THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION, 25 
has been claimed by the Costerians; but from the same types 
four editions of the Doctrinale mentioned, and six editions of the 
small Donatus grammar have been found. With subtle but some- 
what strained reasoning, Mr. Hessels endeavors to show that alto- 
gether forty-seven Dutch printed books, or fragments of books, have 
been brought to light that were printed with the same types used for 
printing the Specu/um, or with types so near akin as to be inseparable 
from them, and of these there are twenty-one editions of the 
Donatus grammar. It is further argued, these books are more 
archaic than the early Mainz books; and are a necessary link be- 
tween the rudely-cut letters of the block books and the superb 
printing of Fust and Schoeffer. Moreover, these Donatus grammars 
printed with movable types like those used in the Speculum, are, it 
is urged, the veritable books spoken of in the Cologne Chronicle 
by Zell, in which prefigurement of the art of printing was first in- 
vented in Holland. 
This point of the discussion necessarily hinges on the question 
whether the forty-seven books and fragments of books printed with 
type and in a manner more archaic than German type and printing, 
are older than the Mainz /udulgence, of 1454, and should, therefore, 
be historically placed before it. Waiving for the time positive 
affirmations pro and con, the answer of Wm. Blades—a friendly 
witness for Haarlem—made shortly before his death in 1890, is 
worth quoting. Hesays: ‘‘ Honestly speaking, I think the direct 
“ proofs insufficient ; but if we study the typographical evidence by 
“the light of the Cologne Chronicle, the probabilities seem to me 
“quite on the side of the Costertana. * * ‘The evidence on 
“‘each side may be enlarged in the course of years, but so far as it 
“‘ooes at present it is strongly in favor of the first rude invention of 
‘“moveable types in Holland by some one whose name may have 
*“been Coster. The claim of Gutenberg upon the respect of posterity 
“rests on his great improvements—so great as to entitle him in a 
“sense to be deemed the inventor—foremost in excellence if not 
‘first in time.” 
On behalf of Mainz it is contended that the Dutch school 
grammars which were the prefigurement—vurby/ding—of the Mainz 
invention, were Xylographic or Block-book Denatuses ; and to con- 
strue the reference in the Chronzcle to them, to mean they were printed 
