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 the147testimony 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.58It 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.59In 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 of148altering, 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.60who, 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.”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.”Abouta hundred and twenty-eight years ago,III.61Lawrence John, called the churchwarden or keeper,III.62from 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 is149the 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 entitledSpeculum 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.“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,—infaustusIII.63and 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.64This person, who was admitted under an oath to assist in printing, as soon as he thought he had attained150the 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.’“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.65As 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 separate151letters formed of the bark of the beech-tree requires no remark.III.66There 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.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 authority152of 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 “thethief,” it is evident from this circumstance, as well as from the express words of the narrative,III.67that 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?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 been153suspended 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 placesIII.68to 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.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 he154makes 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.69thus 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.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 gratuitously155assumed; in short, the whole story of the invention was a fiction.III.70After the publication of Schœpflin’s Vindiciæ Typographicæ in 1760, giving proofs of Gutemberg having been engaged in 1438 with some invention relating toprinting, and in which apresswas 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.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.71156who 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 JohnGænsfleisch, he concludes to have been intended for the elder brother. The second, inscribed by Ivo Wittich to the memory of JohnGutemberg, 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.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 HeinekenIII.72has 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.John Gænsfleisch the Elder, whom Meerman makes Gutemberg’s elder brother, was descended from a branch of the numerous family of157Gænsfleisch, 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.73town-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, LehneIII.74makes 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 better158than 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.”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 thissatisfactoryexplanation 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 1440159and 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 of160engraving 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 Sweinheim161and 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 byKetelarand 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.75and 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 on162parchment 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.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 be163theproofof 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 beginde 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.see textIII.1Nouvelles 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.III.2The following is the French translation of Monsieur Desroches: “En ces temps mourut de la mort commune à tous les hommes, Louiscet 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’airenduVedelarepar ‘faiseur d’instrumens de musique.’ Le mot radicalest vedel, violin: par consequent,Vedelaredoit 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.III.3Lettre 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.III.4Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, § De Prenteris ante inventam Typographiam, p. 140.—Lambinet, Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 115.III.5Reflexions sur deux pièces relatives à l’Hist. de l’Imprimerie. Nivelles, 1780.—Lambinet, Recherches, p. 394.III.6Friedrich 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.III.7This 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.III.8Mallinkrot 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.III.9Angelus 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 hicDonatusetConfessionaliaprimùm omnium annoMCCCCL. Admonitus certè fuit exDonatoHollandiæ, 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.III.10Schwartz 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.III.11“Morabatur autem prædictus Joannes Gutenberg Moguntiæ in domozum Jungen, quæ domus usque in præsentem diem [1513] illius novæ Artis nomine noscitur insignita.”—Trithemii Chronicum Spanhemiense, ad annum 1450.III.12In the release which he grants to the town-clerk of Mentz, in 1434, he describes himself as, “Johann Gensefleisch der Junge, genant Gutemberg.”III.13In “Het derde Jubeljaer der uitgevondene Boekdrukkonst door Laurens Jansz Koster,” p. 71. Harlem, 1740.—Oberlin, Essai d’Annales.III.14The release is given in Schœpflin’s Vindiciæ Typographicæ, Documentum I.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.III.16When 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.III.17This decision is dated “On the Eve of St. Lucia and St. Otilia, [12th December,] 1439.”III.18Traité 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.III.19“Andres Dritzehn uwer bruder selige hat iiij stücke undenan inn einerpressenligen, 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.III.20“Nym die stücke usz derpressenundzerlegesü 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 wordzerlegen,” 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 “formskept together bytwo screwsor press-spindles.”—Life of Caxton, in his edition of Ames’s and Herbert’s Typ. Antiq. p. lxxxvii. note.III.21St. 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.III.22“Dirre gezuge hat ouch geseit das er wol wisse das Gutenberg unlange vor Wihnahten sinen kneht sante zu den beden Andresen, alleformenzu 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.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 demtruckengehöret”—Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 13.III.24The 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, parMasso 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.III.25Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Jean Gutenberg, par Jer. J. Oberlin. 