18 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
‘““The printing of this book probably commenced in or about 1452, 
“on the completion of Gutenberg’s invention. Whether we are 
‘“ justified in treating it as printed throughout by Gutenberg himself, 
“or should regard it as printed wholly or in part by Fust, who had 
“lent money to Gutenberg for the purpose of his invention, or by 
‘“ Schoeffer who printed a Donatus with the same types, is a question 
“not yet fully answered, nor perhaps likely to be answered. ‘There 
‘fare documents of the fifteenth century in which the invention is 
‘“ascribed variously to one or other of these three.” 
Next in importance among early printed books is a Bible 
containing two -hundred and forty-one leaves more and six lines to 
the column less than the Mazarine Bible; and the first Mainz 
Psalter. The thirty-six line Bible, sometimes called the Pfister 
Bible, is scarcely less famous than the Mazarine Bible; and the 
Mainz Psalter, printed by Fust and Schoeffer in 1457, is the first 
book printed with a date. Of the Pfister, or thirty-six line Bible, 
not more than ten copies are known. ‘Twenty-one copies of 
the Mainz Psalter are known. Nine are dated 1457 and twelve are 
dated 1459. Only a few are perfect ; Brunet says the most beau- 
tiful copy is in the Imperial Library at Vienna. ‘These psalters 
were sumptuously printed. Initial ornamental letters of many early- 
printed books were painted by hand. Those of the Mainz Psalters 
were printed ; and for beauty of design, delicacy of colour, and 
careful printing they are said by artists and printers hardly to be 
surpassed in our times. Until lately they were thought to be wood 
engravings ; but Mr. Linton combats that opinion, and says the 
ornamentation of the initial letter of the first psalm, the letter B 
covering a space more than three inches square, has a purity and 
delicacy of outline convincing to him that it was engraved on metal, 
and: not on wood ; and that it is beyond the wood engravers art of 
that day. The Mainz printers, besides their large books, also 
printed some smaller papers in the first years of their art. ‘The list 
of their minor works accepted as unquestionably genuine hardly 
exceeds some Papal indulgences, a M/ahnuug against the Turks, a 
calendar, and copies from five or six editions of the favorite Latin 
primer of the day, called Dozatus, after its author, a Latin rhetor- 
ician of the fourth century. 
The half-dozen books and few documents left from the first 
