... “with power (their power was great)Hovering upon the waters what they metSolid or slimy, as in raging seaToss’d up and down, together crowded droveFrom each side shoaling.”
... “with power (their power was great)Hovering upon the waters what they metSolid or slimy, as in raging seaToss’d up and down, together crowded droveFrom each side shoaling.”
... “with power (their power was great)Hovering upon the waters what they metSolid or slimy, as in raging seaToss’d up and down, together crowded droveFrom each side shoaling.”
... “with power (their power was great)
Hovering upon the waters what they met
Solid or slimy, as in raging sea
Toss’d up and down, together crowded drove
From each side shoaling.”
Labouring thus, they from Meerman to Van Meurs[106]
... “following his trackPaved after him a broad and beaten wayOver the dark abyss, whose boiling gulfTamely endured a bridge of wondrous length.”
... “following his trackPaved after him a broad and beaten wayOver the dark abyss, whose boiling gulfTamely endured a bridge of wondrous length.”
... “following his trackPaved after him a broad and beaten wayOver the dark abyss, whose boiling gulfTamely endured a bridge of wondrous length.”
... “following his track
Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length.”
And patriotic Dutchmen in the nineteenth century, with a full reliance on the stability of the structure thus raised, have struck medals, put up tablets, and erected monuments, commemorative of the memory of the “immortal and incomparable Laurent Janssoen,”and the art he is alleged to have invented, with an enthusiasm strangely at variance with their utter ignorance of the man and his invention for upwards of a century after his death.[107]
Of a very different opinion however was Erasmus, who, it may fairly be presumed, was not left unacquainted by his secretary, Talesius, with the tradition which assigned to Haarlem and Coster the origin of printing; but who shewed, by his public declarations assigning that honor to Mentz, that he deemed the tradition unworthy of belief, and destitute of even a basis of truth. Of a different opinion too, was Van Opmer, who must have beenaware of the statements put forth in Coornhert’s edition of Cicero’s Offices, and had opportunity of judging of their truth; although Spiegel, living at the same time and in the same city with Opmer, adopted them, and asserted Laurentius to be the inventor of separable wooden types. Carl Van Mander, however, a later writer, pursuing his investigations in the city of Haarlem, while preparing the materials for his History of the Lives of Painters and Engravers, which was printed there about 1605, is as silent on the subject of Coster, as Prior Gerbrant.
Notwithstanding all this, Meerman and the multitude who follow in his wake, cling to their faith in Junius. His assertions, contradictory as they have been shewn to be, to those of writers immediately preceding him, outweigh with them all other evidence. Enough for them the support he receives in the testimony of Ulric Zell and Mariangelus Accursius. The reader has that testimony before him, andcan form his own estimate of its weight on the Costerian side of the balance. Zell is the only authority for the statement that Block-book Donatuses were first printedin Holland. Accursius but recapitulates Zell’s words, upon a Donatus which he states was printed by Faust at Mentz in 1450. Zell was a Fleming, and although he learned the art of printing at Mentz and carried it thence to Cologne, he had without doubt his national partialities; his account is not however borne out by that of Schœffer, given to Abbot Trithemius in 1484, although the two statements are not contradictory. Neither do they contradict the account of the origin of the art as stated by Bergel. Each may supplement the other. The first idea of printing may have occurred to Gutenberg from the impressions made in wax by his signet ring, and his cogitations upon the subject have been further confirmed by Block-books bought at Aix-la-Chapelle. It may therefore be admitted, that Block-bookDonatuses were printed and sold in Holland, prior to 1436. But what then? Haarlem is not Holland, any more than Liverpool is England. And to argue that if such books were printed in Holland, they must therefore have been produced at Haarlem;[108]and if the work of a Hollander, why not ofCoster?[109]is simply to attempt to cut through a difficulty which has defied every other effort to penetrate or solve; and moreover it leaves untouched the question, whether separable types were first made in Germany or Holland, which is the hinge whereon the whole controversy in regard to the origin of Typography turns.
But Junius specifies the “Mirror of Human Salvation,” as a work, the like of which, or of which sort, was the work which had been printed by Coster:—a work with wood-cut figures and descriptive text below, and printed on one side only. There were several works of this kind known; and although some have been alluded to in the previous chapters, a more extended notice of them may here be given.
Temptationes Demonis; a large block covering one side of an entire sheet of paper, and containing texts of Scripture, with figures of angels and devils.
Donatus, de Octo Partibus Orationis.
Biblia Pauperum, consisting of forty leaves of small folio; each leaf contains a central design of three scriptural subjects, with two half-length figures of prophets or holy men both above and below; on either side of these are explanatory descriptions, while beneath are their names, with additional inscriptions on scrolls.
Historia Sancti Johannis Evangelistæ, Ejusque Visiones Apocalypticæ; folio designs of scenes from the Apocalypse, two subjects on each page, with labels and scrolls containing descriptive matter.
Historia seu Providentia Virginis Mariæ, ex Cantico Canticorum, or the Book of Canticles; consisting of eight blocks, each containing four designs, with Latin inscriptions on scrolls interspersed among the figures.
Historia Beatæ Mariæ Virginis ex Evangelistis et Patribus excerpta et per Figuras Demonstrata.
Defensorium inviolatæ Virginitatis Mariæ Virginis.
Der Entkrist, or the Book of Antichrist; consisting of thirty-nine cuts with text.
Ars Memorandi; a quarto work of fourteen pages, consisting of whole page engravings of symbols of the four Evangelists, with accompanying pages of explanations.
Ars Moriendi; a series of quarto cuts, exhibiting the deaths of good and bad men, with descriptive pages of text opposite the cuts.
A quarto work of thirty-two cuts, containing subjects of Sacred writ; under each cut are fifteen verses in the German language.
Speculum Humanæ Salvationis; fifty-eight leaves, each containing two designs, mostly from the Old or New Testament; each design has a Latin inscription of one line engraved on it. Beneath is placed the descriptive text. In the Latin edition there are five leaves of preface, and in the Dutch four.
Die Kunst Cheiromantia; a work treating of palmistry.
Planetenbuch; treating of the influence of planets on human life.
Mirabilia Romæ; a guide to the principal shrines in Rome.
Opera nova contemplativa.
Of the above, Koning ascribes all those printed in italics to Coster,[110]together with theCatonis Disticha, andHorarium, the latter a book of eight small pages discovered by M. Enschedé of Haarlem, containing the letters of the Alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria, the Apostles’ Creed, &c., printed with moveable characters.[111]Including separateeditions, Koning gives Coster the credit of printing seventeen works. Now the time, as well as labour, involved in designing and engraving these works must have been very great. In theBiblia Pauperumthere are 200 designs, besides the text; in theBook of Canticles, 32; in theSpeculum Humanæ Salvationis, 116; besides those in theArs Moriendi,and theApocalypse. These are among the very earliest specimens of design and engraving on wood that are known to exist. If then these were executed, as alleged, by Coster in Haarlem,[112]how came it, that his contemporaries knew nothing of them; that Van Mander,—himself an artist and an engraver, who describes in his History, written and printed at Haarlem, the works of Flemishand Dutch artists living both before and after Coster’s time,—is silent in regard to both the man and his works?—although he says that the city of Haarlem “dares to pretend to the glory of having invented printing.”