8vo. Strasbourg, An ix. [1802.]III.26Trithemii Annales Hirsaugienses, tom. ii. ad annum 1450. The original passage is printed in Prosper Marchand’s Histoire de l’Imprimerie, 2nde Partie, p. 7.III.27Vindiciæ Typographicæ, pp. 77, 78.III.28In 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 manupueri meifeliciter 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, myboy” by whose hand—not by his ingenuity—John Faust exercises a certain beautiful art.III.29Henry 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.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.III.31“. . . . und dasJohannes[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.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.III.33Mercier, 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.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 unDonatet queTrithemnomme unCatholicon, (livre universel,) ce qu’on a confondu ensuite avec le grand ouvrage intituléCatholicon Januensis.”—Idée Générale, p. 258.III.35Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.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.III.37Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.III.38Dr. Dibdin, Bibliog. Tour, vol iii. p. 135, second edition.III.39Gotthelf 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.”III.40It 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.III.41In most of the early printed books the capitals were left to be inserted in red ink by the pen or pencil of the “rubricator.”III.42There 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.III.43Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 20, 3te. Lieferung.III.44Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 135.III.45Oberlin says that “Ville-Ostein” lies near Erfurth, and is in the diocese of Mentz.III.46Index librorum sub incunabula typograph. impressorum. 1739; cited by Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 21, 3te. Lieferung.III.47Philippi 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.III.48Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 44, 1ste. Lieferung. In this instrument Gutemberg describes himself as “Henne Genssfleisch von Sulgeloch, genennt Gudinberg.”III.49Primaria quædam Document. pp. 26-34.III.50“. . . . per henricum bechtermuncze pie memorie in altavilla est inchoatum. et demū sub anno dñiM.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.III.51Typographisch. Seltenheit. S. 101, 5te. Lieferung.III.52The 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.III.53St. Matthias’s Day is on 24th February.III.54In 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.III.55Serarii Historia Mogunt. lib. 1. cap. xxxvii. p. 159. Heineken, Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 2te. Theil, S. 299.III.56In 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.III.57On the Pleasures and Advantages of Science, p. 160. Edit. 1831.III.58Ludovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi: folio, Anversa, 1581. The original passage is given by Meerman. The original wordsaltre 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.”III.59Junius 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.”III.60Koning’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.III.61Reckoning from 1568, the period referred to would be 1440.III.62“Ædituus Custosve.” The word “Koster” in modern Dutch is synonymous with the English “Sexton.”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.III.64This 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.III.65Hadriani Junii Batavia, p. 253, et sequent. Edit. Ludg. Batavor. 1588.III.66Scriverius—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.III.67“Choragium omne typorum involat, instrumentorum herilium ei artificio comparatorum suppelectilem convasat, deindecum furedomo se proripit.”—H. Junii Batavia, p. 255.III.68“. . . . . quum nova merx, nunquam antea visa, emptores undique exciret cum huberrimo questu.”—Junii Batavia.III.69In “Einige Bemerkungen über das Unternehmen der gelehrten Gesellschaft zu Harlem,” &c. S. 31.III.70Santander has published a French translation of this letter in his Dictionnaire Bibliographique, tom. i. pp. 14-18.III.71Wimpheling, 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.“FelixAnsicare, per te Germania felixOmnibus in terris præmia laudis habet.Urbe Moguntina, divino fulte JoannesIngenio, 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.III.72Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 1te. Theil, S. 286-293.III.73In a Memoir on the Invention of Printing, which was crowned by the Academy of Sciences at Harlem in 1816.III.74Einige Bemerkungen, &c. S. 18, 19.III.75Enschedius 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 vanJoannes Enschedé, Lettergieter en Boekdrukker te Haarlem, 1768.—A. J. Polak sculps. ex originali.”
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 the147testimony 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
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.59In 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 of148altering, 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.60who, 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.”
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.”
Abouta hundred and twenty-eight years ago,III.61Lawrence John, called the churchwarden or keeper,III.62from 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 is149the 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 entitledSpeculum 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.
“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,—infaustusIII.63and 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.64This person, who was admitted under an oath to assist in printing, as soon as he thought he had attained150the 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.’
“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
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 separate151letters formed of the bark of the beech-tree requires no remark.III.66There 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.
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 authority152of 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 “thethief,” it is evident from this circumstance, as well as from the express words of the narrative,III.67that 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?
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 been153suspended 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 placesIII.68to 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.
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 he154makes 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.69thus 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.
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 gratuitously155assumed; in short, the whole story of the invention was a fiction.III.70After the publication of Schœpflin’s Vindiciæ Typographicæ in 1760, giving proofs of Gutemberg having been engaged in 1438 with some invention relating toprinting, and in which apresswas 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.
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.71156who 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 JohnGænsfleisch, he concludes to have been intended for the elder brother. The second, inscribed by Ivo Wittich to the memory of JohnGutemberg, 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.
