im¬ pressions with their seals, it seems strange that 12 THE ART OP PRINTING. printing, which is but the application in a more extended form of an analogous process, did not suggest itself to their minds. That they had very nearly caught the idea, is indeed evident from the following circumstance. The signet of Hermias, above alluded to, was obviously designed for stamping the letters it contained on parchment, or some other flexible substance, as it is not adapted to make an im¬ pression on lead or any kind of metal. The rim and letters being exactly of the same height, and the part which has been cut away being very rough and uneven in point of depth, the signet must have been used to mark with ink on some small surface. Had it been designed to make an impression on wax, the part cut away would certainly have been rendered as smooth and even as possible. The experiment of taking an im¬ pression from it on paper, with modern printers' ink, has indeed actually been tried, and found to answer remarkably well. Thus it is apparent, that the germ at least of printing was possessed by the ancient Romans. They needed only to have made a stamp, with lines three or four times as long, and containing twenty lines instead of two, to have formed a frame of types which would have printed a whole page. The embryo of this THE ART OF PRINTING. 13 wondrous art, however, remained in their pos¬ session from age to age undeveloped : it was the will of Providence, that its full discovery should he reserved for a more important period of the' world's history. Another practice in use amongst the Romans was also, we might suppose, well calculated to suggest the art of printing to their minds. Quin- tilian, when alluding to the education of youth, thus expresses himself: —" When the boy has begun to trace the forms of the letters, it will be useful for him to have the letters of the tablet engraved, that through them, as through furrows, he may draw his style. For thus he will neither make mistakes, being prevented by the edges on both sides, nor will he be able to go beyond the proper bound, and by tracing quickly and fre¬ quently certain forms, he will strengthen his joints, and will not need the assistance of some one to put his hand above his own and guide it." * It is clear from this passage, that the Ro¬ mans were acquainted with a method similar in principle to that on which the art of stencilling is founded. According to Procopius, the emperor Justin I., who lived in the sixth century, had a tablet of * Quintiliani Instit. Orator. 2 14 THE ART OF PRINTING. wood perforated, through which he traced in red ink the first four letters of his name. A plate of gold is stated to have been used in the same way, and for the same purpose, by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths. The Chinese anticipated all other nations in the art of printing, nearly a thousand years ago; the ruler Tang having ordered a work called the "Nine Classics" to be engraved, printed, and sold generally. The species of typography adopted by them is simpler, less costly, and, until recent improvements^ more expeditious than our own. As their language consists principally of arbi¬ trary characters, they have not considered it ne¬ cessary either to cast or to cut an assortment of types to be set up, worked off1, distributed, and recomposed, but prefer cutting the characters on a block of wood, and using as many blocks for any particular work.as there are separate pages. So few changes have the arts in China under¬ gone, that we can observe in the practice of the Chinese printer, at the present time, the process adopted by his ancestors in a remote age. He first writes out the page intended to be printed, and when this is done lays it- on a block of wood, which is prepared to receive it, having been pre¬ viously smoothly planed, and covered with a THE ART OE PRINTING. 15 glutinous paste. After the paper has been af¬ fixed to the block, it is rubbed till it is quite dry. It is then as much as possible removed, when the letters appear on the wood in an in¬ verted form, somewhat dimly at first, but brought out fully and vividly by the application of oil. The engraving of the block now begins. The workman cuts straight down by the sides of the letters, from top to bottom, clearing the spaces between the lines, with the exception of the stops. He proceeds then to the oblique strokes, and cuts the perpendicular ones throughout the entire li-ne; thus preventing the loss of time which would arise from turning the block round for every letter. He now proceeds to the cen¬ tral parts, and the page, although it usually contains five hundred characters, is speedily completed. His ordinary remuneration is equal to eleven cents for one hundred characters. The implements of the Chinese printer con¬ sist of a brush, a pot of liquid ink, a piece of wood bound round with the fibrous parts of a species of palm, to serve as a rubber, and a pile of paper—all -placed on a table. The block if? inked with the brush, a sheet of dry paper is then placed upon it, over this the rubber is ra pidly passed, once or twice; and thus sheet 16 THE ART OP PRINTING. after sheet is produced until the whole number