190 



PRINTING AND POINTERS. 



wards of four hundred Bibles of 

 different editions, states that he was 

 not aware of any edition he had 

 exam iued which was without errors ; 

 but Pasham's Bible, in 1776, and 

 another printed at Edinburgh, in 

 1811, were the most accurate and 

 the most beautiful he had found. 



Now, it will be observed, that 

 the former was printed by a private 

 individual, the monopoly being 

 evaded by putting at the bottom of 

 the pages very short notes, which 

 were cut off in the binding. 



The same witness afterwards re- 

 marks, that "there never was an 

 elegant edition of the Bible printed 

 at the king's printers' ; the elegant 

 editions have been those of Basker- 

 ville, Macklin, Heptinstall, Ritchie, 

 and Bowyer, and the whole of these 

 were printed with colourable notes." 

 He also stated, that the effect of 

 the patents was to limit the circu- 

 lation of the Scriptures ; and that, 

 if the patents were intended to 

 protect the purity of the text, and 

 improve the printing, they had 

 certainly been productive of a very 

 different result. 



THK FIRST PRINTED BOOK, OR 

 THE DEVIL AND DOCTOR FAUSTUS. 



The first printed book on record 

 is the Book of Psalms, by one 

 Faust, of Mentz, and his son-in-law, 

 Schoeffer. It appeared in 1457, less 

 than four hundred years ago. Se- 

 veral works were printed many 

 years before, by Guttemberg; but 

 as the inventors wished to keep the 

 secret to themselves, they sold their 

 first printed works as manuscripts. 



This gave rise to an adventure 

 that brought calamity on Faust. 

 Hating in 1450, begun an edition 

 of the Bible, and finished it in 14GO, 

 he carried several printed copies of 

 it to Paris, and offered them for sale 

 as manuscripts. This made him at 

 once an object of suspicion. 



It was in those days when Satan 

 was thought to be ready at every 



man's elbow, to offer his magic if 

 called upon, and as the French could 

 not conceive how so many books 

 should perfectly agree in every 

 letter and point, they ascribed it to 

 infernal agency, and poor Faust had 

 the misfortune to be thrown into 

 prison. 



Here it was, that, in order to 

 prove he had no aid from the devil, 

 as well as to gain his liberty, he 

 was obliged to reveal the secret, and 

 show to the proper officers how the 

 work was done. 



Perhaps it was upon this adven- 

 ture that somebody built up the 

 story of the league of the devil and 

 Dr. Faustus, as well as wrote those 

 ludicrous dialogues, which, in some 

 of the puppet-shows, Faust, under 

 the name of Dr. Faustus, is made 

 to hold with the devil. 



FIRST ENGLISH PRINTING-PRESS. 



The first printing-press in Eng- 

 land was set up in the almonry of 

 Westminster, where Caxton, pro- 

 bably encouraged by the learned 

 Thomas Milling, then abbot, pro- 

 duced the moral treatise entitled 

 the Game and Playe of the Chcsse, 

 the first book printed in that coun- 

 try. The ancient printing-house 

 contains nothing of the interior 

 appearance peculiar to its original 

 arrangement, having been for a 

 long time let in tenements, and di- 

 vided according to the convenience 

 of the generation of lodgers that 

 have inhabited it. 



ATTEMPT TO PRINT A PERFECT BOOK. 



" Whether such a miracle as an 

 immaculate edition of a classical 

 author does exist," says one, "I 

 have never learnt ; but an attempt 

 has been made to obtain this glori- 

 ous singularity, and was as nearly 

 realized as is perhaps possible the 

 magnificent edition of Os Liisiadas 

 of Camoens by Don Joze Souza, in 

 1817. This amateur spared no pro- 

 digality of cost and labour, and flat- 



