Originally published in Saint Pauls (Virtue and Co.) vol.2 #12 (Sep 1868).
The recent sale of the Enschedé Library at Haärlem, which had been collected for the special purpose of establishing the validity of the claim put forward by the Dutch to have been the precursors of the Germans as the originators of the Printing Press, has led to a spirited renewal of the old dispute. The valuable library just dispersed had been the property of a family of eminent printers in Haärlem for three generations, its nucleus having been brought together by the grandfather of the late proprietors. The object which the elder Enschedé had chiefly in view was a concentration of every kind of evidences tending to prove that the art of printing, in a practical form, was in use in Haärlem, and that books were printed there, full a quarter of a century before the more complete development of the art in Mayence by Gutenberg. The mass of evidence contained in the Enschedé collection of documents, and that which has been gradually accumulating in other channels, is, indeed, becoming so important, that it may eventually tend to the respectful handing down of Gutenberg from his hitherto undisputed throne as First Lord of the Printing Press. The claims of Koster of Haärlem to the invention and use of a practical system of movable types full five-and-twenty years before the production of Gutenberg's magnificent Bible, which was his first book, are, indeed, advocated by many of the most advanced bibliographers of the present day; and the supporters of the cause of German priority would do well to discuss in all seriousness the evidence upon which such advocacy is based, and refute it if possible, instead of superciliously and vainly declaring it unworthy of notice.
Within as brief a space as may be, let us see how the case really stands, and upon what grounds the rival claims are based. In order fully to appreciate the relative position of each pretender, it will be necessary in a few words to consider the nature of those advances in the art of multiplying books which led up, in tolerably natural sequence, to the first notion and subsequent development of the art of printing. The first advance upon the method of producing books by the hand labour of the professional scribe was introduced towards the close of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century, and was effected by means of carving the usually written forms of letters in relief on a tablet or block of wood. An entire page so executed by means of wood-carving, on being charged and recharged with a suitable kind of ink, was clearly capable of yielding any number of impressions that might be required; and this system, it is generally admitted, was,—in Europe,—first carried out with success by the Dutch, though the Chinese had perfected a similar method many centuries previously; and it may possibly have been from eastern models obtained by the enterprising traders of Holland that the class of Dutch artisans connected with the reproduction of books first learned the advantages of such a system, and at once adopted the principle as a valuable novelty. But even when the process in question was perfected, the labour of executing such pages in sculptured relief was so enormous,—as exemplified by the "Biblia Pauperum," one of the first works produced by the process,—that although, when a page was once perfected, any number of impressions could be obtained, yet only books of small extent,—seldom or never exceeding thirty or forty pages,—were attempted by these means. Such books, moreover, consisted almost entirely of large illustrations, the text being little more than a series of descriptive titles to the devices. The amount of text, however, in these block-books, as they are termed, went on increasing, as the difficulty in carving the letters in relief was gradually overcome, till eventually entire pages of closely-packed text were carved on these slabs of wood with wonderful accuracy and neatness, as shown in the later editions of such well-known block-books as the "Ars Memorandi" and the "Ars Moriendi."
It is natural to conceive that a desire to economise the vast labour expended upon these page blocks would necessarily arise, and it is possible, as some have supposed, that an attempt was made to turn such blocks to further account, after a sufficient number of impressions had been taken from them, by cutting them up into separate words, or even letters, which, by transposition, might be made to serve again for the text of a different subject. This supposition has led to much learned and not unacrimonious discussion, of a purely technical character, as to the possibility of printing from movable wooden types; but such disquisitions are somewhat profitless in the present state of our knowledge of the subject, and it will be sufficient to state in this place, that whether experiments with separate wooden types were, or were not, made, the next really practical advance was the production of separate metal types; especially as it must have become clearly evident that when a mould for a single letter was once made, as many others could be cast from it as might be required, even to hundreds of thousands; while each separate wooden letter, even if serviceable to print from, would require to be separately executed by the carver's own hand. Therefore casting in metal presented at once a simple method of producing letters in any number from a single type or mould; letters, too, which could be conveniently arranged and closely packed in any order required, and which were at the same time capable of being made serviceable for any number of times by redistribution in other forms. The same result would have occurred if every metal letter had to be carved separately, like wooden ones, but the process would have entailed such enormous labour that the boldest speculator in the attempt to improve and simplify the reproduction of books would have scarcely found courage to invest in the necessary outlay. It was therefore the perception of the adaptability of casting to the purpose required,—a process well known to the general metal workers of the time,—that led directly to the adoption of movable metal types, and in fact to the true foundation of the practical printing press with all its magic powers. It will be subsequently shown in this outline sketch of the controversy that the adaptation of the casting process to the multiplication of metallic types or letters was felt, even at the time, to be the true mechanical basis which formed the vital principle of the printing press, a conviction which we shall find expressed in the name given to the first rude books produced by means of metal types, which were in old French records described as books "jétés en molle," that is to say, produced by characters which were cast in moulds. It is to the original conception of that first all-important step in the history of the printing press that the Dutch have long since set up a claim for one of their citizens, Lawrence Koster, of Haärlem.