required is worked off. With this extremely simple apparatus, three thousand impressions may he printed in a day. It has been supposed by some that the art of engraving wood blocks, and of taking impres¬ sions from them, must have been introduced into Europe from China, but there is no necessity for adopting this theory. At an early period, marks called monograms, consisting of the initials of the names of individuals, or of other short arbi¬ trary figures, similar to those which may be seen, stamped on bales of goods, were in common use. Blocks for the purpose of stamping these were invented, and the transition from this point to the invention of blocks for engraving was an easy and simple process. It was also a frequent practice in Europe, from the twelfth to the fif¬ teenth century, to impress inked stamps on paper. If, indeed, the following account is to be credit¬ ed, a still further stride in the art of engraving and printing had been made. Papillon, in his "TraitS de la Gravure en Bois," tells a story of his seeing a work describ¬ ing the deeds of Alexander the Great, executed by Alexander Alberic Cunio, knight, and Isa¬ bella Cunio, his twin sister, and finished by them THE ART OF PRINTING. 17 when tliey were only sixteen years of age, at the time when Honorius IV. was Pope; that is, at the period between the years 1285 and 1287. Papillon adds, that the following words among others were coarsely engraved on the block which formed the frontispiece, in bad Latin, or ancient Gothic Italian, with many abbreviations: "To our illustrious and generous father and mother, by us Alexander Alberic Cunio, knight, and Isabella Cunio, brother and sister, first reduced, imagined, and attempted to be executed in relief with a little knife, on blocks of wood, then joined and smoothed by his learned and beloved sister, and finished at Ravenna, after eight pictures of our designing, painted six times the size here represented, cut, explained in verse, and thus marked on paper to multiply the number, and to enable us to present them as a token of friend¬ ship and affection to our relations and friends." The narrative thus given by Papillon is interest¬ ing, and if established, would assign the Cunios a high place in the history of the typographical art; but, though its truth is asserted by Mr. Otley, in his celebrated work on the subject, strong reasons are advanced by others for doubt¬ ing the credibility of the story. From the cheapness of playing-cards, which 2* 18 THE ART 'OP PRINTING. were used not only in the higher hut the lowei ranks in the fourteenth century, it has been con¬ jectured that the earliest sets of them were pro¬ duced by stencilling, and that the outline, over which a brush dipped in liquid color was smeared, was formed by some rude process of wood-grav¬ ing. The great cardmakers of the period referred to were the Germans, who still give the name of formschneider, or figure-cutter, to a wood- engraver. This term is said to occur in the town books of Nuremberg, that curious old city, the cradle of many arts, so early as the year 1441. At that time, cards were produced in great variety: some, like the missals of the Ro¬ mish Church, were executed with peculiar skill, being radiant with purple and gold; while others descended in the scale of appearance, until they met the eye with a rude outline, smeared with color. Alas! that the world should ever have been cursed with such instruments of evil! Another step was taken towards printing, when the paintings of saints and other objects were copied in outline, and accompanied by a few words or sentences of Scripture. Grotesque as these were, they became exceedingly popular, and supplied the people with an inducement to learn to read. The earliest print from a wood THE ART OP PRINTING. 19 block, to which we can affix any certain date, is in tfie celebrated collection of Earl Spencer. It is dated 1423, and. represents St. Cliristoplier carrying the infant Saviour across the sea. It was found in one of the most ancient convents of Germany, pasted in one of the leaves of a Latin manuscript of the year 1417. But here it is desirable briefly to pause, in order to glance at the history of the substances used at various times to receive impressions from writing or printing implements. The ancients had recourse, when they wished to record any matter, to the leaves of the palm tree, to table- books of wax, ivory, and lead; to cloths of cot¬ ton and linen; to the intestines and skins of animals, to the backs of tortoises, and to the inner bark of plants. Few, indeed, are the plants which have not, at some time, been used for such purposes; and hence many of the terms employed, as code originally signifying the trunk or stem of a tree; liber, the thin coat or rind; and tabula, which properly means a plank, or board. The British Museum contains manuscripts on ivory, on plates of gold and of silver, and on other substances too numerous to detail. Among the last-men¬ tioned are many written on the leaves of the 20 THE ART OF PRINTING. talipot tree, a species of palm peculiar to Ceylon, the Malabar coast, and the Marquesas and Friendly Islands, which is,still employed for various purposes by the Cingalese. The