By this expression it is contended by Coster’s advocates, Van Mander “intended to say, that the claims of Haarlem were well founded.” And furthermore, that his silence is to be accounted for from the fact, that “none of these wood engravings bear the initials of the artists who designed or engraved them, and that he may have been uncertain as to their names.” But what a lame and impotent conclusion is this to arrive at. Van Mander, it is plain, knew of the tradition about the origin of printing in Haarlem. His own work was carried down to the year 1604, and Junius’s Batavia was printed in 1588—sixteen years previously. He could not therefore have been ignorant of what was said in that work about Coster, and his printing works with woodcuts similar to thoseof the Mirror of Salvation. Knowing that, he must have made inquiry concerning both, and have arrived at the same conclusion as Erasmus and Van Opmer. Otherwise, how is his silence to be accounted for? The very fact of the woodcuts being without initials should have stimulated inquiry. They are the work of an artist of no mean skill; and to suppose that he passed them by without notice, or without an attempt to discover their designer, engraver, or printer, who was alleged to have been a wealthy and influential burgher of the city in which he was writing, is to cast a slur on Van Mander’s reputation as an historian which he does not appear to deserve. Even as the works of an unknown artist they demanded, and would have received, notice, had they been printed and sold in the manner described by Junius, and those who have subsequently amplified his narrative.
With regard to the engravings in the “Poor Man’s Bible,” Ottley says (p. 87,) “the styleof these cuts has considerable resemblance to that of the two Van Eycks,” and he considers that the designs in this work, together with those in the Book of Canticles, and the Mirror of Salvation, were, with the exception of the last ten cuts of the latter, the production of the same artist, or at any rate of artists of the same school; all the others being of a different style, and of inferior merit. He regrets his inability to speak with certainty upon their age, but relies upon the following note in Dr. Dibdin’sBibliotheca Spenceriana, (vol. i. p. 4.)
“Mr. Horn, a gentleman long and well known for his familiar acquaintance with ancient books printed abroad was in possession of a copy of theBiblia Pauperum, of theArs Moriendi, and of theApocalypse, all bound in one volume, which volume had upon the exterior of the cover, the following words stamped at the extremity of the binding, towards the edge of the squares:—‘Hic liber Relegatus fuit per Plebanum Ecclesie—Anno Domini142[8].’ Mr. Horn having broken up the volume and parted with its contents, was enabled to supply me with the foregoing informationupon the strength of his memory alone; but he is quite confident of the three following particulars:—1,That the works, contained in this volume, were as have been just mentioned:—2, That the binding was the ancient legitimate one, and that the treatise hadnotbeensubsequentlyintroduced into it:—and 3, That the date was 142...odd—but positively anterior to the year 1430.”
“Mr. Horn, a gentleman long and well known for his familiar acquaintance with ancient books printed abroad was in possession of a copy of theBiblia Pauperum, of theArs Moriendi, and of theApocalypse, all bound in one volume, which volume had upon the exterior of the cover, the following words stamped at the extremity of the binding, towards the edge of the squares:—‘Hic liber Relegatus fuit per Plebanum Ecclesie—Anno Domini142[8].’ Mr. Horn having broken up the volume and parted with its contents, was enabled to supply me with the foregoing informationupon the strength of his memory alone; but he is quite confident of the three following particulars:—1,That the works, contained in this volume, were as have been just mentioned:—2, That the binding was the ancient legitimate one, and that the treatise hadnotbeensubsequentlyintroduced into it:—and 3, That the date was 142...odd—but positively anterior to the year 1430.”
This testimony Mr. Ottley considers it ungracious to question; but “with all this,” he says, “I wish that the volume still existed entire, or that, at least, the cover had been preserved.... But, whatever the antiquity of the first block-books, which almost all writers are of opinion preceded the first attempts to print with moveable characters, it is certain,that for many years after the invention of typography, the engravers in wood continued to publish works of this kind.”[113]
The most interesting of these works is theSpeculum Humanæ Salvationis, which in one of its four folio editions has the text partly in block, and thus forms a connecting link between Xylographic and Typographic printing.The whole of these four editions are thought by many to have been printed previous to Gutenberg’s first production at Mentz. They are attributed to Coster and his descendants solely on account of the obscure passage in reference to them which occurs in the narrative of Junius; and because of that reference, and their manifest superiority over others of the same class, all those which resemble them in general appearance and style of types, and that have neither initial, date, name or place, to indicate by whom and when and where they were printed, are in like manner claimed as the product of Coster’s Press, by every writer who from the days of Meerman to the present, has advocated the pretensions of Haarlem in opposition to those of Mentz to be the seat of the origin of the Typographic Art.[114]
Of these four editions, the first and third, says Ottley, are those in the Latin language; the second and fourth those in Dutch. The engravings are the same in each; but differences exist in the texts; and it is on the assumption that the text was printed previous to taking the impressions of the cuts, that he deduces the order of the editions from the condition and appearance of the cuts. According to this arrangement, the text of the second edition is printed with the same type that was used in the first, with the exceptionof two pages containing cuts 45 and 56, the type of which is inferior to that of the rest of the book. In the third edition (the second Latin) twenty pages of the text are engraved on solid blocks. The types of the text of the fourth edition, although similar in appearance to those of the three preceding, are somewhat smaller and coarser.[115]
To account for these differences, Mr. Ottley has framed a theory which exactly fits the narrative given by Junius, viz:—that while the second edition (the first Dutch) was inprogress and nearly finished, the original printer died and his types were stolen, which compelled his successor, who was unable to replace the original types, either to use some older discarded ones, or to avail himself of a supply of an inferior description in order to finish it; that while the first Dutch edition was in progress a second Latin one was demanded, to meet which, and to bring both the Dutch and the Latin out as quick aspossible, the wood engraver was employed to make fac-similes of the texts of 20 pages; and that for the fourth edition, an old inferior fount was used. And upon this theory he says, (p. 298,) “I am of opinion that the concluding passage of his (Junius’s) narrative, wherein, upon the authority of Nicholas Galius and Quirinus Talesius, he relates the story of the robbery which they had formerly more than once heard from the mouth of Old Cornelius the book-binder, who in his youth had lived in the service of the printer who was robbed, merits to be considered as one of the best attested accounts that we possess respecting the early history of typography.”!
But Messrs. Berjeau, Bernard,[116]Paiele,[117]and Humphreys, who have also made theSpeculuma special subject of study, do notadmit the assumption that the text was printed before the cuts; they adduce good arguments to shew that the impressions of the cuts might have been, and probably were, rubbed off before the text was printed; and the character of the Gothic framework of the cuts that surmount the pages with solid text, being much plainer than that in those where moveable type is used, affords strong ground for the belief that the edition in which they occur was the first instead of the third; the first, that is, that was issued in a completed form; for there can be no doubt but that the splendid copy owned by the late J. B. Inglis, Esq., was the first as regards the impression of the cuts,—the body of some of the scrolls in that copy having been left untouched by the wood engraver, while in all others it is cut away. This peculiarity it was that led Mr. Ottley to the belief that it was the first completed edition, both as regards cuts and texts; whileMr. Humphreys, with more reason on his side, considers that the edition with the twenty pages of xylographic text was the first. “The execution of the subjects,” he says, (p. 60,) “is not equal to those of some of the pages with the typographic text, and there is no foliage in the architectural spandrils. This may serve to prove that the entirely xylographic pages were older than the typographic ones; and that only a few of the best of them were used in the edition which has typographic texts to most of the illustrations.”[118]The conclusion to which thesewriters have come, upsets Mr. Ottley’s theory, and renders nugatory his opinion, that Junius’s story of the thief “is one of the best attested accounts that we possess respecting the early history of typography.”
