PRI 
is reputed, in law, the same person wdth 
tlie King; to imagine liis death, or violate 
liis wife, is high treason. 
PRINCIPAL, the chief and most neces- 
sary part of a thing. In commerce, princi- 
pal is the capital of a sum due or lent, so 
called in opposition to interest. It also 
denotes the first fund put by partners into 
a common stock, by which it is distinguish- 
ed from the calls or accessions afterwards 
required. 
Principal point, in perspective, is a 
point in the perspective plane, upon which 
a line drawn from the eye perpendicular to 
the plane falls. It is in the intersection of 
the horizontal and vertical plane, and called 
the point of sight, and point of the eye. See 
Perspective. 
PRiNCiPAL vay, in perspective, tliat which 
passes perpendicularly from the spectator’s 
eye to the perspective plane. See Per- 
spective. 
PRINOS, in botany, winter-berry, a ge- 
nus of the Hexandria Monogynia class and 
order. Natural order of Dumosae. Rhamni, 
Jussieu. Essential character : calyx six- 
clett; corolla one-petal!ed, wheel-shaped; 
beiuy six-seeded. There are seven species. 
PRINTERS, marks of. See Printing. 
PRINTING, the art of making an im- 
pression upon one body by pressing it with 
another. This art, in some way or other, 
has been known in all ages. It has been 
done upon wax, upon plaster, upon iron, by 
the ancients; their seals, their rings, their 
money, prove it. It has been done with 
wooden blocks upon cotton and silk by the 
Indians. Piinting, therefore, in this limited 
sense, was common to all nations. This art 
is now divided into four distinct branches : 
1. Common, or letter-press printing. 2. Rol- 
ling-press printing. 3. Calico-printing. 4. 
Stereotype-printing. 
Printing by letter-press is the most curi- 
. ons branch of the art, and demands the 
most particular notice. It has been often 
remarked, that as seven cities in Greece dis- 
puted for the birth of Homer, so three cities 
in Europe, Haerlem, Strasbourg, and Meiitz, 
claim the honour of the invention of printing. 
Al'ithont entering minutely into the dis- 
putes which have long agitated the minds of 
those wlio have feR a particular interest in 
this investigation, we stale it as our opinion, 
that Gutteraberg was the inventor of the 
art of printing by moveable types ; that he 
began the art at Strasbourg, and perfected 
it at Meniz. In this opinion, the earliest 
writers who mention printing are all agreed. 
PRI 
Tliat die first attempts at printing w^re 
made at Strasbourg is, we think, incontes- 
tably proved by the following circumstances. 
John Guttemberg entered into a partner- 
ship with Andrew Drizehennius, John Ritf, 
and Andrew Heilmann, all citizens of Stras- 
bourg, binding himself to discover to them 
some important secrets, whereby they 
should make their fortunes. Each at first 
contributed eighty florins, and afterwards 
125. The workshop was in the house of 
Andrew Drifzehen, who died. Guttem- 
berg immediately sent his servant Beildeck 
to Nicholas, the brother of the deceased, to 
request him to suffer no one to enter the 
workshop, lest the. secret should be disco- 
vered, and the forms stolen. But this had 
already been dtrne. This theft, and the 
claim which Nicholas made to succeed to bis 
brother’s share, occasioned a law suit, and 
the evidence of the servant atfor^ explicit 
and incontrovertible proof in favour o^Givt- 
temberg, as the first who practised the art 
of printing with moveable types. The do- 
cument, containing tlic aeoountof tliis trial, 
&C-. is dated 1439. It was. published in the 
original German, with a Latin version, l>y 
Schopflin, in liis “ VindicireTypographicse.” 
M. Lanibinet, in his “ Recherclies Histori- 
ques sur I’Origine de I’Art de rimprimeries,” 
published at Paris a few years ago, says, 
that the German is obscure, and tliat every 
one will interpret the eijuivocal words in 
favour of his own opinion. It is, however, 
manifest that Guttemberg expressly order* 
ed that the forms should be broken up, and 
tlie characters dispersed;, a fact clearly 
proving, that the art of printing was at that 
time a secret, and tliat moreover it was 
performed with moveable types. Guttem- 
berg, after having sunk what he and his 
associates had embarked in this speculation, 
returned to Meniz, where he was born, and 
succeeded better in a partnersbip with 
Fust. 
The evidence in favour of Guttemberg 
appearing to us decisive, we shall not enter 
into any examination of the claims advanced 
by the otber. candidates for the honour of 
being the inventor of the art of letter-pre.is 
printing. The names of those persons were 
John Fust, of Mentz ; John Mental, of Stras- 
bourg; and L. John Koster, of Haerlem. 
When the city of Mentz was taken by Adol- 
phus, Count of Nassau, in 1462, Fust, and 
Schoeffer, servant and son-in-law to Fust, suf- 
fered materially with their fellow townsmen.. 
Their associates and w'orkraen dispersed to 
seek their fortunes, and the .art w'as thus 