leaves of the tree in question are first soaked in boiling water and dried: the letters are then engraved with a pointed steel instrument, and rubbed over with a dark-colored substance, which renders them more easily legible. The papyrus, called by the Egyptians byllos, formed an article of commerce long before the time of Herodotus, and' was extensively used in the western part of Europe for records on rolls, as is proved by the number of such documents found at Herculaneum. A duty which existed on imported papyrus was abolished by Theodoric the Great, in the sixth century of the Christian era, on which occasion Cassiodorus congratulated the world in a letter upon the cessation of a tax alike unfavorable to the progress of learning and of commerce. The substance thus employed consisted of thin coats or pellicles of the papyrus tree, which grows in swamps to the height of ten or more feet. According to Pliny, the different coats of this plant were joined together by the action of THE ART OF PRINTING. 21 the turbid Nile water, wbicb bad a kind of glu¬ tinous property. To prepare it for writing, one layer of papyrus was placed flat on a board, and a cross layer put over it; and wben tbus adjusted tbey were pressed, and afterwards dried in tbe sun. The sheets were then fastened or pasted together, the best being taken first, and after¬ wards the inferior sheets. There were never more than twenty in a roll. The papyri found in Egyptian tombs differ very much in length, hut not materially in breadth, as this was proba¬ bly determined by the usual length of the strips taken from the plant. The length might be carried to almost any extent, by fastening one sheet to another. The writing was in columns, with a blank slip between them. The papyrus became the most common mate¬ rial on which books were written by the Greeks and the Romans. The former derived their name for a book from byblos, the term applied to the papyrus by the Egyptians; while, from the coats or rind of the plant being employed for it, the Romans called a book liber. The paper made from the papyrus was of different quali¬ ties: the best description of it bore in Rome during the imperial period the name of the em- 22 THE ART OF PRINTING. peror, as Augustus, or Claudius, while the in¬ ferior sort was not used for writing, hut chiefly by merchants for packing their goods. A portion of the Book of Psalms, written on papyrus—probably the earliest fragments of the Sacred Scriptures known to exist—has recently been brought from Egypt to England by Br. Hogg, who says :*—"Among the various objects of antiquity which were purchased from the Arabs at Thebes, were two papyri, the one in Coptic and the other in Greek—both in the form of books. The subject of the Coptic papyrus, now in the possession of Sir William Gell at Naples, has not yet been ascertained; but since my re¬ turn to England the Greek papyrus has been discovered to contain a portion of the Psalms. The leaves, of about ten inches in length by seven in width, are arranged, and have been sewn together like those of an ordinary book. They are formed of strips of the papyrus, cross¬ ing each other at right angles. The writing, continued on both sides, is perfectly legible, the letters partaking both of the uncial and cursive forms, sometimes standing quite apart, uncon¬ nected by cursive strokes, with accents occasion¬ ally but not regularly inserted. * Visit to Alexandria, Damascus, and Jerusalem. THE ART OP PRINTING. 23 "The beginning of the manuscript is imperfect, and it concludes with the second verse of the thirty-fourth Psalm. The text, as far as it has been collated, has been found to be a good one, and to possess some interesting variations not found in other ancient versions. These papyri were both discovered among the rubbish of an ancient convent at Thebes, remarkable as still presenting sdrne fragments of an inscription, purporting to be a pastoral letter from Athana- sius, patriarch of Alexandria, who died A.D. 371, which has been conjectured to be the age of the manuscript." Parchment was, next to papyrus, the most common material for writing on. It was formed for this purpose of prepared skins, chiefly those of sheep and goats, and is said to have been used for writing so early as the year B.C. 250, by Eumnnes, King of Pergamus. As he was de¬ sirous of collecting a library which should vie with that of Alexandria, and was prevented from obtaining a sufficient quantity of papyrus by the jealousy of the Ptolemies, he had recourse to this substance, which derived its name from the site of his kingdom. It was upon this material that so many of the manuscripts both of the ancient classics and 24 THE ART OE PRINTING. Sacred Scriptures were written by tbe monks in the scriptoria, or writing-rooms, of their convents. The picture drawn by one of our poets was strictly true during the lapse of many ages; for then— " along the cloister's painted side, The monks—each bending low upon his book, "With head on hand reclined—their studies plied: Forbid to parley, or in fact to look, Lengthways their regulated seats they took: The strutting prior gazed with pompous mien And wakeful tongue, prepared with prompt rebuke, If monk asleep in sheltering hood were seen: He, wary, often peeped beneath that russet screen. Hard by, against the window's adverse light, Where desks were wont in length of row to stand, The gowned artificers inclined to write: The pen of silver glistened in the hand. Some, on their fingers, rhyming Latin scanned • Some, textile gold from balls unwinding dre^ And on strained velvet stately portraits pl~ Here arms, there faces, shone in embryo vi At last to glittering life their sober figures gre Monks like those described in the quotatio just given, were the real predecessors of our modern printers—multiplying books, however, by a process of prodigious toil and labor. Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, says, " Many wrote out manuscripts with their own hands, in the THE ART OF PRINTING. 25 intervals of the canonical hours, and gave up the time appointed for bodily rest to the fab¬ rication of. volumes: the sacred treasures of whose labors,'filled with cherubic letters, are at this day resplendent in most monasteries." But, though the copies of manuscripts were many, and the monks' labors incessant, the whole life of the most industrious of them employed in this task would add only a few to the number of books in the world. When a volume was at last produced in fair parchment, after the arduous labors of years, it was covered with immensely thick lids of wood and leather, studded with large nails, and curiously clasped; and was stu¬ diously preserved from the common gaze on the shelves of the monastic library. "Laymen," says the' same prelate, "to whom it matters not whether they look at a book turned wrong side upwards, or spread before them in its natural order, are altogether unworthy of any communion with books." Nor was this a solitary conclusion: it was practically and constantly acted on at this period, when the bishop wrote his treatise entitled " Philobiblion; or, The Love of Books"—more than a century before the art of printing was introduced. The splendid vol¬ umes produced in the manner referred to, bore 3 26 THE ART OP PRINTING. evidence, however, not only of persevering in¬ dustry, hut of great ingenuity; the letters at the .beginning of each chapter or section being ■adorned with curious devices: frequently, too, a painting, called an illumination, was introduced, radiant with gold, crimson, and azure. But no vulgar eyes looked on their contents: they were only unclasped on days of solemnity by the ab¬ bot or the prior, and then restored, like the jewels of the priesthood, to their dusty cases. There appears to have been sometimes a difficulty in obtaining parchment for the prepa¬ ration of these works; for the practice arose of erasing the original writing from a manuscript, and of engrossing on it a second time. The name palimpsest was given to a parchment thus used, the term strictly meaning "twice prepared for writing." In this way, many valuable man¬ uscripts were irrecoverably lost, hut, in some instances, an important document has been re¬ covered. A palimpsest manuscript, for example, was discovered in 1816 : it consisted of one hun¬ dred and twenty-seven sheets of parchment; and as the result of prodigious labor, the "Institutes of Gaius" were retrieved, though nearly the whole had been rewritten with the Epistles of Jerome—the lines of the two works running in the THE ART OF PRINTING. 27 same direction, while no fewer than sixty-three pages had been covered with writing three times. The parchment employed for manuscripts was joined together, so as to form one sheet, and when the work was finished, it was rolled on a staff, and called a volumen, in which originated our word volume. For each hook into which an author divided his work, there was generally a separate volume: thus, Ovid calls his fifteen books of Metamorphoses fifteen volumes. The title of a hook was written on a small strip of papyrus or of parchment, with a light red color, and was fastened to the body of the manuscript. In the middle ages, none but kings, princes, and prelates, universities and monasteries, could have libraries; and even the collection of books formed by them strangely contrasted with many since possessed by private individuals. The royal library of France, collected by the sove¬ reigns Charles V., VI., and VII., and preserved with great care in one of the tpwers of the Louvre, consisted of only about nine hundred volumes, and was purchased by the Duke of Bedford, A.D. 1425, for one thousand two hun¬ dred livres. -It appears, from a catalogue still extant, to have been chiefly, composed of le¬ gends, histories, romances, and books on astrolo- 28 the art of printing. gy, geomancy, and chiromancy, which were the favorite studies of the times. The kings of England were not so well pro¬ vided with books. Henry Y. had a taste for read¬ ing, but his literary treasures could not satisfy it, and several books which he borrowed were claimed by the owners after his death. The Countess of Westmoreland presented a petition to the privy council, a. d. 1424, stating that the king had borrowed a hook from her, containing the " Chron¬ icles of Jerusalem," and praying that an order might he given under the privy seal for its re¬ storation. The order was granted with great for¬ mality. About the same time, John, the prior of Christcliureh, Canterbury, presented a similar petition to the privy council, setting forth that the king had borrowed from his priory a volume containing the works of St. Gregory •, that he had never returned it; hut that in his testament he had directed it. to be restored; notwithstanding which, the prior of Shire, who had the hook, refused to give if up. The council, after mature deliberation, commanded a precept, under the privy seal, to be sent to the prior of Shire, re¬ questing him to deliver up the book, or to appear THE ART OE PRINTING. 