Progress of PRINTING. Who the first inventors of the European method of printing books were, in what city and what year it was set on foot, are questions long disputed among the learned. In effect, as the Grecian cities contended for the birth of Homer, so do the German cities for that of printing. Mentz, Haerlem, and Strasburg, are the warmest on this point of honour. John Guttenburg, and John Fust of Mentz; John Mentel of Strasburg, and L. John Koster of Haerlem; are the persons to whom this honour is severally ascribed, by their respective countrymen; and they have all their advocates among the learned. However, their first essays were made on wooden blocks, after the Chinese manner. The book at Haerlem, the vocabulary called Catholicon, and the pieces in the Bodleian library, and that of Bennet-college, are all performed in this way; and the impression appears to have been only given on one side of the leaves, after which the two blank sides were pasted together. But they soon found the inconveniences of this method; and therefore bethought themselves of an improvement; which was by making single letters distinct from one another; and these being first done in wood, gave room for a second improvement, which was the making them of metal; and, in order to that, forming moulds, matrices, &c. for casting them.
From this ingenious contrivance we ought to date the origin of the present art of printing, contradistinguished from the method practised by the Chinese. And of this Schoffer, or Scheffer, first servant, and afterwards partner and son-in-law of Fust, at Mentz, abovementioned, is pretty generally allowed to be the inventor, so that he may properly be reckoned the first printer, and the Bible which was printed with moveable letters in 1450. the first printed book; the next was Augustine de civitate Dei, then Tully's offices, printed about the year 1461. In these books they left the places of the initial letters blank, and gave them to the illuminers to have them ornamented and painted in gold and azure, in order to render the work more beautiful, and, as some think, to make their books pass for manuscripts.
Some authors tell us, that Fust carrying a parcel of bibles with him to Paris, and offering them to sale as
manuscripts; the French, upon considering the number of books, and their exact conformity to each other even to a point, and that it was impossible for the best book-writers to be so exact, concluded there was witchcraft in the case, and, by their actually indicting him as a conjuror, or threatening to do so, extorted from him the secret: and hence the origin of the popular story of Dr. Faustus.
From Mentz, the art of printing soon spread itself throughout a good part of Europe: Haerlem and Strasburg had it very early; which, as the current of authors represent it, occasioned their pretending to the honour of the invention. From Haerlem it passed to Rome in 1467; and into England in 1468, by means of Tho. Bouchier, archbishop of Canterbury, who sent W. Turner master of the robes, and W. Caxton merchant, to Haerlem to learn the art. These privately prevailing with Corfeilles, an under-workman, to come over, a press was set up at Oxford and an edition of Ruffinus on the creed was printed the same year in octavo. From Oxford, Caxton brought it to London about the year 1470, and the same year it was carried to Paris. Hitherto there had been nothing printed but in Latin, and the vulgar tongues; and this first in Roman characters, then in Gothic, and at last in Italic: but in 1480, the Italians cast a set of Greek types; and they have also the honour of the first Hebrew editions, which were printed about the same time with the Greek. Towards the end of the sixteenth century there appeared various editions of books in Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Coptic or Egyptian characters, some to gratify the curiosity of the learned, and others for the use of the Christians of the Levant. Out of Europe, the art of printing has been carried into the three other parts of the world: for Asia, we see impressions of books at Goa, and in the Philippines; at Morocco, for Africa; at Mexico, Lima, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, &c. for America. The Turks indeed, rigorously prohibit printing throughout their empire, as imagining that the too frequent communication with books might occasion some change in their religion and government; yet the Jews have several editions of their books printed at Thessalonica, and even at Constantinople.