CHAPTER III.

INVENTION OF TYPOGRAPHY.

The Discovery of Desroches. -- The Stamping of Lodewyc Van Vaelbeke. -- Early “Prenters” of Antwerp and Bruges Not Typographers. -- Cologne Chronicle. -- Donatuses Printed in Holland. -- Gutemberg’s Birth and Family -- Progress of his Invention -- His Law-Suit with the Drytzehns at Strasburg -- His Return to Mentz, and Partnership with Faust -- Partnership Dissolved. -- Possibility of Printing with Wooden Types Examined. -- Supposed Early Productions of Gutemberg and Faust’s Press. -- Proofs of Gutemberg Having a Press of his Own. -- The Vocabulary Printed at Elfeld. -- Gutemberg’s Death and Epitaphs. -- Invention of Printing Claimed for Lawrence Coster. -- The Account Given by Junius -- Contradicted, Altered, and Amended at Will by Meerman, Koning, and Others. -- Works Pretended to be Printed with Coster’s Types. -- The Horarium Discovered by Enschedius.

Before proceeding to trace the progress of wood engraving in connexion with typography, it appears necessary to give some account of the invention of the latter art. In the following brief narrative of Gutemberg’s life, I shall adhere to positive facts; and until evidence equally good shall be produced in support of another’s claim to the invention, I shall consider him as the father of typography. I shall also give Hadrian Junius’s account of the invention of wood engraving, block-printing, and typography by Lawrence Coster, with a few remarks on its credibility. Some of the conjectures and assertions of Meerman, Koning, and other advocates of Coster, will be briefly noticed, and their inconsistency pointed out. To attempt to refute at length the gratuitous assumptions of Coster’s advocates, and to enter into a detail of all their groundless arguments, would be like proving a medal to be a forgery by a long dissertation, when the modern fabricator has plainly put his name in the legend. The best proof of the fallacy of Coster’s claims to the honour of having discovered the art of printing with moveable types is to be found in the arguments of those by whom they have been supported.

Meerman, with all his research, has not been able to produce a single fact to prove that Lawrence Coster, or Lawrence Janszoon as he calls him, ever printed a single book; and it is by no means certain that his hero is the identical Lawrence Coster mentioned by Junius. In order to suit his own theory he has questioned the accuracy of the statements of Junius, and has thus weakened the very foundation of Coster’s claims. The title of the custos of St. Bavon’s to the honour of being the inventor of typography must rest upon the authenticity of the account given by Junius; and how far this corresponds with established facts in the history of wood engraving and typography I leave others to decide for themselves.

Among the many fancied discoveries of the real inventor of the art of printing, that of Monsieur Desroches, a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres at Brussels, seems to require an especial notice. In a paper printed in the transactions of that society,[III-1] he endeavoured to prove, that the art of printing books was practised in Flanders about the beginning of the fourteenth century; and one of the principal grounds of his opinion was contained in an old chronicle of Brabant, written, as is supposed, by one Nicholas le Clerk, [Clericus,] secretary to the city of Antwerp. The chronicler, after having described several remarkable events which happened during the government of John II. Duke of Brabant, who died in 1312, adds the following lines:

In dieser tyt sterf menschelyc Die goede vedelare Lodewyc; Die de beste was die voor dien In de werelt ye was ghesien Van makene ende metter hant; Van Vaelbeke in Brabant Alsoe was hy ghenant. Hy was d’erste die vant Van Stampien die manieren Diemen noch hoert antieren.

[Footnote III-1: Nouvelles Recherches sur l’origine de l’Imprimerie, dans lesquelles on fait voir que la première idée est due aux Brabançons. Par M. Desroches. Lu à la séance du 8 Janvier, 1777.--Mémoires de l’Academie Impériale des Sciences et Belles Lettres, tom. i. pp. 523-547. Edit 1780.]

This curious record, which Monsieur Desroches considered as so plain a proof of “die goede vedelare Lodewyc” being the inventor of printing, may be translated in English as follows:

This year the way of all flesh went Ludwig, the fidler most excellent; For handy-work a man of name; From Vaelbeke in Brabant he came. He was the first who did find out The art of beating time, no doubt, (Displaying thus his meikle skill,) And fidlers all practise it still.[III-2]

[Footnote III-2: The following is the French translation of Monsieur Desroches: “En ces temps mourut de la mort commune à tous les hommes, Louis _cet excellent faiseur d’instrumens de musique_, le meilleur artist qu’on eut vû jusques-là dans l’univers, en fait d’ouvrages mechaniques. Il étoit de Vaelbeke en Brabant, et il en porta le nom. Il fut le premier qui inventa la manière d’imprimer, qui est presentement en usage.” The reason of Monsieur Desroches for his periphrasis of the simple word “vedelare”--fidler--is as follows: “J’ai rendu _Vedelare_ par ‘faiseur d’instrumens de musique.’ Le mot radical _est vedel_, violin: par consequent, _Vedelare_ doit signifier celui qui en joue, ou qui en fait. Je me suis determiné pour le dernier à cause des vers suivans, où il n’est point question de jouer mais de faire. Si l’on préfère le premier, je ne m’y opposerai pas; rien empêche que ce habile homme n’ait été musicien.”--Mem. de l’Acad. de Brux. tom. i. p. 536.]

The laughable mistake of Monsieur Desroches in supposing that fidler Ludwig’s invention, of beating time by stamping with the foot, related to the discovery of printing by means of the press, was pointed out in 1779 by Monsieur Ghesquiere in a letter printed in the Esprit des Journaux.[III-3] In this letter Monsieur Ghesquiere shows that the Flemish word “Stampien,” used by the chronicler in his account of the invention of the “good fidler Ludwig,” had not a meaning similar to that of the word “stampus” explained by Ducange, but that it properly signified “met de voet kleppen,”--to stamp or beat with the feet.

[Footnote III-3: Lettre de M. J. G[hesquiere] à M. l’Abbé Turberville Needham, directeur de l’Academie Impériale et Royale de Bruxelles.--Printed in l’Esprit des Journaux for June 1779, pp. 232-260.]

In support of his opinion of the antiquity of printing, Monsieur Desroches refers to a manuscript in his possession, consisting of lives of the saints and a chronicle written in the fourteenth century. At the end of this manuscript was a catalogue of the books belonging to the monastery of Wiblingen, the writing of which was much abbreviated, and which appeared to him to be of the following century. Among other entries in the catalogue was this: “(It.) dōicali īpv̄o līb^o ſtmp̄^to ī bappiro nō s͞crpō.” On supplying the letters wanting Monsieur Desroches says that we shall have the following words: “Item. Dominicalia in parvo libro stampato in bappiro [papyro,] non scripto;” that is, “Item. Dominicals [a form of prayer or portion of church service] in a small book printed [or stamped] on paper, not written.” In the abbreviated word ſtm̄p̄^to, he says that the letter m could not very well be distinguished; but the doubt which might thus arise he considers to be completely resolved by the words “_non scripto_,” and by the following memorandum which occurs, in the same hand-writing, at the foot of the page: “Anno Dñi 1340 viguit q̄ fēt stāpā Dñatos,”-- “In 1340 he flourished who caused Donatuses to be printed.” If the catalogue were really of the period supposed by Monsieur Desroches, the preceding extracts would certainly prove that the art of printing or stamping books, though not from moveable types, was practised in the fourteenth century; but, as the date has not been ascertained, its contents cannot be admitted as evidence on the point in dispute. Monsieur Ghesquiere is inclined to think that the catalogue was not written before 1470; and, as the compiler was evidently an ignorant person, he thinks that in the note, “Anno Domini 1340 viguit qui fecit stampare Donatos,” he might have written 1340 instead of 1440.

Although it has been asserted that the wood-cut of St. Christopher with the date 1423, and the wood-cut of the Annunciation--probably of the same period--were printed by means of a press, yet I consider it exceedingly doubtful if the press were employed to take impressions from wood-blocks before Gutemberg used it in his earliest recorded attempts to print with moveable types. I believe that in every one of the early block-books, where opportunity has been afforded of examining the back of each cut, unquestionable evidence has been discovered of their having been _printed_, if I may here use the term, by means of friction. Although there is no mention of a _press_ which might be used to take impressions before the process between Gutemberg and the heirs of one of his partners, in 1439, yet “Prenters” were certainly known in Antwerp before his invention of printing with moveable types was brought to perfection. Desroches in his Essay on the Invention of Printing gives an extract from an order of the magistracy of Antwerp, in the year 1442, in favour of the fellowship or guild of St. Luke, called also the Company of Painters, which consisted of Painters, Statuaries, Stone-cutters, Glass-makers, Illuminators, and “_Prenters_”. This fellowship was doubtless similar to that of Venice, in whose favour a decree was made by the magistracy of that city in 1441, and of which some account has been given, at page 43, in the preceding chapter. There is evidence of a similar fellowship existing at Bruges in 1454; and John Mentelin, who afterwards established himself at Strasburg as a typographer or printer proper, was admitted a member of the Painters’ Company of that city as a “Chrysographus” or illuminator in 1447.[III-4]

[Footnote III-4: Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, § De Prenteris ante inventam Typographiam, p. 140.--Lambinet, Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 115.]

Whether the “Prenters” of Antwerp in 1442 were acquainted with the use of the press, or not, is uncertain; but there can be little doubt of their not being _Printers_, as the word is now generally understood; that is, persons who printed books with moveable types. They were most likely block-printers, and such as engraved and printed cards and images of saints; and it would seem that typographers were not admitted members of the society; for of all the early typographers of Antwerp the name of one only, Mathias Van der Goes, appears in the books of the fellowship of St. Luke; and he perhaps may have been admitted as a wood-engraver, on account of the cuts in an herbal printed with his types, without date, but probably between 1485 and 1490.

Ghesquiere, who successfully refuted the opinion of Desroches that typography was known at Antwerp in 1442, was himself induced to suppose that it was practised at Bruges in 1445, and that printed books were then neither very scarce nor very dear in that city.[III-5] In an old manuscript journal or memorandum book of Jean-le-Robèrt, abbot of St. Aubert in the diocese of Cambray, he observed an entry stating that the said abbot had purchased at Bruges, in January 1446, a “_Doctrinale gette en mole_” for the use of his nephew. The words “gette en mole” he conceives to mean, “printed in type;” and he thinks that the Doctrinale mentioned was the work which was subsequently printed at Geneva, in 1478, under the title of Le Doctrinal de Sapience, and at Westminster by Caxton, in 1489, under the title of The Doctrinal of Sapyence. The Abbé Mercier de St. Leger, who wrote a reply to the observations of Ghesquiere, with greater probability supposes that the book was printed from engraved wood-blocks, and that it was the “Doctrinale Alexandri Galli,” a short grammatical treatise in monkish rhyme, which at that period was almost as popular as the “Donatus,” and of which odd leaves, printed on both sides, are still to be seen in libraries which are rich in early specimens of printing.

[Footnote III-5: Reflexions sur deux pièces relatives à l’Hist. de l’Imprimerie. Nivelles, 1780.--Lambinet, Recherches, p. 394.]

Although there is every reason to believe that the early Printers of Antwerp and Bruges were not acquainted with the use of moveable types, yet the mention of such persons at so early a period, and the notice of the makers “of cards and printed figures” at Venice in 1441, sufficiently declare that, though wood engraving might be first established as a profession in Suabia, it was known, and practised to a considerable extent, in other countries previous to 1450.

The Cologne Chronicle, which was printed in 1499, has been most unfairly quoted by the advocates of Coster in support of their assertions; and the passage which appeared most to favour their argument they have ascribed to Ulric Zell, the first person who established a press at Cologne. A shrewd German,[III-6] however, has most clearly shown, from the same chronicle, that the actual testimony of Ulric Zell is directly in opposition to the claims advanced by the advocates of Coster. The passage on which they rely is to the following effect: “Item: although the art [of printing] as it is now commonly practised, was discovered at Mentz, yet the first conception of it was discovered in Holland from the Donatuses, which before that time were printed there.” This we are given to understand by Meerman and Koning is the statement of Ulric Zell. A little further on, however, the Chronicler, who in the above passage appears to have been speaking in his own person from popular report, thus proceeds: “But the first inventor of printing was a citizen of Mentz, though born at Strasburg,[III-7] named John Gutemberg: Item: from Mentz the above-named art first came to Cologne, afterwards to Strasburg, and then to Venice. This account of the commencement and progress of the said art was communicated to me by word of mouth by that worthy person Master Ulric Zell of Hanau, at the present time [1499] a printer in Cologne, through whom the said art was brought to Cologne.” At this point the advocates of Coster stop, as the very next sentence deprives them of any advantage which they might hope to gain from the “impartial testimony of the Cologne Chronicle,” the compiler of which proceeds as follows: “Item: there are certain _fanciful people_ who say that books were printed before; but _this is not true_; for in no country are books to be found printed before that time.”[III-8]

[Footnote III-6: Friedrich Lehne, Einige Bemerkungen über das Unternehmen der gelehrten Gesellschaft zu Harlem, ihrer Stadt die Ehre der Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst zu ertrotzen, S. 24-26. Zweite Ausgabe, Mainz. 1825.]

[Footnote III-7: This is a mistake into which the compiler of the chronicle printed at Rome, 1474, by Philippus de Lignamine, has also fallen. Gutemberg was not a native of Strasburg, but of Mentz.]

[Footnote III-8: Mallinkrot appears to have been the first who gave a translation of the entire passage in the Cologne Chronicle which relates to the invention of printing. His version of the last sentence is as follows: “Reperiuntur Scioli aliquot qui dicant, dudum ante hæc tempora typorum ope libros excusos esse, qui tamen et se et alios decipiunt; nullibi enim terrarum libri eo tempore impressi reperiuntur.”--De Ortu et Progressu Artis Typographicæ, p. 38. Colon. Agrippinæ, 1640.]

