their reward by nonperformance of the above-mentioned condition, he gives the key of the locks to another strong man, named Christ, who, in a day of irresistible power, looses the hands of the three hundred elect children, and chains them upon their breasts, as strongly as they were before chained behind their backs. When all the elect are properly bound, agreeably to orders, the king proceeds to judge the children according to their works, that is, according to their having put their hands behind their backs, or upon their breasts. In the meantime a question arises in the court: Can the king judge the children concerning the position of their hands, without rendering himself ridiculous? Can he wisely reward the elect favorites with life according to their works, when he has absolutely done the rewardable work for them by the stronger man? And can he justly punish the reprobate with eternal death, for not putting their hands upon their breasts when the strong man has, according to a royal decree, absolutely bound them behind their backs? "Yes, he can," says a counsellor, who has learned logic in mystic Geneva; "for the children have hands, notwithstanding the inevitable accomplishment of the king's effective and permissive decrees: now children who have hands, and do not place them as they are bid, are accountable, and accountable children are judicable; and if judicable, they are punishable." This argument would be excellent if the counsellor did not speak of hands which are absolutely tied. But it is not barely the having hands, but the having hands free, which makes us accountable for not placing them properly.'

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ART OF PRINTING.

PRINTING is an art to which mankind are so much indebted that it cannot be viewed with indifference. A few remarks, therefore, on the origin and progress of this art; we think will be acceptable to our readers.

Though unknown in Europe until about the middle of the fifteenth century, it was in use in China, but in a very imperfect state, at an extremely remote period. Their mode of printing, however, was quite different from the mode afterward invented, and now in so general use in Europe and other parts of the world. The Chinese method of printing resembled more our mode of engraving maps and woodcuts, than it does our improved typography. They prepare blocks of wood, firm, close, and smooth, of the size and form of the page they intend to print; on one side they glue paper, on which some able penman delineates the necessary letters and characters; the wood in this state is put into the hands of a sculptor, who, following with the proper instruments the outlines of the characters inscribed on the paper, cuts them out in relievo; the paper is then gently rubbed off, and the en

graved tablet, thus prepared, is that by which their printing is executed. The great disadvantages of this plan are very manifest. There must be as many of these wooden blocks as there are pages in a book; their blocks are of no use in printing any other works, and the process is extremely tedious and expensive. There are, however, these advantages: the Chinese require no corrector of the press, and their books are uncommonly accurate and beautiful; and they are not required to throw off a whole edition at once, but may, as those do who now use stereotype plates, print only so fast as they are required. Though the exact time when printing commenced in China cannot be ascertained, it is allowed on all hands to have been about five hundred years before any knowledge of the art was possessed by Europeans.

But though this is the fact, the Europeans are not indebted to the Chinese for a knowledge of this curious invention; for the former had the honor of inventing it themselves before a passage to the east by the Cape of Good Hope was discovered by the Portuguese, and therefore before they had any knowledge of the existence of that distant country. Though this fact is incontrovertible, yet to what individual the honor belongs of having invented the art of printing, has been a subject of much dispute. Three cities, namely, Harlaem in the Netherlands, Mentz and Strasburg in Germany, have each claimed the honor of giving birth to the man who is entitled to this distinction. Without, however, entering into the arguments, pro and con., in reference to this subject, we will remark that the weight of testimony seems to be in favor of Harlaem; and that the honor of the invention belongs to Laurentius Coster. The manner in which he was led to this invention confirms the truth of the remark so frequently made in reference to important discoveries, that they are often more the result of what are called accidental circumstances than of previous design.

'Laurentius,' says the relater of this event,' walking in a wood near the city, began at first to cut some letters upon the rind of a birch tree, which, for fancy's sake, being impressed on paper, he printed one or two lines as a specimen for his grandchildren to follow. This having happily succeeded, he meditated greater things, (as he was a man of ingenuity and judgment,) and first of all with his son-in-law, Thomas Peter, invented a more glutinous writing ink, because he found the common ink sunk and spread; and then formed whole pages of wood, with letters cut upon them; of which sort I have,' says the narrator, 'seen some essays in an anonymous work printed only on one side, entitled, "Speculum Nostra Salutis," [A Mirror of our Health,] in which it is remarkable that in the infancy of printing, (as nothing is complete in its first invention,) the back sides of the pages were pasted together, that they might not by their nakedness betray their deformity.'

The exact period when this rude method of printing was thus invented has not been ascertained; but it must have been in the first half of the fifteenth century, as Laurentius died in 1440. He published the Speculum Nostræ Salutis, and two editions of Donatus; and the specimen mentioned above has been discovered to be a Horarium, [an instrument to ascertain the hour of the day by the help of water,] the letters of the alphabet, the Lord's prayer, the apostles' creed, and three short prayers, in all only eight pages. These small works were all printed with separate wooden types fastened together with a thread; and therefore they must have cost him great labor, and have consumed considerable time in their execution; on this account it is conjectured that they must have been done as early as 1430. As might be expected under these circumstances, this printing was very imperfectly executed, and hence it is said to have been only remarkable for its rudeness and inelegance; the pages are not numbered: in the Horarium, his most clumsy performance, there is no punctuation, the lines are uneven, and the pages are not always of the same size and shape. This has been ascertained from engravings of this first and rude specimen of typography.

