patience, and minute fidelity, as have fcarcely been exhibited by the most diftinguished foreign bibliographers; and if he does not difplay

grave-ftones, not only in the great church at Harlem, but several other cities in Holland, which device I will infert. The title of the book in low Dutch, the language in which it is printed, is,

De Spigel onfer Bebondenife,
In English,

The Mirror of Salvation.

"When we arrived at Harlem, much to my furprife, we found the house of Cofter new faced with plaifter, and the picture of his ftatue (for it is no other than a picture in oil-colours) painted on a board, let into the wall near the top of the house, although it be a small one, This houfe was new repaired, and to be let, although, when I was there before, it was inhabited by a cheesemonger. After viewing the houfe and the great church, we directed our way to the rector, who is the school-maker, put in by the magiftrates of the city. He not being in the way, his fervant-maid took the key, and readily gave us admiffion into the Prince's garden, in order to fhew us the book, which was removed from the ftair-head of the Prince's houffe, or houfe, where we faw it laft, to the further end of the garden, in a little house fitted up for that purpofe, facing the garden. On the cheft that it was kept in, there was the date of 1618 inlaid in the wood. Opening it, the maid fhewed us the book, where Mr. Bullord collated it with the other we brought with us from Amiterdam, and found it to agree both in the words of the text, and alfo the pictures; they only differed in this, that being in folio, with two pictures in a page, and the words column.wife, and 25 lines in a column, containing 60 pages, and printed but on one fide, and not pasted together as thole at Oxford and Cambridge.

"After I had gratified the maid for her trouble, we addreffed ourfelves to an old gardener that was at work in the garden, for Mr, Bullord had enquired of him when we came first into the gar den, whether he knew any thing of the ftatue of Cofter, and he readily told him he could fhew him it. At the entrance into the garden, at the upper end of the fummer-houfe, on the right hand, he pointed to it; where we faw it leaning with its left hand on the infcription, which bore date 1440, and in its right hand, the letter A in a fquare, with other figures-as little boys naked, and in their hand A B C, with the picture of Fame holding the letters CD and E. This was taken from the ftory of Junius, in his Hiftory of the Low Countries, and others from him. There are other flories painted on the walls of the fummer-houfe, as one of the lords of the Harlem in his armour, but they not being to my purpose I fhall pafs them by. All thefe pictures, with the statue of Cofter, are painted in diftemper, and are no older (as appears

by

difplay the livelinefs of Chevillier, and the tafte of Renouard, he unites in himself all the accuracy of Audiffredi, and the perfever. ance of Panzer. No fingle country can boast of fuch an acquifition to its hiftory of ancient literature as our own, in the typo. graphical labours of Herbert !" P. 91.

The fifth article is a preliminary difquifition on the early ftate of engraving and ornamental printing in Great Britain. Here the editor feems to have put forth all his ftrength; and this part of the work is moreover illuftrated and embellished by a great number of very curious and fplendid wood-cuts. We agree with Mr. Dibdin, that a complete hiftory of printing is not at prefent to be found in any one individual work. The following are Mr. Dibdin's opinions on the fubject, which we infert with pleafure, at the fame time advifing nim, that the bypothefis of Meerman has been before exploded.

"A complete General Hiftory of Printing is a great defideratum. In this country we have nothing that deferves the name of it. He who fhall undertake this arduous and inftructive task, will do well to read the treatifes of his predeceffors; to compare their accounts of books with the books themfelves; to lop away their tedious digreffions, and to fubititute, in many inftances, fometh g like reafon and fact for chimera and fiction. A free admiffion into the cabinets of the curious, and an honeft ufe of the privilege granted-an infpection, probably, of the chief libraries upon the continent, and efpecially of thof in the low countries-would alfo be requifite to the fuccefs of fuch an undertaking. The great error, as I humbly fubmit in almoft all preceding treatifes upon the Origin and Progrefs of Printing, has been the determination of each writer to fupport, through the moft formidable objections, the claims of that country, and of that typographical artist in whofe caufe he fat out as the avowed champion. The ftrong attachment of Junius to Helland and Cofter, in aid of which he ex. ercifed a poetical fancy, has been even exceeded by the enthufiafin. (or, fome might call it, obftinacy) of Meerman towards the fame objects. When the latter commenced his enquiries, it is certain that he had no very extenfive information upon the subject. Dr. Ducarel threw out fome hints relating to the claims of Holland,

by the date of the cieling) than 1655. Philof. Tranf. Vol. xxv. 2401-5.

