this century was distinguished. In the midst of such a thorny maze, or perpetual convulsion, on the Continent, it might certainly have been presumed that there was not one moment left for any thing else; but there is yet that other view of this century, to which any reader must now be glad to escape. Forming such a contrast to these broils, and going forward, not by connivance, but in open day, it is like another world; although, before long, both courses will turn out to have been in perfect harmony with the great end in view. Ancient prejudices, and certain long-fixed associations of the mind, were shaken to the root, by the events at which we have already glanced: but for the entrance of new ideas, and the notable reception of Divine Truth itself, Providence was preparing at the same time, or throughout the entire century.

The triumph of Classical Learning.

We have already conceded to Italy the precedence which she claims, as the revivalist of classical learning; and truly the first buds of promise in the fourteenth, were as nothing to the full blown garden of the fifteenth century. In the first years of its commencement, individual natives of Greece were finding their way into that country, nay, from about the year 1395, their language was taught in Florence and Venice, in Milan and Genoa, by Emanuel Chrysoloras. The Pontiff chosen in 1409, Alexander V., was a Grecian by birth. The whole lives of Italian scholars, we are told, were now devoted to the recovery of ancient works, and the revival of philology; while the discovery of an unknown manuscript, was regarded, says Tiraboschi, "almost as the conquest of a kingdom." But that ardour which animated Italy in the first part of the fifteenth century, was by no means common to the rest of Europe. Neither England, nor France, nor Germany, seemed aware of the approaching change." So says Mr. Hallam, in perfect harmony with Sismondi. Learning, indeed, such as it was, had even begun to decline at Oxford, but the eastern empire was now hastening to its end, and in 1453, came the fall of Constantinople. Long, therefore, before the close of the century, the roads to Italy will be crowded with many a traveller, and among the number we shall find that Englishmen, though the most distant, were not the last to hasten after classical attainments. Native Italians, we are perfectly aware, have been jealous of our ascribing too much to the event just hinted, but there can be no question that, in its consequences, it proved the first powerful summons to Europe to awake. On the sacking of Constantinople, we know of five vessels at least, that were loaded with the learned men of Greece, who escaped into

Italy. Of course they brought their most valued treasure, or their books, with them; and thus by one and another, as well as the eager Italian himself, a stock of manuscript was accumulated on Italian ground, which was just about to be honoured with a reception, very different, indeed, from that of being slowly increased by the pen of the copyist !35 Italy thus became the point of attraction to all Europe. But how singular that the scholars of the west, as with common consent, should hasten to this one country for that learning, over the effects of which, the chief authority there, though so pleased at first, was afterwards to bewail, nay, to mourn for ages, or to the present hour!

While, however, Italian scholars were thus busy, and leaving the Pontiff to fight his own battles, they were but little aware of what was preparing for them elsewhere. They were in fact more ignorant of this, than the western scholar had been of their thirst for learning; and was there no indication here, of but one guiding, one all-gracious power?

The Invention of Printing.

An obscure German had been revolving in his mind, the first principles of an art, applicable to any language on the face of the earth, which was to prove the most important discovery in the annals of mankind. At the moment when they were storming Constantinople in the east, he was thus busy; spending all his substance, in plying his new art with vigour upon a book, and upon such a BOOK! Neither Kings, nor Pontiffs, nor Councils had been, or were to be, consulted here; nor was he encouraged to proceed by one smile from his own Emperor, or from any princely patron.

No mechanical invention having proved so powerful in its effects as that of printing, it is not wonderful that so much research has been bestowed on the history of its origin and progress. The precise order in which some particular cities first enjoyed its advantages, still continues to afford room for minute criticism, but the progress of inquiry has reduced the field of controversy to a very narrow compass. A better history of the art, indeed, and more especially of its curious and rapid progress throughout Europe, may, and should still, be written; but the general results already ascer-

35 After the accession of Nicholas V., to which we have alluded, he added 5000 volumes to the library of the Vatican, many of which were Greek books, or translations from them into Latin. Here were the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, Appian of Strabo, the Iliad, the works of Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Theophrastus, and the Greek fathers. Among others, this was especially imitated, if not preceded, by CosмO DE MEDICI, the Florentine merchant, to whom a cargo of Indian spices and Greek books was often imported in the same vessel. His active agent, Janus Lascaris, returned from the east, with two hundred Manuscripts, eighty of which were then unknown in the libraries of Europe. e

VOL. I.

tained, have now approached to such accuracy, as to suggest and justify several important and striking reflections. These results demand our notice at the close of the century, as they will be found to involve one important bearing on the subsequent history of the Sacred Volume, when it came to be first printed in the vernacular tongue.