It is a remarkable and in every way very suggestive fact that the earliest allusion to the Dutch as the true originators of the art of printing emanated from a German source. In the year 1499,—that is to say, before the close of the century that witnessed the advent of the printing press,—a passage, and that a very prominent one, appeared in the pages of a German chronicle of general history and events, known as the "Chronicle of Cologne," from having been printed in that city. The passage referred to occurs in the body of the work, under a separate heading, as follows:—"On the art of printing books:—when and where, and by whom was invented the inexpressibly useful art of printing books." Here are noteworthy words in which we at once perceive how highly important the invention of the printing press was already considered, within so brief a period after its introduction. The following extract contains the pith of the passage which comes under the heading just cited:—"Although the art as now practised was discovered at Mayence, nevertheless, the first idea came from Holland, and from the Donati which had been previously printed there." The facts referred to by the author of the Chronicle were no doubt in great part gathered from Ulric Zell, the printer of the Chronicle, himself a follower of the method of printing established by Gutenberg, and who had learnt his art in Mayence. Hence we may infer that the German printers of that day did not refuse to the Dutch the credit of having first struck out the idea of making moulds for letters of metal, from which any number of casts might be taken by the simplest mechanical means. The letters so produced were neither more nor less than those "movable types" which form the very basis of the art of printing.
The next important testimony, of strictly similar, but more definite, import, is that set forth by a native of Holland, Theodore Volchart Coonhert, in the preface to his translation of Cicero's Offices, printed in his own house at Haärlem, in 1561, little more than a century after the occurrence of the events to which he alludes. His statement is as follows:—"I have often been assured by well-informed persons that the art of printing[1] was first invented in the town of Haärlem, although in a rude manner, the knowledge of the art having been subsequently carried to Mayence by the treachery of an unfaithful workman, and there brought to such great perfection that,—as being also the place where it was first made public,—Mayence has acquired the glory of the first invention; and hence our citizens obtain but little credence when they attribute to one of themselves the honour of being the real inventor." Here we have a definite and unhesitating statement by a man of learning and position, who is evidently not led away by any national bias or prejudice. A copy of this rare and interesting volume, which formed a leading feature in that portion of the Enschedé Library collected for the purpose of illustrating the history of printing in Holland, was secured at a very high price for the British Museum at the recent sale. Our national collection of documents having reference to the early history of printing is indeed becoming extremely rich by the watchful care of Mr. Winter Jones, the Chief Librarian, and Mr. Watts, the Keeper of the printed books; and this little volume is not one of the least valuable acquisitions recently made.
Another work bearing upon the origin of printing in Holland, and being indeed a special, though very brief, treatise upon the subject, was issued by John Van Zuyren, Burgomaster of Haärlem, about the same time that Theodore Coonhert published his Dutch translation of Cicero's Offices. He entitled his work "A Dialogue on the First Invention of Typography,"—"Dialogus de primâ artis Typographicæ Inventione,"—in which the author distinctly claims the honour of the first invention for his townsman Lawrence Koster, whose name thus first appears in the controversy. But while he upholds the claims of his native town and his countryman, the worthy burgomaster does not attempt to detract from the credit fairly due to the first great printers of Mayence, who carried the new art to such high perfection. Only a fragment of Van Zuyren's work remains, but that fragment contains minute and accurate particulars which at once place its authenticity beyond doubt.