The art was next introduced into the city of Mentz, where many improvements were afterward made, in the following manner:-One of the servants of Laurentius, becoming emulous of the honor which his master had acquired by this useful invention, and the wealth which it promised to yield him, on Christmas eve, when Laurentius and his family were engaged in the exercises of religion, degraded himself by stealing the types and all the necessary apparatus, and, with an accomplice in his work of knavery, after visiting Amsterdam and Cologne, settled in Mentz in the capacity of a printer; and in 1442, within two years after he thus surreptitiously obtained his apparatus for printing and absconded from his master, he published two little works, the Doctrinale of Alexander Gallus, and the Tracts of Peter of Spain; and as both were used as school books, they doubtless met with a rapid sale and yielded him considerable profit.

Being patronized by some gentlemen of wealth, and also assisted by his brother from Strasburg, Geinsfleisch,-for this was his name,— made that improvement in the art of printing which has conferred immortality upon his name, and doubtless also contributed to the belief of some that Mentz instead of Harlaem had the honor of the first invention. Feeling the inconvenience of printing with wooden types, they were led to the invention of cut metal types, with which was printed, in the year 1450, the first type edition of the Bible; the second edition of which is said to have been extremely beautiful, some of which were sold in Paris for manuscripts by John Faust, who had become a partner in the concern, for from five hundred to six hundred crowns. Not being

acquainted with the art by which these Bibles were brought forth so beautifully executed, some of the Parisians thought that a magical influence was used in their execution. In 1462 Geinsfleisch died, and the business fell into other hands, but continued to be prosecuted with increasing vigor and success, as well as with additional improvements.

A desideratum, however, was yet to be supplied to make the art complete; and this was done by Peter Schoeffer, who entered into the business after the death of Geinsfleisch. Being naturally of an ingenious and inquisitive mind, and feeling the inconvenience of the slow and tedious process of cutting the types, after repeated experiments, he ascertained that the letters, by means of a matrix, might be cast. Before he revealed his discovery to any one, he privately made matrices for the whole alphabet; but when he revealed this important discovery to Faust, who was his patron, the latter was so delighted with the ingenious invention, that he promised him his only daughter in marriage, which promise was soon after fulfilled. This valuable discovery, which was made about 1458, forms one of the most important epochs in the history of printing, and surrounded the head of Schoeffer, the inventor, with a wreath of imperishable glory. Before his death, which took place in 1492, such were the facilities introduced into the art by this means, that he had printed upward of fifty works, among which were two editions of Cicero De officiis, some copies of which are still preserved in some of the public libraries of Europe. It seems that the cast letters were at first all of one size, as all the large letters in the body of their books, and at the top of their pages, were made from cut types. Their works were also printed on velium, instead of paper, a practice which was soon thereafter laid aside.

To prevent the knowledge of casting types by means of a matrix from spreading, that they might monopolize the benefits resulting from it, Faust and Schoeffer administered an oath of secrecy to all their workmen. This precaution, however, was useless. The city of Mentz, where they carried on their lucrative business, being taken and sacked by the Archbishop Adolphus in 1462, their servants were scattered into different countries, and carried with them the knowledge they had acquired in the employment of their masters. From this time, and by these means, printing made a rapid progress in most of the principal towns in Europe. The first printing was done in large Gothic or German characters, and they were not changed for the Roman characters until about thirty years after the invention.

It is not to be supposed that the knowledge of an art which promised so much substantial benefit to mankind, as well as delight arising from the accumulation and diffusion of knowledge, could be long confined to narrow limits, whatever pains might be taken by those who were in

possession of the secret, prompted as they naturally were from interested motives to keep it to themselves; accordingly we find that at least a part of the Bible was published in Bamberg in May, 1462. In 1465 it had reached Naples; in 1467 two printers established themselves in Rome; and in 1472 Theodore Martens set up the business at Alost in Holland. About the same time the art had become known in Venice, Milan, Bern, Antwerp, and all the important cities of the continent. In 1490 it had reached Constantinople; and by the middle of the next century it had extended to Africa and America. In 1560 it was introduced into Russia; but from the most illiberal and barbarous policy, the government interposed its authority for its suppression; nor did it receive any favor in that country until the time of Catharine II. In 1612 it had found its way to Iceland.

The first printed books were either in Latin or in the language of the respective countries where they were published. After several small attempts at printing in Greek, Lasiaris succeeded in producing a grammar of that language in Milan, in 1476,-and in 1488 a splendid edition of Homer made its appearance from the press of Demetrius of Florence, by a native of Crete. In 1518 the first Greek edition of the Bible was published in Venice, and soon after another at Complutium. From this time copies were multiplied in the Greek as well as the Latin language. The first Polyglot Bible was printed in Genoa 1516, by Persus, containing versions in Hebrew, Arabic, Chaldaic, Greek, and Latin.

It may be remarked that in the early history of printing, both the printers themselves and the correctors of the press, but more especially the latter, were among the most learned men, who considered it an honor to be thus employed.

In 1471 printing was introduced into England, by order of Henry VI, who sent Robert Tourner, who took with him William Caxton, to Holland to obtain a knowledge of the art. Though it seems probable that one Corsellis first began printing with wooden types in England, yet the honor of using cast metallic types is due to Caxton, who brought the art to great perfection in that country. The first work which he printed was a translation of the Æneid, written by himself. He is said to have been both an eminent scholar and printer, as well as of great moral integrity. He accordingly acquired deserved celebrity as a printer of a number of useful works, was highly honored by his king, and esteemed by all who knew him. After laboring long in this work, he uttered the following touching complaint :

Myn hande is wery, and myn eyes dimmed with overmoche lokyng on the whit paper, and age crepeth on me dayly.'

He lived, however, after this about twenty years, and died in a good old age in 1491.