"An analyfis of Bagford's papers (in the British Mufeum) relating to printing, with fome other curious particulars concern. ing their former owner, will, as has been elsewhere remarked, be published by me in another bibliographical work. I fhall only here add, that there are fome good impreflions of Cofter's fuppofed portrait, as well as of his ftatue, in the Annus Tertius Secularis inventa Artis Typographica, Harlem, 8vo. 1742."

which, as Meerman was a native of that country, he feized with avidity, and refolved to expand and confolidate them into a fyfte matic history. Accordingly, after publishing a fmall octavo vo lume as a specimen of his large werk, he appeared before the public, with his portrait, in his Origines pagraphica, in two quarto volumes, along with a fictitious head of his beloved Cofter, beautifully engraved by Houbraken. Meerman's is a learned and valu able work, and is in the hands of every bibliographer. The au thor had himself a fine library, and was exceedingly kind and liberal in giving the curious permiffion to fee it. But though it be abfolutely neceffary to poffefs his performance, yet it is not free from grofs errors, which have been attacked perhaps with too much feverity by the acute and experienced Heinecken. This latter was a German, and a like patriotic ardour induced him to give the palm of having difcovered the art of printing to the cities of Mentz and Stratburg. Heinecken, as now feems to be allowed, has paid too little attention to the antiquity of the claims of Haarlem, and Meerman infinitely too much: thus, although both fat out with profeffing to adhere to truth, both have defcribed her not as he really was, but as they had conceived or wifhed her to be. The Parifian bibliographers, as their own metropolis had never been confidered the cradle of the typographic art; and as they had, in confequence, no national prejudices on this fcore to efpoufe, have been more juft and fatisfactory. The recent treatifes of Lambinet, Oberlin, Fifcher, Daunou, and San. tander, are highly creditable to their refpective authors. The differtations of Camus upon the Claffification of a Library, upon a Book printed at Bamberg in 1461, and upon the celebrated Tewr. danckh, (vide p. xxiv. note, ante) in the firft, fecond, and third volumes of the Mémoires de l'Inftitut,' are well deferving the attention of the bibliographer. His illuftrations of the latter work, to be complete, fhould have had a fac-fimile of one of the beautiful cuts, as well as of the letter-prefs." P. xxxi. n.

We next come to an account of the life of Caxton. In this, the whole biographical hiftory of our first printer, by Lewis, is included. Here are alfo numerous notes, and a plate of three fuppofed portraits of Caxton is prefixed, In this part of the work, the editor introduces his opinions on the Origin of Printing, as formed from various authorities. They are as follows, and we can bear willing teftimony to their accuracy; and the reader is to be informed, that they effectually overturn and confute the hypothesis of Meerman in favour of Haarlem.

"Lewis, p. 4, has two fhort fuperficial notes, the one from Fox's Ads and Monuments, the other from Richelet's Dictionary, upon the Origin of Printing, which are not worth tranfcribing. Again, at p. 131, he has extracted the paffage from Fox's Acts

and

and Monuments at length. Inftead of thefe, the reader will be pleafed to accept of the following sketch relating to this important but most intricate and involved fubject: fo true being the remark of Oxonides, that- the Art of Printing, which has given light to moft other things, hides its own head in darkness;' or, according to Daunou, We live too near the epoch of the discovery of printing to judge accurately of its influence, and too far from it to know exactly the circumstances which gave birth to

it.'