Only six years later than the two works just referred to, the claim of the Dutch was reiterated from an entirely fresh quarter. In a work of the Italian traveller Guicciardini, printed at Antwerp in 1567, entitled "Descrizeone di tutti i Paesi Bassi," a passage relating to the invention of printing occurs in the description of the city of Haärlem, which may be thus literally translated:—"According to the common tradition of the country, the evidence of several authors, and also of ancient monuments, the art of printing was first invented in this town, as well as that of casting letters,—in moulds,—and the inventor having died before he had carried his work to full perfection, one of his workmen went to Mayence, where he divulged the secret of practising the art; and in that place so much care and attention was bestowed upon it that it was brought to great completeness; and hence arose the common belief that it originated there. I neither can nor will attempt to decide the question." The monuments alluded to by Guicciardini were doubtless those elementary Latin works known as Donati,[2] mentioned in the "Chronicle of Cologne," of which many perfect examples must have existed at the time of the Italian traveller's visit to Haärlem, and fragments of which are to be found in bibliographical collections at the present day. He no doubt had in view at the same time the more celebrated and interesting "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," attributed to Koster, of which many beautiful copies still exist, as fresh and clean as though they had but just issued from the press; works that play a leading part in the early story of the printing press, and especially in the discussions on the subject which just now engage the attention of bibliographers of all nations.
Many other authorities, containing curious passages of great interest, might be cited, but it is time to call in the evidence of the Dutch historian, Hadrian Junius, who furnishes us unhesitatingly with both the name and status of the Dutch printer whose productions are declared by his countrymen to have preceded those of Gutenberg, as well as with an infinity of most interesting and valuable details connected with the manner of his invention. Hadrian Junius was born at Haärlem in 1511, where he received, at the public grammar school, the basis of a liberal education, which was subsequently perfected by many years of devotion to various branches of learning in several of the universities which enjoyed the greatest amount of celebrity at that time. He afterwards resided some time in England as physician to the accomplished Duke of Norfolk, and subsequently filled a similar post in Denmark as one of the king's physicians in ordinary. On his return to Holland, having become famous for his general learning and accomplishments, he was commissioned by the Government to write a history of the Dutch provinces, which he willingly undertook as a thoroughly congenial task, and it is in this work, which he entitled "Batavia," that the claim of his countryman to the invention of printing with movable metal types is emphatically asserted. This history was not published till 1588, but there is internal evidence to prove that the following passage relating to the art of printing was written as early as 1568:—"About 128 years ago there lived at Haärlem, in a house on the open Place facing the State palace, one Lawrence, son of John, surnamed Koster,[3] on account of an honourable office which was hereditary in his family. It is this man," continues Junius in a
strain of eloquence worthy of an enthusiastic scholar, "it is this man who merits a glory superior to that of all conquerors, and who can justly claim the honour of being the inventor of the typographic art, at the present day assumed by others." There is tolerably good evidence for supposing that Lawrence Koster, in addition to his office of Koster, or custodian of the church books, was also an esteemed and industrious artist, devoting his artistic skill to the engraving of tablets for the production of block-books,—an art which, in Europe at any rate, was first successfully practised in Holland, where, at Koster's time, it was in the zenith of its development. Two or more of the best known Dutch works of that class are attributed to him, especially the celebrated "Biblia Pauperum" and the "Cantica Canticorum," the quaintly-designed devices of which have a medieval elegance about them peculiarly their own.
Junius next proceeds to inform us in what manner the idea occurred to Koster of using movable types to print from instead of engraving the whole of each page, whether illustration or text, on a special block or tablet of wood. "Walking one day," says our author, "in the wood near the town, as the citizens are accustomed to do in the afternoon, or on festivals, Lawrence Jans-zoon[4] occupied himself with cutting pieces of beech bark into the form of letters,"—and then we are told that, reversing those letters, and placing them in order, so as to form short moral sentences, he succeeded, by inking them, in obtaining impressions from them for the amusement of his grandsons who accompanied him in his walk. That such a slight hint was sufficient to suggest further experiments in the same direction to an ingenious artist like the engraver of the illustrations and text of the "Cantica Canticorum," is sufficiently evident. Adverse critics, however, such as M. Renouard, and others worthy of equal respect, mistaking the spirit of this passage, have attempted to invalidate the statement of Junius by asserting that movable types, either of bark or wood, could not be made serviceable for good work in the printing press,—which is perfectly true, and Junius does not either say or appear to suppose that they could.