29 before the council to assign the reasons for his refusal. At the commencement of the fifteenth century, the manuscript hooks used in the service of the church were articles of great rarity and value. As an instance of this it may be mentioned that, when a priest, named Henry Beda, in the year 1406, bequeathed his manuscript Breviary to the church of Jacques-la-Boucherie, he left, at the same time, to William l'Exale, the churchwarden of the said church, the sum of' forty sols, to pay the expenses of having a cage made in which the Breviary might be kept. The practice was for persons in those times to assemble round such books for the purpose of reading the prayers out of them; but that no one might be tempted to take a book away, it was attached to a chain which was fastened in the walj. A translation of part of the New Testament into a very ancient dialect of the Herman lan¬ guage, is commonly known by the name of the Gothic Gospels, or the Silver Book. It is depo¬ sited in the Public Library at Upsal, in Sweden, and is one of the oldest books, and most curious remains of ancient art, known to be in existence. This work is composed of very thin smooth vel¬ lum, of a fine purple 6r violet color, and of a folio 30 THE ART OF PRINTING. size. The first three lines of each Gospel, the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, and of some other passages, deemed especially important, as well as the names of the Evangelists, are im¬ pressed in gold letters: the other letters are all of silver. Much of the volume, in .fact nearly one half, is now lost, but more than one hundred and sixty leaves are yet remaining, to show7 how beautiful the whole must have been when com¬ plete, and to suggest the means by which this extraordinary work was executed. To ascertain the latter point, we may refer to the mode often adopted by a bookbinder, when inserting the gilt letters on the back of a book. He rubs on the part where these are to be placed some adhesive substance, such as white of egg, puts on this some gold leaf, and then, by means of a heated stamp, impresses the particular letters which may be required. In this way, the gold is caused to adhere firmly on the leather in the places where the impression is made, and the remaining gold is wiped off with a rag. Such was, in fact, the old process of lettering, and nearly in this way the Silver Book must have been executed. On a dispute arising in reference to the process which had been employed, Professor Ihre insti- THE ART OF PRINTING. ol tuted a very minute examination of this codex in the presence of four literary gentlemen, and came to the conclusion, that the work could only be produced in the way which we have described. It was apparent, for instance, that each letter was respectively so exactly similar in form to every other, that it would have been absolutely im¬ possible for the best writers to imitate its perfect regularity. And then there were the tangible remains of the impression; for the form of every letter being hollow on the face of the vellum, on turning to the back of the leaf it was there found to be convex, and that so palpably that the simplest touch would immediately show the place where the type had been pressed down, the margin being quite smooth and the impressed part rough. In a hundred cases, the substance of the vellum appeared actually cut out by the impression of the tool, while the surrounding part was entire. To complete the evidence, a film of a glutinous or oleaginous nature was in many parts perceptible, in a strong light, between the metallic foil and the metal to which it adhered. It was, however, objected that vel¬ lum could not be impressed in this way without being wrinkled up; but Gerard Meerman states that his bookbinder tried the process for him, 32 the art of printing. and found it succeed as well in vellum as in leather. Since the discovery of this "Silver Book/' some fragments of other portions of Scripture have been found in several places, particularly parts of the Epistle to the Bomans, in the library of Wolfenbuttel: these were published by Kinttel, who states that they appear to have been im¬ pressed in a similar way to the Upsal Book. It is very curious that this language—that of the old Franks—should be the only one in which evident proofs of the practice of this art should be found. It must have been too costly for ordi¬ nary use, and perhaps the only persons rich enough to command such expensive luxuries, were the monarchs of the conquering tribes by whom the language was spoken. Montfaucon argues, and that with seeming conclusiveness, that cotton paper was discovered in the empire of the east, towards the end of the ninth or early in the tenth century. There are several Greek manuscripts, in parchment or vel¬ lum, and cotton paper, which bear the date of the year they were written in; but the greater part have no date. The most ancient manuscript in cotton paper, with a date, is that in the library of France, which was written in 1050 : Mont¬ faucon discovered some manuscripts of the tenth THE ART OF PRINTING. 