MENTZ, in the Duchy of Hesse (Mayence or Mainz), on the left bank of the Rhine, and four hundred miles from Vienna, may be regarded as the mother city of printing; and although three individuals shared the honour of perfecting the art on the same spot, if not under the same roof, the invention itself is due to only one man. Henne Gænsfleisch, commonly called John Gutenberg, (Anglicé, Goodhill,) the individual referred to, was born in Mentz, not Strasburg, as sometimes stated, about the year 1400; but, in 1424, he had taken up his abode in the latter city as a merchant. About ten years after this, or in 1435, we have positive evidence that his invention, then a profound secret, engrossed his thoughts; and here, in conjunction with one Andrew Dritzehen and two other citizens, all bound to secrecy, Gutenberg had made some experiments in printing with metal types before the year 1439. By this time Dritzehen was dead; and in six or seven years more, the money embarked being exhausted, not one fragment survives in proof of what they had attempted. Gutenberg, returning to his native city in 1445-6, he found it absolutely necessary to disclose his progress. More money was demanded, if ever he was to succeed; and having once opened his mind fully to a citizen, a goldsmith of Mentz, John Fust, he engaged to co-operate by affording the needful advances. At last, therefore, between the years 1450 and 1455, for it has no date, their first great work was finished. This was no other than the Bible itself!-the Latin Bible. Altogether unknown to the rest of the world, this was what had been doing at Mentz, in the West, when Constantinople, in the East, was storming, and the Italian "brief men," or copyists, were so very busy with their pens. This Latin Bible, of 641 leaves, formed the first important specimen of printing with metal types. The very first homage was to be paid to that SACRED VOLUME, which had been sacrilegiously buried, nay, interdicted so long; as if it had been, with pointing finger, to mark at once the greatest honour ever to be bestowed on the art, and infinitely the highest purpose to which it was ever to be applied. Nor was this all. Had it been a single page, or even an entire sheet which was then produced, there might have been less occasion to have noticed it; but there was something in the whole character of the affair which, if not unprecedented, rendered it singular in the usual current of human events. This Bible

formed two volumes in folio, which have been "justly praised for the strength and beauty of the paper, the exactness of the register, the lustre of the ink." It was a work of 1282 pages, finely executed—a most laborious process, involving not only a considerable period of time, but no small amount of mental, manual, and mechanical labour; and yet, now that it had been finished, and now offered for sale, not a single human being, save the artists themselves, knew how it had been accomplished! The profound secret remained with themselves, while the entire process was probably still con fined to the bosom of only two or three!

Of this splendid work, in two volumes, at least 18 copies are known to exist, four on vellum, and fourteen on paper. Of the former, two are in this country, one of which is in the Grenville collection; the other two are in the Royal Libraries of Paris and Berlin. Of the fourteen paper copies there are ten in Britain: three in public libraries at Oxford, London, and Edinburgh, and seven in the private collections of different noblemen and gentlemen. The vellum copy has been sold as low as £260, though in 1827, as high as £504 sterling. Even the paper Sussex copy lately brought £190. Thus, as if it had been to mark the noblest purpose to which the art would ever be applied, the FIRST Book printed with moveable metal types, and so beautifully, was the BIBLE.

Like almost all original inventors, Gutenberg made nothing by the discovery, at which he had laboured for at least twenty years, from 1435 to 1455. The expenses had been very great; and, in the course of business, after the Bible was finished, the inventor was in debt to the goldsmith, who, though opulent, now exhibited a character certainly not to be admired. He insisted on Gutenberg paying up his debt; and, having him in his power, actually instituted a suit against him, when, in the course of law, the whole printing apparatus fell into Fust's possession, on the 6th of November 1455. According to Trithemius, one of the best authorities, poor Gutenberg had spent his whole estate in this difficult discovery; but still, not discouraged, he contrived to print till 1465, though on a humbler scale. Having been appointed by Adolphus the Elector of Mentz one of his gentlemen, (inter aulicos,) with an annual pension, he was less dependent on an art which to him had been a source of trouble, if not of vexation. He died in the city of his birth in February 1468. Fust had, from 1456, pursued his advantage, and with great vigour, having adopted as his acting partner Peter Schoeffer, (Anglicé, Shepherd,) a young man of genius, already trained to the business, to whom he afterwards gave his daughter in marriage. The types employed hitherto had been made of brass, cut by the hand. An advance to the present mode of producing types by letter-found

ing was still wanted, and the art of cutting steel punches and casting matrices has been ascribed to Schoeffer.36

The first publication of Fust and Schoeffer was a beautiful edition of the Psalms, still in Latin, finished on the 14th of August 1457, and there was a second in 1459; but the year 1462 arrived, and this was a marked and decisive era in the history of this extraordinary invention; not merely for a second edition of the Latin Bible, in two volumes folio, dated 1462, and now executed according to the improved state of the art; but on account of what took place in Mentz at the same moment.

A change had arrived, far from being anticipated by these the inventors of printing, and one which they, no doubt, regarded as the greatest calamity which could have befallen them. Gutenberg had been the father of printing, and Schoeffer the main improver of it, while Fust, not only by his ingenuity, but his wealth, had assisted both; but all these men were bent upon keeping the art secret; and, left to themselves, unquestionably they would have confined the printing press to Mentz as long as they lived. Fust and Schoeffer, however, especially eager to acquire wealth, had resolved to proceed in a very unhallowed course, by palming off their productions as manuscripts, that so they might obtain a larger price for each copy. The glory of promoting or extending the art must now, therefore, be immediately and suddenly taken from them. Invention, of whatever character, like Nature itself, is but a name for an effect, whose cause is God. The ingenuity He gives to whomsoever He will, but He still reigns over the invention, and directs its future progress. At this crisis, therefore, just as if to make the reference to Himself more striking, and upon our part more imperative, we have only to observe what then took place, and the consequences which immediately followed.

Fust and Schoeffer had completed their first dated Bible, of 1462, but this very year the city of Mentz must be invaded. Like Constantinople, it was taken by storm, and by a member too of that body, who in future times so lamented over the effects of printing. This was the Archbishop, or Adolphus, already mentioned. The consequences were immediate, and afford an impressive illustration of that ease with which Providence accomplishes its mightiest operations. The mind of Europe was to be roused to action, and materials sufficient to engage all its activity, must not be wanting. But this demanded nothing more than the capture of two cities, and these two, far distant from each other! If when Constantinople

36 By this mode leaden types were first produced, and then of lead with a mixture of tin or hammered iron. The invention of type metal, or one pound of regulus of antimony to five of lead, is of comparatively recent origin.