In endeavouring to assign a proximate date to the eventful walk in the wood, resulting in the carving of the letters of bark, the following arguments have been urged:—First, Junius, writing in 1568, says, one hundred and twenty-eight years before that period Koster was still living on the Place, which furnishes us with the year 1440, in which year there is some evidence for supposing that Koster died. Secondly, the wood itself was destroyed in 1426, when the town was besieged by the Duke of Burgundy. Thirdly, taking into consideration that Koster was a grandfather at the time, it may be assumed that he was born at least as early as 1870, and it would hence appear that the carving of the letters in bark took place between 1420 and 1426, when he was between fifty and fifty-six years of age. Reasoning upon these data, the year 1423 has been adopted by his countrymen as that in which the event most probably took place, and 1440 as the epoch at which, having founded the art on that rude hint, he had carried it to such a comparative state of practical completeness as enabled him to produce very excellent work by its means; and upon that assumption an inscription was placed upon the house in which he had lived,—within little more than a century after his death,—to the following effect:—
MEMORLE SACRUM
TYPOGRAPHIA
ARS ARTIUM OMNIUM
CONSERVATRIX
HIC PRIMUM INVENTA
CIRCA ANNUM MCCCCXL.
Junius next refers to the difficulty of printing from separate types of wood, and also informs us that Koster eventually succeeded in making types of lead, and then of tin; and he further asserts that at the time he is writing, some of those very types were preserved as an interesting family monument in the house of Koster's great-grandson, Gerard Koster, adding, that these interesting memorials of the invention of an important art had been soldered together, so as to form ornamental vases, which vases he himself had seen. Junius next proceeds to describe the positive monuments of the art produced by Koster,—monuments which we have seen referred to as important evidence by Guicciardini. The "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis" is then named by Junius as one of the monuments in question; and in speaking of Koster having first used wooden types he doubtless refers to the first edition of this work, a portion of which was printed in entire pages from wooden tablets, but which Junius, from his want of technical knowledge, appears to consider the result of separate wooden types. No copy of this work, with the whole of the pages printed from wooden tablets, has come down to us; but either such an edition must have been issued by Koster, or, while still not half-way through its preparation, he must have brought his new invention to bear with sufficient perfection to enable him to print the whole of the text of the remaining portions of the work by the new process. And with regard to the eventual adoption of metal types for this remarkable work, Junius tells us that Koster invented a new kind of oleaginous and adhesive ink for the purpose, not finding the distemper ink formerly used to print from the wooden tablets suitable for his new metallic types. Our instructive chronicler goes on to state that one of the special peculiarities of this monument "of an art still in its cradle" was that the leaves were only printed on one side, and the blank backs pasted together to conceal that imperfection; and what adds to the value of this interesting and categorical statement of the Dutch historian is, that many perfect copies of the "Speculum" still exist, which exhibit all the peculiarities thus accurately described.
We possess a copy of the "Speculum Humane Salvationis" in the British Museum, and another in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, both of which contain several pages printed entirely from wooden tablets, while other pages have the text printed in another kind of ink, as described by Junius, and evidently by means of a second printing. This edition of the "Speculum" would seem, therefore, to form the all-interesting link between the books printed from wooden tablets and those from the true printing press. In printing the pages from wooden tablets, a pale brown distemper colour was used; the impression having evidently been obtained by laying down the face of the paper on the engraved block or tablet, and then rubbing the back till an impression of the engraved work was thus produced,—a process that soiled and gave a partial and irregular gloss to the back of the paper, which rendered it unfit for printing on. The pages on which the text has been produced by the newly-invented metal types have evidently gone through a different process, by means of some kind of press; the illustrative woodcuts which fill the upper part of every page being still printed in the old manner with the brown distemper colour, and by rubbing at the back.
