390 
this kind to be found every day in 
most of the great libraries, public and. 
private, of the universities, cities, mo- 
nasteries,.and opulent individuals, of 
Germany, afford a corroborative proof, 
that the art was there first discovered, 
and so continued, in uninterrupted ex- 
ercise, till the commencement of. the 
16th century. ; 
The Baron. de Heiniken, an enlight- 
ened amateur, found, in the Charter. 
house of Buxheim, near Memmingen, 
a. very curious and interesting print, 
‘ivom an engraving on wood, repre- 
senting the image of St. Christopher, 
with the followimg legend, also en- 
graved and printed: “‘ Cristoferi faciem 
die quacunque tueris. Illa nempe die, 
morte malé non morieris.  Millesimo 
C£CC°. XX°. tertio.” On whatever 
day thou beholdest the face of Christo- 
pher, thou shalt not die any evil 
death.—A copy of this print, correctly 
taken from: the original, may be seen 
in the. Journal of M. Murr, printed at 
Nuremberg, in vol. ii. p. 104. This is 
a remarkable piece, plainly proving, 
_ that so early as the year 1423, letters 
and images, or figures, were engraved 
on wood for printing. 
To supply the total defect of any 
authentic document, like this, the par- 
tisans of Laurent Janssoen Coster have 
recourse to editions of the 15th cen- 
-tury, without any date, or name of 
place or printer, the number of which 
is very considerable. These have 
‘been arranged, in chronological order, 
from 1430 to 1448, by Meerman, Seiz, 
and. others, arbitrarily, and with as 
much. assurance as if they had been 
-really executed by Coster. 
A pretence has been setup, that the 
heirs of Coster, (after his death, repre- 
sented as about the year 1440,) the 
sons of his son-in-law, Thomas, viz. 
Peter, Andrew, and Thomas, suc- 
eeeded him, printing several works, 
although they had been robbed, 
about the year 1459, by a faith- 
less domestic, named Frederick Cor- 
sellis, suborned by the court of Eng- 
land, and whither he ‘conveyed, the 
typographical art. But the proofs, of 
this continuation of printing by the 
heirs of Coster, rest also on ancient 
editions, without a date or. printer’s 
name. The characters also, or types, 
bear no resemblance to the impressions 
of ,any other printer, or known artist, 
of the 15th century. Indeed, it isa 
matter generally admitted by well-in- 
‘formed bibliographers, that all the 
Origin and early Progress of the Art of Printing. 
[Dec. 1; 
pretended impressions by the heirs of 
Coster, to which might be added, 
“* Sidonii,, Apollinaris Opera,” and 
many others still extant, with exaetly 
similar characters, issued, from the 
presses of Nic, Ketelaer, and Ger. de 
Leempt,..of Utrecht. One. of their 
works with the. very same, types, 
entitled, ‘‘ Historia Scholastica Novi 
Testamenti,” bears, a date to it. of 
1473. 
Waving these, and other such hy- 
pothetical systems, we may, preceed to 
ascertain, as nearly as, the materials 
will allow, the epoch to which we may 
refer the origin of the typographic.art. 
It appears evident, that printing 
derives its origin from the art of en- 
graving on wood. ,Card-makers, or 
manufacturers of cards for playing 
with, are known to have been em- 
ployed in the 14th. century. It was 
these who. first began to engrave 
images of saints on wood; to these 
images, they afterwards added yerses 
or sentences analogous to the subject. 
The Baron de Heiniken, found, in 
several different monasteries, of Ger- 
many, a great number of cuts, with 
verses or sentences engraved in wood, 
of the same size, and form as cards for 
playing with. In the progress, of the 
art, historical subjects were composed, 
with a text or explication, engraved 
on the same plates, so as to form a sort 
of books of images, like those above 
mentioned, “ Biblia Pauperum,”, &e. 
As they were fabricated by means of 
wooden plates, engraved in relief, they 
cannot be considered. as real printed 
impressions, but belonging more pro- 
perly to the art. of engraving. .The 
letters were fixed, and could not be 
disarranged, or arranged, at pleasure, 
like moveable characters of metal ; of 
course, they could only . serve, for 
taking off copies of a, single work. 
This kind of impression was. not un- 
known in the times of antiquity. :. 
We may, therefore, take .it. for 
granted, that these books of images, 
engraven. on wood, were the first 
essays towards printing, as the next 
step would be to cut the engraved lJet- 
ters in relief, or else to seulpture 
them separately, so as to render them 
moveable. 7 ; 
This important object was effected, 
about the year 1438, by John Guten- 
berg, or John Gaensfleisch, surnamed 
Lum Gunterberg, of Mentz,.a very 
ingenious artist, as appears from cer- 
tain authentic materials of a law-suit, 
yet 
