Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/347

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THE LEGEND OF COSTER.

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invention of typography.^[1] It was thought that the fixing of the invention within this year would sufficiently establish the priority of Coster, for the year 1442 was the date then assigned to the rival invention in Germany. The authority of Junius for the year 1440 was, no doubt, a pedigree of the Coster family, of which he makes no mention.

There are troublesome entanglements connected with this date of 1440. Subsequent defenders of the legend, who tried to supply the deficiencies and correct the errors of Junius, made discoveries which compelled them to acknowledge that Lourens Janszoon (supposed by them to be Lourens Janszoon Coster) died in the year 1439. If he died in 1439, and if we believe that the invention was made in 1440, then he did his typographic work in the year after his death.^[2] The absurdity of this date was clearly perceived when it was afterward discovered that Gutenberg had been engaged as early as 1436 in experiments with printing. To preserve the appearance of probability, the date of the invention was removed to 1423, so as to allow Coster time for experiment and for the perfection of his invention.

The name of the inventor is as uncertain as the date of the invention. Junius names him Laurentius Johannes, surnamed Ædituus, or Custos. In the pedigree, the name was

↑ In the year 1630, Adrien Rooman, of Haarlem, published a print which contained the engraved representation of a printing office, to which he put the words—"Invented at Haarlem about 1430;"—but "The magistrates and citizens of Haarlem, in everlasting remembrance of the event and the man," erected a monument in front of the Coster house, with an inscription on it, which fixed the date at 1440.
↑ Lambinet caustically observes that the romance of Junius obeys the dramatic law of unity, in time, place, and hero: the typographic art is invented complete in one day. The vague language of Junius has been used as a proper warrant for a very liberal construction of the date. When Van Lennep objected, in 1823, to the chimerical year of the invention, 1423, fixed upon by a Haarlem committee, the synod enjoined him: "If he will again carefully read the account of Junius, and not forsake, out of his prejudice, all common sense, he will plainly see himself, and be obliged to acknowledge, that Junius said not a single word about the time of the invention." Van der Linde, The Haarlem Legend, p. 68.

[1] In the year 1630, Adrien Rooman, of Haarlem, published a print which contained the engraved representation of a printing office, to which he put the words—"Invented at Haarlem about 1430;"—but "The magistrates and citizens of Haarlem, in everlasting remembrance of the event and the man," erected a monument in front of the Coster house, with an inscription on it, which fixed the date at 1440.

[2] Lambinet caustically observes that the romance of Junius obeys the dramatic law of unity, in time, place, and hero: the typographic art is invented complete in one day. The vague language of Junius has been used as a proper warrant for a very liberal construction of the date. When Van Lennep objected, in 1823, to the chimerical year of the invention, 1423, fixed upon by a Haarlem committee, the synod enjoined him: "If he will again carefully read the account of Junius, and not forsake, out of his prejudice, all common sense, he will plainly see himself, and be obliged to acknowledge, that Junius said not a single word about the time of the invention." Van der Linde, The Haarlem Legend, p. 68.

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