That “Donatuses” and other small elementary books for the use of schools were printed from wood-blocks previous to the invention of typography there can be little doubt; and it is by no means unlikely that they might be first printed in Holland or in Flanders. At any rate an opinion seems to have been prevalent at an early period that the idea of printing with moveable types was first derived from a “Donatus,”[III-9] printed from wood-blocks. In the petition of Conrad Sweinheim and Arnold Pannartz, two Germans, who first established a press at Rome, addressed to Pope Sixtus IV. in 1472, stating the expense which they had incurred in printing books, and praying for assistance, they mention amongst other works printed by them, “DONATI pro puerulis, unde IMPRIMENDI INITIUM sumpsimus;” that is: “Donatuses for boys, whence we have taken the beginning of printing.” If this passage is to be understood as referring to the origin of typography, and not to the first proofs of their own press, it is the earliest and the best evidence on the point which has been adduced; for it is very likely that both these printers had acquired a knowledge of their art at Mentz in the very office where it was first brought to perfection.

[Footnote III-9: Angelus Rocca mentions having seen a “Donatus” on parchment, at the commencement of which was written in the hand of Mariangelus Accursius, who flourished about 1530: “Impressus est autem hic _Donatus_ et _Confessionalia_ primùm omnium anno MCCCCL. Admonitus certè fuit ex _Donato_ Hollandiæ, prius impresso in tabula incisa.”--Bibliotheca Vaticana commentario illustrata, 1591, cited by Prosper Marchand in his Hist. de l’Imprimerie, 2nde Partie, p. 35. It is likely that Accursius derived his information about a Donatus being printed in Holland from the Cologne Chronicle.]

About the year 1400, Henne, or John Gænsfleisch de Sulgeloch, called also John Gutemberg zum Jungen, appears to have been born at Mentz. He had two brothers; Conrad who died in 1424, and Friele who was living in 1459. He had also two sisters, Bertha and Hebele, who were both nuns of St. Claire at Mentz. Gutemberg had an uncle by his father’s side, named Friele, who had three sons, named John, Friele, and Pederman, who were all living in 1459.

Gutemberg was descended of an honourable family, and he himself is said to have been by birth a knight.[III-10] It would appear that the family had been possessed of considerable property. They had one house in Mentz called zum Gænsfleisch, and another called zum Gudenberg, or Gutenberg, which Wimpheling translates, “Domum boni montis.” The local name of Sulgeloch, or Sorgenloch, was derived from the name of a village where the family of Gænsfleisch had resided previous to their removing to Mentz. It seems probable that the house zum Jungen at Mentz came into the Gutembergs’ possession by inheritance. It was in this house, according to the account of Trithemius, that the printing business was carried on during his partnership with Faust.[III-11]

[Footnote III-10: Schwartz observes that in the instrument drawn up by the notary Ulric Helmasperger, Gutemberg is styled “_Juncker_,” an honourable addition which was at that period expressive of nobility.--Primaria quædam Documenta de Origine Typographiæ, p. 20, 4to. Altorfii, 1740.]

[Footnote III-11: “Morabatur autem prædictus Joannes Gutenberg Moguntiæ in domo _zum Jungen_, quæ domus usque in præsentem diem [1513] illius novæ Artis nomine noscitur insignita.”--Trithemii Chronicum Spanhemiense, ad annum 1450.]

When Gutemberg called himself der Junge, or junior, it was doubtless to distinguish himself from Gænsfleisch _der Elter_, or senior, a name which frequently occurs in the documents printed by Koehler. Meerman has fixed upon the latter name for the purpose of giving to Gutemberg a brother of the same christian name, and of making him the thief who stole Coster’s types. He also avails himself of an error committed by Wimpheling and others, who had supposed John Gutemberg and John Gænsfleisch to be two different persons. In two deeds of sale, however, of the date 1441 and 1442, entered in the Salic book of the church of St. Thomas at Strasburg, he is thus expressly named: “_Joannes dictus Gensfleisch alias nuncupatus Gutenberg de Moguncia, Argentinæ commorans_;” that is, “John Gænsfleisch, otherwise named Gutemberg, of Mentz, residing at Strasburg.”[III-12] Anthony à Wood, in his History of the University of Oxford, calls him Tossanus; and Chevillier, in his Origine de l’Imprimerie de Paris, Toussaints. Seiz[III-13] is within an ace of making him a knight of the Golden Fleece. That he was a man of property is proved by various documents; and those writers who have described him as a person of mean origin, or as so poor as to be obliged to labour as a common workman, are certainly wrong.

[Footnote III-12: In the release which he grants to the town-clerk of Mentz, in 1434, he describes himself as, “Johann Gensefleisch der Junge, genant Gutemberg.”]

[Footnote III-13: In “Het derde Jubeljaer der uitgevondene Boekdrukkonst door Laurens Jansz Koster,” p. 71. Harlem, 1740.--Oberlin, Essai d’Annales.]

From a letter written by Gutemberg in 1424 to his sister Bertha it appears that he was then residing at Strasburg; and it is also certain that in 1430 he was not living at Mentz; for in an act of accommodation between the nobility and burghers of that city, passed in that year with the authority of the archbishop Conrad III., Gutemberg is mentioned among the nobles “_die ytzund nit inlendig sint_”--“who are not at present in the country.” In 1434 there is positive evidence of his residing at Strasburg; for in that year he caused the town-clerk of Mentz to be arrested for a sum of three hundred florins due to him from the latter city, and he agreed to his release at the instance of the magistrates of Strasburg within whose jurisdiction the arrest took place.[III-14] In 1436 he entered into partnership with Andrew Drytzehn and others; and there is every reason to believe that at this period he was engaged in making experiments on the practicability of printing with moveable types, and that the chief object of his engaging with those persons was to obtain funds to enable him to perfect his invention.

[Footnote III-14: The release is given in Schœpflin’s Vindiciæ Typographicæ, Documentum I.]

From 1436 to 1444 the name of Gutemberg appears among the “_Constaflers_” or civic nobility of Strasburg. In 1437 he was summoned before the ecclesiastical judge of that city at the suit of Anne of Iron-Door,[III-15] for breach of promise of marriage. It would seem that he afterwards fulfilled his promise, for in a tax-book of the city of Strasburg, Anne Gutemberg is mentioned, after Gutemberg had returned to Mentz, as paying the toll levied on wine.

[Footnote III-15: “_Ennelin zu der Iserin Thure._” She was then living at Strasburg, and was of an honourable family, originally of Alsace.--Schœpflin. Vind. Typ. p. 17.]

Andrew Drytzehn, one of Gutemberg’s partners, having died in 1438, his brothers George and Nicholas instituted a process against Gutemberg to compel him either to refund the money advanced by their brother, or to admit them to take his place in the partnership. From the depositions of the witnesses in this cause, which, together with the decision of the judges, are given at length by Schœpflin, there can be little doubt that one of the inventions which Gutemberg agreed to communicate to his partners was an improvement in the art of printing, such as it was at that period.

The following particulars concerning the partnership of Gutemberg with Andrew Drytzehn and others are derived from the recital of the case contained in the decision of the judges. Some years before his death, Andrew Drytzehn expressed a desire to learn one of Gutemberg’s arts, for he appears to have been fond of trying new experiments, and the latter acceding to his request taught him a method of polishing stones, by which he gained considerable profit. Some time afterwards, Gutemberg, in company with a person named John Riff, began to exercise a certain art whose productions were in demand at the fair of Aix-la-Chapelle. Andrew Drytzehn, hearing of this, begged that the new art might be explained to him, promising at the same time to give whatever premium should be required. Anthony Heilman also made a similar request for his brother Andrew Heilman.[III-16] To both these applications Gutemberg assented, agreeing to teach them the art; it being stipulated that the two new partners were to receive a fourth part of the profits between them; that Riff was to have another fourth; and that the remaining half should be received by the inventor. It was also agreed that Gutemberg should receive from each of the new partners the sum of eighty florins of gold payable by a certain day, as a premium for communicating to them his art. The great fair of Aix-la-Chapelle being deferred to another year, Gutemberg’s two new partners requested that he would communicate to them without reserve all his wonderful and rare inventions; to which he assented on condition that to the former sum of one hundred and sixty florins they should jointly advance two hundred and fifty more, of which one hundred were to be paid immediately, and the then remaining seventy-five florins due by each were to be paid at three instalments. Of the hundred florins stipulated to be paid in ready money, Andrew Heilman paid fifty, according to his engagement, while Andrew Drytzehn only paid forty, leaving ten due. The term of the partnership for carrying on the “wonderful art” was fixed at five years; and it was also agreed that if any of the partners should die within that period, his interest in the utensils and stock should become vested in the surviving partners, who at the completion of the term were to pay to the heirs of the deceased the sum of one hundred florins. Andrew Drytzehn having died within the period, and when there remained a sum of eighty-five florins unpaid by him, Gutemberg met the claim of his brothers by referring to the articles of partnership, and insisted that from the sum of one hundred florins which the surviving partners were bound to pay, the eighty-five remaining unpaid by the deceased should be deducted. The balance of fifteen florins thus remaining due from the partnership he expressed his willingness to pay, although according to the terms of the agreement it was not payable until the five years were expired, and would thus not be strictly due for some years to come. The claim of George Drytzehn to be admitted a partner, as the heir of his brother, he opposed, on the ground of his being unacquainted with the obligations of the partnership; and he also denied that Andrew Drytzehn had ever become security for the payment of any sum for lead or other things purchased on account of the business, except to Fridelin von Seckingen, and that this sum (which was owing for lead) Gutemberg himself paid. The judges having heard the allegations of both parties, and having examined the agreement between Gutemberg and Andrew Drytzehn, decided that the eighty-five florins which remained unpaid by the latter should be deducted from the hundred which were to be repaid in the event of any one of the partners dying; and that Gutemberg should pay the balance of fifteen florins to George and Nicholas Drytzehn, and that when this sum should be paid they should have no further claim on the partnership.[III-17]

[Footnote III-16: When Andrew Heilman was proposed as a partner, Gutemberg observed that his friends would perhaps treat the business into which he was about to embark as mere jugglery [göckel werck], and object to his having anything to do with it.--Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 10.]

[Footnote III-17: This decision is dated “On the Eve of St. Lucia and St. Otilia, [12th December,] 1439.”]

From the depositions of some of the witnesses in this process, there can scarcely be a doubt that the “wonderful art” which Gutemberg was attempting to perfect was typography or printing with moveable types. Fournier[III-18] thinks that Gutemberg’s attempts at printing, as may be gathered from the evidence in this cause, were confined to printing from wood-blocks; but such expressions of the witnesses as appear to relate to printing do not favour this opinion. As Gutemberg lived near the monastery of St. Arbogast, which was without the walls of the city, it appears that the attempts to perfect his invention were carried on in the house of his partner Andrew Drytzehn. Upon the death of the latter, Gutemberg appears to have been particularly anxious that “four _pieces_” which were in a “press” should be “distributed,”--making use of the very word which is yet used in Germany to express the distribution or separation of a form of types---so that no person should know what they were.

[Footnote III-18: Traité de l’origine et des productions de l’Imprimerie primitive en taille de bois, Paris, 1758; et Remarques sur un Ouvrage, &c. pour servir de suite au Traité, Paris, 1762.]

Hans Schultheis, a dealer in wood, and Ann his wife, depose to the following effect: After the death of Andrew Drytzehn, Gutemberg’s servant, Lawrence Beildeck, came to their house, and thus addressed their relation Nicholas Drytzehn: “Your deceased brother Andrew had four “pieces” placed under a press, and John Gutemberg requests that you will take them out and lay them separately [or apart from each other] upon the press so that no one may see what it is.”[III-19]

[Footnote III-19: “Andres Dritzehn uwer bruder selige hat iiij stücke undenan inn einer _pressen_ ligen, da hat uch Hanns Gutemberg gebetten das ir die darusz nement ünd uff die presse legent von einander so kan man nit gesehen was das ist.”--Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 6.]

Conrad Saspach states that one day Andrew Heilman, a partner of Gutemberg’s, came to him in the Merchants’ Walk and said to him, “Conrad, as Andrew Drytzehn is dead, and _as you made the press_ and know all about it, go and take the _pieces_[III-20] out of the press and separate [zerlege] them so that no person may know what they are.” This witness intended to do as he was requested, but on making inquiry the day after St. Stephen’s Day[III-21] he found that the work was removed.

[Footnote III-20: “Nym die stücke usz der _pressen_ und _zerlege_ sü von einander so weis nyemand was es ist:” literally: “Take the pieces out of the press and distribute [or separate] them, so that no man may know what it is.”--Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 6. “The word _zerlegen_,” says Lichtenberger, Initia Typograph. p. 11, “is used at the present day by printers to denote the distribution of the types which the compositor has set up.” The original word “stücke”--pieces--is always translated “paginæ”--pages--by Schelhorn. Dr. Dibdin calls them “_forms_ kept together by _two screws_ or press-_spindles_.”--Life of Caxton, in his edition of Ames’s and Herbert’s Typ. Antiq. p. lxxxvii. note.]

[Footnote III-21: St. Stephen’s Day is on 26th December. Andrew Drytzehn, being very ill, confessed himself to Peter Eckhart on Christmas-day, 1438, and it would seem that he died on the 27th.]

Lawrence Beildeck, Gutemberg’s servant, deposes that after Andrew Drytzehn’s death he was sent by his master to Nicholas Drytzehn to tell him not to show the press which he had in his house to any person. Beildeck also adds that he was desired by Gutemberg to go to the presses, and to open [or undo] the press which was fastened with two screws, so that the “pieces” [which were in it] should fall asunder. The said “pieces” he was then to place in or upon the press, so that no person might see or understand them.

Anthony Heilman, the brother of one of Gutemberg’s partners, states that he knew of Gutemberg having sent his servant shortly before Christmas both to Andrew Heilman and Andrew Drytzehn to bring away all the “forms” [formen] that they might be separated in his presence, as he found several things in them of which he disapproved.[III-22] The same witness also states that he was well aware of many people being wishful to see the press, and that Gutemberg had desired that they should send some person to prevent its being seen.

[Footnote III-22: “Dirre gezuge hat ouch geseit das er wol wisse das Gutenberg unlange vor Wihnahten sinen kneht sante zu den beden Andresen, alle _formen_ zu holen, und würdent zur lossen das er ess sehe, un jn joch ettliche formen ruwete.”--Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 12. The separate letters, which are now called “types,” were frequently called “formæ” by the early printers and writers of the fifteenth century. They are thus named by Joh. and Vindelin de Spire in 1469; by Franciscus Philelphus in 1470; by Ludovicus Carbo in 1471; and by Phil. de Lignamine in 1474.--Lichtenberger, Init. Typ. p. 11.]