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 HeinekenIII.72has 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.
John Gænsfleisch the Elder, whom Meerman makes Gutemberg’s elder brother, was descended from a branch of the numerous family of157Gænsfleisch, 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.73town-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, LehneIII.74makes 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 better158than 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.”
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 thissatisfactoryexplanation 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 1440159and 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 of160engraving 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 Sweinheim161and 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 byKetelarand 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.75and 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 on162parchment 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.
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 be163theproofof 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 beginde 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.
see text
III.1Nouvelles 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.III.2The following is the French translation of Monsieur Desroches: “En ces temps mourut de la mort commune à tous les hommes, Louiscet 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’airenduVedelarepar ‘faiseur d’instrumens de musique.’ Le mot radicalest vedel, violin: par consequent,Vedelaredoit 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.III.3Lettre 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.III.4Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, § De Prenteris ante inventam Typographiam, p. 140.—Lambinet, Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 115.III.5Reflexions sur deux pièces relatives à l’Hist. de l’Imprimerie. Nivelles, 1780.—Lambinet, Recherches, p. 394.III.6Friedrich 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.III.7This 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.III.8Mallinkrot 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.III.9Angelus 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 hicDonatusetConfessionaliaprimùm omnium annoMCCCCL. Admonitus certè fuit exDonatoHollandiæ, 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.III.10Schwartz 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.III.11“Morabatur autem prædictus Joannes Gutenberg Moguntiæ in domozum Jungen, quæ domus usque in præsentem diem [1513] illius novæ Artis nomine noscitur insignita.”—Trithemii Chronicum Spanhemiense, ad annum 1450.III.12In the release which he grants to the town-clerk of Mentz, in 1434, he describes himself as, “Johann Gensefleisch der Junge, genant Gutemberg.”III.13In “Het derde Jubeljaer der uitgevondene Boekdrukkonst door Laurens Jansz Koster,” p. 71. Harlem, 1740.—Oberlin, Essai d’Annales.III.14The release is given in Schœpflin’s Vindiciæ Typographicæ, Documentum I.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.III.16When 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.III.17This decision is dated “On the Eve of St. Lucia and St. Otilia, [12th December,] 1439.”III.18Traité 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.III.19“Andres Dritzehn uwer bruder selige hat iiij stücke undenan inn einerpressenligen, 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.III.20“Nym die stücke usz derpressenundzerlegesü 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 wordzerlegen,” 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 “formskept together bytwo screwsor press-spindles.”—Life of Caxton, in his edition of Ames’s and Herbert’s Typ. Antiq. p. lxxxvii. note.III.21St. 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.III.22“Dirre gezuge hat ouch geseit das er wol wisse das Gutenberg unlange vor Wihnahten sinen kneht sante zu den beden Andresen, alleformenzu 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.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 demtruckengehöret”—Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 13.III.24The 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, parMasso 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.III.25Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Jean Gutenberg, par Jer. J. Oberlin. 8vo. Strasbourg, An ix. [1802.]III.26Trithemii Annales Hirsaugienses, tom. ii. ad annum 1450. The original passage is printed in Prosper Marchand’s Histoire de l’Imprimerie, 2nde Partie, p. 7.III.27Vindiciæ Typographicæ, pp. 77, 78.III.28In 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 manupueri meifeliciter 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, myboy” by whose hand—not by his ingenuity—John Faust exercises a certain beautiful art.III.29Henry 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.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.III.31“. . . . und dasJohannes[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.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.III.33Mercier, 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.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 unDonatet queTrithemnomme unCatholicon, (livre universel,) ce qu’on a confondu ensuite avec le grand ouvrage intituléCatholicon Januensis.”—Idée Générale, p. 258.III.35Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.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.III.37Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.III.38Dr. Dibdin, Bibliog. Tour, vol iii. p. 135, second edition.III.39Gotthelf 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.”III.40It 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.III.41In most of the early printed books the capitals were left to be inserted in red ink by the pen or pencil of the “rubricator.”III.42There 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.III.43Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 20, 3te. Lieferung.III.44Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 135.III.45Oberlin says that “Ville-Ostein” lies near Erfurth, and is in the diocese of Mentz.III.46Index librorum sub incunabula typograph. impressorum. 