83 century. It is probable that, were all the libra¬ ries both of the east and the west diligently searched, others might be found still more an¬ cient. It may be inferred that this bombycine, or cotton paper, was invented in the ninth cen¬ tury, or at latest in the beginning of the tenth. Towards the end of the eleventh, and the early part of the twelfth century, its use was common throughout the empire of the east, and even in Sicily. Roger, king of Sicily, says in 1145, that he had renewed on parchment a charter that had been written on cotton paper in the year 1102, and another dated in the year 1112. In the rule drawn up about the same time by the Empress Irene, consort of Alexius Commenus, for the nuns she had established at Constantinople, she says that she leaves them three copies of the rule, two on parchment and one on cotton paper. Cotton paper became, subsequently, still more in use throughout the Turkish empire. Nothing can be affirmed definitively as to the origin of the paper now in use. Demster, in bis Glossary on the Institutes of Justinian, declares that it was invented towards the close of the twelfth'^ or in the beginning of tbe thirteenth century. Though he speaks of bombycine paper, there is reason to conclude that he also compre- 34 THE ART OE PRINTING. bends under that name the linen rag paper, which is much like that made from cotton. In Sicily, the state of Yenice, and perhaps other countries, both kinds were equally used. Several editions of Aldus Manutius, produced at Yenice, are on cotton paper: its proximity to Greece had, no doubt, introduced the use of it there: Demster seems, therefore, in the work we have referred to, to speak of both. But in the " Treatise against the Jews," by Petrus Mauritius', a contemporary of St. Bernard, who died in 1153, it is expressly said: "The hooks we read every day are made of sheep, goat, or calf skin; or of oriental plants, that is, the papyrus of Egypt, or of rags." The word thus employed, signifies undoubtedly such paper as is now in use : there were books of it in the twelfth century; and as public acts and diplo¬ mas were written on the Egyptian paper till the eleventh, the probability is that linen rag paper was invented about the same century, and that it occasioned the disuse of the Egyptian paper in the west, as that of cotton did in the east. Petrus Mauritius affirms, that there had been already in his time some hooks of the linen rag paper, but they must have been very scarce. . Though Mont- faucon made the most diligent search both in France and Italy, he could not find a single leaf THE ART OF PRINTING. 35 of paper such, as that now used, of date prior to the year 1270; so that the precise period of its first fabrication must remain undetermined. One of the earliest specimens of paper from linen rags hitherto discovered, is a document, with the seal preserved, dated A. D. 1239, and signed by Adolphus, Count of Schaumberg. But Casiri positively affirms, that there are many manuscripts in the Escurial, both upon cotton and linen paper, written prior to the thirteenth century. France used this kind of paper in 1314; England about the year 1342; and Italy in 1367. The Germans possess a specimen bear¬ ing date 1308, but it has been supposed that this is a mixture of linen with cotton. Some of the letters addressed to Hugh le De- spencer, from Gascony, at various periods in the reign of Edward II., are written on a very stout and beautiful vellum; others on paper of a sound and strong fabric, well-sized, and such as may be pronounced a good article. In the tower of Lon¬ don, there are a few letters upon cotton paper; but parchment or vellum was the material gene¬ rally used for such purposes. The original regis¬ ter of the privy seal of Edward th.e Black Prince, from July 20, Edward III., to January 21, Ed¬ ward III., forming one volume, is, we may ob- 86 THE ART OE PRINTING. serve, on paper. It is highly probable that in the south of France, the supply of this paper was received from the Moorish merchants or manu¬ facturers of Spain. The inventor of the linen rag paper, whoever he was, entitled himself to the remembrance and gratitude of posterity. The art of printing would have been, comparatively, of little value, without the means of procuring a proper mate¬ rial to receive the impressions of the type. Had the papyrus been the only substance, it would have been impossible to have procured it in sufficient quantities to make large editions of books. Cotton paper, though an improvement, was but a rude and coarse article, unfit for any of the delicate purposes which the press was em¬ ployed to effect. The perfection of the art of paper-making consisted in finding a material easily prepared, and which could be procured in sufficient quantities. Meanwhile, the Italians, _Flemings, Germans, and Dutch began to engrave on copper as well as on wood; and books of images, as they were called, were produced, some with and some without a text. The pages were placed in pairs facing one another, and as only one side of the leaves was printed, the blank pages also stood THE ART OE PRINTING. 