The "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," even in its more expensive manuscript form, was a very popular work. It consisted of a series of subjects from the Old Testament, with their supposed parallels from the Gospels; illustrative devices being placed in pairs at the top of each page, and beneath them the rude Latin verses describing the devices, and extracting from them a series of proverbial and religious moralisms. Koster, no doubt, acted with the usual discretion of a keen man of business in reproducing that work, first, as a block-book, and afterwards as one in which he succeeded in making use of his newly-invented metal types for the text. That he was not misguided in the selection is proved by the several editions which he rapidly issued, all except the first[5] having the whole of the text printed with movable metal types; a fact which has been proved beyond doubt by the reiterated investigations of practised experts in printing matters. The illustrations at the top of each page continued, however, in the latest Kosterian editions, to be printed in distemper by the rubbing process; and, consequently, in the whole of the editions the printing is only on one side of the paper,—a peculiarity marking the first steps of an art yet in its infancy, and of which no other examples exist. Here, then, we have a series of monuments evidently belonging to the very infancy of the art, which were undoubtedly produced in Holland, and of which there appears no valid reason for denying the credit of production to Lawrence Koster. It is true that his name nowhere appears appended to his work; nor, indeed, is that of Gutenberg attached to any of the works assigned to him, though their attribution cannot be doubtful. The custom of appending the name of the printer to his productions was not adopted till the successors of those great pioneers of the art found themselves in the possession of a well-established practical process.
All the specimens at present known of the celebrated "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis" printed with movable types, and on one side only of the paper, have been traced to Holland, and the only perfect collection of all the editions is that of the Westreenian Library, at the Hague, lately bequeathed to the Dutch Government. It therefore seems incredible that the pretensions of Germany to the claim of absolute priority should be so obstinately persevered in. But the extreme difficulty of removing long and deeply-rooted convictions is perhaps a sufficient explanation.
In the Enschedé Library there was a fine and perfect copy of one of the editions of the famous "Speculum" in Dutch, and from all parts of Europe came bibliographers and dealers determined to secure the coveted monument; an agent from the British Museum among the number. But the price realised by this small volume, consisting of scarcely more than some twoscore leaves, far exceeded the limits of most of the pretenders to its possession. It was eventually knocked down for about £700 to an English dealer, who has since disposed of it at a considerable advance.
Another interesting monument of early typography, keenly contested by the assembled bibliophilists at the Enschedé sale was the celebrated "Horarium," now more correctly termed an Abedarium, which M. Enschedé, the founder of the library, had, with the pardonable credulity of an enthusiastic advocate, thought to be the actual series of short moral sentences printed from letters of bark (?) for the amusement and instruction of Koster's grandchildren. But, after having carefully examined the document in question, which consists of eight small pages printed on a single sheet, on both sides, and properly arranged for folding, the present writer arrived at the conclusion that, although it is evidently of early Dutch execution, the letters being of closely similar style to those of the "Speculum," nevertheless it is a much later production than that work, its rudeness of execution being no proof of superior antiquity, but only of inferior workmanship. Yet, as a monument intimately connected with the controversy, it realised a large sum; far beyond that which an agent had been instructed to go to in order to secure it for our national collection; and, at the same time, far more than its value even as an antique monument, serving though it undoubtedly does to illustrate some of the earliest steps in the history of the printing press.
In concluding this brief résumé of the claims of the Dutch for their countryman Koster, a very curious item of indisputable evidence concerning the early use of cast types in the Low Countries must not be omitted. In a diary kept by Jean le Robert, Abbé of St. Aubert of Cambrai, a record now preserved in the public library of Lille, a highly interesting passage occurs, of which the following is a translation:—
"Item, for a Doctrinal jetté en molle[6] that I sent for to Bruges by Macquart, who is a writer at Valenciennes, in the month of January, 1445, for Jacquet, twenty sols of Tournay, &c., &c., &c."