Hans Dünne, a goldsmith, deposed that about three years before, he had done work for Gutemberg on account of printing alone to the amount of a hundred florins.[III-23]

[Footnote III-23: “Hanns Dünne der goltsmyt hat gesait, das er vor dryen jaren oder daby Gutemberg by den hundert guldin verdienet habe, alleine das zu dem _trucken_ gehöret”--Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 13.]

As Gutemberg evidently had kept his art as secret as possible, it is not surprising that the notice of it by the preceding witnesses should not be more explicit. Though it may be a matter of doubt whether his invention was merely an improvement on block-printing, or an attempt to print with moveable types, yet, bearing in mind that express mention is made of a _press_ and of _printing_, and taking into consideration his subsequent partnership with Faust, it is morally certain that Gutemberg’s attention had been occupied with some new discovery relative to printing at least three years previous to December 1439.

If Gutemberg’s attempts when in partnership with Andrew Drytzehn and others did not extend beyond block-printing, and if the four “pieces” which were in the press are assumed to have been four engraved blocks, it is evident that the mere unscrewing them from the “_chase_” or frame in which they might be enclosed, would not in the least prevent persons from knowing what they were; and it is difficult to conceive how the undoing of the two screws would cause “the pieces” to fall asunder. If, however, we suppose the four “pieces” to have been so many pages of moveable types screwed together in a frame, it is easy to conceive the effect of undoing the two screws which held it together. On this hypothesis, Gutemberg’s instructions to his servant, and Anthony Heilman’s request to Conrad Saspach, the maker of the press, that he would take out the “pieces” and distribute them, are at once intelligible. If Gutemberg’s attempts were confined to block-printing, he could certainly have no claim to the discovery of a new art, unless indeed we are to suppose that his invention consisted in the introduction of the press for the purpose of taking impressions; but it is apparent that his anxiety was not so much to prevent people seeing the press as to keep them ignorant of the purpose for which it was employed, and to conceal what was in it.

The evidence of Hans Dünne the goldsmith, though very brief, is in favour of the opinion that Gutemberg’s essays in printing were made with moveable types of metal; and it also is corroborated by the fact of _lead_ being one of the articles purchased on account of the partnership. It is certain that goldsmiths were accustomed to engrave letters and figures upon silver and other metals long before the art of copper-plate printing was introduced; and Fournier not attending to the distinction between simple engraving on metal and engraving on a plate for the purpose of taking impressions on paper, has made a futile objection to the argument of Bär,[III-24] who very naturally supposes that the hundred florins which Hans Dünne received from Gutemberg for work done on account of printing alone, might be on account of his having cut the types, the formation of which by means of punches and matrices was a subsequent improvement of Peter Scheffer. It is indeed difficult to conceive in what manner a goldsmith could earn a hundred florins for work done on account of printing, except in his capacity as an engraver; and as I can see no reason to suppose that Hans Dünne was an engraver on wood, I am inclined to think that he was employed by Gutemberg to cut the letters on separate pieces of metal.

[Footnote III-24: The words of Bär, who was almoner of the Swedish chapel at Paris in 1761, are these: “Tout le monde sait que dans ce temps les orfèvres exerçoient aussi l’art de la gravûre; et nous concluons de-là que Guttemberg a commencé par des caractères de bois, que de-là il a passé aux caractères de plomb.” On this passage Fournier makes the following observations: “Tout le monde sait au contraire que dans ce temps il n’y avoit pas un seul graveur dans le genre dont vous parlez, et cela par une raison bien simple: c’est que cet art de la gravûre n’a été inventé que vingt-trois ans après ce que vous citez, c’est-à-dire en 1460, par _Masso Piniguera_.”--Remarques, &c. p. 20. Bär mentioned no particular kind of engraving; and the name of the Italian goldsmith who is supposed to have been the first who discovered the art of taking impressions from a plate on paper, was Finiguerra, not Piniguera, as Fournier, with his usual inaccuracy, spells it.]

There is no evidence to show that Gutemberg succeeded in printing any books at Strasburg with moveable types: and the most likely conclusion seems to be that he did not. As the process between him and the Drytzehns must have given a certain degree of publicity to his invention, it might be expected that some notice would have been taken of its first-fruits had he succeeded in making it available in Strasburg. On the contrary, all the early writers in the least entitled to credit, who have spoken of the invention of printing with moveable types, agree in ascribing the honour to Mentz, after Gutemberg had returned to that city and entered into partnership with Faust. Two writers, however, whose learning and research are entitled to the highest respect, are of a different opinion. “It has been doubted,” says Professor Oberlin, “that Gutemberg ever printed books at Strasburg. It is, nevertheless, probable that he did; for he had a press there in 1439, and continued to reside in that city for five years afterwards. He might print several of those small tracts without date, in which the inequality of the letters and rudeness of the workmanship indicate the infancy of the art. Schœpflin thinks that he can identify some of them; and the passages cited by him clearly show that printing had been carried on there.”[III-25] It is, however, to be remarked that the passages cited by Schœpflin, and referred to by Oberlin, by no means show that the art of printing had been practised at Strasburg by Gutemberg; nor do they clearly prove that it had been continuously carried on there by his partners or others to the time of Mentelin, who probably established himself there as a printer in 1466.

[Footnote III-25: Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Jean Gutenberg, par Jer. J. Oberlin. 8vo. Strasbourg, An ix. [1802.]]

It has been stated that Gutemberg’s first essays in typography were made with wooden types; and Daniel Specklin, an architect of Strasburg, who died in 1589, professed to have seen some of them. According to his account there was a hole pierced in each letter, and they were arranged in lines by a string being passed through them. The lines thus formed like a string of beads were afterwards collected into pages, and submitted to the press. Particles and syllables of frequent occurrence were not formed of separate letters, but were cut on single pieces of wood. We are left to conjecture the size of those letters; but if they were sufficiently large to allow of a hole being bored through them, and to afterwards sustain the action of the press, they could not well be less than the missal types with which Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter is printed. It is however likely that Specklin had been mistaken; and that he had supposed some old initial letters, large enough to admit of a hole being bored through them without injury, to have been such as were generally used in the infancy of the art.

In 1441 and 1442, Gutemberg, who appears to have been always in want of money, executed deeds of sale to the dean and chapter of the collegiate church of St. Thomas at Strasburg, whereby he assigned to them certain rents and profits in Mentz which he inherited from his uncle John Leheymer, who had been a judge in that city. In 1443 and 1444 Gutemberg’s name still appears in the rate or tax book of Strasburg; but after the latter year it is no longer to be found. About 1445, it is probable that he returned to Mentz, his native city, having apparently been unsuccessful in his speculations at Strasburg. From this period to 1450 it is likely that he continued to employ himself in attempts to perfect his invention of typography. In 1450 he entered into partnership with John Faust, a goldsmith and native of Mentz, and it is from this year that Trithemius dates the invention. In his Annales Hirsaugienses, under the year 1450, he gives the following account of the first establishment and early progress of the art. “About this time [1450], in the city of Mentz upon the Rhine, in Germany, and not in Italy as some have falsely stated, this wonderful and hitherto unheard of art of printing was conceived and invented by John Gutemberg, a citizen of Mentz. He had expended nearly all his substance on the invention; and being greatly pressed for want of means, was about to abandon it in despair, when, through the advice and with the money furnished by John Faust, also a citizen of Mentz, he completed his undertaking. At first they printed the vocabulary called the _Catholicon_, from letters cut on blocks of wood. These letters however could not be used to print anything else, as they were not separately moveable, but were cut on the blocks as above stated. To this invention succeeded others more subtle, and they afterwards invented a method of casting the shapes, named by them _matrices_, of all the letters of the Roman alphabet, from which they again cast letters of copper or tin, sufficient to bear any pressure to which they might be subjected, and which they had formerly cut by hand. As I have heard, nearly thirty years ago, from Peter Scheffer, of Gernsheim, citizen of Mentz, who was son-in-law of the first inventor, great difficulties attended the first establishment of this art; for when they had commenced printing a Bible they found that upwards of four thousand florins had been expended before they had finished the third _quaternion_ [or quire of four sheets]. Peter Scheffer, an ingenious and prudent man, at first the servant, and afterwards, as has been already said, the son-in-law of John Faust, the first inventor, discovered the more ready mode of casting the types, and perfected the art as it is at present exercised. These three for some time kept their method of printing a secret, till at length it was divulged by some workmen whose assistance they could not do without. It first passed to Strasburg, and gradually to other nations.”[III-26]

[Footnote III-26: Trithemii Annales Hirsaugienses, tom. ii. ad annum 1450. The original passage is printed in Prosper Marchand’s Histoire de l’Imprimerie, 2nde Partie, p. 7.]

As Trithemius finished the work which contains the preceding account in 1514, Marchand concludes that he must have received his information from Scheffer about 1484, which would be within thirty-five years of Gutemberg’s entering into a partnership with Faust. Although Trithemius had his information from so excellent an authority, yet the account which he has thus left is far from satisfactory. Schœpflin, amongst other objections to its accuracy, remarks that Trithemius is wrong in stating that the invention of moveable types was subsequent to Gutemberg’s connexion with Faust, seeing that the former had previously employed them at Strasburg; and he also observes that in the learned abbot’s account there is no distinct mention made of moveable letters cut by hand, but that we are led to infer that the improvement of casting types from matrices immediately followed the printing of the Catholicon from wood-blocks. The words of Trithemius on this point are as follows: “Post hæc, inventis successerunt subtiliora, inveneruntque modum fundendi formas omnium Latini alphabeti litterarum, quas ipsi _matrices_ nominabant, ex quibus rursum æneos sive stanneos characteres fundebant ad omnem pressuram sufficientes quos prius manibus sculpebant.” From this passage it might be objected in opposition to the opinion of Schœpflin:[III-27] 1. That the “subtiliora,”--more subtle contrivances, mentioned _before_ the invention of casting moveable letters, may relate to the cutting of such letters by hand. 2. That the word “quos” is to be referred to the antecedent “æneos sive stanneos characteres,”--letters of copper or tin,--and not to the “characteres in tabulis ligneis scripti,”--letters engraved on wood-blocks,--which are mentioned in a preceding sentence. The inconsistency of Trithemius in ascribing the origin of the art to Gutemberg, and twice immediately afterwards calling Scheffer the son-in-law of “the first inventor,” Faust, is noticed by Schœpflin, and has been pointed out by several other writers.

[Footnote III-27: Vindiciæ Typographicæ, pp. 77, 78.]

In 1455 the partnership between Gutemberg and Faust was dissolved at the instance of the latter, who preferred a suit against his partner for the recovery, with interest, of certain sums of money which he had advanced. There is no mention of the time when the partnership commenced in the sentence or award of the judge; but Schwartz infers, from the sum claimed on account of interest, that it must have been in August 1449. It is probable that his conclusion is very near the truth; for most of the early writers who have mentioned the invention of printing at Mentz by Gutemberg and Faust, agree in assigning the year 1450 as that in which they began to practise the new art. It is conjectured by Santander that Faust, who seems to have been a selfish character,[III-28] sought an opportunity of quarrelling with Gutemberg as soon as Scheffer had communicated to him his great improvement of forming the letters by means of punches and matrices.

[Footnote III-28: In the first work which issued from Faust and Scheffer’s press, with a date and the printer’s names,--the Psalter of 1457,--and in several others, Scheffer appears on an equal footing with Faust. In the colophon of an edition of Cicero de Officiis, 1465, Faust has inserted the following degrading words: “Presens opus Joh. Fust Moguntinus civis . . . . arte quadam perpulcra Petri manu _pueri mei_ feliciter effeci.” His partner, to whose ingenuity he is chiefly indebted for his fame, is here represented in the character of a menial. Peter Scheffer, of Gernsheim, clerk, who perfected the art of printing, is now degraded to “Peter, my _boy_” by whose hand--not by his ingenuity--John Faust exercises a certain beautiful art.]

The document containing the decision of the judges was drawn up by Ulric Helmasperger, a notary, on 6th November, 1455, in the presence of Peter Gernsheim [Scheffer], James Faust, the brother of John, Henry Keffer, and others.[III-29] From the statement of Faust, as recited in this instrument, it appears that he had first advanced to Gutemberg eight hundred florins at the annual interest of six per cent., and afterwards eight hundred florins more. Gutemberg having neglected to pay the interest, there was owing by him a sum of two hundred and fifty florins on account of the first eight hundred; and a further sum of one hundred and forty on account of the second. In consequence of Gutemberg’s neglecting to pay the interest, Faust states that he had incurred a further expense of thirty-six florins from having to borrow money both of Christians and Jews. For the capital advanced by him, and arrears of interest, he claimed on the whole two thousand and twenty florins.[III-30]

[Footnote III-29: Henry Keffer was employed in Gutemberg and Faust’s printing-office. He afterwards went to Nuremberg, where his name appears as a printer, in 1473, in conjunction with John Sensenschmid.--Primaria quædam Documenta de origine Typographiæ, edente C. G. Schwartzio. 8vo. Altorfii, 1740.]

[Footnote III-30: “Er [Johan Fust] denselben solt fürter under Christen und Iudden hab müssen ussnemen, und davor sess und dreyssig Gulden ungevärlich zu guter Rechnung zu Gesuch geben, das sich also zusamen mit dem Hauptgeld ungevärlich trifft an zvvytusend und zvvanzig Gulden.” Schwartz in an observation upon this passage conceives the sum of 2,020 florins to be thus made up: capital advanced, in two sums of 800 each, 1,600 florins: interest 390; on account of compound interest, incurred by Faust, 36; making in all 2,026. He thinks that 2,020 florins only were claimed as a round sum; and that the second sum of 800 florins was advanced in October 1452.--Primaria quædam Documenta, pp. 9-14.]

