true; whilst in the same book he takes notice of the Printing invention and beginning of printing in the city of Mentz."

Answer. As Caxton makes no mention in his Polychronicon of his expedition in quest of a printer; so neither does he of his bringing the art into England, which it is as much a wonder he should omit as the other. And as to his saying that the invention of printing was at Mentz, he means, of printing on fusile separate types. In this he copies, as many others have, from the Fasciculus Temporum; a work written in 1470, by Wernerus Rolevinch de Laer, a Carthusian monk, a MS. copy of which was in the library of Gerard Jo. Vossius (see lib. iii. de Histor. Latin, c. 6.); and afterwards continued to the year 1474, when it was first printed at Cologne typis Arnoldi ter Huernen. It was republished in 1481 by Heinricus Wirczburgh de Vach, & Cluniac monk, without mentioning the name either of the printer or of the place of publication. It is plain that Caxton had one at least, or more probably both, of these editions before him, when he wrote his continuation of Polychronicon, as he mentions this work in his preface, and adopts the sentiments of its editor. (See MEERMAN, vol. ii. p. 37. and his Documenta, No vii. xxiv. and xxv.).

Print'ng press at St Alban's, and another in the city of Westminster, where they printed several books of divinity and physic: for the king (for reasons best known to himself and council) permitted then no law-books to be printed; nor did any printer exercise that art, but only such as were the king's sworn servants; the king himself having the price and emoluments for printing books. By this means the art grew so famous, that anno primo Richard III. c. 9. when an act of parliament was made for restraint of aliens for using any handicrafts here (except as servants to natives), a special proviso was inserted, that strangers might bring in printed or written books to sell at their pleasure, and exercise the art of printing here, notwithstanding that act: so that in the space of 40 or 50 years, by the indulgence of Edward IV. Edward V. Richard III. Henry VII. and Henry VIII. the English proved so good proficients in printing, and grew so numerous, as to furnish the kingdom with books; and so skilful, as to print them as well as any beyond the seas; as appears by the act 25 Hen. VIII. c. 15. which abrogates the said proviso for that reason. And it was further enacted in the said statute, that if any person bought foreign books bound, he should pay 6s. 8d. per book. And it was further provided and enacted, that in case the said printers or sellers of books were unreasonable in their prices, they should be moderated by the lord chancellor, lord treasurer, the two lords chief justices, or any two of them, who also had power to fine them 38 4d. for every book whose price should be enhanced. But when they were by charter corporated with bookbinders, booksellers, and founders of letters, 3 and 4 Philip and Mary, and called The Company of Stationers, they kick'd against the power that gave them life, &c.-Queen Elizabeth, the first year of her reign, grants by patent the privilege of sole printing all books that touch or concern the common laws of England, to Tottel a servant to her majesty, who kept it entire to his death; after him, to one Yest Weirt, another servant to her majesty; after him, to Weight and Norton; and after them, King James grants the same privilege to More, one of the signet; which grant continues to this day, &c."

12 Whether

---

From the authority of this record, all our later wriCaxton or ters declare Corsellis to be the first printer in England; Corsellis Mr Anthony Wood, the learned Mr Maittaire, Palmer, was the first printer. and one John Bagford, an industrious man, who had published proposals for An History of Printing, (Phil. Trans. for April 1707). But Dr Middleton has called in question the authenticity of this account, and has urged several objections to it, with the view of supporting Caxton's title to the precedency with respect to the introduction of the art into this country; of which we shall quote one or two, with the answers that have been made to them.

-.

a

Objection I." The silence of Caxton concerning fact in which he is said to be a principal actor, is a sufficient confutation of it: for it was a constant custom with him, in the prefaces or conclusions of his works, to give an historical account of all his labours and transactions, as far as they concerned the publishing and printing of books. And, what is still stronger, in the continuation of the Polychronicon, compiled by himself, and carried down to the end of Henry the Sixth's reign, he makes no mention of the expedition in quest of a printer which he could not have omitted had it been

5

Obj. 2.—“There is a farther circumstance in Caxton's history, that seems inconsistent with the record; for we find him still beyond sea, about 12 years after the supposed transactions, "learning with great charge and trouble the art of printing" (Recule of the Histories of Troye, in the end of the 2d and 3d books); which he might have done with ease at home, if he had got Corsellis into his hands, as the record imports, so many years before but he probably learnt it at Cologne, where he resided in 1471, (Recule, &c. ibid.), and whence books had been first printed with date the year before."