37 directly opposite. The text corresponding with the figures was sometimes placed below, at other times on the side, and not unfrecpiently it is¬ sued as a label, from the mouth of the person or figure. Among the treasures of the British Museum, is the "Book of Canticles," printed on only one side of the paper from engraved wooden blocks. Only three complete copies are believed to be extant. Passages of text, en¬ graved in large characters, are interspersed on scrolls fantastically disposed among the figures, and give to the pages a very singular appearance. Another work of the same class, and in the same collection, is called "Biblia Pauperum," or the "Poor Man's Bible." It consists of forty small folio plates intended to illustrate senti¬ ments drawn from the Scriptures; the whole having been engraved on wood, printed on one side of the paper, and placed in the manner pre¬ viously described. Each page contains four busts: the two upper ones represent the pro¬ phets or other persons, whose names appear be¬ neath them : the two lower busts are anonymous. The middle of the pages, whiqh are all marked by letters of the alphabet, is occupied by three historical pictures, one of which is taken from the New Testament. The inscriptions, occur- 41 38 THE ART OF PRINTING. ring at the top and the bottom of the page, consist of tests of Scripture and Leonine verses—■ so called from Leo the inventor—the end of each line rhyming with the middle of it, as in the following example :— "Gloria factorum temere conceditur horum The place in which the art of printing was invented has occasioned much controversy. A claim to the honor is put forth for Haarlem, in connection with Laurentius Coster—so called from his father's holding the Office of custos of the cathedral in that city. The story generally related of him is as follows:—He began with carving letters on the rind of beech trees, and impressing them on paper, for the amusement and instruction of his grandchildren. Having happily succeeded in printing one or two lines, he invented, with the aid of his son-in-law, Thomas Peter, a more glutinous writing-ink, because he found that the common ink sank and spread; and thus formed whole pages of wood, with the letters cut on them; "of which sort," says Hadrian Junius, "I have seen some essays in an anonymous work, printed only on one side, entitled 'Speculum JSTostrce Sulnti*;' in which it is remarkable that in the infancy of printing (as nothing is complete at the first in- THE ART OP PRINTING. 89 vention) the hack sides of the pages were pasted together, that they might not, by their naked¬ ness, betray their deformity." Laurentius died in 1440. The works he pro¬ duced—considering the difficulties he had to encounter, and the fact that they were printed with separate wooden types, fastened together with thread—must have cost years of labor. But they were at best rude and inelegant. The pages are not numbered: there are no divisions at the end of the lines: there is no punctuation: the lines are uneven, and the pages are not al¬ ways of the same size or shape. To Coster, however, credit is due for what he accomplished: he appears to have acted independently and zealously; but we cannot trace in his works the beginning of the art on whose rise we are now dwelling. An ancient German chronicler, named Tri- themius, who appears to have personally known one of the three he describes, thus accounts for the origin of printing:—"At this time, in the city of Mentz, on the Rhine in Germany, and not in Italy, as some have erroneously written, that wonderful and then unheard-of art of print¬ ing and characterizing books was invented and devised by John Guttenberg, a citizen of Mentz, 40 THE ART OP PRINTING. who having expended almost the whole of his property in the invention of this art, and, on account of the difficulties which he experienced on all sides, was about to abandon it altogether; when, by the advice and through the means of John Fust, (or Faust,) likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in bringing it to perfection. At first, they formed (engraved) the characters or letters in written order on blocks of wood, and in this manner they printed the vocabulary called a ' Gatholicon.' But with these forms (blocks) they could print nothing else, because the characters could not be transposed in these tab¬ lets, but were engraved thereon, as we have said. " To this invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they found out the means of cutting the forms of all the letters of the alphabet, which they call matrices, from which again they cast characters of copper or tin, of sufficient hardness to resist the necessary pressure which they had before engraved by hand. And truly, as I learned thirty years since from Peter Opilio (Sehocffer) de ffernsheim, citizen of Mentz, who was the son-in-law of the first inventor of this art, great difficulties were experienced after the first inven¬ tion of this art of printing; for in printing the Bible, before they had completed the first qua- THE ART OP PRINTING. 