In answer to these allegations Gutemberg replied: that the first eight hundred florins which he received of Faust were advanced in order to purchase utensils for printing, which were assigned to Faust as a security for his money. It was agreed between them that Faust should contribute three hundred florins annually for workmen’s wages and house-rent, and for the purchase of parchment, paper, ink, and other things.[III-31] It was also stipulated that in the event of any disagreement arising between them, the printing materials assigned to Faust as a security should become the property of Gutemberg on his repaying the sum of eight hundred florins. This sum, however, which was advanced for the completion of the work, Gutemberg did not think himself bound to expend on book-work alone; and although it was expressed in their agreement that he should pay six florins in the hundred for an annual interest, yet Faust assured him that he would not accept of it, as the eight hundred florins were not paid down at once, as by their agreement they ought to have been. For the second sum of eight hundred florins he was ready to render Faust an account. For interest or usury he considered that he was not liable.[III-32]

[Footnote III-31: “. . . . und das JOHANNES [FUST] ym ierlichen 300 Gulden vor Kosten geben, und auch Gesinde Lone, Huss Zinss, Vermet, Papier, Tinte, &c. verlegen solte.” Primaria qæedam Doc. p. 10.]

[Footnote III-32: “. . . . von den ubrigen 800 Gulden vvegen begert er ym ein rechnung zu thun, so gestett er auch ym keins Soldes noch Wuchers, und hofft ym im rechten darum nit pflichtigk sin.” Primaria quædam Doc. p. 11.]

The judges, having heard the statements of both parties, decided that Gutemberg should repay Faust so much of the capital as had not been expended in the business; and that on Faust’s producing witnesses, or swearing that he had borrowed upon interest the sums advanced, Gutemberg should pay him interest also, according to their agreement. Faust having made oath that he had borrowed 1550 florins, which he paid over to Gutemberg, to be employed by him for their common benefit, and that he had paid yearly interest, and was still liable on account of the same, the notary, Ulric Helmasperger, signed his attestation of the award on 6th November, 1455.[III-33] It would appear that Gutemberg not being able to repay the money was obliged to relinquish the printing materials to Faust.

[Footnote III-33: Mercier, who is frequently referred to as an authority on subjects connected with Bibliography, has, in his supplement to Prosper Marchand’s Histoire de l’Imprimerie, confounded this document with that containing an account of the process between the Drytzehns and Gutemberg at Strasburg in 1439; and Heineken, at p. 255 of his Idée Générale, has committed the same mistake.]

Salmuth, who alludes to the above document in his annotations upon Pancirollus, has most singularly perverted its meaning, by representing Gutemberg as the person who advanced the money, and Faust as the ingenious inventor who was sued by his rich partner. “From this it evidently appears,” says he, after making Gutemberg and Faust exchange characters, “that Gutemberg was not the first who invented and practised typography; but that some years after its invention he was admitted a partner by John Faust, to whom he advanced money.” If for “Gutemberg” we read “Faust,” and _vice versâ_, the account is correct.

Whether Faust, who might be an engraver as well as a goldsmith, assisted Gutemberg or not by engraving the types, does not appear. It is stated that Gutemberg’s earliest productions at Mentz were an alphabet cut on wood, and a Donatus executed in the same manner. Trithemius mentions a “_Catholicon_” engraved on blocks of wood as one of the first books printed by Gutemberg and Faust, and this Heineken thinks was the same as the Donatus.[III-34] Whatever may have been the book which Trithemius describes as a “Catholicon,” it certainly was not the “_Catholicon Joannis Januensis_,” a large folio which appeared in 1460 without the name or residence of the printer, but which is supposed to have been printed by Gutemberg after the dissolution of his partnership with Faust.

[Footnote III-34: “Je crois, que ces tables [deux planches de bois autrefois chez le Duc de la Valliere] sont du livre que le Chroniqueur de Cologne appelle un _Donat_ et que _Trithem_ nomme un _Catholicon_, (livre universel,) ce qu’on a confondu ensuite avec le grand ouvrage intitulé _Catholicon Januensis_.”--Idée Générale, p. 258.]

It has been stated that previous to the introduction of metal types Gutemberg and Faust used moveable types of wood; and Schœpflin speaks confidently of such being used at Strasburg by Mentelin long after Scheffer had introduced the improved method of forming metal types by means of punches and matrices. On this subject, however, Schœpflin’s opinion is of very little weight, for on whatever relates to the practice of typography or wood engraving he was very slightly informed. He fancies that all the books printed at Strasburg previous to the appearance of _Vincentii Bellovacensis Speculum Historiale_ in 1473, were printed with moveable types of wood. It is, however, doubtful if ever a single book was printed in this manner.

Willett in his Essay on Printing, published in the eleventh volume of the Archæologia, not only says that no entire book was ever printed with wooden types, but adds, “I venture to pronounce it impossible.” He has pronounced rashly. Although it certainly would be a work of considerable labour to cut a set of moveable letters of the size of what is called Donatus type, and sufficient to print such a book, yet it is by no means impossible. That such books as “_Eyn Manung der Cristenheit widder die durken_,” of which a fac-simile is given by Aretin, and the first and second Donatuses, of which specimens are given by Fischer, might be printed from wooden types I am perfectly satisfied, though I am decidedly of opinion that they were not. Marchand has doubted the possibility of printing with wooden types, which he observes would be apt to warp when wet for the purpose of cleaning; but it is to be observed that they would not require to be cleaned before they were used.

Fournier, who was a letter-founder, and who occasionally practised wood engraving, speaks positively of the Psalter first printed by Faust and Scheffer in 1457, and again in 1459, being printed with wooden types; and he expresses his conviction of the practicability of cutting and printing with such types, provided that they were not of a smaller size than Great Primer Roman. Meerman shows the possibility of using such types; and Camus caused two lines of the Bible, supposed to have been printed by Gutemberg, to be cut in separate letters on wood, and which sustained the action of the press.[III-35] Lambinet says, it is certain that Gutemberg cut moveable letters of wood, but he gives no authority for the assertion; and I am of opinion that no unexceptionable testimony on this point can be produced. The statements of Serarius and Paulus Pater,[III-36] who profess to have seen such ancient wooden types at Mentz, are entitled to as little credit as Daniel Specklin, who asserted that he had seen such at Strasburg. They may have seen large initial letters of wood with holes bored through, but scarcely any lower-case letters which were ever used in printing any book.

[Footnote III-35: Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.]

[Footnote III-36: “. . . . ligneos typos, ex buxi frutice, perforatos in medio, ut zona colligari una jungique commode possint, ex Fausti officina reliquos, Moguntiæ aliquando me conspexisse memini.”--Paulus Pater, in Dissertatione de Typis Literarum, &c. p, 10. 4to. Lipsiæ, 1710. Heineken, at p. 254 of his Idée Gén., declares himself to be convinced that Gutemberg had cut separate letters on wood, but he thinks that no person would be able to cut a quantity sufficient to print whole sheets, and, still less, large volumes as many pretend.]

That experiments might be made by Gutemberg with wooden types I can believe, though I have not been able to find any sufficient authority for the fact. Of the possibility of cutting moveable types of a certain size in wood, and of printing a book with them, I am convinced from experiment; and could convince others, were it worth the expense, by printing a fac-simile, from wooden types, of any page of any book which is of an earlier date than 1462. But, though convinced of the possibility of printing small works in letters of a certain size, with wooden types, I have never seen any early specimens of typography which contained positive and indisputable indications of having been printed in that manner. It was, until of late, confidently asserted by persons who pretended to have a competent knowledge of the subject, that the text of the celebrated Adventures of Theurdank, printed in 1517, had been engraved on wood-blocks, and their statement was generally believed. There cannot, however, now be a doubt in the mind of any person who examines the book, and who has the slightest knowledge of wood engraving and printing, of the text being printed with metal types.

During the partnership of Gutemberg and Faust it is likely that they printed some works, though there is scarcely one which can be assigned to them with any degree of certainty. One of the supposed earliest productions of typography is a letter of indulgence conceded on the 12th of August, 1451, by Pope Nicholas V, to Paulin Zappe, counsellor and ambassador of John, King of Cyprus. It was to be in force for three years from the 1st of May, 1452, and it granted indulgence to all persons who within that period should contribute towards the defence of Cyprus against the Turks. Four copies of this indulgence are known, printed on vellum in the manner of a patent or brief. The characters are of a larger size than those of the “Durandi Rationale,” 1459, or of the Latin Bible printed by Faust and Scheffer in 1462. The following date appears at the conclusion of one of the copies: “Datum _Erffurdie_ sub anno Domini m cccc liiij, die vero _quinta decima_ mensis _novembris_.” The words which are here printed in Italic, are in the original written with a pen. A copy of the same indulgence discovered by Professor Gebhardi is more complete. It has at the end, a “_Forma plenissimæ absolutionis et remissionis in vita et in mortis articulo_,”--a form of plenary absolution and remission in life and at the point of death. At the conclusion is the following date, the words in Italics being inserted with a pen: “Datum in _Luneborch_ anno Domini m cccc l _quinto_, die vero _vicesima sexta_ mensis _Januarii_.” Heineken, who saw this copy in the possession of Breitkopf, has observed that in the original date, m cccc liiij, the last four characters had been effaced and the word _quinto_ written with a pen; but yet in such a manner that the numerals iiij might still be perceived. In two copies of this indulgence in the possession of Earl Spencer, described by Dr. Dibdin in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p. 44, the final units (iiij) have not had the word “quinto” overwritten, but have been formed with a pen into the numeral V. In the catalogue of Dr. Kloss’s library, No. 1287, it is stated that a fragment of a “Donatus” there described, consisting of two leaves of parchment, is printed with the same type as the Mazarine Bible; and it is added, on the authority of George Appleyard, Esq., Earl Spencer’s librarian, that the “Littera Indulgentiæ” of Pope Nicholas V, in his lordship’s possession, contains two lines printed with the same type. Breitkopf had some doubts respecting this instrument; but a writer in the Jena Literary Gazette is certainly wrong in supposing that it had been ante-dated ten years. It was only to be in force for three years; and Pope Nicholas V, by whom it was granted, died on the 24th March, 1455.[III-37] Two words, UNIVERSIS and PAULINUS, which are printed in capitals in the first two lines, are said to be of the same type as those of a Bible of which Schelhorn has given a specimen in his “Dissertation on an early Edition of the Bible,” Ulm, 1760.

[Footnote III-37: Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.]

The next earliest specimen of typography with a date is the tract entitled “_Eyn Manung der Cristenkeit widder die durken_,”--An Appeal to Christendom against the Turks,--which has been alluded to at page 136. A lithographic fac-simile of the whole of this tract, which consists of nine printed pages of a quarto size, is given by Aretin at the end of his “Essay on the earliest historical results of the invention of Printing,” published at Munich in 1808. This “Appeal” is in German rhyme, and it consists of exhortations, arranged under every month in the manner of a calendar, addressed to the pope, the emperor, to kings, princes, bishops, and free states, encouraging them to take up arms and resist the Turks. The exhortation for January is addressed to Pope Nicholas V, who died, as has been observed, in March 1455. Towards the conclusion of the prologue is the date “_Als man zelet noch din’ geburt offenbar m.cccc.lv. iar sieben wochen und iiii do by von nativitatis bis esto michi_.” At the conclusion of the exhortation for December are the following words: “Eyn gut selig nuwe Jar:” A happy new year! From these circumstances Aretin is of opinion that the tract was printed towards the end of 1454. M. Bernhart, however, one of the superintendents of the Royal Library at Munich, of which Aretin was the principal director, has questioned the accuracy of this date; and from certain allusions in the exhortation for December, has endeavoured to show that the correct date ought to be 1472.[III-38]

[Footnote III-38: Dr. Dibdin, Bibliog. Tour, vol iii. p. 135, second edition.]

Fischer in looking over some old papers discovered a calendar of a folio size, and printed on one side only, for 1457. The letters, according to his description, resemble those of a Donatus, of which he has given a specimen in the third part of his Typographic Rarities, and he supposes that both the Donatus and the Calendar were printed by Gutemberg.[III-39] It is, however, certain that the Donatus which he ascribed to Gutemberg was printed by Peter Scheffer, and in all probability after Faust’s death; and from the similarity of the type it is likely that the Calendar was printed at the same office. Fischer, having observed that the large ornamental capitals of this Donatus were the same as those in the Psalter printed by Faust and Scheffer in 1457, was led most erroneously to conclude that the large ornamental letters of the Psalter, which were most likely of wood, had been cut by Gutemberg. The discovery of a Donatus with Peter Scheffer’s imprint has completely destroyed his conjectures, and invalidated the arguments advanced by him in favour of the Mazarine Bible being printed by Gutemberg alone.

[Footnote III-39: Gotthelf Fischer, Notice du premier livre imprimé avec date. 4to. Mayence, An xi. Typographisch. Seltenheit. 6te. Lieferung, S. 25. 8vo. Nürnberg, 1804. When Fischer published his account of the Calendar, Aretin had not discovered the tract entitled “_Eyn Manung der Cristenheit widder die durken_.”]

As Trithemius and the compiler of the Cologne Chronicle have mentioned a Bible as one of the first books printed by Gutemberg and Faust, it has been a fertile subject of discussion among bibliographers to ascertain the identical edition to which the honour was to be awarded. It seems, however, to be now generally admitted that the edition called the Mazarine[III-40] is the best entitled to that distinction. In 1789 Maugerard produced a copy of this edition to the Academy of Metz, containing memoranda which seem clearly to prove that it was printed at least as early as August 1456. As the partnership between Gutemberg and Faust was only dissolved in November 1455, it is almost impossible that such could have been printed by either of them separately in the space of eight months; and as there seems no reason to believe that any other typographical establishment existed at that period, it is most likely that this was the identical edition alluded to by Trithemius as having cost 4,000 florins before the partners, Gutemberg and Faust, had finished the third quaternion, or quire of four sheets.

[Footnote III-40: It is called the Mazarine Bible in consequence of the first known copy being discovered in the library formed by Cardinal Mazarine. Dr. Dibdin, in his Bibliographical Tour, vol. ii. p. 191, mentions having seen not fewer than ten or twelve copies of this edition, which he says must not be designated as “of the very first degree of rarity.” An edition of the Bible, supposed to have been printed at Bamberg by Albert Pfister about 1461, is much more scarce.]

