14 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
and individual characteristics; and their conclusions differ as much 
as do their methods of investigation. Von der Linde unhesitatingly 
pronounces for Gutenberg, and ridicules all claims for Coster as 
legendary and fictitious. Hessels, in 1871, translated Von der 
Linde’s book, ‘‘ The Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing.” 
At that time translator and author were in agreement, but after 
studying for three years, the chief original documents bearing on the 
subject, Hessels’ views changed, and he has since become Von der 
Linde’s strong antagonist. Mr. Hessels’ faith in the valrdity of 
Coster’s claim strengthened as his belief in Gutenberg waned. In 
1882 he wrote the book entitled “‘ Gutenberg ; Was He the Inventor 
of Printing?” and in 1887 he issued a smaller work with the pro- 
nounced title ‘“ Haarlem, the Birthplace of Printing, not Mainz.” 
In his exhaustive article on early typography, written for Vol. XXIII 
of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Mr. Hessels concludes as the case 
stands, ‘‘there is no choice but to credit Coster with the inven- 
tion of printing with movable types at Haarlem about the year 1445.” 
Biades, Madden and DeVinne have contributed original information 
to the controversy, but their books echo more or less distinctly the 
stronger utterences of either Von der Linde or Hessels. In the 
works by these two authors, the leading facts relating to early print- 
ing are forcibly stated: new light is thrown into some of the dark 
corners; and if from either standpoint a finished picture is not at 
present a possibility ; nevertheless good sketches in firm outline are 
presented by both. 
In his essay on Jean Paul Richter, Carlyle says: ‘‘ Actual facts 
are nowise so simply related to each other as parent and offspring 
are; every single event is the offspring not of one but of all other 
events prior or contemporaneous.” Fortunately the truth, some- 
what oracularly asserted by Carlyle, is powerless to disturb men’s 
minds. Brevity of life and limitation of human faculties make it 
impossible to trace even the greatest events through more than a | 
few steps of their entangled unrestricted relationship. To that rule 
the invention of printing is no exception. Its kindred arts are 
dimly seen through the mists of the past, and immediate details of 
its origin are imperfectly recorded. Block books, pictures of saints, 
and ornaments stamped on textile fabrics and church vestments, if 
not the direct progenitors of printing, are near relations, were close - 