41 ternion, (or gathering of four sheets,) four thou¬ sand florins were expended. This Peter Schoef- fer, whom we have before mentioned, first servant, and afterwards as son-in-law to the first inventor, John Fust, as we have said, an ingenious and sagacious man, discovered the more easy method of casting the types, and thus the art was re¬ duced to the complete state in which it now is. These three kept this method of printing secret for some time, until' it was divulged by some of their workmen, without whose aid this art could not have been exercised: it was first discovered at Strasburg, and soon became known to other nations. And thus much of the admirable and subtle art of printing may suffice—the first in¬ ventors were citizens of Mentz. These first three inventors of printing, (videlicet,) John Gutten- berg, John Fust, and Peter Schceffer, his son- in-law, lived at Mentz, in the house called Lum Jungen, which has ever since been called the Printing Office." It is a deeply interesting fact, that, after test¬ ing by humbler efforts the capabilities of his press and his movable types, Guttenberg actually suc¬ ceeded in printing a complete edition of the Bible, between the years 1450 and 1455. It was executed with cut-metal types, in six hun- 4* 42 THE ART OE PRINTING. dred and thirty-seven leaves, and was printed on vellum. A story of this period is told which is very likely to have been a true one. It is stated that Fust went to Paris with some of his finest vel¬ lum Bibles, one of which was sold to the king for seven hundred and fifty crowns, and another to the archbishop of Paris for three hundred crowns. The people, however, unwilling to give, even if they were able, so enormous a sum, were sup¬ plied, to some extent, at the price of fifty crowns. It is not to he supposed that all were equally or¬ namented ; yet the beauty of the work, the ele¬ gance of the flower pieces, and the variety of the finest colors, which were intermixed with gold and silver, led many purchasers to show their purchases to their friends, each one thinking, as he produced his, that the whole world could not contain such another. The archbishop considering his Bible worth his majesty's seeing, carried it to the king, who re¬ garded it with surprise, and in return showed his own. On comparing them, it was found that the ornaments were not exactly the same; but as to the other part, which was supposed to be writ¬ ten, they observed such a conformity in the num¬ bers of pages, lines and words, and even letters, THE ART OP PRINTING. 43 as soon convinced them, to their great astonish¬ ment, that they must have been produced by some other mode than transcription. Besides, to transcribe two such Bibles would have been the work of a man's life; and on making inquiry, Fust was found to have sold a considerable number. Orders, therefore, were given without delay to apprehend the vendor, and to prosecute him as a practitioner of the Black Art. Fust now solved the mystery; whereupon he was dis¬ charged from all prosecution, and honored with a pecuniary reward, which, it is said, was also paid to his descendants. Such, then, was the origin of this great power, which has "reformed religion, and remodelled philosophy; has infused a new spirit into laws; which overrules governments with a paramount authority; makes the communication of mind with mind easy and instantaneous beyond exam¬ ple ; confers a perpetuity, unknown before, upon institutions and discoveries, and gives those wings to science which it has taken from time." Of this art, as we have seen, the Bible was the earliest and most important specimen; and we have looked "on a copy of this extraordinary work of Guttenberg with indescribable interest. The first he completed was, indeed, the parent 44 THE AET OP PRINTING. of an innumerable race : it was in Latin, but of bow many languages may it now be said, Each one may read in his own tongue the wonderful works of God! In these pages, the great God, their Maker, their Lawgiver, their Redeemer, their Judge, speaks to the children of men. There they hear the voice of their Creator, deign¬ ing to reveal truths by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, which no human intellect ever con¬ ceived. What a portraiture is there of our fallen and helpless condition in consequence of sin ! What a display of the exceeding riches of the grace of God in so loving the world as to bestow upon it the gift of his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, but have everlasting life ! What a rich provi¬ sion for sanctification in the work of the Holy Spirit, renewing the heart and changing it from the slavery of sin to the love and practice of holiness ! What rich supplies of promises, adapt¬ ed to meet all the temporal and spiritual wants of the children of men 1 Precious Bible ! Where shall we find a treas¬ ure to be compared for a moment with that we find in thee? "It cannot be'gotten for