The copy produced by Maugerard is printed on paper, and is now in the Royal Library at Paris. It is bound in two volumes; and every complete page consists of two columns, each containing forty-two lines. At the conclusion of the first volume the person by whom it was rubricated[III-41] and bound has written the following memorandum: “_Et sic est finis prime partis biblie. Scr. Veteris testamenti. Illuminata seu rubricata et illuminata p’ henricum Albeh alius Cremer anno dn’i m.cccc.lvi festo Bartholomei apli--Deo gratias--alleluja._” At the end of the second volume the same person has written the date in words at length: “_Iste liber illuminatus, ligatus & completus est p’ henricum Cremer vicariū ecclesie collegatur Sancti Stephani maguntini sub anno D’ni millesimo quadringentesimo quinquagesimo sexto festo assumptionis gloriose virginis Marie. Deo gracias alleluja._”[III-42] Fischer[III-43] says that this last memorandum assigns “einen spätern tag”--a later day--to the end of the rubricator’s work. In this he is mistaken; for the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, when the _second_ volume was finished, is on the 15th of August: while the feast of St. Bartholomew, the day on which he finished the _first_, falls on August 24th. Lambinet,[III-44] who doubts the genuineness of those inscriptions, makes the circumstance of the second volume being finished nine days before the first, a ground of objection. This seeming inconsistency however can by no means be admitted as a proof of the inscriptions being spurious. It is indeed more likely that the rubricator might actually finish the second volume before the first, than that a modern forger, intent to deceive, should not have been aware of the objection.

[Footnote III-41: In most of the early printed books the capitals were left to be inserted in red ink by the pen or pencil of the “rubricator.”]

[Footnote III-42: There are fac-simile tracings of those memorandums, on separate slips of paper, in the copy of the Mazarine Bible in the King’s Library at the British Museum; and fac-simile engravings of them are given in the M’Carthy Catalogue.]

[Footnote III-43: Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 20, 3te. Lieferung.]

[Footnote III-44: Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 135.]

The genuineness of the inscriptions is, however, confirmed by other evidence which no mere conjecture can invalidate. On the last leaf of this Bible there is a memorandum written by Berthold de Steyna, vicar of the parochial church of “Ville-Ostein,”[III-45] to the sacrist of which the Bible belonged. The sum of this memorandum is that on St. George’s day [23d April] 1457 there was chaunted, for the first time by the said Berthold, the mass of the holy sacrament. In the Carthusian monastery without the walls of Mentz, Schwartz[III-46] says that he saw a copy of this edition, the last leaves of which were torn out; but that in an old catalogue he perceived an entry stating that this Bible was presented to the monastery by Gutemberg and Faust. If the memorandum in the catalogue could be relied on as genuine, it would appear that this Bible had been completed before the dissolution of Gutemberg and Faust’s partnership in November 1455.

[Footnote III-45: Oberlin says that “Ville-Ostein” lies near Erfurth, and is in the diocese of Mentz.]

[Footnote III-46: Index librorum sub incunabula typograph. impressorum. 1739; cited by Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 21, 3te. Lieferung.]

Although not a single work has been discovered with Gutemberg’s imprint, yet there cannot be a doubt of his having established a press of his own, and printed books at Mentz after the partnership between him and Faust had been dissolved. In the chronicle printed by Philip de Lignamine at Rome in 1474, it is expressly stated, under the year 1458, that there were then two printers at Mentz skilful in printing on parchment with metal types. The name of one was _Cutemberg_, and the other Faust; and it was known that each of them could print three hundred sheets in a day.[III-47] On St. Margaret’s day, 20th July, 1459, Gutemberg, in conjunction with his brother Friele and his cousins John, Friele, and Pederman, executed a deed in favour of the convent of St. Clara at Mentz, in which his sister Hebele was a nun. In this document, which is preserved among the archives of the university of Mentz, there occurs a passage, “which makes it as clear,” says Fischer, who gives the deed entire, “as the finest May-day noon, that Gutemberg had not only printed books at that time, but that he intended to print more.” The passage alluded to is to the following effect: “And with respect to the books which I, the above-named John, have given the library of the said convent, they shall remain for ever in the said library; and I, the above-named John, will furthermore give to the library of the said convent all such books required for pious uses and the service of God,--whether for reading or singing, or for use according to the rules of the order,--as I, the above-named John, have printed or shall hereafter print.”[III-48]

[Footnote III-47: Philippi de Lignamine Chronica Summorum Pontificum Imperatorumque, anno 1474, Romæ impressa. A second edition of this chronicle was printed at Rome in 1476 by “Schurener de Bopardia.” In both editions Gutemberg is called “Jacobus,”--James, and is said to be a native of Strasburg. Under the same year John Mentelin is mentioned as a printer at Strasburg.]

[Footnote III-48: Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 44, 1ste. Lieferung. In this instrument Gutemberg describes himself as “Henne Genssfleisch von Sulgeloch, genennt Gudinberg.”]

That Gutemberg had a press of his own is further confirmed by a bond or deed of obligation executed by Dr. Conrad Homery on the Friday after St. Matthias’ day, 1468, wherein he acknowledges having received “certain forms, letters, utensils, materials, and other things belonging to printing,” left by John Gutemberg deceased; and he binds himself to the archbishop Adolphus not to use them beyond the territory of Mentz, and in the event of his selling them to give a preference to a person belonging to that city.

The words translated “certain forms, letters, utensils, materials, and other things belonging to printing,” in the preceding paragraph, are in the original enumerated as: “_etliche formen_, _buchstaben_, _instrument_, _gezuge und anders zu truckwerck gehoerende_.” As there is a distinction made between “formen” and “buchstaben,”--literally, “forms” and “letters,”--Schwartz is inclined to think that by “formen” engraved wood-blocks might be meant, and he adduces in favour of his opinion the word “formen-schneider,” the old German name for a wood-engraver. One or more pages of type when wedged into a rectangular iron frame called a “chase,” and ready for the press, is termed a “form” both by English and German printers; but Schwartz thinks that such were not the “forms” mentioned in the document. As there appears to be a distinction also between “_instrument_” and “_gezuge_,”--translated utensils and materials,--he supposes that the latter word may be used to signify the metal of which the types were formed. He observes that German printers call their old worn-out types “_der Zeug_”--literally, “stuff,” and that the mixed metal of which types are composed is also known as “der Zeug, oder Metall.”[III-49] It is to be remembered that the earliest printers were also their own letter-founders.

[Footnote III-49: Primaria quædam Document. pp. 26-34.]

The work called the Catholicon, compiled by Johannes de Balbis, Januensis, a Dominican, which appeared in 1460 without the printer’s name, has been ascribed to Gutemberg’s press by some of the most eminent German bibliographers. It is a Latin dictionary and introduction to grammar, and consists of three hundred and seventy-three leaves of large folio size. Fischer and others are of opinion that a Vocabulary, printed at Elfeld,--in Latin, Altavilla,--near Mentz, on 6th November, 1467, was executed with the same types. At the end of this work, which is a quarto of one hundred and sixty-five leaves, it is stated to have been begun by Henry Bechtermuntze, and finished by his brother Nicholas, and Wigand Spyess de Orthenberg.[III-50] A second edition of the same work, printed by Nicholas Bechtermuntze, appeared in 1469. The following extract from a letter written by Fischer to Professor Zapf in 1803, contains an account of his researches respecting the Catholicon and Vocabulary: “The frankness with which you retracted your former opinions respecting the printer of the Catholicon of 1460, and agreed with me in assigning it to Gutemberg, demands the respect of every unbiassed inquirer. I beg now merely to mention to you a discovery that I have made which no longer leaves it difficult to conceive how the Catholicon types should have come into the hands of Bechtermuntze. From a monument which stands before the high altar of the church of Elfeld it is evident that the family of Sorgenloch, of which that of Gutemberg or Gænsfleisch was a branch, was connected with the family of Bechtermuntze by marriage. The types used by Bechtermuntze were not only similar to those formerly belonging to Gutemberg, but were the very same, as I always maintained, appealing to the principles of the type-founder’s art. They had come into the possession of Bechtermuntze by inheritance, on the death of Gutemberg, and hence Dr. Homery’s reclamation.”[III-51]

[Footnote III-50: “. . . . per henricum bechtermuncze pie memorie in altavilla est inchoatum. et demū sub anno dñi M.CCCCLXII. ipō die Leonardi confessoris qui fuit quarta die mensis novembris p. nycolaum bechtermūcze fratrem dicti Henrici et Wygandū Spyess de orthenberg ē consummatū.” There is a copy of this edition in the Royal Library at Paris.]

[Footnote III-51: Typographisch. Seltenheit. S. 101, 5te. Lieferung.]

Zapf, to whom Fischer’s letter is addressed, had previously communicated to Oberlin his opinion that the types of the Catholicon were the same as those of an _Augustinus de Vita Christiana_, 4to, without date or printer’s name, but having at the end the arms of Faust and Scheffer. In his account, printed at Nuremberg, 1803, of an early edition of “Joannis de Turre-cremata explanatio in Psalterium,” he acknowledged that he was mistaken; thus agreeing with Schwartz, Meerman, Panzer, and Fischer, that no book known to be printed by Faust and Scheffer is printed with the same types as the Catholicon and the Vocabulary.

Although there can be little doubt of the Catholicon and the Elfeld Vocabulary being printed with the same types, and of the former being printed by Gutemberg, yet it is far from certain that Bechtermuntze inherited Gutemberg’s printing materials, even though he might be a relation. It is as likely that Gutemberg might sell to the brothers a portion of his materials and still retain enough for himself. If they came into their possession by inheritance, which is not likely, Gutemberg must have died some months previous to 4th November, 1467, the day on which Nicholas Bechtermuntze and Wygand Spyess finished the printing of the Vocabulary. If the materials had been purchased by Bechtermuntze in Gutemberg’s lifetime, which seems to be the most reasonable supposition, Conrad Homery could have no claim upon them on account of money advanced to Gutemberg, and consequently the types and printing materials which after his death came into Homery’s possession, could not be those employed by the brothers Bechtermuntze in their establishment at Elfeld.[III-52]

[Footnote III-52: The two following works, without date or printer’s name, are printed with the same types as the Catholicon, and it is doubtful whether they were printed by Gutemberg, or by other persons with his types. 1. Matthei de Cracovia tractatus, seu dialogus racionis et consciencie de sumpcione pabuli salutiferi corporis domini nostri ihesu christi. 4to. foliis 22. 2. Thome de Aquino summa de articulis fidei et ecclesie sacramentis. 4to. foliis 13. A declaration of Thierry von Isenburg, archbishop of Mayence, offering to resign in favour of his opponent, Adolphus of Nassau, printed in German and Latin in 1462, is ascribed to Gutemberg: it is of quarto size and consists of four leaves.--Oberlin, Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.]

By letters patent, dated at Elfeld on St. Anthony’s day, 1465, Adolphus, archbishop and elector of Mentz, appointed Gutemberg one of his courtiers, with the same allowance of clothing as the rest of the nobles attending his court, with other privileges and exemptions. From this period Fischer thinks that Gutemberg no longer occupied himself with business as a printer, and that he transferred his printing materials to Henry Bechtermuntze. “If Wimpheling’s account be true,” says Fischer, “that Gutemberg became blind in his old age, we need no longer be surprised that during his lifetime his types and utensils should come into the possession of Bechtermuntze.” The exact period of Gutemberg’s decease has not been ascertained, but in the bond or deed of obligation executed by Doctor Conrad Homery the Friday after St. Matthias’s day,[III-53] 1468, he is mentioned as being then dead. He was interred at Mentz in the church of the Recollets, and the following epitaph was composed by his relation, Adam Gelthaus:[III-54]

“D. O. M. S.

“Joanni Genszfleisch, artis impressoriæ repertori, de omni natione et lingua optime merito, in nominis sui memoriam immortalem Adam Gelthaus posuit. Ossa ejus in ecclesia D. Francisci Moguntina feliciter cubant.”

From the last sentence it is probable that this epitaph was not placed in the church wherein Gutemberg was interred. The following inscription was composed by Ivo Wittich, professor of law and member of the imperial chamber at Mentz:

“Jo. Guttenbergensi, Moguntino, qui primus omnium literas ære imprimendas invenit, hac arte de orbe toto bene merenti Ivo Witigisis hoc saxum pro monimento posuit M.D.VII.”

[Footnote III-53: St. Matthias’s Day is on 24th February.]

[Footnote III-54: In the instrument dated 1434, wherein Gutemberg agrees to release the town-clerk of Mentz, whom he had arrested, mention is made of a relation of his, Ort Gelthus, living at Oppenheim. Schœpflin, mistaking the word, has printed in his Documenta, p. 4, “Artgeld huss,” which he translates “Artgeld domo,” the house of Artgeld.]

This inscription, according to Serarius, who professes to have seen it, and who died in 1609, was placed in front of the school of law at Mentz. This house had formerly belonged to Gutemberg, and was supposed to be the same in which he first commenced printing at Mentz in conjunction with Faust.[III-55]

[Footnote III-55: Serarii Historia Mogunt. lib. 1. cap. xxxvii. p. 159. Heineken, Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 2te. Theil, S. 299.]

From the documentary evidence cited in the preceding account of the life of Gutemberg, it will be perceived that the art of printing with moveable types was not perfected as soon as conceived, but that it was a work of time. It is highly probable that Gutemberg was occupied with his invention in 1436; and from the obscure manner in which his “admirable discovery” is alluded to in the process between him and the Drytzehns in 1439, it does not seem likely that he had then proceeded beyond making experiments. In 1449 or 1450, when the sum of 800 florins was advanced by Faust, it appears not unreasonable to suppose that he had so far improved his invention, as to render it practically available without reference to Scheffer’s great improvement in casting the types from matrices formed by punches, which was most likely discovered between 1452 and 1455.[III-56] About fourteen years must have elapsed before Gutemberg was enabled to bring his invention into practice. The difficulties which must have attended the first establishment of typography could only have been surmounted by great ingenuity and mechanical knowledge combined with unwearied perseverance. After the mind had conceived the idea of using moveable types, those types, whatever might be the material employed, were yet to be formed, and when completed they were to be arranged in pages, divided by proper spaces, and bound together in some manner which the ingenuity of the inventor was to devise. Nor was his invention complete until he had contrived a PRESS, by means of which numerous impressions from his types might be perfectly and rapidly obtained.

