90 



"jth Aprils 1 89 1. 



J. H. Greenhill, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



Talbot Baines Reed, Esq., gave a Lecture on 

 THE FIRST PRINTERS. 



The President having briefly introduced the lecturer, Mr. Reed 

 proceeded with his lecture. 



After four centuries of investigation, the problem of the 

 invention of printing remains still unsolved. We may trace 

 up the stream very high, but we invariably lose sight of it near 

 the source, and no one is yet in a position to say with authority 

 " when, where, and by whom was found out the unspeakably 

 useful art of printing books." 



After insisting upon the clear distinction to be observed 

 between printing in its broadest sense — ix.^ the mere process of 

 making a mark by means of impression, and typography — 

 i.e.^ the process of printing a book by means of movable type — 

 Mr. Reed proceeded to describe some of the early uses made by 

 the ancients of the former art. These are to be found chiefly 

 in the stamped bricks of the Assyrians, and the Chaldean 

 cylinders printed over with cuneiform characters describing 

 historical events. In the absence of any suitable material, such 

 as parchment or paper, which were not invented till a con- 

 siderably later period, this ancient method of printing was 

 confined to clay, which could be impressed when in a half moist 

 state by the stamps. But among the Romans we meet with 

 seals and stamps evidently intended to be impressed on hard 

 substances like wood or parchment. In all these contrivances, 

 however, the secret of movable type remained undiscovered. 

 Cicero alone, in one of his philosophic conjectures, imagined 



