VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 83 



new-written copies, by which the book writer and illuminator must, as he might 

 well pretend, be so paid for their work, as to maintain themselves and faLnilies. 

 This trick might be long undiscovered in and about Haerlem, because there 

 was no other printing by which this might be contradicted ; but at length, as 

 Boxhorn and Schrevel write, Fust ran away with all his master's tools and mate- 

 rials, and in process of time set up a printer's shop at Mentz, being assisted 

 by his servant Peter SchoefFer, a young man of a good genius, who afterwards 

 married his daughter, and became his partner in the business. The story goes 

 that this John Fust went to Paris (but whether before or after his settling at 

 Mentz, I cannot tell) and that he there offered a great number of printed Bibles 

 to sale, as if they were manuscripts. But tlie French were not to be so-. caught. 

 They considered the number of these books, and their exact conformity^to one 

 another throughout the whole, to a line, a word, a letter, a point, and th^t the 

 best of book writers could not be thus exact, and therefore by indicting him of 

 diabolical magic, or threatening him with it, they at once gave birih to The 

 story of Doctor Faust us, and obliged him to discover the art. And I doubt 

 not but about this time, many books were printed and sold for manuscripts ; I 

 having several such books without dates, which looked rather older than any I 

 have seoi with them. I speak now of those that are set or composed of letter, 

 which with printing ink of lamp-black and oil, and the printing press, is said 

 to be the improvement of SchoefFer above-mentioned, though Schrevel with less 

 reason ascribes the two former to his countryman Koster. 



When Fust and SchoefFer began first to work at Mentz, is uncertain, but 

 the first mention I find of him as a printer at Mentz, is in Schrevel's Haerlem, 

 pag. 272, where he says that this Fust (or Faustus, as he calls him) published 

 Alexandri Doctrinale cum Petri Hispani Tractatibus, A. D. 1442; but this, and 

 some other books mentioned by writers on this subject, are never said to be 

 extant in any particular place, in order to be consulted upon occasion ; and 

 therefore their titles and dates are not so much to be relied on. But another 

 date, which, though not so old, is more authentic, may be found in the above- 

 cited book of Lambec, p. QSQ, where he says he brought away from Inspruck, 

 among other choice volumes, and placed in the Imperial library at Vienna, a 

 Psalter, printed upon parchment, with this inscription at the end : Praesens 

 Psalmorum codex venustate capitalium decoratus rubricationibusque sufficienter 

 distinctus, adinventione artificiosa imprimendi ac characterizandi, absque calami • 

 ulla exaratione sic effigiatus, et ad eusebiam dei Industrie est consummatus per 

 Johannem Fust, Civem Moguntinum, et Petrum ScoefFer de G^rnszheiin, Anno 

 Domini millesimo CCCCLVII. in Vigilia Assumptionis. From this time there 

 are constant remains of the industry of these men; and I can mention more' 



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