[Footnote III-56: In the colophon to “Trithemii Breviarium historiarum de origine Regum et Gentis Francorum,” printed at Mentz in 1515 by John Scheffer, son of Peter Scheffer and Christina, the daughter of Faust, it is stated that the art of printing was perfected in 1452, through the labour and ingenious contrivances of Peter Scheffer of Gernsheim, and that Faust gave him his daughter Christina in marriage as a reward.]

Mr. Ottley, at page 285 of the first volume of his Researches, informs us that “almost all great discoveries have been made by accident;” and at page 196 of the same volume, when speaking of printing as the invention of Lawrence Coster, he mentions it as an “art which had been at first taken up as the amusement of a leisure hour, became improved, and was practised by him as a profitable trade.” Let any unbiassed person enter a printing-office; let him look at the single letters, let him observe them formed into pages, and the pages wedged up in forms; let him see a sheet printed from one of those forms by means of the press; and when he has seen and considered all this, let him ask himself if ever, since the world began, the amusement of an old man practised in his hours of leisure was attended with such a result? “Very few great discoveries,” says Lord Brougham, “have been made by chance and by ignorant persons, much fewer than is generally supposed.--They are generally made by persons of competent knowledge, and who are in search of them.”[III-57]

[Footnote III-57: On the Pleasures and Advantages of Science, p. 160. Edit. 1831.]

Having now given some account of the grounds on which Gutemberg’s claims to the invention of typography are founded, it appears necessary to give a brief summary, from the earliest authorities, of the pretensions of Lawrence Coster not only to the same honour, but to something more; for if the earliest account which we have of him be true, he was not only the inventor of typography, but of block-printing also.

The first mention of Holland in connexion with the invention of typography occurs in the Cologne Chronicle, printed by John Kœlhoff in 1499, wherein it is said that the first idea of the art was suggested by the Donatuses printed in Holland; it being however expressly stated in the same work that the art of printing as then practised was invented at Mentz. In a memorandum, which has been referred to at page 123, written by Mariangelus Accursius, who flourished about 1530, the invention of printing with metal types is erroneously ascribed to Faust; and it is further added, that he derived the idea from a Donatus printed in Holland from a wood-block. That a Donatus might be printed there from a wood-block previous to the invention of typography is neither impossible nor improbable; although I esteem the testimony of Accursius of very little value. He was born and resided in Italy, and it is not unlikely, as has been previously observed, that he might derive his information from the Cologne Chronicle.

John Van Zuyren, who died in 1594, is said to have written a book to prove that typography was invented at Harlem; but it never was printed, and the knowledge that we have of it is from certain fragments of it preserved by Scriverius, a writer whose own uncorroborated testimony on this subject is not entitled to the slightest credit. The substance of Zuyren’s account is almost the same as that of Junius, except that he does not mention the inventor’s name. The art according to him was invented at Harlem, but that while yet in a rude and imperfect state it was carried by a stranger to Mentz, and there brought to perfection.

Theodore Coornhert, in the dedication of his Dutch translation of Tully’s Offices to the magistrates of Harlem, printed in 1561, says that he had frequently heard from respectable people that the art of printing was invented at Harlem, and that the house where the inventor lived was pointed out to him. He proceeds to relate that by the dishonesty of a workman the art was carried to Mentz and there perfected. Though he says that he was informed by certain respectable old men both of the inventor’s name and family, yet, for some reason or other, he is careful not to mention them. When he was informing the magistrates of Harlem of their city being the nurse of so famous a discovery, it is rather strange that he should not mention the parent’s name. From the conclusion of his dedication we may guess why he should be led to mention Harlem as the place where typography was invented. It appears that he and certain friends of his, being inflamed with a patriotic spirit, designed to establish a new printing-office at Harlem, “in honour of their native city, to the profit of others, and for their own accommodation, and yet without detriment to any person.” His claiming the invention of printing for Harlem was a good advertisement for the speculation.

The next writer who mentions Harlem as the place where printing was invented is Guicciardini, who in his Description of the Low Countries, first printed at Antwerp in 1567, gives the report, without vouching for its truth, as follows: “In this place, it appears, not only from the general opinion of the inhabitants and other Hollanders, but from the testimony of several writers and from other memoirs, that the art of printing and impressing letters on paper such as is now practised, was invented. The inventor dying before the art was perfected or had come into repute, his servant, as they say, went to live at Mentz, where making this new art known, he was joyfully received; and applying himself diligently to so important a business, he brought it to perfection and into general repute. Hence the report has spread abroad and gained credit that the art of printing was first practised at Mentz. What truth there may be in this relation, I am not able, nor do I wish, to decide; contenting myself with mentioning the subject in a few words, that I might not prejudice [by my silence the claims of] this district.”[III-58]

[Footnote III-58: Ludovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi: folio, Anversa, 1581. The original passage is given by Meerman. The original words _altre memorie_--translated in the above extract “other memoirs”--are rendered by Mr. Ottley “other records.” This may pass; but it scarcely can be believed that Guicciardini consulted or personally knew of the existence of any such records. Mr. Ottley also, to match his “records,” refers to the relations of Coornhert, Zuyren, Guicciardini, and Junius as “documents.”]

It is evident that the above account is given from mere report. What other writers had previously noticed the claims of Harlem, except Coornhert and Zuyren, remain yet to be discovered. They appear to have been unknown to Guicciardini’s contemporary, Junius, who was the first to give a name to the Harlem inventor; a “local habitation” had already been provided for him by Coornhert.

The sole authority for one Lawrence Coster having invented wood-engraving, block-printing, and typography, is Hadrian Junius, who was born at Horn in North Holland, in 1511. He took up his abode at Harlem in 1560. During his residence in that city he commenced his Batavia,--the work in which the account of Coster first appeared,--which, from the preface, would seem to have been finished in January, 1575. He died the 16th June in the same year, and his book was not published until 1588, twelve years after his decease.[III-59] In this work, which is a topographical and historical account of Holland, or more properly of the country included within the limits of ancient Batavia, we find the first account of Lawrence Coster as the inventor of typography. Almost every succeeding advocate of Coster’s pretensions has taken the liberty of altering, amplifying, or contradicting the account of Junius according as it might suit his own line of argument; but not one of them has been able to produce a single solitary fact in confirmation of it. Scriverius, Seiz, Meerman, and Koning are fertile in their conjectures about the thief that stole Coster’s types, but they are miserably barren in their proofs of his having had types to be stolen. “If the variety of opinions,” observes Naude, speaking of Coster’s invention, “may be taken as an indication of the falsehood of any theory, it is impossible that this should be true”. Since Naude’s time the number of Coster’s advocates has been increased by Seiz, Meerman, and Koning;[III-60] who, if they have not been able to produce any evidence of the existence of Lawrence Coster as a printer, have at least been fertile in conjectures respecting the thief. They have not strengthened but weakened the Costerian triumphal arch raised by Junius, for they have all more or less knocked a piece of it away; and even where they have pretended to make repairs, it has merely been “one nail driving another out.”

[Footnote III-59: Junius was a physician, and unquestionably a learned man. He is the author of a nomenclator in Latin, Greek, Dutch, and French. An edition, with the English synonyms, by John Higins and Abraham Fleming, was printed at London in 1585. The following passage concerning Junius occurs in Southey’s Biographical Sketch of the Earl of Surrey in the “Select Works of the British Poets from Chaucer to Jonson:” “Surrey is next found distinguishing himself at the siege of Landrecy. At that siege Bonner, who was afterwards so eminently infamous, invited Hadrian Junius to England. When that distinguished scholar arrived, Bonner wanted either the means, or more probably the heart, to assist him; but Surrey took him into his family in the capacity of physician, and gave him a pension of fifty angels.”]

[Footnote III-60: Koning’s Dissertation on the Invention of Printing, which was crowned by the Society of Sciences of Harlem, was first printed at Harlem in the Dutch language in 1816. It was afterwards abridged and translated into French with the approbation, and under the revision, of the author. In 1817 he published a first supplement; and a second appeared in 1820.]

Junius’s account of Coster is supposed to have been written about 1568; and in order to do justice to the claims of Harlem I shall here give a faithful translation of the “document,”--according to Mr. Ottley,--upon which they are founded. After alluding, in a preliminary rhetorical flourish, to Truth being the daughter of Time, and to her being concealed in a well, Junius thus proceeds to draw her out.

“If he is the best witness, as Plutarch says, who, bound by no favour and led by no partiality, freely and fearlessly speaks what he thinks, my testimony may deservedly claim attention. I have no connexion through kindred with the deceased, his heirs, or his posterity, and I expect on this account neither favour nor reward. What I have done is performed through a regard to the memory of the dead. I shall therefore relate what I have heard from old and respectable persons who have held offices in the city, and who seriously affirmed that they had heard what they told from their elders, whose authority ought justly to entitle them to credit.”

About a hundred and twenty-eight years ago,[III-61] Lawrence John, called the churchwarden or keeper,[III-62] from the profitable and honourable office which his family held by hereditary right, dwelt in a large house, which is yet standing entire, opposite the Royal Palace. This is the person who now on the most sacred ground of right puts forth his claims to the honour of having invented typography, an honour so nefariously obtained and possessed by others. Walking in a neighbouring wood, as citizens are accustomed to do after dinner and on holidays, he began to cut letters of beech-bark, with which for amusement, the letters being inverted as on a seal, he impressed short sentences on paper for the children of his son-in-law. Having succeeded so well in this, he began to think of more important undertakings, for he was a shrewd and ingenious man; and, in conjunction with his son-in-law Thomas Peter, he discovered a more glutinous and tenacious kind of ink, as he found from experience that the ink in common use occasioned blots. This Thomas Peter left four sons, all of whom were magistrates; and I mention this that all may know that the art derived its origin from a respectable and not from a mean family. He then printed whole figured pages with the text added. Of this kind I have seen specimens executed in the infancy of the art, being printed only on one side. This was a book composed in our native language by an anonymous author, and entitled _Speculum Nostræ Salutis_. In this we may observe that in the first productions of the art--for no invention is immediately perfected--the blank pages were pasted together, so that they might not appear as a defect. He afterwards exchanged his beech types for leaden ones, and subsequently he formed his types of tin, as being less flexible and of greater durability. Of the remains of these types certain old wine-vessels were cast, which are still preserved in the house formerly the residence of Lawrence, which, as I have said, looks into the market-place, and which was afterwards inhabited by his great-grandson Gerard Thomas, a citizen of repute, who died an old man a few years ago.

[Footnote III-61: Reckoning from 1568, the period referred to would be 1440.]

[Footnote III-62: “Ædituus Custosve.” The word “Koster” in modern Dutch is synonymous with the English “Sexton.”]

“The new invention being well received, and a new and unheard-of commodity finding on all sides purchasers, to the great profit of the inventor, he became more devoted to the art, his business was increased, and new workmen--the first cause of his misfortune--were employed. Among them was one called John; but whether, as is suspected, he bore the ominous surname of Faust,--_infaustus_[III-63] and unfaithful to his master--or whether it were some other John, I shall not labour to prove, as I do not wish to disturb the dead already enduring the pangs of conscience for what they had done when living.[III-64] This person, who was admitted under an oath to assist in printing, as soon as he thought he had attained the art of joining the letters, a knowledge of the fusile types, and other matters connected with the business, embracing the convenient opportunity of Christmas Eve, when all persons are accustomed to attend to their devotions, stole all the types and conveyed away all the utensils which his master had contrived by his own skill; and then leaving home with the thief, first went to Amsterdam, then to Cologne, and lastly to Mentz, as his altar of refuge, where being safely settled, beyond bowshot as they say, he might commence business, and thence derive a rich profit from the things which he had stolen. Within the space of a year from Christmas, 1442, it is certain that there appeared printed with the types which Lawrence had used at Harlem ‘_Alexandri Galli Doctrinale_,’ a grammar then in frequent use, with ‘_Petri Hispani Tractatus_.’

[Footnote III-63: “Sive is (ut fert suspicio) Faustus fuerit ominoso cognomine, hero suo infidus et infaustus.” The author here indulges in an ominous pun. The Latinised name “_Faustus_,” signifies lucky; the word “_infaustus_,” unlucky. The German name Füst may be literally translated “Fist.” A clenched hand is the crest of the family of Faust.]

[Footnote III-64: This is an admirable instance of candour. A charge is insinuated, and presumed to be a fact, and yet the writer kindly forbears to bring forward proof, that he may not disturb the dead. History has long since given the lie to the insinuation of the thief having been Faust.]

“The above is nearly what I have heard from old men worthy of credit who had received the tradition as a shining torch transferred from hand to hand, and I have heard the same related and affirmed by others. I remember being told by Nicholas Galius, the instructor of my youth,--a man of iron memory, and venerable from his long white hair,--that when a boy he had often heard one Cornelius, a bookbinder, not less than eighty years old (who had been an assistant in the same office), relate with such excited feelings the whole transaction,--the occasion of the invention, its progress, and perfection, as he had heard of them from his master,--that as often as he came to the story of the robbery he would burst into tears; and then the old man’s anger would be so roused on account of the honour that had been lost through the theft, that he appeared as if he could have hanged the thief had he been alive; and then again he would vow perdition on his sacrilegious head, and curse the nights that he had slept in the same bed with him, for the old man had been his bedfellow for some months. This does not differ from the words of Quirinus Talesius, who admitted to me that he had formerly received nearly the same account from the mouth of the same bookseller.”[III-65]

[Footnote III-65: Hadriani Junii Batavia, p. 253, et sequent. Edit. Ludg. Batavor. 1588.]

As Junius died upwards of twelve years before his book was published, it is doubtful whether the above account was actually written by him or not. It may have been an interpolation of an editor or a bookseller anxious for the honour of Harlem, and who might thus expect to gain currency for the story by giving it to the world under the sanction of Junius’s name. There was also another advantage attending this mode of publication; for as the reputed writer was dead, he could not be called on to answer the many objections which remain yet unexplained.

