352 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1707. 



The third method of printing was with single types made of wood ; but to 

 whom the honour of the invention is due, is not well known; it was then 

 esteemed so great a rarity, that the printers carried their letters in bags at their 

 backs, and got money at gentlemen's houses, by printing the names of the 

 family, epitaphs, songs, and other small matters. 



The fourth improvement of this noble art was the invention of single types 

 made of metal. Here we must entirely give the honour to Peter SchefFer of 

 Grenschen, servant and afterwards son in law to Faust, who engaged him to 

 work in his house at Mentz: he observing how indgstrious his master was 

 every day to improve this art, undertook it himself, and with much study and 

 industry brought it to perfection. After making several essays, he at last 

 showed it to his master Faust, who having tried some experiments with his 

 new invented single types, finding that it would answer his expectation, was so 

 transported with joy, that he promised him his daughter in marriage, which he 

 some time after performed, and they continued together, improving this art 

 with great secrecy, till it became known, and spread itself over all Europe. 

 Sometimes you have their names at the end of the books they printed, and 

 sometimes not ; sometimes with dates as high as the year 145/, as the Psalms 

 printed by them, now in the emperor's library, and mentioned by Lambec in 

 his Bibliotheca; and as low as the year 149O; for which we have the authority 

 of Erasmus, in a preface to Livy, printed at Basil by Froben, in 1 5 . . As for 

 John Guttenburgh, though by several authors he is said to be the first inventor 

 of printing, we cannot find one book with his name and printing. 



We may rationally conjecture, that printing with plates of pewter, brass, or 

 iron, either engraved or eat with aquafortis, was first practised by the working 

 goldsmiths ; for they have a way of taking off the impressions of their work, 

 by the smoke of a lamp, which perhaps gave the hint to the graving on brass ; 

 and of this we have a dark account in some authors. 



The Haarlem printing at first was a book with pictures; they took off the 

 impression with a list coiled up, as the card-makers use to this day. But when 

 they came to use single types, they employed stronger paper, with vellum and 

 parchment: then they made use of a press, though they afterwards contrived 

 and made it more useful. Nor was their ink for printing brought to perfection 

 at the first, but improved by degrees. Rolling-press printing was not used in 

 England till king James the first, and then it was brought from Antwerp, by 

 our industrious John Speed. 



Since my second voyage to Holland, to satisfy my curiosity and remove 

 some scruples about the book at Haarlem, and the statue of Coster, having 

 recollected myself after my first voyage, and discoursing with Mr. Talman, 



