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I)ecause they were messengers frequently sent out in darkness, and appeared very black ; but upon a reputed account, viz., — John Fust, or lanstus, of Mentz, in Germany, was the in- ventor of printing, for which he was called a conjuror, and his art the black art. As he kept a constant snccession of boys to run on emnds, who were always very black, these they called devils; some of whom being raised to be his apprentices, he was said to have raised many a devil. As to Uie inferior order among us, called flies, employed in taking newspapers off the press, they are of later extraction, being no older than newspapers themselves. Mr. Bailey thinks their original name was lies, taken from the papers they so took off, and the alteration occa- sioned thus: — ^To hasten these boys, the press- man called flie, lie, which naturally fell into one single word, lie. This conjecture is affirmed by a little corruption of the true title of the Lying Pott { since, tiierefore, we are both comprehended under the tiUe devils, let us discharge our office with diligence ; so may we attain, as many of our predecessors have done, to the dignity of printers, and to have an opportunity of using others as much like poor devils, as we have been used by them, or as tney and authors are used by booksellers. These are an upstart profesdon who have engrossed the business of Ixxikselling, which originally belonged solely to our masters. But let them remember, that if we worship Belial and Beelzebub, the god of flies, all the world agrees, that their god is Mammon."
At the head of the article is a picture, em- blematically displaying the art ana mystery of printing; in which are represented a compositor with an ass's head; two pressmen, one with the head of a hog, the other of a horse, being names which they fix upon one another ; a flie taking off the sheets, and a devil hanging them up ; a messenger with a greyhound's face kicking out the Crafuman ; a figure with two faces ; to shew he prints on both sides ; but the reader is cau- tioned against applying to any particular person who is, or ever was, a printer; for that all the figures were intended to represent characters, and not persons.
1732. The London Directory; or, a litt cf ike principal Traders in London. The person who conceived the idea of this work, (the first of its kind,) was Mr. James Brown, a native of Kelso, in Scotland, who after laying the foundation, gave it to Mr. Henry Kent, printer, in Finch- lane, Comhill, who carried it on, and got an estate by it. Mr. Brown was a scholar of some eminence ; but is better known as a merchant and traveller in various parts of the globe. He was bora May 23, 1709, educated at West- minster, and died at Stoke Newington, Lon- don, November, 1788.
1732, Nov. 20. Mr. John Mears, bookseller, Ludgate-street, Old Bailey, count de Passeran, and Mr. John Morgan, were taken into custody by a messenger ; the first for publishing, and the two latter for writing a pamphlet, entitled a Philo$opkical Diuertatum on Death. Mr. John
Mears succeeded to the business of Richard Nutt, and printed the Historical Register. He died in 1761.
1732. Died, Samuel Palmer, an eminent printer, of Bartholomew-close, London, and who IS remarkable for his History of Printing, 4to., in which he was assisted by that singular cha- racter, George Psalmanazar,* who, however, says, " that Mr. Palmer had long promised to the world his History of Printing, but for which he was not at all qualified. However, he de- signed to have added a second part, relating to the practical part, which was more suited to his genius, and in which he designed to have given a full account of all that relates to that branch, from the letter-founding to the most elegant way of printing, imposing, binding, &c., in which he had made considerable improvements of his own, besides those he had taken from foreign authors. But this second part, though but then as it were in embryo, met with such early and strenuous opposition ficom the respective bodies of letter- founders, printers, and book-binders, under an ill-g^unded apprehension that the discove^ of the mystery of'^those arts, especially the two first, would render them cheap and contemptible (whereas the very reverse would have been tiie case, they appearing indeed the more curious and worthy our admiration, the better they are known) that he was forced to set it aside. But as to the first part, viz., the History of Printing, he met with the greatest encouragement, not only from them, but from a very great number of the learned, who all engaged to subscribe largely to it ; particularly the late earls of Pem- broke and Oxford, and the famous Doctor Mead, whose libraries were to fiunish him with the noblest materials for the compiling of it, and did so accordingly. The misfortune was, that Mr. Palmer, knowing himself unequal to the task, had turned it over to one Papiat, a broken Irish bookseller then in London, of whom he had a great opinion, though still more unquzdi- fied for it than he, and only aimed at getting money from him, without ever doing any thing towaras it, except amusing him with fair promises for near three quarters of a year. He had so long dallied with him, that they were come within three months of the time in which Mr. Palmer had engaged to produce a complete plan, and a number or two of the first part by way of specimen of the work, viz., the invention and improvement of it by John Faust, at Mentz.
- George Pmlmanazar, aiiUiar of the fsboloas Hintorjf
of Fornuaa, and a very considerable part of the Unitaval HUtarf, exceeded In powers of deception anjr of the great impoaton of learning. His UUmd of Formosa was an illoslon eminently bold, and maintained with as mnch felidty as erudition; and great must have been that emdiUon which conld form a pretended language and Its grammar, and fertile the genins which could invent the history of an unknown people. It is said that the de- ception was only satisfactorily ascertained by his own pmltential confession ; he had defied and baffled the moat learned. His portion of the Uniotrsal BMorp is par- ticularly pointed out In his own Uemoin of Hinuelf, published the year after his decease, which happened May S, 17S3a at the age of eighty-tfaite.
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