The weight which is attached to Mr. Ottley’s deliverances on the subjects upon which he has written, (and particularly in regard to theSpeculum, to which four chapters of his work are devoted,) makes it necessary to consider with care whatever he advances upon matters wherein he is largely quoted as an authority by those who have not had similar opportunities for examining the documents upon which he bases his conclusions; and as he does not scruple to denounce those as sophists whose arguments run counter to his own, and to triumphantly expose any slips or inconsistencies which he can detect in the writings of those to whom he opposes himself, it will be well to see whether he is himself free from the failings he so ruthlessly exposesin others. On the question of the separable types which were used in the various editions of theSpeculum, I shall therefore give his argument entire. He first says—“this type appears to have been formed upon the exact model of the genuine black letter, commonly used from an early period in Holland, and which is of almost constant occurrence in old Dutch manuscript Missals, and other books of prayer. It is similar, in the forms and joinings of the letters, and in the contractions used in it, to what we often find in the most highly embellished books of devotion of the fourteenth century ... this broad-faced type, this genuine black-letter, is a characteristic of early Dutch typography. This, indeed, is now so generally acknowledged by Bibliographers, that it is unnecessary to insist upon it further; as every judge of old printing will at once declare, upon looking at theSpeculum, that the type it is printed with, is Dutch type.” To all which a readyassent may be given. He proceeds as follows:—
“Any person at all conversant with printing, upon first viewing the Speculum, naturally determines that, except the twenty pages of block-printing, so often noticed, in one of the Latin editions, it was printed withcast metal types. Upon an attentive examination of a page, however, he discovers small, but yet, sometimes, very evident variations of form in different specimens of the same letter, which it appears difficult to account for: he finds, perhaps, by measurement, that the same word, although spelt exactly in the same manner, does not always occupy the same space; he is induced perhaps, to hesitate as to the correctness of his first judgment, and to suspect that the type was prepared by the painful and tedious operation of cutting each individual character on a separate piece of metal by the hand.“If he embrace the latter opinion, he finds, in the work before him, ample cause to admire the invincible patience, the skill, and the exactness of the artist, who could succeed, not only in giving to the sculptured characters that general uniformity of appearance, which at first occasioned him to consider them as cast type; but even so strict a resemblance between perhaps a dozen specimens of the same letter in the first six lines of a page, as to baffle the exertions of the most correct eye to detect any sensible difference between them, except such as must necessarily occur even in the ordinary method of printing with cast type; either in consequence of one letter happening to have been more used and worse than another, more charged with printingink, or from an irregularity not unfrequent in ordinary presswork, forced deeper into the paper than the rest.”
“Any person at all conversant with printing, upon first viewing the Speculum, naturally determines that, except the twenty pages of block-printing, so often noticed, in one of the Latin editions, it was printed withcast metal types. Upon an attentive examination of a page, however, he discovers small, but yet, sometimes, very evident variations of form in different specimens of the same letter, which it appears difficult to account for: he finds, perhaps, by measurement, that the same word, although spelt exactly in the same manner, does not always occupy the same space; he is induced perhaps, to hesitate as to the correctness of his first judgment, and to suspect that the type was prepared by the painful and tedious operation of cutting each individual character on a separate piece of metal by the hand.
“If he embrace the latter opinion, he finds, in the work before him, ample cause to admire the invincible patience, the skill, and the exactness of the artist, who could succeed, not only in giving to the sculptured characters that general uniformity of appearance, which at first occasioned him to consider them as cast type; but even so strict a resemblance between perhaps a dozen specimens of the same letter in the first six lines of a page, as to baffle the exertions of the most correct eye to detect any sensible difference between them, except such as must necessarily occur even in the ordinary method of printing with cast type; either in consequence of one letter happening to have been more used and worse than another, more charged with printingink, or from an irregularity not unfrequent in ordinary presswork, forced deeper into the paper than the rest.”
Having been “conversant with printing” for more than forty years, during thirty-two of which I have been constantly engaged in superintending the passing of works through the press, and in the general management of extensive private and public printing establishments, and having besides a practical knowledge of the arts of wood-engraving, stereotyping, and type-founding, I must own, that the impression made on my mind upon examining the fac-similes of theSpeculumgiven in Wetter’s, Ottley’s, and Humphreys’ books, was, that the separable types used in printing that work were cut in wood, and were not made of cast metal; and the longer I have studied the subject, the more satisfied I am, that Meerman was right in rejecting the opinion of Enschedé,[119]who was strenuouslyopposed to the idea of wooden types having been used. The eye that has been trained to trace out and instantly detect the most minute differences in the shapes of letters of different founts of the same sized types, from the largest of those ordinarily used in book-work to the smallest employed in newspapers,—to mark out for correction n’s and p’s and q’s that have been turned upside down in order to serve for u’s and d’s and b’s, andvice versâ, as well as to reverse turned s’s and o’s—all common enough occurrences with careless compositors, and which only practised eyes can detect;—the eye of a “reader” who has had only a few years’ experience of such work cannot but note the multitudinous differences, the variations in shape externally and internally, of specimens of the sameletters which occur in every line of the fac-simile pages of theSpeculumgiven in the books quoted; and which cannot be accounted for by one being more worn than another, or more or less charged with ink, or more deeply pressed into the paper than the rest. Such imperfections are of a totally different character, and produce appearances altogether dissimilar to those which distinguish the different specimens of the same letters in the same lines of theSpeculumone from the other. Looked at through a magnifying glass, these differences are of course much more easily discernible, and as they are of precisely the same kind that are found in the letters in the solid xylographic blocks, the conviction finally forces itself upon the mind, that such types could not have been cast, but must have been cut, and cut in wood. In an examination of this nature, the letters of a single page, or at the most those of the two pages of a single sheet,are all that can be attended to; for in their early efforts, the oldest printers usually printed but one small folio page, and seldom if ever more than two such pages at a time; and when as many copies as were wanted were struck off, the types were broken up for the next page, or two, and so on until the work in hand was completed. The types therefore that were used in the two pages first printed would constantly recur in all the following pages; and it is principally owing to this recurrence of particular letters bearing on their faces some special peculiarity, that the fact is detected that such ancient books as theSpeculumare printed with moveable letters. Mr. Ottley goes on:—
“But let him(the person at all conversant with printing)turn from the page which he has been examining, to one of those printed from a wooden block;AND HE WILL SOON BE CONVINCED,by the comparison, that the uniformity of appearance which he witnessed in the characters of the former, could not have been produced by means similar to those used in the execution of the latter; for in the page printed from the engraved block he will discover, throughout, a sensibledifference of form, as well as dimensions, between the various repetitions of the same letter: and in the capital letters especially, he will find this difference so material, as to render it easy for him to trace with a point the precise variations of form by which, for example, each of a dozen letters, S, is to be distinguished from all the others. It will then occur to him,that it must have been a task of less difficulty to preserve uniformity in the shapes and dimensions of the letters, in a page of text engraved upon a plain block of wood, which would have afforded the artist not onlythe means of a constant comparison, but alsoa convenient and steady rest for his handduring the operation of engraving,than it could have been to cut the numerous characters required, with so strict a resemblance to each other,on small separate pieces of wood or metal; and he will perceive his second opinion to be untenable.”—(pp. 257–259.)
“But let him(the person at all conversant with printing)turn from the page which he has been examining, to one of those printed from a wooden block;AND HE WILL SOON BE CONVINCED,by the comparison, that the uniformity of appearance which he witnessed in the characters of the former, could not have been produced by means similar to those used in the execution of the latter; for in the page printed from the engraved block he will discover, throughout, a sensibledifference of form, as well as dimensions, between the various repetitions of the same letter: and in the capital letters especially, he will find this difference so material, as to render it easy for him to trace with a point the precise variations of form by which, for example, each of a dozen letters, S, is to be distinguished from all the others. It will then occur to him,that it must have been a task of less difficulty to preserve uniformity in the shapes and dimensions of the letters, in a page of text engraved upon a plain block of wood, which would have afforded the artist not onlythe means of a constant comparison, but alsoa convenient and steady rest for his handduring the operation of engraving,than it could have been to cut the numerous characters required, with so strict a resemblance to each other,on small separate pieces of wood or metal; and he will perceive his second opinion to be untenable.”—(pp. 257–259.)