Ans.-Caxton tells us, in the preface to The History of Troge, that he began that translation March 1. 1468, at Bruges; that he proceeded on with it at Ghent ; that he finished it at Cologne in 1471; and printed it, probably, in that city with his own types. He was 30 years abroad, chiefly in Holland; and lived in the court of Margaret duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV. It was therefore much easier to print his book at Cologne, than to cross the sea to learn the art at Oxford. But further, there was a special occasion for his printing it abroad. Corsellis had brought over so far the art of printing as he had learned it at Haerlem, which was the method of printing on wooden separate types, having the face of the letter cut upon them. But the art of casting metal types being divulged in 1462 by the workmen of Mentz, Caxton thought proper to learn that advantageous branch before he returned to England. This method of casting the types was such an improvement, that they looked on it as the original of printing; and Caxton, as most others do, ascribes that to Mentz.-Caxton was an assistant with Turnour in getting off Corsellis; but it is nowhere supposed that he came with him into England. (See MEERMAN, vol. ii. p. 34. B.).

Obj. 3.-"As the Lambeth record was never heard of before the publication of Atkyn's book, so it has never since been seen or produced by any man; though the registers of Canterbury have on many occasions been di

ligently

Printing. ligently and particularly searched for it. They were examined, without doubt, very carefully by Archbishop Parker, for the compiling his Antiquities of the British Church; where, in the life of Thomas Bourchier, though he congratulates that age on the noble and useful invention of printing, yet he is silent as to the introduction of it into England by the endeavours of that archbishop nay, his giving the honour of the invention to Strasburg clearly shews that he knew nothing of the story of Corsellis conveyed from Haerlem, and that the record was not in being in his time. Palmer himself owns, "That it is not to be found there now; for that the late earl of Pembroke assured him, that he had employed a person for some time to search for it, but in vain:" (Hist. of Printing, p. 314.). On these grounds wc may pronounce the record to be a forgery; though all the writers above mentioned take pains to support its credit, and call it an authentic piece.

Atkyns, who by his manner of writing seems to have been a bold and vain man, might possibly be the inventor; for he had an interest in imposing it upon the world, in order to confirm the argument of his book, that printing was of the prerogative royal; in opposition to to the company of stationers, with whom he was engaged in an expensive suit of law, in defence of the king's patents, under which he claimed some exclusive powers of printing. For he tells us, p. 3. That, upon considering the thing, he could not but think that a public person, more eminent than a mercer, and a public purse, must needs be concerned in so public a good: and the more he considered, the more inquisitive he was to find out the truth. So that he had formed his hypothesis before he had found his record; which he published, he says, as a friend to truth; not to suffer one man to be intitled to the worthy achievements of another; and as a friend to himself, not to lose one of his best arguments of intitling the king to this art.' But, if Atkyns was not himself the contriver, he was imposed upon at least by some more crafty man; who imagined that his interest in the cause, and the warmth that he shewed in prosecuting it, would induce him to swallow for genuine whatever was offered of the kind.

Ans. On the other hand, is it likely that Mr Atkyns would dare to forge a record, to be laid before the king and council, and which his adversaries, with whom he was at law, could disprove?-(2.) He says he received this history from a person of honour, who was some time keeper of the Lambeth library. It was easy to have confuted this evidence, if it was false, when he published it, April 25. 1664.—(3.) John Bagford (who was born in England in 1651, and might know Mr Atkyns, who died in 1677), in his History of Printing at Oxford, blames those who doubted of the authenticity of the Lambeth MS.; and tells us that he knew Sir John Birkenhead had an authentic copy of it, when in 1665 [which Bagford by some mistake calls 1664, and is followed in it by Meerman] he was appointed by the house of commons to draw up a bill relating to the exercise of that art. This is confirmed by the Journals of that house, Friday Oct. 27. 1665, vol. viii. p. 622, where it is ordered, that this Sir John Birkenhead should carry the bill on that head to the house of lords for their consent. The act was agreed to in the upper house on Tuesday Oct. 31. and received the royal assent on the same day; immediately after which the parliameat was VOL. XVII. Part I.

