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LITERATURE.
and contents himself by giving the statement of Junius, that the types token from Coster's house vere cast types. If the evidence of Guicciardini, on which Mr. Oltley seems to place implicit re- liance, is to be depended upon, we must under- stand that Coster died previous to the robbery, as stated by Junius.
In defence of Coster, we find Junius, Van Zuyren, Guicciardini, Coomhert, Shriverins, Boxhomi, Seiz, and Meerroan, and others, all resting upon the famous hearsay evidence of Junius.
The testimony of Hadrianus, then, is the only document on which the Dutch writers have relied, in their strenuous efforts to vindicate for Haerlem its chimerical honours. But, surely, an event so remarkable, so glorious for a country, would have been mentioned by cotemporary authors, had there been the least foundation for the claim ; yet no Dutch author, nor any work whatever of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, makes the least possible mention of the fact.
Havingtouched upon the principal arguments in favour of Haerlam, we shall proceed to give those in favour of Mentz; reserving further in- formation respecting Caster under the year 1440.
Writers in favour of Haerlem, have managed the controversy with great warmth, and charged Faust, the inventor, with robbing his supposed master, Laurence John Coster, of many tiiousand weight of his mateiials, on Christmas-eve, when the family and most of the city were in prayer at church; with other such ridiculous stories, fa- bricated merely to deprive this great man of the honour which he had so long incontestibly en- joyed. Had this been published in his life-time, when he might have defended himself, or pre- senUy after his death, when his son-in-law, or some of his friends, might have done it for him, he had undoubtedly been cleared ; but such an accusation was not hinted till 125 years after, and then grounded only on suspicion, as Dr. Junius owns, who was the first that attempted to transfer this discovery from Mentz to Haerlem. Faust's name, however, died not with him, though some Dutch writers made use of his art to asperse his memory, but others, of several nations, rose immediately in his defence ; in particular, the learned Malinkrot, dean of Mun- ster, who, in his treatise, De Ortu et Progrettu Artis Typographica, has not only refuted what was advanced on the other side, but nuide such researches after the old monuments of the arts and collected so great a variety of testimonies, supported by undeniable facts, as seem at once to determine the controversy.
Writers have difliered much uponthissubject; first, because the inventors made many fruitless trials, and a great number of malculatures, before they could bring the art to any tolerable degree of perfection : secondly, because the vast expense of such a discovery compelled them to keep it secret as long as possible ; or at leasst, until tiiey had reimbursed themselves, in some measure, by finishing the Latin Bible, which, though a great and expensive work, was the most likely to com-
pensate their labour and cost when finished. On these two circum-stances rests the foundation of the disagreement; which may, however, be eaaly reconciled by attending to the various period from which the discovery is dated. Wimphelinp, Palmerus, Althamers, &c. date it from the in- fancy of the invention of wooden blocks, and assign the year 1440. Tritbemius, Aventine,aiid many more, from the invention of fusil types, anno 1450. Thevet, Rocha, &c. fix the inven- tion of the former method in 1442; whilst others place the time of the typographical improvements m the year 1453 or 1454, among whom are Apianus and P. Langius. Ramus and Bur- gamensis assign the year 1458 for the perfection of it. To reconcile this contrarietv of opinion among these writers, it will be suMcient to say, with respect to the first, that they fixed the date from the time in which wooden blocks were first invented, rather than from the infancy of the Art : with regard to the last, that they thought an interval of ten years rather too short for the transition from the infancy of the former, to the perfection of tbe latter method ; and, therefore, allowed a few years more than their predecessors had done.
But of all those who have treated on this in- vention, none deserve more attention than the abbot Tritbemius, who lived about the time it was made, and dived into the fountain head for information. Speaking of the year 1450, in his Chronicon Spanhrimense, he says, " About this time, the Art of Printing and casting single Types was found out a-new in the city of Mentz, by one John Gutenberg, who having spent his whole estate in this difficult discovery, by the assistance and advice of some honest men, John Faust and others, brought his undertaking at length to perfection: that the first improver of this Art, alter the invention, was Peter Schoeffer (in Latin, Opilio) de Gemsheim, who afterwards printed a great many volumes: that the said Gutenberg lived at Mentz in a house called the ZuM-juNOHHEN, but afterward known by the name of the Printing-house." By the word a-new, in the preceding extract, we are almost led to suppose that the author meant rather a revival of the Art than a new invention ; but he fully destroys this conjecture in another work, published some years after, intituled Chronieon Hirsaugiense. Tritbemius wrote this towards the close of his life, after he had been informed of many particulars relating to this invention, from the mouth of Peter Schoeffer, simamed de Gemsheim, who was at first a servant to Faust, and being very expert in preparing the moulds, and casting the letters, his master gave him his only daughter, Christiana, in marriage, and took him into partnership, as appears by the inscrip- tions to their first books. The following inscrip- tion, which is taken from his Breviary of History, gives so concise an account of the origin of print- ing, and speaks so powerfully in favour of Mentz, that I am induced to insert it here: — ^This present clironplogical work was printed aixl finished anno, 1515, on the eve of St Margaret
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