The means of such a comparison are afforded in the absolute fac-similes in Mr. Humphreys’ book, and the differences of form and dimensions in the various repetitions of the same letter are not by any means so material as Mr. Ottley intimates. He moreover assumes, that if the separate letters were cut by hand, they must have been cut on “separate pieces of wood or metal,” and therefore, he argues, there could not have beenpreserved the same uniformity “in the shapes and dimensions of the letters,” as in a page of text engraved upon a plain block of wood, because there would be lacking “the means of a constant comparison,” as well as “the convenient and steady rest for the hand during the operation of engraving.” But this assumption is utterly uncalled for. What was to hinder the engraver, after calculating the probable number of each kind of letter he required, to trace the whole in alphabetical order on his blocks of wood, and to engrave them all, before he cut them into separate pieces? He would thus have the best possible means for constantly comparing every specimen of the same letter, as he proceeded with his task, and be able to preserve a steady and convenient rest for his hand until all were sculptured out, leaving the minor operation of separating the letters for use in combination to the very last moment. But Mr. Ottley forgets himself; for in the next chapter, afterpointing out sundry differences in the orthography of the pages printed with moveable types in the two Latin editions, he writes (p. 294):—
“If the pages printed from engraved blocks, in the Second Latin Edition, be compared with same pages in the First Edition, we shall not find these changes.“Although, when I wrote upon this subject twenty years ago, I was fully satisfied, as I then said, that the twenty pages of block printing in the Second Latin Edition, were of later date than the rest of the work, and that they had been engraved for the express purpose of completing the copies of this edition; still I was not then aware that such undeniable evidence existed of the fact, as I afterwards discovered. Suffice it to say, that, upon an opportunity being afforded me of comparing this edition with the First Latin, I immediately perceived (and I was rather gratified than surprised at the discovery) that those twenty pages in the Second Latin are no other thanfac-simile imitations of the same pages, as printed with type in the first edition.“The printer, or his successor, as has been said, having been deprived of the type hitherto used in the work, printed the two pages wanting to complete his Dutch edition with the remains of some old type, a little different, which had previously been thrown aside, as no longer fit for use. But in doing it, he experienced, perhaps, more trouble than he anticipated; and as twenty pages, instead of two, were wanting to complete the second Latin edition, he now bethought himself of another mode of procedure. Havingtaken from a copy of the first Latin edition the ten sheets containing the twenty pages wanting to complete the second edition, and having corrected with a pen a letter here and there misprinted, he delivered those sheets to a wood engraver, with directions to copy them exactly; and the engraver executed the commission, by first glueing these ten sheets with their face downwards upon ten prepared blocks of wood (according to the method then used), then, rendering the paper transparent by oil or otherwise, and lastly, by cutting away the wood around the letters.”
“If the pages printed from engraved blocks, in the Second Latin Edition, be compared with same pages in the First Edition, we shall not find these changes.
“Although, when I wrote upon this subject twenty years ago, I was fully satisfied, as I then said, that the twenty pages of block printing in the Second Latin Edition, were of later date than the rest of the work, and that they had been engraved for the express purpose of completing the copies of this edition; still I was not then aware that such undeniable evidence existed of the fact, as I afterwards discovered. Suffice it to say, that, upon an opportunity being afforded me of comparing this edition with the First Latin, I immediately perceived (and I was rather gratified than surprised at the discovery) that those twenty pages in the Second Latin are no other thanfac-simile imitations of the same pages, as printed with type in the first edition.
“The printer, or his successor, as has been said, having been deprived of the type hitherto used in the work, printed the two pages wanting to complete his Dutch edition with the remains of some old type, a little different, which had previously been thrown aside, as no longer fit for use. But in doing it, he experienced, perhaps, more trouble than he anticipated; and as twenty pages, instead of two, were wanting to complete the second Latin edition, he now bethought himself of another mode of procedure. Havingtaken from a copy of the first Latin edition the ten sheets containing the twenty pages wanting to complete the second edition, and having corrected with a pen a letter here and there misprinted, he delivered those sheets to a wood engraver, with directions to copy them exactly; and the engraver executed the commission, by first glueing these ten sheets with their face downwards upon ten prepared blocks of wood (according to the method then used), then, rendering the paper transparent by oil or otherwise, and lastly, by cutting away the wood around the letters.”
The whole of the last of these paragraphs, it is to be remembered, is purely conjectural; there is not the slightest foundation for it, beyond the necessity for thus accounting for a certain fact, and making that fact dove-tail in with the writer’s theory that the edition with twenty-pages of xylographic text was the second, and not the first; a theory which equally able writers, writers too on the Costerian side of the controversy, deny; maintaining, with a better show of reason on their side, that the xylographic edition was the first. But apart from this consideration,if the twenty pages engraved on blocks, are fac-simile imitationsof the twenty corresponding pages inthe other Latin edition, what are we to think of Mr. Ottley’s previous assertion, that in these identical pages, there is “throughout, a sensible difference of form as well as dimensionsbetween the various repetitions of the same letter;and in the capital letters especially, this difference is material.”? Both statements cannot be correct; and how they are to be reconciled I know not.
After confessing that the changes of opinion he had previously described were those which had taken place in his own mind, Mr. Ottley proceeds:—
“At length the following mode occurred to me of accounting satisfactorily, as I still think it does, for the dissimilarities above noticed in the type of that work. The type of theSpeculumwas, I conceive, made by pouring melted lead, pewter, or other metal, into moulds of earth or plaster, formed, whilst the earth or plaster was in a moist state, upon letters cut by the hand in wood or metal; in the ordinary manner used, from time immemorial, in casting statues of bronze and other articles of metal, whether for use or ornament. The mould thus formed could not be of long duration like a matrix, cut or stamped in metal, since it was obviously subject to fracture; nor could it beequally true and perfect in other respects, as it was liable to warp in drying. From moulds thus constructed, but a small number of specimens of each letter could be taken, before they would require to be renewed. This it is reasonable to suppose, was effectedby forming new moulds upon the various pieces which had been cast out of the old ones. Those characters however, before they could have been fit for use, it had been necessary to clear, by means of the graver, from certain small particles of extraneous metal left upon them by the process of casting; so that the small accidental dissimilarities in different specimens of the same letter, originally occasioned by this imperfect mode of casting them, were necessarily augmented by the after process of finishing or clearing them with a sharp instrument, (the marks of which are very clearly to be perceived in the type of the Speculum); and thus the renewed moulds, formed upon the letters thus prepared, would necessarily differ, and in some cases very materially, from the former moulds, and also (for these moulds could be multiplied at pleasure) from each other. That a book, printed with type thus manufactured, should present a never ending variety in the forms of the different specimens of the same letter, is therefore not surprising; it is rather a subject for our admiration that the dissimilarity in the characters in the work before us is not greater and more immediately apparent.”
“At length the following mode occurred to me of accounting satisfactorily, as I still think it does, for the dissimilarities above noticed in the type of that work. The type of theSpeculumwas, I conceive, made by pouring melted lead, pewter, or other metal, into moulds of earth or plaster, formed, whilst the earth or plaster was in a moist state, upon letters cut by the hand in wood or metal; in the ordinary manner used, from time immemorial, in casting statues of bronze and other articles of metal, whether for use or ornament. The mould thus formed could not be of long duration like a matrix, cut or stamped in metal, since it was obviously subject to fracture; nor could it beequally true and perfect in other respects, as it was liable to warp in drying. From moulds thus constructed, but a small number of specimens of each letter could be taken, before they would require to be renewed. This it is reasonable to suppose, was effectedby forming new moulds upon the various pieces which had been cast out of the old ones. Those characters however, before they could have been fit for use, it had been necessary to clear, by means of the graver, from certain small particles of extraneous metal left upon them by the process of casting; so that the small accidental dissimilarities in different specimens of the same letter, originally occasioned by this imperfect mode of casting them, were necessarily augmented by the after process of finishing or clearing them with a sharp instrument, (the marks of which are very clearly to be perceived in the type of the Speculum); and thus the renewed moulds, formed upon the letters thus prepared, would necessarily differ, and in some cases very materially, from the former moulds, and also (for these moulds could be multiplied at pleasure) from each other. That a book, printed with type thus manufactured, should present a never ending variety in the forms of the different specimens of the same letter, is therefore not surprising; it is rather a subject for our admiration that the dissimilarity in the characters in the work before us is not greater and more immediately apparent.”
