FIRST ATTEMPTS. 



various articles. If the modern art of making paper had been 

 known in those remote times, it is very probable that the art of 

 printing books would have existed at a much earlier date than 

 that of its actual commencement, for with the same kind 

 of stamps precisely, as those by which the Roman tradesmen 

 marked their wares, books might have been printed, and the same 

 engravings which adorned the shields and pateras of ancient 

 times might, by the aid of paper, have spread the intelligence of 

 Greece and Italy over the world. 



According to Du Halde and certain missionaries, the art of 

 printing from blocks carved in relief was practised in China fifty 

 years before the Christian era ; and, from the early commercial 

 intercourse of the Venetians with that country, there is reason to 

 believe that the knowledge of this art, in its application to the 

 multiplying of books, was originally derived from thence, for 

 Venice is the first place in Europe in which it is recorded to have 

 been practised. 



Its first application was to the production of playing cards and 

 religious prints, and when the art was first extended to books 

 they were printed by carving each page upon a separate block. 

 This process of carving the characters in relief, which was probably 

 executed by attaching the manuscript to the face of the block 

 and engraving from the manuscript, will afford an easy and 

 obvious explanation of the diversity of characters found in ancient 

 books printed from such blocks, and will explain the great simi- 

 larity which exists between books thus printed and manuscripts. 

 This similarity was increased by their being printed on one side 

 of the paper only, the indentation produced by the impression 

 being removed by burnishing the back. Two leaves were then 

 pasted together, making such a perfect fac-simile of the manu- 

 script, as to require, even at the present day, great discrimination 

 and much chemical skill to distinguish such books from real manu- 

 scripts ; and as they have no printers' names, dates, or places affixed 

 to them, it is impossible to ascertain by whom, or when, or where 

 they were executed. The fabrication of these pseudo-manuscripts 

 involved the first introduction of the art of printing. 



6. Movable Types. About the middle of the fifteenth century 

 the art of printing in this rude manner acquired considerable 

 extension ; but as each separate work required to have separate 

 blocks for each page, and since the blocks for one work were 

 altogether useless for another, the printers soon began to feel the 

 inconvenience arising from the storage of such numerous collections 

 of blocks, to say nothing of the expense of carving them. They 

 were, therefore, stimulated to seek for some method less costly 

 and cumbrous, by which the models in relief of the pages could be 



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