[ 297 ] 



XLVIII. Oil the Invention and First Introduction of Mr. 

 KcEnig's Printing Machine. By Richard Taylor, F.S.^.^c. 



" As a step in the progress of civilization the Steam Press can only be 

 compared to the original discovery of Printing itself." — Times Newspaper, 

 j2cli/29, 1847, on the death of Mr. J. Walter. 



MORE than a century after its introduction the first inven- 

 tion of the Art of Printing became a subject of long-con- 

 tinued controversy, remarkable for the insufficiency and fallacy 

 of the most confident assertions resting upon pretended tradi- 

 tions and unsupported conjectures. And, as Hadrian Junius 

 in 1575 first disputed the claims of Gutemberg after so long a 

 period had elapsed, so did Atkyns as late as 1664 first deny 

 the title of Caxton to the honour of having introduced the 

 art into our own country. Hence one of the writers in this 

 controversy remarks that " the Art of Printing, which has 

 given light to most other things, hides its own head in dark- 

 ness." 



It will be our own fault if we allow any unfounded asser- 

 tions and pretensions to obtain currency with regard to an 

 improvement in the art, of which The Times newspaper has 

 said that "from the days of Faust and Gutemberg to the 

 present hour there has been only one great revolution in the 

 art of printing, and it occurred in the year 1814. Of that 

 revolution Mr. Walter was t lie prominent and leading agent.'' 



Now though I would on no account detract from the ge- 

 neral merits of the late Mr. Walter, as set forth in the Obi- 

 tuary and extended Memoir which appeared in The Times of 

 the 29th of July and 16th of September, yet I cannot allow 

 the representations which are made in these articles, as to 

 any share which he is alleged to have had in this important 

 invention, to pass without the most unqualified contradiction. 



In the Obituary we read as follows : — 



"But one achievement alone is sufficient to place Mr. Walter 

 high in that list which the world, as it grows older and wiser, will 

 more and more appreciate — 



' Inventas aut qui vitam excohiere per artes, 

 Quique sui memores alios fecere merendc' 



He first brought the steam-engine to the assistance of the public 

 press. Familiar as the discovery is now, there was a time when it 

 seemed fraught with difficulties as great as those which Fulton has 

 overcome on one element and Stephenson on another. To take off 

 5000 impressions in an hour was once as ridiculous a conception as 

 to paddle a ship fifteen miles against wind and tide, or to drag in 

 that time a train of carriages weighing 100 tons fifty miles. Mr. 

 Walter, who, without being a visionary, may be said to have thought 

 nothing impossible that was useful and good, was early resolved that 

 there should be no impossibility in printing by steam. It took a long 

 time in those days to strike oiF the 3000 or 4000 copies of The 