prorogued. See Journals of the House of Lords, vol. Printing. xi. p. 700. It is probable, then, that after Mr Atkyns had published his book in April 1664, the parliament thought proper, the next year, to inquire into the right of the king's prerogative; and that Sir John Birkenhead took care to inspect the original, then in the custody of Archbishop Sheldon: and, finding it not sufficient to prove what Mr Atkyns had cited it for, made no report of the MS. to the house; but only moved that the former law should be renewed. The MS. was probably never returned to the proper keeper of it; but was afterwards burnt in the fire of London, Sept. 13. 1666.-(4.) That printing was practised at Oxford, was a prevailing opinion long before Atkyns. Bryan Twyne, in his Apologia pro Antiquitate Academic Oxoniensis, published 1608, tells us, it is so delivered down in ancient writings: having heard, probably, of this Lambeth MS. And King Charles I. in his letters patent to the University of Oxford, March 5. in the eleventh of his reign, 1635, mentions printing as brought to Oxford from abroad. As to what is objected, "that it is not likely that the press should undergo a ten or eleven years sleep, viz. from 1468 to 1479," it is probably urged without foundation. Corseltis might print several books without date or name of the place, as Ulric Zell did at Cologne, from 1467 to 1473, and from that time to 1494. Corsellis's name, it may be said, appears not in any of his publications; but neither does that of Joannes Petersheimius. [See MEERMAN, vol. i. p. 34.; vol. ii. p. 21-27, &c.]

Further, the famous Shakespeare, who was born in 1564, and died 1616, in the Second Part of Henry VI. act iv. sc. 7. introduces the rebel John Cade, thus upbraiding Lord Treasurer Say: "Thou has most traiterously corrupted the youth of the realm, in creating a grammar-school and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other book but the score and the tally, thou hast caused Printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.”– Whence now had Shakespeare this accusation against Lord Say? We are told in the Poetical Register, vol. ii. p. 231. ed. Lond. 1724, that it was from Fabian, Pol. Vergel, Hall, Hollingshed, Grafton, Stow, Speed, &c. But not one of these ascribes printing to the reign of Henry VI. On the contrary, Stow, in his Annals, printed at London, 1560, p. 686, gives it expressly to William Caxton, 1471. "The noble science of printing was about this time found out in Germany at Magunce, by one John Guthumburgus a knight. One Conradus an Almaine brought it into Rome: William Caxton of London, mercer, brought it into England about the year 1471, and first practised the same in the abbie of St Peter at Westminster; after which time it was likewise practised in the abbies of St Augustine at Canterburie, Saint Albons, and other monasteries of England." What then shall we say, that the above is an anachronism arbitrarily put into the mouth of an ignorant fellow out of Shakespeare's head? We might believe so, but that we have the record of Mr Atkyns confirming the same in King Charles II.'s time. Shall we say, that Mr Atkyns borrowed the story from Shakespeare, and published it with some improvements of money laid out by Henry VI. from whence it might be received by Charles II. as a prerogative of the crown? But this is improbable, since Shakespeare makes Lord 3 A

Treasurer

forgeries in the date both of books and of records too; Printing but this is never allowed as a reason for suspecting such as bear no mark of either. We cannot from a blunder in the last book printed at Cambridge, infer a like blunder in the first book printed at Oxford. Besides, the type used in this our Oxford edition seems to be no small proof of its antiquity. It is the German letter, and very nearly the same with that used by Fust [who has been supposed to be] the first printer; whereas Caxton and Rood use a quite different letter, something between his German and our old English letter, which was soon after introduced by De Worde and Pynson.

Printing. Treasurer Say the intrument of importing it, of whom Mr Atkyns mentions not a word. Another difference there will still be between Shakespeare and the Lambeth MS.; the poet placing it before 1449, in which year Lord Say was beheaded; the MS. between 1454 and 1459, when Bourchier was archbishop. We must say, then, that Lord Say first laid the scheme, and sent some one to Haerlem, though without success; but after some years it was attempted happily by Bourchier. And we must conclude, that as the generality of writers have overlooked the invention of printing at Haerlem with wooden types, and have ascribed it to Mentz where metal types were first made use of; so in England they have passed by Corsellis (or the first Oxford Printer, whoever he was, who printed with wooden types at Oxford), and only mention Caxton as the original artist who printed with metal types at Westminster. [See MEERMAN, vol. ii. 7, 8]. It is strange, that the learned commentators on our great dramatic poet, who are so minutely particular upon less important occasions, should every one of them, Dr Johnson excepted, pass by this curious passage, leaving it entirely unnoticed. And how has Dr Johnson trifled, by slightly remarking, "that Shakespeare is a little too carly with this accusation!"—The great critic had undertaken to decipher obsolete words, and investigate unintelligible phrases; but never, perhaps, bestowed a thought on Caxton or Corsellis, on Me Atkyns or the authenticity of the Lambeth Record.