The above mode of accounting for the discrepancies in the appearances of the different specimens of the same letter, isopposed to that put forward by Koning, who takes it for granted that the types were cast by the printer of theSpeculumin the same way, and with the same kind of apparatus, as that now used by type-founders, only that the punches were made of hard wood, and the matrices of lead or pewter; and he accounts for certain peculiar fractures he had perceived in several instances on the top of the capitalOrnate Eas well as in a number of the capitalOrnate Min which a part of the central upright stroke was broken in the middle, by supposing that some of the punches had been continued in use after they had received small injuries.
On the supposition that the types of theSpeculumreally were of cast metal, Koning’s idea is much more reasonable than that of Ottley; but he is wrong in his notion that matrices could be struck in lead or pewter, from punches of hard wood on which letters of the size and character of those used in theSpeculumhad been engraved. A fewindifferent matrices might indeed be struck from some of the larger letters, say the letterOrnate m, but of the smaller ones, and those which had fine hair strokes, both capitals and minuscules, the fine strokes and faces of the letters would invariably be crushed. That, at any rate, is the result of a series of experiments made by the writer, with the view of ascertaining whether with letters so engraved on wood and with the softest procurable sheet lead, matrices could be struck from which types might be cast; and in which he was not successful in a single instance.
Admitting, however, for the moment, that the printer of theSpeculumsucceeded in striking a complete set of matrices; it has been proved by experiments, that from matrices of soft lead as many as from 120 to 150 letters can be cast,[120]before they are rendered useless; only after 50 or 60 hadbeen made, the fine strokes would begin to thicken. Now it has already been shewn, that the oldest printers did not put to press more than a single page, or at most two pages, at a time, in their earliest attempts in the new art. This is a fact, acknowledged by every one who has made the Incunabula of the Fifteenth century a subject of special study. Admitting then that two pages of theSpeculumwere printed together, what amount of type, and how many of each letter would be required for those two pages?
An analysis of the fac-simile given in Mr. Humphreys’ work yields the following results. About 1430 separate types in the one page gives 2860 as the number required for two. The following figures (twice the number occurring in the specimen page) shew the numbers required of each of the letters most commonly used, a 44, e 122, i 182, o 146, u 74, d 44, h 28, m 60, n 100, s 84, t 82; there are, besides, the following duplicate andtriplicate characters, of which no other printed work shews so large a number,—an, ca, cā, cc, ce, ch, ci, cī, co, cō, ct, cti, cu, cū, cp, cy, da, dā, de, dē, do, du, dū, eē, et, ect, fa, fā, fe, ff, fi, fl, fo, fr, fu, ga, ge, gē, gi, go, gu, gū, gp, gr, gy, ii, ib, in, la, le, lē, li, ll, lle, llz, œ, ori, no, nō, nu, pe, pp, ra, rā, re, rē, ri, ro, rō, ru, rū, ria, sa, se, si, so, ss, st, ssi, ssz, ste, ta, tā, te, tē, ti, to, tu, tū, tri,—varying in the frequency of their occurrence from twice to twenty-two times, leaving but 1082 other letters for the rest of the alphabet, including the capitals: and of these last from 6 to say 40 would be the utmost of each required. It is thus shewn, that out of the whole number of matrices, upwards of 300, which would be required for a complete fount, not more thaneightwould be used up to or beyond the point where the fine strokes (supposing the matrices to have been of soft lead) would begun to thicken; and of these it would be a most easy matter toprovide duplicates or triplicates, in order to preserve the uniformity of character aimed at by the first printers, in imitation of the manuscripts they intended their works to supersede.All the letters thus cast, would moreover, be fac-similes of each other, and would not, nay could not, present those dissimilarities of appearance observable in specimens of the same letter occurring in every line of theSpeculum. Koning’s idea is thus proved to be erroneous.
But Ottley’s is much more so. Types of the size of those used in theSpeculumcould no doubt be cast in the way he describes, either in plaster, or in the fine prepared sand or earth used by workers in metal. The original letter cut by hand would be thepatterntype, from which every mould for that description of letter would be made; but the mould so made would suffice forbut one specimenof that one letter; for after it had dried, and the fused metal had been pouredin and cooled, the cast letter could only be extracted by breaking away the earth or plaster in which it had been moulded; and if the mould had been made with ordinary care by an expert workman, the letter would turn out an exact fac-simile of the pattern on which the mould had been made. There would not be the slightest necessity for clearing off particles of sand or plaster adhering to the face of the letter, so as to leave upon it marks of the graving tool, nor yet of continually re-casting new types in moulds made from others so disfigured. From the one pattern type first made of each letter, as many moulds as were wanted for the whole supply of every letter could be made, before the operation of casting a single type was commenced; and whatever defect was observed in any of the types after the casting, could be much more satisfactorily remedied by a fresh cast in a mould from the original pattern, than bygraving the face of the letter and so altering its appearance. The main object of casting the types was to make every letter the exact counterpart of its fellow; and if the mode of casting was so imperfect, that each one had to be touched up and cleared out with a graver, before it could be used, that object was defeated. But for so complicated a process there was no need, for wooden types can be cut and completed in much less time than would be occupied by the moulding, drying, casting, clearing and touching up, necessitated by the Ottley-method of producing metal types. This has also been proved by actual experiment: and my previous conviction that the separable letters used in theSpeculumwere, and could only be, hand-cut wooden types, was thus still further confirmed. The marks of the graver, which, as Mr. Ottley points out, “are very clearly to be perceived in the type of theSpeculum,” are just those that were producedby the “letter-snyder” in the course of cutting out his letters, which, as they were finished, were sent direct from his hands to those of the printers.[121]
The extraordinary number of duplicate and triplicate (logographs) as well as ligatured letters, that are made use of in theSpeculum, has already been referred to. Mr. Ottley considers that they are a proofof the antiquity of that work; but in that direction they only exhibit a peculiarity which is not observable in other works: they furnish however a strong argument in proof of the types of theSpeculumhaving been cut in wood. For, taking into account the limited number of letters required for that work (printed but two pages at a time), to cutninetyseparate punches, and to strike the same number of matrices, when one-third of that number would suffice, was a gratuitous waste of labour; whereas, in cutting wooden types sufficient for the composition of two pages, a great saving of time would be effected by duplicating and triplicating as many characters as possible; and not only would time and labour be thus saved, but the types themselves, by being double or treble the thickness of single letters, would be so much the stronger and more durable.
But, say certain writers, amongst whom is Wetter: “It is impossible to print withsuch small wooden types” as those used in theSpeculum.[122]Now Wetter’s object was to shew that theSpeculumwas of a much later date than is attributed to it by Dutch authorities,[123]and he argues that the types used must have been metal, although Meerman insists upon it that they were of wood. It is singular that Wetter should have committed himself to such a statement, when in Tab. II. of his work he has printed a whole column from wooden-types, some of which are of the same size as thosein theSpeculum. Possibly he considered that the numerous hair strokes, and particularly those which front the capital A and the minuscule t, (peculiarities found only in letters of theSpeculumschool) were too fragile to withstand the pressure of printing.
