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PRINTING.

advantages which accrue to the human species from theinvention of arts so replete with important consequencesto man, which we hourly perceive to emanate from typo-graphy.

Ever since the typographic art has been introduced into mo-dem Europe in its present form, the best, and one of the mostcertain criterions which prove the indubitable sense of ourspecies, exists in the multiplicity of claims which havebeen made by several cities for the honour of affording theearliest shelter to the infancy of this art. It really appearsto be a question yet undecided, to what city, individual, andeven era to attribute this beneficial invention.

However, there is every reason to believe, that in this art,as well as in most others, the improvements which havesubsequently taken place, have benefited the art itself, asmuch as that lias benefited mankind : therefore the questionof its origin may not be of so much importance.

Amidst the noise of various claimants, Mr. Bowyer believes,in his Origin of Printing, 2d edit, that this claim is to be ad-judged to one of the three cities of Haerlem, Menlz, orStrasburg, of which, it is thought, the first named cityhas best established her legitimate right; “ But it appears,”to use his words, “ that all those cities, in a qualified sense,may claim it, considering the improvements they have madeupon each other.

The real and original inventor of the modern art ofprinting, as at first used, and from whence the present impro-ved practice is descended, was on e Laurentius, of Haerlem;who, however, proceeded no farther than to separatewooden cut letters. There is reason to believe that at first,these wooden forms were made upon the principle ofthe previously described metallic forma liter arum of theRomans. This Laurentius of Haerlem, it appears, madehis first essay about A. D. 1430; he died ten years after-wards, having first printed the Horarium , the SpeculumBelg icum, and two different editions of Donatus .

Some of the types of Laurentius were stolen from himby one of his servants, John Geinsfleisch, senior, who wasa native of Mentz, and became the first printer in thatcity, about 1442. In that year he there published AlexandriGalli Doctrinale, and Petri Hispani Tractalus. Theseworks were executed with wooden types, cut after the modeof those which he had stolen from his late master: like thoseof the Chinese and the ancient Roman forma liter arum. In1443, Geinsfleisch, senior, entered into partnership with.Fws<,Faust, or Fdustus, who supplied money, Meidenbackius,