* See

But, independent of the record altogether, the book stands firm as a monument of the exercise of printing in Oxford six years older than any book of Caxton's with a date. In order to get clear of this strong fact, Dr Middleton,

1. Supposes the date in question to have been falsified originally by the printer, either by design or mistake; and an X to have been adopted or omitted in the age of its impression. Examples of this kind, he says, are common in the history of printing. And, "whilst I am now writing, an unexpected instance is fallen into my hands, to the support of my opinion; an Inauguration Speech of the Woodwardian Professor, Mr Mason, just fresh from the press, with its date given 10 years earlier than it should have been, by the omission of an X, viz. MDCCXXIV; and the very blunder exemplified in in the last piece printed at Cambridge, which I suppose to have happened in the first from Oxford."-To this it has been very properly answered, That we should not pretend to set aside the authority of a plain date, with out very strong and cogent reasons; and what the Doctor has in this case advanced will not appear, on examination to carry that weight with it that he seems to imagine. There may be, and have been, mistakes and

2. "For the probability of his opinion (he says), the book itself affords sufficient proof: for, not to insist on what is les material, the neatness of the letter, and regularity of the page, &c. above those of Caxton, it has one maik, that seems to have carried the matter beyond probable, and to make it even certain, viz. the use of signatures, or letters of the alphabet placed at the bottom of the page, to show the sequel of the pages and leaves of each book; an improvement contrived for the direction of the bookbinders; which yet was not prac tised or invented at the time when this book is supposed to be printed; for we find no signatures in the books of Faust or Schoeffer at Mentz, nor in the improved or beautiful impressions of John de Spira and Jenson at Venice till several years later. We have a book in our library, that seems to fix the very time of their invention, at least in Venice; the place where the art itself received the greatest improvements: Baldi lectura super Codic. &c. printed by John de Colonia and Jo. Manthem de Gherretzem, anno MCCCCLXXIIII. It is a large and fair volume in folio, without signatures, till about the middle of the book, in which they are first introduced, and so continued forward: which makes it probable, that the first thought of them was suggested during the impression; for we have likewise Lectura Bartholi super Codic. &c. in two noble and beautiful volumes in folio, printed the year before at the same place, by Vindelin de Spira, without them: yet from this time forward they are generally found in all the works of the Venetian printers, and from them propagated to the other printers of Europe. They were used at (L) Cologne, in 1475; at Paris, 1476; by Caxton, not before 1480: but if the discovery had been brought into England, and practised at Oxford 12 years before, it is not probable that he would have printed so long at Westminster without them Mr Palmer indeed tells us, p, 54, 180, that Anthony Zarot was esteemed the inventor of signatures ; and that they are found in a Terence printed by him at Milan in the year 1470, in which be first printed. I have not seen that Terence; and can only say that I have observed the want of them in some later works of this

be

another way for this distance of time, without altering Printing. the date. The Civil Wars broke out in 1469: this might probably oblige our Oxford printer to shut up his press; and both himself and his readers be otherwise engaged. If this were the case, he might not return to his work again till 1479; and the next year, not meeting with that encouragement he deserved, he might remove to some other country with his types.

Dr Middleton concludes with apologizing for his "spending so much pains on an argument so inconsiderable, to which he was led by his zeal to do a piece of justice to the memory of our worthy countryman William Caxton; nor suffer him to be robbed of the glory, so clearly due to him, of having first imported into this kingdom an art of great use and benefit to mankind: a kind of merit, that, in the sense of all nations, gives the best title to true praise, and the best claim to be commemorated with honour to posterity."