The manner in which Coster, according to the preceding account, first discovered the principle of obtaining impressions from separate letters formed of the bark of the beech-tree requires no remark.[III-66] There are, however, other parts of this narrative which more especially force themselves on the attention as being at variance with reason as well as fact.

[Footnote III-66: Scriverius--whose book was printed in 1628--thinking that there might be some objection raised to the letters of beech-bark, thus, according to his own fancy, amends the account of Cornelius as given by Junius: “Coster walking in the wood picked up a small bough of a beech, or rather of an oak-tree blown off by the wind; and after amusing himself with cutting some letters on it, wrapped it up in paper, and afterwards laid himself down to sleep. When he awoke, he perceived that the paper, by a shower of rain or some accident having got moist, had received an impression from these letters; which induced him to pursue the accidental discovery.” This is more imaginative than the account of Cornelius, but scarcely more probable.]

Coster, we are informed, lived in a large house, and, at the time of his engaging the workman who robbed him, he had brought the art to such perfection that he derived from it a great profit; and in consequence of the demand for the new commodity, which was eagerly sought after by purchasers, he was obliged to increase his establishment and engage assistants. It is therefore evident that the existence of such an art must have been well known, although its details might be kept secret. Coster, we are also informed, was of a respectable family; his grand-children were men of authority in the city, and a great-grandson of his died only a few years before Junius wrote, and yet not one of his friends or descendants made any complaint of the loss which Coster had sustained both in property and fame. Their apathy, however, was compensated by the ardour of old Cornelius, who used to shed involuntary tears whenever the theft was mentioned; and used to heap bitter curses on the head of the thief as often as he thought of the glory of which Coster and Harlem had been so villanously deprived. It is certainly very singular that a person of respectability and authority should be robbed of his materials and deprived of the honour of the invention, and yet neither himself nor any one of his kindred publicly denounce the thief; more especially as the place where he had established himself was known, and where in conjunction with others he had the frontless audacity to claim the honour of the invention.

Of Lawrence Coster, his invention, and his loss, the world knew nothing until he had been nearly a hundred and fifty years in his grave. The presumed writer of the account which had to do justice to his memory had been also twelve years dead when his book was published. His information, which he received when he was a boy, was derived from an old man who when a boy had heard it from another old man who lived with Coster at the time of the robbery, and who had heard the account of the invention from his master. Such is the list of the Harlem witnesses. If Junius had produced any evidence on the authority of Coster’s great-grandson that any of his predecessors--his father or his grandfather--had carried on the business of a printer at Harlem, this might in part have corroborated the narrative of Cornelius; but, though subsequent advocates of the claims of Harlem have asserted that Coster’s grand-children continued the printing business, no book or document has been discovered to establish the fact.

The account of Cornelius involves a contradiction which cannot be easily explained away. If the thief stole the whole or greater part of Coster’s printing materials,--types and press and all, as the narrative seems to imply,--it is difficult to conceive how he could do so without being discovered, even though the time chosen were Christmas Eve; for on an occasion when all or most people were engaged at their devotions, the fact of two persons being employed would in itself be a suspicious circumstance: a tenant with a small stock of furniture who wished to make a “moonlight flitting” would most likely be stopped if he attempted to remove his goods on a Sunday night. As the dishonest workman had an assistant, who is rather unaccountably called “_the_ thief,” it is evident from this circumstance, as well as from the express words of the narrative,[III-67] that the quantity of materials stolen must have been considerable. If, on the contrary, the thief only carried away a portion of the types and matrices, with a few other instruments,--“all that could be moved without manifest danger of immediate detection,” to use the words of Mr. Ottley,--what was there to prevent Coster from continuing the business of printing? Did he give up the lucrative trade which he had established, and disappoint his numerous customers, because a dishonest workman had stolen a few of his types? But even if every letter and matrice had been stolen,--though how likely this is to be true I shall leave every one conversant with typography to decide,--was the loss irreparable, and could this “shrewd and ingenious man” not reconstruct the types and other printing materials which he had originally contrived?

[Footnote III-67: “Choragium omne typorum involat, instrumentorum herilium ei artificio comparatorum suppelectilem convasat, deinde _cum fure_ domo se proripit.”--H. Junii Batavia, p. 255.]

If the business of Coster was continued uninterruptedly, and after his death carried on by his grand-children, we might naturally expect that some of the works which they printed could be produced, and that some record of their having practised such an art at Harlem would be in existence. The records of Harlem are however silent on the subject; no mention is made by any contemporary author, nor in any contemporary document, of Coster or his descendants as printers in that city; and no book printed by them has been discovered except by persons who decide upon the subject as if they were endowed with the faculty of intuitive discrimination. If Coster’s business had been suspended in consequence of the robbery, his customers, from all parts, who eagerly purchased the “new commodity,” must have been aware of the circumstance; and to suppose that it should not have been mentioned by some old writer, and that the claims of Coster should have lain dormant for a century and a half, exceeds my powers of belief. Where pretended truth can only be perceived by closing the eyes of reason I am content to remain ignorant; nor do I wish to trust myself to the unsafe bridge of conjecture--a rotten plank without a hand-rail,--

“O’er which lame faith leads understanding blind.”

If all Coster’s types had been stolen and he had not supplied himself with new ones, it would be difficult to account for the wine vessels which were cast from the old types; and if he or his heirs continued to print subsequent to the robbery, all that his advocates had to complain of was the theft. For since it must have been well known that he had discovered and practised the art, at least ten years previous to its known establishment at Mentz, and seventeen years before a book appeared with the name of the printers claiming the honour of the invention, the greatest injury which he received must have been from his fellow citizens; who perversely and wilfully would not recollect his previous discovery and do justice to his claims. Even supposing that a thief had stolen the whole of Coster’s printing-materials, types, chases, and presses, it by no means follows that he deprived of their memory not only all the citizens of Harlem, but all Coster’s customers who came from other places[III-68] to purchase the “new commodity” which his press supplied. Such however must have been the consequences of the robbery, if the narrative of Cornelius were true; for except himself no person seems to have remembered Coster’s invention, or that either he or his immediate descendants had ever printed a single book.

[Footnote III-68: “. . . . . quum nova merx, nunquam antea visa, emptores undique exciret cum huberrimo questu.”--Junii Batavia.]

Notwithstanding the internal evidence of the improbability of Cornelius’s account of Coster and his invention, its claims to credibility are still further weakened by those persons who have shown themselves most wishful to establish its truth. Lawrence Janszoon, whom Meerman and others suppose to have been the person described by Cornelius as the inventor of printing, appears to have been custos of the church of St. Bavon at Harlem in the years 1423, 1426, 1432 and 1433. His death is placed by Meerman in 1440; and as, according to the narrative of Cornelius, the types and other printing materials were stolen on Christmas eve 1441, the inventor of typography must have been in his grave at the time the robbery was committed. Cornelius must have known of his master’s death, and yet in his account of the robbery he makes no mention of Coster being dead at the time, nor of the business being carried on by his descendants after his decease. It was at one time supposed that Coster died of grief on the loss of his types, and on account of the thief claiming the honour of the invention. But this it seems is a mistake; he was dead according to Meerman at the time of the robbery, and the business was carried on by his grandchildren.

Koning has discovered that Cornelius the bookbinder died in 1522, aged at least ninety years. Allowing him to have been ninety-two, this assistant in Coster’s printing establishment, and who learnt the account of the invention and improvement of the art from Coster himself, must have been just ten years old when his master died; and yet upon the improbable and uncorroborated testimony of this person are the claims of Coster founded.

Lehne, in his “Chronology of the Harlem fiction,”[III-69] thus remarks on the authorities, Galius, and Talesius, referred to by Junius as evidences of its truth. As Cornelius was upwards of eighty when he related the story to Nicholas Galius, who was then a boy, this must have happened about 1510. The boy Galius we will suppose to have been at that time about fifteen years old: Junius was born in 1511, and we will suppose that he was under the care of Nicholas Galius, the instructor of his youth, until he was fifteen; that is, until 1526. In this year Galius, the man venerable from his grey hairs, would be only thirty-six years old, an age at which grey hairs are premature. Grey hairs are only venerable in old age, and it is not usual to praise a young man’s faculty of recollection in the style in which Junius lauds the “iron memory” of his teacher. Talesius, as Koning states, was born in 1505, and consequently six years older than Junius; and on the death of Cornelius, in 1522, he would be seventeen, and Junius eleven years old. Junius might in his eleventh year have heard the whole account from Cornelius himself in the same manner as the latter when only ten must have heard it from Coster; and it is remarkable that Galius who was so well acquainted with Cornelius did not afford his pupil the opportunity. We thus perceive that in the whole of this affair children and old men play the principal parts, and both ages are proverbially addicted to narratives which savour of the marvellous.

[Footnote III-69: In “Einige Bemerkungen über das Unternehmen der gelehrten Gesellschaft zu Harlem,” &c. S. 31.]

Meerman, writing to his correspondent Wagenaar in 1757, expresses his utter disbelief in the story of Coster being the inventor of typography, which, he observes, was daily losing credit: whatever historical evidence Seiz had brought forward in favour of Coster was gratuitously assumed; in short, the whole story of the invention was a fiction.[III-70] After the publication of Schœpflin’s Vindiciæ Typographicæ in 1760, giving proofs of Gutemberg having been engaged in 1438 with some invention relating to _printing_, and in which a _press_ was employed, Meerman appears to have received a new light; for in 1765 he published his own work in support of the very story which he had previously declared to be undeserving of credit. The mere change, however, of a writer’s opinions cannot alter the immutable character of truth; and the guesses and assumptions with which he may endeavour to gloss a fiction can never give to it the solidity of fact. What he has said of the work of Seiz in support of Coster’s claims may with equal truth be applied to his own arguments in the same cause: “Whatever historical evidence he has brought forward in favour of Coster has been gratuitously assumed.” Meerman’s work, like the story which it was written to support, “is daily losing credit.” It is a dangerous book for an advocate of Coster to quote; for he has scarcely advanced an argument in favour of Coster, and in proof of his stolen types being the foundation of typography at Mentz, but what is contradicted by a positive fact.

[Footnote III-70: Santander has published a French translation of this letter in his Dictionnaire Bibliographique, tom. i. pp. 14-18.]

In order to make the documentary evidence produced by Schœpflin in favour of Gutemberg in some degree correspond with the story of Cornelius, Junius’s authority, he has assumed that Gutemberg had an elder brother also called John; and that he was known as Gænsfleisch the elder, while his younger brother was called by way of distinction Gutemberg. In support of this assumption he refers to Wimpheling,[III-71] who in one place has called the inventor Gænsfleisch, and in another Gutemberg; and he also supposes that the two epitaphs which have been given at page 144, relate to two different persons. The first, inscribed by Adam Gelthaus to the memory of John _Gænsfleisch_, he concludes to have been intended for the elder brother. The second, inscribed by Ivo Wittich to the memory of John _Gutemberg_, he supposes to relate to the younger brother, and to have been erected from a feeling of envy. The fact of Gutemberg being also named Gænsfleisch in several contemporary documents, is not allowed to stand in the way of Meerman’s hypothesis of the two “brother Johns,” which has been supposed to be corroborated by the fact of a John Gænsfleisch the Elder being actually the contemporary of John Gænsfleisch called also Gutemberg.

[Footnote III-71: Wimpheling, who was born at Sletstadt in 1451, thus addresses the inventor of printing,--whose name, Gænsfleisch, he Latinises “Ansicarus,”--in an epigram printed at the end of “Memoriæ Marsilii ab Inghen,” 4to. 1499.

“Felix _Ansicare_, per te Germania felix Omnibus in terris præmia laudis habet. Urbe Moguntina, divino fulte Joannes Ingenio, primus imprimis ære notas. Multum Relligio, multum tibi Græca sophia, Et multum debet lingua Latina.”

In his “Epitome Rerum Germanicarum,” 1502, he says that the art of printing was discovered at Strasburg in 1440 by a native of that city, who afterwards removing to Mentz there perfected the art. In his “Episcoporum Argentinensium Catalogus,” 1508, he says that printing was invented by a native of Strasburg, and that when the inventor had joined some other persons engaged on the same invention at Mentz, the art was there perfected by one John Gænsfleisch, who was blind through age, in the house called Gutemberg, in which, in 1508, the College of Justice held its sittings. Wimpheling does not seem to have known that Gænsfleisch was also called Gutemberg, and that his first attempts at printing were made in Strasburg.]

Having thus provided Gutemberg with an elder brother also named John, Meerman proceeds to find him employment; for at the period of his writing much light had been thrown on the early history of printing, and no person in the least acquainted with the subject could believe that Faust was the thief who stole Coster’s types, as had been insinuated by Junius and affirmed by Boxhorn and Scriverius. Gænsfleisch the Elder is accordingly sent by Meerman to Harlem, and there engaged as a workman in Lawrence Coster’s printing office. It is needless to ask if there be any proof of this: Meerman having introduced a new character into the Harlem farce may claim the right of employing him as he pleases. As there is evidence of Gutemberg, or Gænsfleisch the Younger, being engaged at Strasburg about 1436 in some experiments connected with printing, and mention being made in the same documents of the fair of Aix-la-Chapelle, Meerman sends him there in 1435. From Aix-la-Chapelle, as the distance is not very great, Meerman makes him pay a visit to his elder brother, then working as a printer in Coster’s office at Harlem. He thus has an opportunity of seeing Coster’s printing establishment, and of gaining some information respecting the art, and hence his attempts at printing at Strasburg in 1436. In 1441 he supposes that John Gænsfleisch the Elder stole his master’s types, and printed with them, at Mentz, in 1442, “Alexandri Galli Doctrinale,” and “Petri Hispani Tractatus,” as related by Junius. As this trumpery story rests solely on the conjecture of the writer, it might be briefly dismissed for reconsideration when the proofs should be produced; but as Heineken[III-72] has afforded the means of showing its utter falsity, it may perhaps be worth while to notice some of the facts produced by him respecting the family and proceedings of Gutemberg.

[Footnote III-72: Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 1te. Theil, S. 286-293.]