Baron Heinecken,[124]from whom Wetter in all probability borrowed some of his ideas, is of opinion that all the separable letters used in the four folio editions of theSpeculumwere of cast metal, and that they were printedby Germans who imitated the Gothic style of type first used by Gutenberg at Mentz. In one place he writes:—“It is almost certain that the Speculum Salvationis in Latin was first printed in Germany; and that it was afterwards translated and printed in the Low Countries.” Elsewhere he says, “I come at last to the new edition of theSpeculum, which the printer Johan Veldener published in 1483, with his name, in the Flemish language. The vignettes which are placed at the head of each discourse, are the same as those we see in the ancient editions. He cut the engraved blocks, which represented always two sacred or historical subjects, sawing through the middle of the central pillar which divided them, so as to make them into two pieces, in order to insert them in this new edition, which is in small 4to.” “It was probably Theodore Martens,” he remarks further on, “that brought these vignettes with him from Germany, or from France.... We may alsoconjecture that Johan of Westphalia was the printer of the first Flemish editions, and that Veldener received the blocks from him.... Veldener, after having learned Typography at Cologne, went to live at Louvain, where he printed in 1476, among other books, theFasciculus Temporumin Latin, with figures engraved in wood. This same printer afterward went to Utrecht, where in 1480, he published the same work in Flemish, introducing also the same cuts which he had brought with him from Louvain.... Nothing seems more natural than that he should have brought with him from Cologne the ancient moulds or matrices, from which the rude type of the two first Flemish editions of theSpeculumalready spoken of was cast; nothing more reasonable, than that he should afterward abandon that type at Louvain or at Utrecht, or rather at Culemborch, after having made better; for he was certainly a man of enterprise and genius.”
Heinecken concludes this part of his argument by saying, “I trust that this extravagant notion of finding books, and sometimes even large volumes, printed with these moveable characters of wood, will by degrees cease, and that able printers may be found,who will shew the impossibility of it.”
There is not however, anyimpossibilityin the matter. Box wood will bear printing from better than soft lead; and Mr. Blades has demonstrated that types of unhardened lead can be used at an ordinary printing press,—the half of plateIX.B, in the 2d volume of hisLife and Typography of William Caxtonbeing printed from such types. Argument however is needless in the presence of a fact, and in the wordOrnate Arthere given, each of the three letters is separately engraved on a piece of box-wood, the shanks of the letters being two sizes smaller than those of theSpeculum, while a portion of the upper part of the capital overhangs its shank; each letteris also perforated and nicked, and is therefore altogether weaker than a letter of the same size as in theSpeculumwould be. As a proof that it was perfectly possible for such works as theSpeculumto have been printed with wooden types, three such letters are as good as three thousand; and letters with the finest strokes most exposed to damage have been purposely selected, in order to demonstrate the fact.
The existence in the middle of the Fifteenth century of Guilds or confraternities of trades connected with book-making, in Antwerp, Bruges, and Brussels, amongst whom were included ‘Prenters,’ ‘Letter-,’ and ‘Form-snyders,’ and ‘Beelde-makers;’—Letter and Form and Figure engravers, and those who printed them;—is brought forward as a part of the “vast mass” of so-called “unanswerable evidence,” which sustains the claims of Coster and Haarlem to be the man and the place by whom and where the Art of Typography was invented.
“The ‘figure engravers’ (writes Mr. Blades,) were doubtless the artists of the playing cards, the images of saints, and the block-books, then manufactured to a great extent in Holland and Flanders. The term ‘letter engraver’ may have been applied to the sculptor of the legends on the block-books, when not executed by the same artist as the figure itself, but of this there is no evidence, and it seems far from impossible that the term was used to denote artists employed to produce moveable types. The ‘printers’ were doubtless workmen who took the impressions, whether by friction or a press, from the engraved blocks delivered to them; but there is no reason to restrict the meaning of the word, and the same term was from the commencement always applied to printers from moveable types. There is therefore,primâ facie, evidence to support the supposition that at a very early period there were workmen in Bruges who employed themselves, albeitin a very rudimentary way, in printing from moveable types.”
But if moveable types were at this date in use at Bruges or elsewhere in Holland, and if these were of cast fusile metal, how comes it that “Letter-zetters” and “Letter-geiters,”—compositors and type-founders,—are not included among the crafts incorporated by the Guilds? How comes it, too, that no mention is made of the “Drukker,” and the “Drukkers-maker”—the press and press-maker? “Printer” is a common enough term applied to pressmen now-a-days, but as late as 1454 it had an exclusive reference to the producer of prints—the printers of the figures sculptured by the “Beelde-makers” on the solid blocks; and it may safely be inferred that these prints were produced after the Chinese manner, by friction, seeing that the term “Drukker,” is that which is applied amongst the Dutch to letter-press printers,—the pressmen of modern days.
If, moreover, from the mention of “letter engravers” and “printers” in the records of the Dutch Guilds referred to, we are to understand that there is “primâ facieevidence to support the supposition that at a very early period there were workmen ... who employed themselves in working from moveable types,”—typographic printers in fact,—then, upon the same ground, it must be admitted that there isprimâ facieevidence for admitting the priority of the art in various parts of Germany, for as early as 1428 we find a record of a “letter-printer,” one Wilhelm Kegler, at Nördlingen, besides card-makers at Augsburg in 1418. And in 1440 there is found a record of Henne Cruse of Mayence, one of the fraternity, on the roll of the citizens of Frankfort.[125]But so far from there being any suchprimâ facieevidence, the inference to be drawn lies, I think, in an opposite direction; and theabsence of all mention of “Letter-zetters,” “Letter-geiters,” “Drukkers,” and “Drukker-makers,” is rather to be considered a proof that they were not then known; that moveable types and presses had not at that time been introduced; and that “Letter-snyders,” and “Prenters” were wholly and solely engaged upon block-books, just as much as the “Beelde-makers,” the figure-engravers were.
“The general opinion of late writers,”[126]Mr. Blades continues, “is, that the art was firstperfectedat Mentz ... but that nevertheless theearliest useof moveable types must be recognized in the rude specimens attributed to Laurence Coster of Haarlem. Coster died in 1440, and nothing is known to have issued from his press between that period and 1483; but what became of his assistants?Did they, after gaining some insight into the curious effects of Coster’s trials, resign all further attempts, or did they seek to imitate him, some in one town, some in another?” These are very pertinent questions, inasmuch as if they are asked in reference to the assistants ofGutenberg, Faust and Schœffer, they can be answered in the affirmative, and their respective movements traced. But asked with reference to Coster, the disappointing answer is, “No oneknows;”yet it seems more than probable thatexperiments in the direction of printing from moveable types were making about this period in every city where wood engraving and block-printing were practised.... The idea was simple enough, in the execution was the difficulty. Nor need the opinion that at Bruges there existed at a very early period rude printers, be based on the notice of ‘letter-snyders’ and ‘prenters’ only; there has fortunately been preserved in theArchives at Lille an original manuscript, containing a diary of Jean le Robert, Abbé de S. Aubert de Cambrai, among the entries in which the two following are especially worthy of notice:—
“Item pour .j. doctrinal gette en molle anuoiet querre a Brug. par Marquet .j. escripuain de Vallen. ou mois de jenuier xlv. pour Jaq. xx. s.t.”“Item enuoiet Arras .j. doctrinal pour apprendre ledit d. Girard qui fu accatez a Vallen. et estoit jettez en molle et cousta xxiiij. gr. Se me renuoia led. doctrinal le jour de Touss. lan. .lj. disans quil ne falloit rien et estoit tout faulx. Sen anoit accate .j. x patt. en. papier.”[127]“Item. For a printed Doctrinal (doctrinal gette en molle) that I have sent for to Bruges, by Marquet, a writer of Valenciennes, in the month of January, 1445 (i. e.1446) for Jacquet, xx sous tournois.”“Item. Sent to Arras a Doctrinal for the instruction of dom. Gerard, which was purchased at Valenciennes, and was printed (jettez en molle) and cost xxiiij. gros. The same Doctrinal he returned to me on Christmas Day 1451, saying ‘it was worthless, and full of errors;’ he had bought one on paper for xx patards.”
“Item pour .j. doctrinal gette en molle anuoiet querre a Brug. par Marquet .j. escripuain de Vallen. ou mois de jenuier xlv. pour Jaq. xx. s.t.”