this as well as of other excellent printers of the same place. But, allowing them to be in the Terence, and Zarot the inventor, it confutes the date of our Oxford book as effectually as if they were of later origin at Venice; as I had reason to imagine, from the testimony of all the books that I have hitherto met with."-As to these proofs, first, the neatness of the letter, and the regularity of the page, prove, if any thing, the very reverse of what the Doctor asserts. The art of printing was almost in its infancy brought to perfection; but af terwards debased by later printers, who consulted rather the cheapness than the neatness of their work. Our learned dissertator cannot be unacquainted with the labours of Fust and Jenson. He must know, that though other printers may have printed more correctly, yet scarce any excel them, either in the neatness of the letter, or the regularity of the page. The same may observed in our English printers. Caxton and Rood were indifferently good printers; De Worde and Pynson were worse; and those that follow them most abominable. This our anonymous Oxford printer excels them all; and for this very reason we should judge him to be the most ancient of all. Our dissertator lays great stress on the use of signatures. But no certain conclusion can be drawn either from the use or non-use of these lesser improvements of printing. They have in different places come in use at different times, and have not been continued regularly even at the same places. If Anthony Zarot used them at Milan in 1470, it is certain later printers there did not follow his example; and the like might happen also in England. But, what is more full to our purpose, we have in the Bodleian library an sop's Fables printed by Caxton. This is, it is believed, the first book which has the leaves numbered. But yet this improvement, though more useful than that of the signatures, was disused both by Caxton himself and other later printers in England. It is therefore not at all surprising (if true) that the signatures, though invented by our Oxford printer, might not immediately come into general use. And consequently, this particular carries with it no such certain or effectual confutation as our dissertator boasts of.

3. What the Doctor thinks farther confirms his opinion is, "That, from the time of the pretended date of this book, anno 1468, we have no other fruit or production from the press at Oxford for 11 years next following; and it cannot be imagined that a press, established with so much pains and expence, could be suffered to be so long idle and useless."-To this it may be answered, in the words of Oxonides, 1st, That his books may have been lost. Our first printers, in those days of ignorance, met with but small encouragement; they printed but few books, and but few copies of those books. In after-times, when the same books were reprinted more correctly, those first editions, which were not as yet become curiosities, were put to common uses. This is the reason that we have so few remains of our first printers. We have only four books of Theodoric Rood, who seems by his own verses to have been a very celebrated printer. Of John Lettou- William de Machlinia, and the schoolmaster of St Albans, we have scarce any remains. If this be considered, it will not appear impossible, that our printer should have followed his business from 1468 to 1479, and yet time have destroyed his intermediate works. But, 2dly, We may account still

13

Caxton and

The fact, however, against which he contends, but The real which it seems impossible to overturn, does by no means claims of derogate from the honour of Caxton, who, as has been Corsellis reshown, was the first person in England that practised the spectively. art of printing with fusile types, and consequently the first who brought it to perfection; whereas Corsellis printed with separate cut types in wood, being the only method which he had learned at Haerlem. Into this detail, therefore, we have been led, not so much by the importance of the question, as on account of several anecdotes connected with it, which seemed equally calculated to satisfy curiosity and afford entertainment.

Caxton had been bred very reputably in the way of trade, and served an apprenticeship to one Robert Large a mercer; who, after having been sheriff and lord mayor of London, died in the year 1441, and left by will, as may be seen in the prerogative office, XX1111 merks to his apprentice William Caxton: a considerable legacy in those days, and an early testimonial of his good character and integrity.

From the time of his master's death, he spent the following thirty years beyond sea in the business of merchandise: where, in the year 1464, we find him employed by Edward IV. in a public and honourable negociation, jointly with one Richard Whitehill, Esq. to transact and conclude a treaty of commerce between the king and his brother-in-law the duke of Burgundy, to whom Flanders belonged. The commission styles them, ambassiatores, procuratores, nuncios, et deputatos speciales; and gives to both or either of them full powers to treat, &c.

Whoever turns over his printed works, must contract a respect for him, and be convinced that he preserved the same character through life, of an honest, modest, man; greatly industrious to do good to his country, to the best of his abilities, by spreading among the people such books as he thought useful to religion and good manners, which were chiefly translated from the French. The novelty and usefulness of his art recommended him to the special notice and favour of the great; under whose protection, and at whose expence, the greatest part of his works were published. Some of them are addressed to King Edward IV, his brother the duke of Clarence, and their sister the duchess of Burgundy; in whose service and pay he lived many years before he began to print, as he often acknowledges with great gratitude. He printed likewise for the use, and by 3A 2

the

which last was first used at Rome in 1467, and soon af- Pristing ter brought to great perfection in Italy, particularly by Jenson.

Printing the express order, of Henry VII. his son Prince Arthur, and many of the principal nobility and gentry of that age.

It has been generally asserted and believed, that all his books were printed in the abbey of Westminster; yet we have no assurance of it from himself, nor any mention of the place before the year 1477 so that he had been printing several years without telling us where.