1739; cited by Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 21, 3te. Lieferung.III.47Philippi 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.III.48Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 44, 1ste. Lieferung. In this instrument Gutemberg describes himself as “Henne Genssfleisch von Sulgeloch, genennt Gudinberg.”III.49Primaria quædam Document. pp. 26-34.III.50“. . . . per henricum bechtermuncze pie memorie in altavilla est inchoatum. et demū sub anno dñiM.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.III.51Typographisch. Seltenheit. S. 101, 5te. Lieferung.III.52The 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.III.53St. Matthias’s Day is on 24th February.III.54In 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.III.55Serarii Historia Mogunt. lib. 1. cap. xxxvii. p. 159. Heineken, Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 2te. Theil, S. 299.III.56In 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.III.57On the Pleasures and Advantages of Science, p. 160. Edit. 1831.III.58Ludovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi: folio, Anversa, 1581. The original passage is given by Meerman. The original wordsaltre 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.”III.59Junius 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.”III.60Koning’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.III.61Reckoning from 1568, the period referred to would be 1440.III.62“Ædituus Custosve.” The word “Koster” in modern Dutch is synonymous with the English “Sexton.”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.III.64This 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.III.65Hadriani Junii Batavia, p. 253, et sequent. Edit. Ludg. Batavor. 1588.III.66Scriverius—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.III.67“Choragium omne typorum involat, instrumentorum herilium ei artificio comparatorum suppelectilem convasat, deindecum furedomo se proripit.”—H. Junii Batavia, p. 255.III.68“. . . . . quum nova merx, nunquam antea visa, emptores undique exciret cum huberrimo questu.”—Junii Batavia.III.69In “Einige Bemerkungen über das Unternehmen der gelehrten Gesellschaft zu Harlem,” &c. S. 31.III.70Santander has published a French translation of this letter in his Dictionnaire Bibliographique, tom. i. pp. 14-18.III.71Wimpheling, 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.“FelixAnsicare, per te Germania felixOmnibus in terris præmia laudis habet.Urbe Moguntina, divino fulte JoannesIngenio, 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.III.72Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 1te. Theil, S. 286-293.III.73In a Memoir on the Invention of Printing, which was crowned by the Academy of Sciences at Harlem in 1816.III.74Einige Bemerkungen, &c. S. 18, 19.III.75Enschedius 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 vanJoannes Enschedé, Lettergieter en Boekdrukker te Haarlem, 1768.—A. J. Polak sculps. ex originali.”
III.1Nouvelles 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.
III.2The following is the French translation of Monsieur Desroches: “En ces temps mourut de la mort commune à tous les hommes, Louiscet 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’airenduVedelarepar ‘faiseur d’instrumens de musique.’ Le mot radicalest vedel, violin: par consequent,Vedelaredoit 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.
III.3Lettre 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.
III.4Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, § De Prenteris ante inventam Typographiam, p. 140.—Lambinet, Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 115.
III.5Reflexions sur deux pièces relatives à l’Hist. de l’Imprimerie. Nivelles, 1780.—Lambinet, Recherches, p. 394.
III.6Friedrich 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.
III.7This 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.
III.8Mallinkrot 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.
III.9Angelus 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 hicDonatusetConfessionaliaprimùm omnium annoMCCCCL. Admonitus certè fuit exDonatoHollandiæ, 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.
III.10Schwartz 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.
III.11“Morabatur autem prædictus Joannes Gutenberg Moguntiæ in domozum Jungen, quæ domus usque in præsentem diem [1513] illius novæ Artis nomine noscitur insignita.”—Trithemii Chronicum Spanhemiense, ad annum 1450.
III.12In the release which he grants to the town-clerk of Mentz, in 1434, he describes himself as, “Johann Gensefleisch der Junge, genant Gutemberg.”
III.13In “Het derde Jubeljaer der uitgevondene Boekdrukkonst door Laurens Jansz Koster,” p. 71. Harlem, 1740.—Oberlin, Essai d’Annales.
III.14The release is given in Schœpflin’s Vindiciæ Typographicæ, Documentum I.
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.
III.16When 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.
III.17This decision is dated “On the Eve of St. Lucia and St. Otilia, [12th December,] 1439.”
III.18Traité 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.
III.19“Andres Dritzehn uwer bruder selige hat iiij stücke undenan inn einerpressenligen, 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.
III.20“Nym die stücke usz derpressenundzerlegesü 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 wordzerlegen,” 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 “formskept together bytwo screwsor press-spindles.”—Life of Caxton, in his edition of Ames’s and Herbert’s Typ. Antiq. p. lxxxvii. note.
III.21St. 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.
