138 HISTORY OF THE PRINTING PRESS IN DERBYSHIRE. 
upon a similar sketch to the present, the subject being the rise 
and progress of the manufacture of Pottery and Porcelain in this 
county; and it occurs no less strongly now that the “ Early 
History of the Printing Press in Derbyshire” has been suggested 
to me by the Council as a paper which may possibly prove 
interesting to this Society. 
At first sight, it may be thought that I have somewhat exagge- 
rated the difficulty of tracing the art of printing to its origin in any 
given locality. Books and printed papers are, as people know, 
generally dated, and bear the name and local habitation of the 
printer ; books, as compared with porcelain, are but little liable to 
accidental destruction, and are, indeed, frequently handed down 
from generation to generation with sedulous care. I reply that 
the early productions of local presses were, for the most part, 
ephemeral, consisting of ballads, bill-heads, public notices, and 
such like ‘‘small deer.” Books, properly so called, rarely appear 
until the press has been at work for some time ; and often in this 
wise—a “ mute, inglorious Milton,” fired with ambition, persuaded 
the printer to bring out a volume of ‘Poems,’ or the curate 
compiled some profound “ Reflections.” ‘These, having served as 
traps for subscriptions, fell into the hands of the trunk-maker and 
were seen no more. Stray copies survive, and the diligence of 
collectors is sometimes rewarded by the discovery of such a 
“treasure” in some unexpected spot—a magazine of pipe-lights 
once—a very milestone, now, upon the highway of historical 
enquiry. 
Another class of printed literature includes ‘* chap-books,” 
which lurked at the bottom of the pedlar’s pack, when our grand- 
mothers were young, and “railway libraries” were undreamt of ; 
kitchen romances and children’s toy-books, these, whose very 
popularity ensured their being “thumbed” out of existence, with 
almanacks, calendars, and “ fortune-tellers,” swell the list. How 
important is the part these gvasé astrological works have played in 
the history of civilization can scarcely be conjectured by busy 
people in these high-pressure times ; but this is not to the point. 
Suffice it to say that few such books from local presses have come 