Here, then, we have positive evidence that printing with cast types, as expressed by the term "jetté en molle," was practised in the Low Countries before 1445, which is ten years earlier than the date assigned to the issue of Gutenberg's Bible, namely, 1455. The system, as practised at Bruges in 1445, was doubtless an offshoot of that developed by Koster at Haärlem, which had already spread to the principal cities in the Flemish portion of the Low Countries. It may be farther urged, by way of additional support of the statement of Junius respecting the treachery of the workman John, whom he describes as having printed at Mayence an edition of the Doctrinal of Alexander Gallus with the types which he had carried away from Haärlem, that fragments of that work, printed in types closely resembling those of the "Speculum," are still in existence; and there are also entire volumes, as well as fragments of other books, printed in types of the primeval Dutch style, of which it is not necessary to speak in this place.
The story of Junius is still further supported by the interesting records which remain of Gutenberg's first attempts in the art of printing at Strasbourg and Mayence; records fall of curious information, and which consist of such indisputable documents as contemporary reports of evidence produced during the proceedings of two lawsuits in which the inventor became involved: the first, with the representatives of his partners in the undertaking at Strasbourg, and the second at Mayence with Fust, the banker and money-lender, who had advanced various sums to enable him to complete his final arrangements for printing the famous Bible. From these and other equally authentic sources the following facts in favour of the prior claims of Koster may be obtained. In order to baffle the curiosity of certain persons in Strasbourg who were anxious to discover the nature of the secret experiments in which he and his co-partners were engaged, an answer had been agreed upon, the equivocal double meaning of which, no doubt, greatly amused Gutenberg and his friends at the time of its concoction. Impertinent inquirers were told that the works in hand consisted of "looking-glasses." Now is it not more than probable that these looking-glasses,—these specula,—had reference to that "Mirror of Human Salvation,"—that "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," which Koster had printed at Haärlem, and which by the highway of the Rhine had reached the heart of north-western Germany, where, copies having been seen by the shrewd and inventive Gutenberg, he at once made a happy guess at the mode of their production, and was engaged in an attempt to imitate the original work in the shape of a German edition? These events occurred between 1487 and 1444,—that is to say, shortly after the time at which it is most probable that Koster first perfected and issued his "Speculum." It was stated, moreover, by the partners that their looking-glasses were intended for sale at the approaching fair at Aix-la-Chapelle; that fair being a great periodical market at which all kinds of sacred relics, rosaries, rituals, and books of devotional character formed a very principal section of the merchandise offered for sale, and where an attractive book like the "Speculum," if produced at an unusually low price by the new and secret process, would doubtless have found a ready sale. The adoption of that particular name,—spiegel or speculum,—and the mention of the place where the article named was to be disposed of, can hardly be simply curious coincidences. The Gutenbergian mirrors were, however, not destined to appear at the great fair. The legal difficulties having too long delayed the progress of the works, Gutenberg eventually left Strasbourg without perfecting the process.
We find him subsequently established in Mayence, his native city, where another circumstance occurred which appears to favour the prior pretensions of Koster, as asserted by his able advocate Junius. In 1444 Gutenberg was again busy with renewed attempts to carry his printing experiments into practical effect. His uncle, John Gutenberg the elder, having taken the house Zum Yungen, in 1448, Gutenberg went to reside with him; and there it was that those persevering efforts were made, which, after a few perfectly successful results on a small scale, at last culminated in the production of the celebrated Bible. We find from various scraps of evidence that the elder Gutenberg, whose Christian name, as we have seen, was John, had actually been in Holland a short time previously, and hence arises a very natural hypothesis that this Johann Gutenberg may have been the faithless Johann who carried off the secrets of Koster's process from Haärlem, in whose atelier, at the request of his nephew, he may have introduced himself as a workman. This appears the more probable, as we learn from reliable evidence that Gutenberg the younger derived most important help from his uncle in carrying the process to ultimate perfection, after he had so long failed by his own unaided efforts to bring it into actual working form. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that a man in Gutenberg's position,—his family belonging to that of the local nobility,—should enter the service of Koster for the secret purpose of acquiring his art; and in fact a precisely parallel case may be cited which occurred soon afterwards, when the King of France, Charles VII., despatched one of his mint-masters, an expert engraver in metal, to obtain secretly a knowledge of the new art which Gutenberg was practising in Mayence, so soon as its results had become known in Paris. The emissary so despatched was no other than the celebrated Jenson, who afterwards became one of the greatest printers of the fifteenth century; and a copy of the minute or order commanding his expedition to Mayence, and explaining its secret object, is still preserved in the library of the Arsenal at Paris.[7]
It would appear, then, that Koster was really the first printer with movable types. On the other hand, whether Gutenberg derived the first principles of the art from the works of Koster,—which is most probable,—or whether he struck out the idea spontaneously, as Koster had done, it is certain that he carried the art to much greater perfection than his predecessor, and that within twenty years after the production of Koster's works,—possibly less,—he issued the magnificent Bible which was at once his first and greatest work,—at once an essay and a masterpiece,—a work so striking in its completeness and perfection, that Mayence, the seat of its production, became an ever-celebrated city in the annals of literature and general civilisation.