III.22“Dirre gezuge hat ouch geseit das er wol wisse das Gutenberg unlange vor Wihnahten sinen kneht sante zu den beden Andresen, alleformenzu 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.
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 demtruckengehöret”—Schœpflin, Vind. Typ. Document. p. 13.
III.24The 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, parMasso 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.
III.25Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Jean Gutenberg, par Jer. J. Oberlin. 8vo. Strasbourg, An ix. [1802.]
III.26Trithemii Annales Hirsaugienses, tom. ii. ad annum 1450. The original passage is printed in Prosper Marchand’s Histoire de l’Imprimerie, 2nde Partie, p. 7.
III.27Vindiciæ Typographicæ, pp. 77, 78.
III.28In 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 manupueri meifeliciter 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, myboy” by whose hand—not by his ingenuity—John Faust exercises a certain beautiful art.
III.29Henry 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.
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.
III.31“. . . . und dasJohannes[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.
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.
III.33Mercier, 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.
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 unDonatet queTrithemnomme unCatholicon, (livre universel,) ce qu’on a confondu ensuite avec le grand ouvrage intituléCatholicon Januensis.”—Idée Générale, p. 258.
III.35Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.
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.
III.37Oberlin, Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Gutenberg.
III.38Dr. Dibdin, Bibliog. Tour, vol iii. p. 135, second edition.
III.39Gotthelf 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.”
III.40It 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.
III.41In most of the early printed books the capitals were left to be inserted in red ink by the pen or pencil of the “rubricator.”
III.42There 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.
III.43Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 20, 3te. Lieferung.
III.44Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 135.
III.45Oberlin says that “Ville-Ostein” lies near Erfurth, and is in the diocese of Mentz.
III.46Index librorum sub incunabula typograph. impressorum. 1739; cited by Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 21, 3te. Lieferung.
III.47Philippi 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.
III.48Fischer, Typograph. Seltenheit. S. 44, 1ste. Lieferung. In this instrument Gutemberg describes himself as “Henne Genssfleisch von Sulgeloch, genennt Gudinberg.”
III.49Primaria quædam Document. pp. 26-34.
III.50“. . . . per henricum bechtermuncze pie memorie in altavilla est inchoatum. et demū sub anno dñiM.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.
III.51Typographisch. Seltenheit. S. 101, 5te. Lieferung.
III.52The 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.
III.53St. Matthias’s Day is on 24th February.
III.54In 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.
III.55Serarii Historia Mogunt. lib. 1. cap. xxxvii. p. 159. Heineken, Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 2te. Theil, S. 299.
III.56In 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.
III.57On the Pleasures and Advantages of Science, p. 160. Edit. 1831.
III.58Ludovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi: folio, Anversa, 1581. The original passage is given by Meerman. The original wordsaltre 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.”
III.59Junius 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.”
III.60Koning’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.
III.61Reckoning from 1568, the period referred to would be 1440.
III.62“Ædituus Custosve.” The word “Koster” in modern Dutch is synonymous with the English “Sexton.”
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.
III.64This 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.
III.65Hadriani Junii Batavia, p. 253, et sequent. Edit. Ludg. Batavor. 1588.
III.66Scriverius—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.
III.67“Choragium omne typorum involat, instrumentorum herilium ei artificio comparatorum suppelectilem convasat, deindecum furedomo se proripit.”—H. Junii Batavia, p. 255.
III.68“. . . . . quum nova merx, nunquam antea visa, emptores undique exciret cum huberrimo questu.”—Junii Batavia.
III.69In “Einige Bemerkungen über das Unternehmen der gelehrten Gesellschaft zu Harlem,” &c. S. 31.
III.70Santander has published a French translation of this letter in his Dictionnaire Bibliographique, tom. i. pp. 14-18.
III.71Wimpheling, 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.
“FelixAnsicare, per te Germania felixOmnibus in terris præmia laudis habet.Urbe Moguntina, divino fulte JoannesIngenio, primus imprimis ære notas.Multum Relligio, multum tibi Græca sophia,Et multum debet lingua Latina.”
“FelixAnsicare, 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.
III.72Nachrichten von Kunstlern und Kunst-Sachen, 1te. Theil, S. 286-293.
III.73In a Memoir on the Invention of Printing, which was crowned by the Academy of Sciences at Harlem in 1816.
III.74Einige Bemerkungen, &c. S. 18, 19.
III.75Enschedius 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 vanJoannes Enschedé, Lettergieter en Boekdrukker te Haarlem, 1768.—A. J. Polak sculps. ex originali.”