John Gænsfleisch the Elder, whom Meerman makes Gutemberg’s elder brother, was descended from a branch of the numerous family of Gænsfleisch, which was also known by the local names of zum Jungen, Gutenberg or Gutemberg, and Sorgenloch. This person, whom Meerman engages as a workman with Coster, was a man of property; and at the time that we are given to understand he was residing at Harlem, we have evidence of his being married and having children born to him at Mentz. This objection, however, could easily be answered by the ingenuity of a Dutch commentator, who, as he has made the husband a thief, would find no difficulty in providing him with a suitable wife. He would also be very likely to bring forward the presumed misconduct of the wife in support of his hypothesis of the husband being a thief. John Gænsfleisch the Elder was married to Ketgin, daughter of Nicholas Jostenhofer of Schenkenberg, on the Thursday after St. Agnes’s day, 1437. In 1439 his wife bore him a son named Michael; and in 1442 another son, who died in infancy. In 1441 we have evidence of his residing at Mentz; for in that year his relation Rudiger zum Landeck appeared before a judge to give Gænsfleisch an acknowledgment of his having properly discharged his duties as trustee, and of his having delivered up to the said Rudiger the property left to him by his father and mother.

That John Gænsfleisch the Elder printed “Alexandri Galli Doctrinale,” and “Petri Hispani Tractatus,” at Mentz in 1442 with the types which he had stolen from Coster, is as improbable as every other part of the story. There is, in fact, not the slightest reason to believe that the works in question were printed at Mentz in 1442, or that any book was printed there with types until nearly eight years after that period. In opposition, however, to a host of historical evidence we have the assertion of Cornelius, who told the tale to Galius, who told it to Junius, who told it to the world.

Meerman’s web of sophistry and fiction having been brushed away by Heineken, a modern advocate of Coster’s undertook to spin another, which has also been swept down by a German critic. Jacobus Koning,[III-73] town-clerk of Amsterdam, having learnt from a document printed by Fischer, that Gutemberg had a brother named Friele, sends him to Harlem to work with Coster, and makes him the thief who stole the types; thus copying Meerman’s plot, and merely substituting Gutemberg’s known brother for John Gænsfleisch the Elder. On this attempt of Koning’s to make the old sieve hold water by plastering it with his own mud, Lehne[III-74] makes the following remarks:--

“He gives up the name of John,--although it might be supposed that old Cornelius would have known the name of his bedfellow better than Koning,--and without hesitation charges Gutemberg’s brother with the theft. In order to flatter the vain-glory of the Harlemers, poor Friele, after he had been nearly four hundred years in his grave, is publicly accused of robbery on no other ground than that Mynheer Koning had occasion for a thief. It is, however, rather unfortunate for the credit of the story that this Friele should have been the founder of one of the first families in Mentz, of the order of knighthood, and possessed of great property both in the city and the neighbourhood. Is it likely that this person should have been engaged as a workman in the employment of the Harlem churchwarden, and that he should have robbed him of his types in order to convey them to his brother, who then lived at Strasburg, and who had been engaged in his own invention at least three years before, as is proved by the process between him and the Drytzehns published by Schœpflin? From this specimen of insulting and unjust accusation on a subject of literary inquiry, we may congratulate the city of Amsterdam that Mynheer Koning is but a law-writer and not a judge, should he be not more just as a man than as an author.”

[Footnote III-73: In a Memoir on the Invention of Printing, which was crowned by the Academy of Sciences at Harlem in 1816.]

[Footnote III-74: Einige Bemerkungen, &c. S. 18, 19.]

In a book of old accounts belonging to the city of Harlem, and extending from April 1439 to April 1440, Koning having discovered at least nine entries of expenses incurred on account of messengers despatched to the Justice-Court of Amsterdam, he concludes that there must have been some conference between the judges of Harlem and Amsterdam on the subject of Coster’s robbery. There is not a word mentioned in the entries on what account the messengers were despatched, but he decides that it must have been on some business connected with this robbery, for the first messenger was despatched on the last day of the Christmas holidays; and the thief, according to the account of Junius, made choice of Christmas-eve as the most likely opportunity for effecting his purpose. To this most logical conclusion there happens to be an objection, which however Mynheer Koning readily disposes of. The first messenger was despatched on the last day of the Christmas holidays 1439, and the accounts terminate in April 1440; but according to the narrative of Cornelius the robbery was committed on Christmas-eve 1441. This trifling discrepancy is however easily accounted for by the fact of the Dutch at that period reckoning the commencement of the year from Easter, and by supposing,--as the date is printed in numerals,--that Junius might have written 1442, instead of 1441, as the time when the two books appeared at Mentz printed with the stolen types, and within a year after the robbery. Notwithstanding this _satisfactory_ explanation there still remains a trifling error to be rectified, and it will doubtless give the clear-headed advocate of Coster very little trouble. Admitting that the accounts are for the year commencing at Easter 1440 and ending at Easter 1441, it is rather difficult to comprehend how they should contain any notice of an event which happened at the Christmas following. The Harlem scribe possibly might have the gift of seeing into futurity as clearly as Mynheer Koning has the gift of seeing into the past. The arguments derived from paper-marks which Koning has advanced in favour of Coster are not worthy of serious notice.

He has found, as Meerman did before him, that one Lawrence Janszoon was living in Harlem between 1420 and 1436, and that his name occurs within that period as custos or warden of St. Bavon’s church. As he is never called “Coster,” a name acquired by the family, according to Junius, in consequence of the office which they enjoyed by hereditary right, the identity of Lawrence Janszoon and Lawrence Coster is by no means clearly established; and even if it were, the sole evidence of his having been a printer rests on the testimony of Cornelius, who was scarcely ten years old when Lawrence Janszoon died. The correctness of Cornelius’s narrative is questioned both by Meerman and Koning whenever his statements do not accord with their theory, and yet they require others to believe the most incredible of his assertions. They themselves throw doubts on the evidence of their own witness, and yet require their opponents to receive as true his deposition on the most important point in dispute---that Coster invented typography previous to 1441,--a point on which he is positively contradicted by more than twenty authors who wrote previous to 1500; and negatively by the silence of Coster’s contemporaries. Supposing that the account of Cornelius had been published in 1488 instead of 1588, it would be of very little weight unless corroborated by the testimony of others who must have been as well aware of Coster’s invention as himself; for the silence of contemporary writers on the subject of an important invention or memorable event, will always be of greater negative authority than the unsupported assertion of an individual who when an old man professes to relate what he had heard and seen when a boy. If therefore the uncorroborated testimony of Cornelius would be so little worth, even if published in 1488, of what value can it be printed in 1588, in the name of a person who was then dead, and who could not be called on to explain the discrepancies of his part of the narrative? Whatever might be the original value of Cornelius’s testimony, it is deteriorated by the channel through which it descends to us. He told it to a boy, who, when an old man, told it to another boy, who when nearly sixty years old inserts it in a book which he is writing, but which is not printed until twelve years after his death.

It is singular how Mr. Ottley, who contends for the truth of Papillon’s story of the Cunio, and who maintains that the art of engraving figures and text upon wood was well known and practised previous to 1285, should believe the account given by Cornelius of the origin of Coster’s invention. If he does not believe this part of the account, with what consistency can he require other people to give credit to the rest? With respect to the origin and progress of the invention, Cornelius was as likely to be correctly informed as he was with regard to the theft and the establishment of printing at Mentz; if therefore Coster’s advocates themselves establish the incorrectness of his testimony in the first part of the story, they destroy the general credibility of his evidence.

With respect to the fragments of “Alexandri Galli Doctrinale” and “Catonis Disticha” which have been discovered, printed with the same, or similar types as the Speculum Salvationis, no good argument can be founded on them in support of Coster’s claims, although the facts which they establish are decisive of the fallacy of Meerman’s assumptions. In order to suit his own theory, he was pleased to assert that the first edition of the Speculum was the only one of that book printed by Coster, and that it was printed with wooden types. Mr. Ottley has, however, shown that the edition which Meerman and others supposed to be the first was in reality the second; and that the presumed second was unquestionably the first, and that the text was throughout printed with metal types by means of a press. It is thus the fate of all Coster’s advocates that the last should always produce some fact directly contradicting his predecessors’ speculations, but not one confirmatory of the truth of the story on which all their arguments are based. Meerman questions the accuracy of Cornelius as reported by Junius; Meerman’s arguments are rejected by Koning; and Mr. Ottley, who espouses the same cause, has from his diligent collation of two different editions of the Speculum afforded a convincing proof that on a most material point all his predecessors are wrong. His inquiries have established beyond a doubt, that the text of the first edition of the Speculum was printed wholly with metal types; and that in the second the text was printed partly from metal types by means of a press, and partly from wood-blocks by means of friction. The assertion that Coster printed the first edition with wooden types, and that his grandsons and successors printed the second edition with types of metal, is thus most clearly refuted. As no printer’s name has been discovered in any of the fragments referred to, it is uncertain where or when they were printed. It however seems more likely that they were printed in Holland or the Low Countries than in Germany. The presumption of their antiquity in consequence of their rarity is not a good ground of argument. Of an edition of a “Donatus,” printed by Sweinheim and Pannartz, between 1465 and 1470, and consisting of three hundred copies, not one is known to exist. From sundry fragments of a “Donatus,” embellished with the same ornamented small capitals as are used in Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter, Fischer was pleased to conjecture that the book had been printed by Gutemberg and Faust previous to 1455. A copy, however, has been discovered bearing the imprint of Scheffer, and printed, in all probability, subsequent to 1467, as it is in this year that Scheffer’s name first appears alone. The “Historia Alexandri Magni,” pretendedly printed with wooden types, and ascribed by Meerman to Coster, was printed by Ketelar and Leempt, who first established a printing-office at Utrecht in 1473.

John Enschedius, a letter-founder and printer of Harlem, and a strenuous assertor of Coster’s pretensions, discovered a very curious specimen of typography which he and others have supposed to be the identical “short sentences” mentioned by Junius as having been printed by Coster for the instruction of his grand-children. This unique specimen of typography consists of eight small pages, each being about one inch and six-eighths high, by one and five-eighths wide, printed on parchment and on both sides. The contents are an alphabet; the Lord’s Prayer; the Creed; the Ave Mary; and two short prayers, all in Latin. Meerman has given a fac-simile of all the eight pages in the second volume of his “Origines Typographicæ;”[III-75] and if this be correct, I am strongly inclined to suspect that this singular “Horarium” is a modern forgery. The letters are rudely formed, and the shape of some of the pages is irregular; but the whole appears to me rather as an imitation of rudeness and a studied irregularity, than as the first essay of an inventor. There are very few contractions in the words; and though the letters are rudely formed, and there are no points, yet I have seen no early specimen of typography which is so easy to read. It is apparent that the printer, whoever he might be, did not forget that the little manual was intended for children. The letters I am positive could not be thus printed with types formed of beech-bark; and I am further of opinion that they were not, and could not be, printed with moveable types of wood. I am also certain that, whatever might be the material of which the types were formed, those letters could only be printed on parchment on both sides by means of a press. The most strenuous of Coster’s advocates have not ventured to assert that he was acquainted with the use of metal types in 1423, the pretended date of his first printing short sentences for the use of his grand-children, nor have any of them suggested that he used a press for the purpose of obtaining impressions from his letters of beech-bark; how then can it be pretended with any degree of consistency that this “Horarium” agrees exactly with the description of Cornelius? It is said that Enschedius discovered this singular specimen of typography pasted in the cover of an old book. It is certainly such a one as he was most wishful to find, and which he in his capacity of typefounder and printer would find little difficulty in producing. I am firmly convinced that it is neither printed with wooden types nor a specimen of early typography; on the contrary, I suspect it to be a Dutch typographic essay on popular credulity.

[Footnote III-75: Enschedius published a fac-simile himself, with the following title: “Afbeelding van ’t A. B. C. ’t Pater Noster, Ave Maria, ’t Credo, en Ave Salus Mundi, door Laurens Janszoon, te Haarlem, ten behoeven van zyne dochters Kinderen, met beweegbaare Letteren gedrukt, en teffens aangeweesen de groote der Stukjes pergament, zekerlyk ’t oudste overblyfsel der eerste Boekdrukkery, ’t welk als zulk een eersteling der Konst bewaard word en berust in de Boekery van _Joannes Enschedé_, Lettergieter en Boekdrukker te Haarlem, 1768.--_A. J. Polak sculps. ex originali._”]

Of all the works which have been claimed for Coster, his advocates have not succeeded in making out his title to a single one; and the best evidence of the fallacy of his claims is to be found in the writings of those persons by whom they have been most confidently asserted. Having no theory of my own to support, and having no predilection in favour of Gutemberg, I was long inclined to think that there might be some rational foundation for the claims which have been so confidently advanced in favour of Harlem. An examination, however, of the presumed proofs and arguments adduced by Coster’s advocates has convinced me that the claims put forward on his behalf, as the inventor of typography, are untenable. They have certainly discovered that a person of the name of Lawrence Janszoon was living at Harlem between the years 1420 and 1440, but they have not been able to show anything in proof of this person ever having printed any book either from wood-blocks or with moveable types. There is indeed reason to believe that at the period referred to there were three persons of the name of Lawrence Janszoon,--or Fitz-John, as the surname may be rendered;--but to which of them the pretended invention is to be ascribed is a matter of doubt. At one time we find the inventor described as an illegitimate scion of the noble family of Brederode, which was descended from the ancient sovereigns of Holland; at another he is said to have been called Coster in consequence of the office of custos or warden of St. Bavon’s church being hereditary in his family; and in a third account we find Lawrence Janszoon figuring as a promoter of sedition and one of the leaders of a body of rioters. The advocates for the claims of Harlem have brought forward every Lawrence that they could find at that period whose father’s name was John; as if the more they could produce the more conclusive would be the _proof_ of one of them at least being the inventor of printing. As the books which are ascribed to Coster furnish positive evidence of the incorrectness of the story of Cornelius and of the comments of Meerman; and as records, which are now matters of history, prove that neither Gutemberg nor Faust stole any types from Coster or his descendants, the next supporter of the claims of Harlem will have to begin _de novo_; and lest the palm should be awarded to the wrong Lawrence Janszoon, he ought first to ascertain which of them is really the hero of the old bookbinder’s tale.