THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 17 
elder, in almost the exact words of Daunou, suggests, we may be 
too far from the invention of printing ever to know the details of 
its discovery, and too near to predict with certainty what will be its 
future results. 
The early printed book of most general interest is the Azble 
Mazarine. Singularly enough that Bible had been forgotten until 
De Bure, little more than a hundred years ago, found a copy among 
the books formerly owned by the Cardinal Mazarin. Fifty years 
after De Bure’s discovery twenty copies were known, and at present 
thirty copies are known to exist. Mr. Quaritch, the London book- 
seller, says that ten copies of the Mazarine Bible have been sold in 
England since the year 1847, and that at different times five of 
these were in his own possession. For Sir John Thorold’s copy, 
sold in 1884, Mr. Quaritch paid £3,900. There are two copies in 
the Library of the British Museum—one printed on paper, the 
other on vellum ; for although paper was known to civilized Europe 
at least two hundred years before the invention of printing, it was 
not made in large quantities, and vellum was preferred by scribes 
and illuminators for their rarer and costlier purposes. It is 
estimated that three hundred sheep skins were used for a single 
copy of the Mazarine Bible. In the British Museum copy, the 
titles to each book, chapter, and psalm, and all the large initial 
letters, were rubricated by hand, ‘That was often done in incun- 
abala—as books dating from the infancy of printing are called—and 
as illustrators of books in those days were not all scholars, a director 
or small letter was often printed to show what initial should be 
painted in the space left. A Mazarine Bible in the Bibliotheque 
Nationale at Paris, contains a note stating that Henricus Cremer, 
Vicar of St. Stephen’s at Mainz, finished illuminating and binding 
that book on August 24th, 1456 ; a memorandum which incidentally 
helps to fix the date when the Bible was printed. The British 
Museum Official Catalogue describes the Mazarine Bible carefully 
in these words: ‘It contains six hundred and forty-one leaves 
‘printed in double columns, with forty-two linés to the column. It 
‘“‘is probably the first large book, if not the first piece of printing of 
“any size, executed by movable metal types. Between 1450 and 
“7452, Gutenburg is believed to have made experiments which 
‘resulted in the invention of printing with movable metal types 