There is no clear account left of Caxton's age: but he was certainly very old, and probably above fourscore, at the time of his death. In the year 1471 he complained of the infirmities of age creeping upon him, and feebling his body yet he lived 23 years after, and pursaed his business, with extraordinary diligence, in the abbey of Westminster, till the year 1494, in which he died; not in the year following, as all who write of him affirm. This appears from some verses at the end of a book, called "Hilton's Scale of Perfection," printed in the same year:

Infynite laude with thankynges many folde

I yield to God me socouryng with his grace
This boke to finy she which that ye beholde
Scale of Perfection calde in every place
Whereof th' auctor Walter Hilton was

And Wynkn de Worde this hath sett in print
In William Caxtons hows so fyll the case,

God rest his soule. In joy ther mot it stynt.

Impressus anno salutis MCCCCLXXXXiiii.

Though he had printed for the use of Edward IV. and Henry VII. yet there appears no ground for the notion which Palmer takes up, that the first printers, and particularly Caxton, were sworn servants and printers to the crown; for Caxton, as far as can be observed, gives not the least hint of any such character or title; though it seems to have been instituted not long after his death; for of his two principal workmen, Richard Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde, the one was made printer to the king, the other to the king's mother the lady Margaret. Pynson gives himself the first title, in The Imitation of the Life of Christ; printed by him at the commandment of the lady Margaret, who had translated the fourth book of it from the French, in the year 1504 and Wynkyn de Worde assumes the second, in The Seven Penitential Psalms, expounded by Bishop Fisher, and printed in the year 1 509. But there is the title of a book given by Palmer, that seems to contradict what is here said of Pynson ; viz. Psalterium ex mandato victoriosissimi Angliæ Regis Henrici Septimi,per Gulielmum Fanque, impressorem regium, anno MDIIII; which being the only work that has ever been found of this printer, makes it probable that he died in the very year of its impression, and was succeeded immediately by Richard Pynson. No book hath yet been discovered printed in Scotland in this period, though the English printers were able to export some of their works to other countries. See Henry's History of Great Britain, vol. v. p. 471.

14 Different Before 1465, the uniform character was the old Gocharacters thic or German; whence our Black was afterwards formwhen first ed. But in that year an edition of Lactantius was printed in a kind of Semi-Gothic, of great elegance, printing. and approaching nearly to the present Roman type;

used in

От Сатаахадъраката иш татытыка.

In the same year, 1465, was published an edition of Lactantius's Institutes, printed in monasterio Sublacensi, in the kingdom of Naples, in which the quotations from the Greek authors are printed in a very neat Greek letter. They seem to have had but a very small quantity of Greek types in the monastery; for, in the first part of the work, whenever a long sentence occurred, a blank was left, that it might be written in with a pen: after the middle of the work, however, all the Greek that occurs is printed.

The first printers who settled at Rome were Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, who introduced the present Roman type, in 1466, in Cicero's Epistola Fa miliares: in 1469 they printed a beautiful edition of Aulus Gellius, with the Greek quotations in a fair cha racter, without accents or spirits, and with very few abbreviations.

The first whole book that is yet known is the Greek Grammar of Constantine Lascaris, in quarto, revised by Demetrius Cretensis, and printed by Dionysius Palavi sinus, at Milan, 1476. In 1481, the Greek Psalter was printed here, with a Latin translation, in folio; as was sop's Fables in quarto.

Venice soon followed the example of Milan; and in 1486 were published in that city the Greek Psalter and the Batrachomyomachia, the former by Alexander, and the latter by Laonicus, both natives of Crete. They were printed in a very uncommon character; the latter of them with accents and spirits, and also with scholia.

In 1488, however, all former publications in this language were eclipsed by a fine edition of Homer's Works at Florence, in folio, printed by Demetrius, a native of Crete. Thus printing, says Mr Maittaire, (p. 185.) seems to have attained its axun of perfection, after having exhibited most beautiful specimens of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

In 1493, a fine edition of Isocrates was printed at Milan, in folio, by Henry German and Sebastian ex Pantremulo.

All the above works are prior in time to those of Aldus, who has been erroneously supposed to be the first Greek printer the beauty, however, correctness, and number of his editions, place him in a much higher rank than his predecessors; and his characters in general were more elegant than any before used. He was born in 1445, and died in 1515.

Though the noble Greek books of Aldus had raised an universal desire of reviving that tongue, the French were backward in introducing it. The only pieces printed