“Item enuoiet Arras .j. doctrinal pour apprendre ledit d. Girard qui fu accatez a Vallen. et estoit jettez en molle et cousta xxiiij. gr. Se me renuoia led. doctrinal le jour de Touss. lan. .lj. disans quil ne falloit rien et estoit tout faulx. Sen anoit accate .j. x patt. en. papier.”[127]
“Item. For a printed Doctrinal (doctrinal gette en molle) that I have sent for to Bruges, by Marquet, a writer of Valenciennes, in the month of January, 1445 (i. e.1446) for Jacquet, xx sous tournois.”
“Item. Sent to Arras a Doctrinal for the instruction of dom. Gerard, which was purchased at Valenciennes, and was printed (jettez en molle) and cost xxiiij. gros. The same Doctrinal he returned to me on Christmas Day 1451, saying ‘it was worthless, and full of errors;’ he had bought one on paper for xx patards.”
In these memoranda, says Mr. Humphreys, (pp. 66–67) “we have positive proof that printed Doctrinals were commonly sold in Flanders in 1445; and M. Bernard was the first to elucidate the full value and bearing of this passage, of which M. Van Praet,[128]who had already mentioned it, failed to see the drift, from not understanding the meaning of the termgette, or ratherjette,en molle, which simply means cast in a mould, in reference to the metallic types, which were so cast. That M. Bernard is correct in his explanation of the term, is clearly proved by many passages having reference to the same subject, in which the term is used as one well understood. For instance, in the letters of naturalization accorded to the first printers with moveable types established in Paris, a document dated 1474 (oldstyle) the termsecriture en molleor writing by means of moulds, or moulded letters, is used. Also, in 1496, on the occasion of the purchase of two books of prayer by the Duke of Orleans, the Constable describes them as bothescrites en moule. Also, in the list of furniture and books of Anne of Britanny about the same time, books are mentioned ‘tant en parchemin que en papier, à la main, et en molle;’ that is, both on vellum and on paper, both manuscript and printed.”
Commenting upon these memoranda, Mr. Blades exclaims, “Jettez en molle!—Cast in a mould! What can this expression mean, except that the ‘Doctrinals’ were printed from cast types? As applied to manuscripts, or to stencilling, or to block-printing, ‘jettez en molle’ has no meaning whatever.”
“Drowning men,” it has well been said, “will clutch at a straw,” and surely a consciousness of the peril in which their argument stood, must have made the abovewriters clutch at Abbé Jean le Robert’s memoranda in the way they have. It may be admitted, that the phrase “à la main, et en molle,” means “both manuscript and printed;” but upon what fair principle of philology M. Bernard and Mr. Humphreys make out that the words “jettez en molle,” “ecriture en molle,” and “escrites en moule,” mean “cast in a mould,in reference to the metallic types which were so cast,” and “writing by means of moulds,or moulded letters;” is more than I can make out. They may certainly be understood in such a sensenow, but when originally used they could only have referred to the moulded appearance,—the indented impressions on the leaves of the book, totally irrespective of the types or blocks by which such appearance was produced.
Certainly, as applied tomanuscripts, the phrase “jettez en molle” has no meaning. But with all deference to Mr. Blades, whose “Life and Typography of William Caxton,”is a work of the highest possible merit with reference to all that concerns the introduction of Printing into England,—the words in question are pregnant with meaning in regard to both block-printing and stencilling. Every one acquainted with the ordinary processes of printing must know, that freshly-printed paper has exactly the appearance of having been moulded; the damped paper, in fact, is actually moulded on the type or wood-engraving, by the forcible pressure brought to bear upon it, and on being released from that pressure, the paper cast that has been made brings away with it, on removal, the colouring matter with which the blocks or types have been inked. In the old solid blocks, when the hollows cut to leave in relief the characters used for the School-books—the Donatuses and Doctrinals—would be wider, deeper, and more irregular than in the more modern types, this indented and moulded appearance would be muchmore apparent, especially when impressions were taken by the Chinese method of rubbing the back of the paper, and the printer was careless about smoothing out and obliterating the evidences of indentation, in the manner adopted by typographers now-a-days. In stencilling too, the perforated plate, when laid upon the paper, became to all intents and purposes a mould. The bottom of the mould was the surface of the paper on which, through the perforations in the plate, the ink or pigment would be brushed, the paper being thus made to take a coloured cast of the hollows in the plate. With reference to either process therefore, the phrase “jettez en molle” might most naturally be used to express on the part of any one ignorant of the process of printing, the appearance of a book which he knew was not written, but which bore upon its face the evidence of having, in some way or other, been cast or moulded. As this evidence would appear the same, or nearlyso, whether produced from engraved blocks, or from separable letters, the phrase would be just as applicable in the one case as in the other. When thus examined, the assertion that “jettez en molle” means, and can only mean, “printed from cast types,” is deprived of all its weight, and the phrase itself is valueless as an evidence that cast types were in use at Bruges, or elsewhere in Holland, at the time when Abbé Jean le Robert wrote his diary.
Xylographic and typographic productions, as well as that edition of the Mirror of Human Salvation which partook of the nature of both, may therefore be described alike, as books “jettez en molle.”
But in endeavouring to ascertain the time when this latter work was printed, there are still two important points to be considered; and these are, the age of the paper, and the date of the costume and armour of the figures represented in the vignettes. On both of thesepoints Mr. Ottley’s writings are most instructive. As regards the first, the only guides are the paper-marks, and as the same marks continued to be used by manufacturers for many successive years, it follows, that although theSpeculummight possibly have been printed when peculiar marks were first made use of, the printing may, just as likely, not have taken place till many years later: the only certainty, therefore, that an undated paper-mark affords, is, that the work in which it appears could not have been printed prior to the time when it has been ascertained that that particular mark was originally introduced.
The marks observed in the paper on which the earliest edition of theSpeculumis printed, consist of a fleur-de-lis (or anchor) an unicorn, two keys side by side, a hand, a St. Catharine wheel, a circle enclosing the letters M A with a coat of arms beneath; and the letter P; and in the later Latin edition, the letter Y. These three last are consideredthe most important, and are dealt with as such by Mr. Koning.
As to the circle with the letters and coat of arms, he says, the initials signify without doubt, the initials of Margaret, widow of William, Count of Holland, and the mother of the Countess Jacqueline, the arms being those of Bavaria, whence he concludes, that the paper was manufactured during the reign of the Countess Jacqueline in Brabant and Hainault, after her marriage with the Dauphin, and before the treaty of transfer made to Philip of Burgundy in 1433, it being the custom of manufacturers of paper in the fifteenth century to put the arms of their sovereigns in their marks. Mr. Ottley, however, points out, that this usage was rare before the latter part of the century, although afterwards the practise became common.
The letter P, which Koning considers to have been the initial of Philip of Burgundy (who reigned in Brabant from 1430 to 1467,)was found by him, he says, in a memorandum of accounts of the date 1432; and he remarks further, that “a large proportion of the books printed in Holland in the latter part of the fifteenth century, have this paper-mark, which will never be found in any book, nor in any paper, coming from Germany or from Italy.”
This last assertion Mr. Ottley disproves, by citing several instances of its occurrence in various works of Zell, as well as the marks of the unicorn, the two keys, and the capital Y, &c., shewing, as he says, that Koning has “erred egregiously.” He also says (note, p. 160,) “The supposedinitial of Philip the Boldis very doubtful. I have reason to believe that the paper on which it is found was made in Italy.” And he moreover shews, that he could not find it in any of Mr. Koning’s tracings, earlier than 1453. He himself saw it “in company with other papers whichhe thoughtnot to be olderthan 1438; but in a dated book he did not find it earlier than 1445.”
“The letter Y,” says Mr. Koning, “is, without doubt, the initial of Ysabel of Portugal, who was married to Philip le Bon in 1430.”