The real eminence of the first printers, as the greatest and most efficient pioneers of modern civilisation, has, however, been but very tardily acknowledged. But a new era has dawned at last, and statues and memorials are no longer the exclusive appanage of mere rank or military glory. Those energetic men, the first printers, to whose inventive genius and indomitable perseverance we owe so much more than can be expressed in a few words, are at last receiving the commemorative honours to which they are so fully entitled. That is to say, in the Low Countries, in Germany, and in France,—but not yet in England,—worthy memorials have already been erected in every city that can claim the honour of being the birthplace or the arena of the first success of any of those true worthies of our race who aided in the original development of the powers of the printing press,—the greatest engine of progress, onward and upward, that the world has ever known.
In the centre of the Place at Haärlem, opposite to the house which is supposed to occupy the spot where Koster printed tho "Speculum," a bronze statue has been recently erected by the Dutch sculptor Royer, which is a truly noble work, and, as an individual statue, finer than any other of its class at present produced.
The statue of Gutenberg erected at Strasbourg, the scene of his early efforts, is also a work of genius; necessarily so, as coming from the hand of David d'Anger. The figure stands in a commanding position, and a scroll bearing a text is held forward as though just teken from the printing press; the right hand significantly pointing to the text, which is, "And there was light." At Mayence, the seat of the great printer's eventual and brilliant success, a statue was erected in his honour some twenty-five years ago; while at Frankfort, once the political and intellectual centre of the German Empire, a grand memorial in honour of the first three German printers has been recently completed. It consists of an architectural composition surmounted by the statues of Gutenberg, Fust, and Schoiffher, who collectively made a German city, for a time, the most celebrated spot in Europe, as the seat of a new power.
The first arrival of these men in a new seat of action, bearing, as it were, the torch of a new light, is being at last acknowledged as a great epoch, and duly commemorated. Even the little Belgian town of Alost has its magnificent statue to Thierri Martens, the first printer who established himself there. And yet, in England, we have no monument to Caxton!—to the great Englishman, William Caxton!—as remarkable a man as any among the first great printers. He had mastered the new art as early at least as 1467; that is to say, within ten or fifteen years of the appearance of Gutenberg's Bible; and, while residing in Bruges, he issued the first book ever printed in the French language, before the French capital could boast the possession of a single printing press. He brought the new art to his native country in 1475, and rapidly trained a band of clever assistants, among whom were Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson, who eventually succeeded him, and spread the art all over the land. And yet, like Shakspeare, he has no public monument; and the time is not very long past when it would have been deemed exceedingly absurd to propose erecting one to so obscure an individual as a mere printer. Verily these are things in "the manners and customs of the English" which are difficult to explain to foreigners.
1. He alludes to printing with movable metallic types.
2. From the name of the original author, Donatus.
3. Sacristan.
4. John's-son.
5. That is to say, the one generally esteemed the first, as being partly printcd from wooden tablets.
6. That jetté en molle,—or jeté en moule,—meant printed by means of cast type, there is abundant evidence. To quote ono instance: in the list of all the books belonging to Anne of Brittany the different volumes are described as "tant en parchemin que en papier, a la main, et en môlle," that is to say, both of parchment and paper,—both manuscript and printed.
7. It would have been interesting to cite at length this curious document, but the space allotted to a magazine article necessarily forbids our so doing.