Mr. Koning sums up the third chapter of his book by saying, “the paper-marks prove that the said works were published between the years 1420 and 1440; since it appears from what has been said above, that the paper of the first Dutch edition (of theSpeculum) which is evidently the most ancient, bears alone the marks which are the most ancient; that is to say, the arms of Bavaria which were used by the paper-makers in the reign of the Countess Jacqueline, and consequently, before the year 1428; and that the paper of the second or third edition of theSpeculumbears the letter P, the mark of the sovereign Philip of Burgundy, which certainly was not in usage until the year 1425.”
Upon all this Mr. Ottley thus comments:— (pp. 163–164).
“Now, with respect tothe Gothic letter P, which was so much used on paper, from the middle of the fifteenth to the early part of the sixteenth century, I shall not take upon me to deny Mr. Koning’s assertion, that it is to be considered asthe initial of Philip of Burgundy; although, as it appears to have been used in other parts, as well as in his dominions, and continued so long after his death (as was theYalso, after that ofYsabel, the wife of Philip), the fact may be doubted. As to Mr. Koning’s hypothesis, concerning thetwopaper-marks with thearms of Bavaria, it is certainly ingenious: and, had he proved that the paper so marked, was manufactured in the dominions ofJacqueline, or of her motherMargaret, at the early period he speaks of, I should have thought it so strong a circumstance, in favour of that edition of theSpeculumin which those paper-marks occur, that I should have felt disposed to carry back the three preceding editions of that work (for it certainly is the fourth) to a very remote period indeed, rather than have denied that it was printed at the early date he has assigned to it. Butfirst, Mr. Koning has brought no evidence to shew that the paper was made in Brabant; (for the circumstance, supposing it true, that all the paper used in those times, at Haarlem, came from that great commercial depôt, Antwerp, proves nothing, since paper coming from different parts, was doubtless sold there); and,secondly, we have no proof that it was made at that early period. Suffice it for me to add, that neither of these paper-marks was to be found among thetracings, made by Mr. Koning from the ancient registers of Haarlem, which, as I have said, he was so good as to lend to me; and that after a diligent search of several months in the extensive collections of original Books of Accounts, from 1352 to about 1470, in the archives at the Hague, I was unable to discover either of them; though at length I chanced to find them both, in a book in sq. fol. obligingly lent to me by Mr. De Jonge, now the principal archivist at the Hague; viz. theFasciculus Temporumin Dutch, printed at Utrecht, byJoh. Veldener, in 1480; though perhaps the paper was not made from the same identical sieves or moulds, as the paper that is found in theSpeculum.”
“Now, with respect tothe Gothic letter P, which was so much used on paper, from the middle of the fifteenth to the early part of the sixteenth century, I shall not take upon me to deny Mr. Koning’s assertion, that it is to be considered asthe initial of Philip of Burgundy; although, as it appears to have been used in other parts, as well as in his dominions, and continued so long after his death (as was theYalso, after that ofYsabel, the wife of Philip), the fact may be doubted. As to Mr. Koning’s hypothesis, concerning thetwopaper-marks with thearms of Bavaria, it is certainly ingenious: and, had he proved that the paper so marked, was manufactured in the dominions ofJacqueline, or of her motherMargaret, at the early period he speaks of, I should have thought it so strong a circumstance, in favour of that edition of theSpeculumin which those paper-marks occur, that I should have felt disposed to carry back the three preceding editions of that work (for it certainly is the fourth) to a very remote period indeed, rather than have denied that it was printed at the early date he has assigned to it. Butfirst, Mr. Koning has brought no evidence to shew that the paper was made in Brabant; (for the circumstance, supposing it true, that all the paper used in those times, at Haarlem, came from that great commercial depôt, Antwerp, proves nothing, since paper coming from different parts, was doubtless sold there); and,secondly, we have no proof that it was made at that early period. Suffice it for me to add, that neither of these paper-marks was to be found among thetracings, made by Mr. Koning from the ancient registers of Haarlem, which, as I have said, he was so good as to lend to me; and that after a diligent search of several months in the extensive collections of original Books of Accounts, from 1352 to about 1470, in the archives at the Hague, I was unable to discover either of them; though at length I chanced to find them both, in a book in sq. fol. obligingly lent to me by Mr. De Jonge, now the principal archivist at the Hague; viz. theFasciculus Temporumin Dutch, printed at Utrecht, byJoh. Veldener, in 1480; though perhaps the paper was not made from the same identical sieves or moulds, as the paper that is found in theSpeculum.”
Thus then, Mr. Ottley, who “shews a determined inclination to favour the claims of Laurent Coster,”[129]also shews, that M. Koning, who obtained the prize from the Dutch Society of Arts and Sciences at Haarlem, for the best dissertation in support of the ancient tradition that the Art of Printing was invented in that city,—is wrong in his assertions in regard to the paper-marks; and that the earliest instances of the occurrence of thoseto which Koning chiefly refers, the Gothic P, and the arms of Bavaria, are in the years 1445, 1453, and 1480.
It follows therefore, from the evidence of the paper-marks, that the printing of theSpeculumcould not have taken place before 1445; that most probably it was not printed earlier than 1453; and that it may not have issued from the press before even 1480. Consequently, as theSpeculumwas the first Dutch work printed with separable types, it cannot claim priority over the invention of Gutenberg, which, as has been shewn in the preceding chapter, must have been previous to 1436.
As to the costume and armour of the figures in the vignettes of theSpeculum,[130]the following extracts from Sir Samuel Meyrick’s letter to Mr. Ottley, and the observationsof the latter thereon, are most pertinent. Sir Samuel says:—
“Next to actual dates, there is no criterion of age so sure asCostume, which, changing on an average within every ten years, fixes the real period, almost precisely; especially, as, all its parts not varying at the same moment, the one rectifies the vagueness of the other. After costume, ornament is a fair guide, as is architecture; and next to these, the style of writing, where the subject is a manuscript.“You are, no doubt, well aware that thedesigners of the middle ages, until the latter part of the seventeenth century,always dressed their figures from the objects before their eyes; and those writers who would fabricate descriptions of what they wished should be supposed to have occurred before their times, always used the terms of costume applicable to their own period.”
“Next to actual dates, there is no criterion of age so sure asCostume, which, changing on an average within every ten years, fixes the real period, almost precisely; especially, as, all its parts not varying at the same moment, the one rectifies the vagueness of the other. After costume, ornament is a fair guide, as is architecture; and next to these, the style of writing, where the subject is a manuscript.
“You are, no doubt, well aware that thedesigners of the middle ages, until the latter part of the seventeenth century,always dressed their figures from the objects before their eyes; and those writers who would fabricate descriptions of what they wished should be supposed to have occurred before their times, always used the terms of costume applicable to their own period.”
Thenfollownumerous illustrations and references, in proof of the position laid down; amongst which are the different articles of armour used from the reigns of Edward I, to Henry VIII. With reference to some of these articles, Sir S. Meyrick continues:—
“On comparing these with what appears in the woodcuts to the Speculum, the identity will be evident. It is true that their use continued till the close of the fifteenth century; but this authority shews that they were alsoknown at its commencement....“On a careful review and consideration of the whole, I am inclined to think, that the wood-blocks of the Speculum cannot be of later date than 1435, and that they may be a little earlier; nor is this opinion in the least degree shaken on an examination of the rest, besides that of which you more particularly asked it.”
“On comparing these with what appears in the woodcuts to the Speculum, the identity will be evident. It is true that their use continued till the close of the fifteenth century; but this authority shews that they were alsoknown at its commencement....
“On a careful review and consideration of the whole, I am inclined to think, that the wood-blocks of the Speculum cannot be of later date than 1435, and that they may be a little earlier; nor is this opinion in the least degree shaken on an examination of the rest, besides that of which you more particularly asked it.”