"Henne (John) Gensfleifch de Sulgelach, commonly called Gutenberg, the inventor of the art of printing with metal types, was born at Mentz, of noble and wealthy parents, about the year 1400. In the year 1424, he took up his refidence at Strasburgh as a merchant; but from a deed of accommodation between himfelf and the nobles and burghers of the city of Mentz in 1430, it is evident that he had then returned to his native place. That he was a wealthy man in 1434, is proved by a document adduced by Schoepflin. Between this period and 1439, he had conceived, and perhaps made fome few trials of, the art of printing with metal types. In the archives of the city of Mentz, Schoepflin difcovered a document of a procefs carried on by Gutenberg against one George Dritzehen, from which we learn, that the former had promifed to make the latter acquainted with a fecret art that he had recently discovered. In the fame document mention is made of four forms kept together by two fereaus, or press-spindles, and of letters and,pages being cut up and deftroyed to prevent any perfor from difcovering the art.

Go,

"Oberlin, in his Exercices de Bibliographie, p. 44, thus tranflates the German paffages that relate to the fufile types :take away the component parts of the prefs, and pull them to pieces, then no one will understand what they mean. Gutenberg intreated him to go to the prefs, and open it by means of two fcrews, and thus the feveral parts would feparate; that these need only be placed under the prefs, and no one would understand any thing about them. Gutenberg fent him to bring together all the different forms, which were pulled to pieces before him, because there were fome with which he was not fatisfied. Dritzehen was

particularly careful to fecure every bit of lead,' &c. Upon this very curious document, Lambinet remarks, that the want of cor. rect technical expreffions is fufficiently obvious in the early hiftory of the art of printing; hence the obfcurity of the original German paffages, and the difficulty of tranflating them. Every one, continues he, will conftrue thefe paffages according to his particular prejudices or partialities. It is remarkable that the ableit bibliographers have differed upon the fubject of the materials with which Gutenberg at firft printed. Schoepflin fuppofed them to have been metal; Fournier, Meerman, and Fifcher, were of opinion that they were compofed of wood." P. lxxxvii. n.

W.

We now come to the account of the books printed by Caxton, and it is impoffible, and would be unjuft, not to approve and commend the perfevering diligence and great acutenefs which every page difplavs Mr. Dibdin's mode of defcribing thefe books is not only very different from that adopted by his predeceffors, but he has every where enlivened. his defcriptions by curious anecdote and fenfible remark. We fubjoin two fpecimens: the fift is the defcription of that very uncommon book, THE PYLGREMAGE OF THE SowLE, which the editor thus gives :

1 "As Lewis, Ames, Oldys, and Herbert, have given rather a fuperficial account of this extraordinary production, which, perhaps, rather than Bernard's life of Man*,' laid the foundation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progrefs,' I fhall make no apology to the reader for the following fpecimens of its poetry and profe. The first chapter, which treats How the foul departeth from the body,' and how the foul fiend affaileth the foul,' opens thus:

"As I lay in a Saint Lawrence night fleeping in my hed, me befel a full marvellous dream, which I fhall rehearfe, Methought that I had long time travelled toward the holy city of Jerufalem, and that I had made an end and fully finished my fleshly pilgri mage, fo that I might no further travel upon my foot, but needs mult leave behind my fleshly careyne. Then come cruel death, and fmote me with his venemous dart, through which ftroke body and foul were parted afunder. And fo anon I felt myself lift up into the air, feeing my felf departed from my foul body; which when I beheld lying all dead without any moving, feemed me fo foul and horrible, that had I not right late there before iffued therefrom, I would nought have supposed that ever it had been nine. Then come there to this body the noble worthy lady the Dame Mifericorde, and kevered [covered] it, lapping [it] in a clean linen cloth, and fo full honeftly laid it in the earth. I faw alfo the Auterer that cleped is Dame Prayer; how that the fped her to heaven-ward, wonder[fully] haftily before me: for no doubt I had full meftier thereof. For why? the foul horrible Sathanas [Satan] I faw coming toward me, full eruelly menacing me, and faying in this wife, I have here long time abiden thee, and privily for thee lain in a wait; fo it is now befallen that I have not failed of my purpofe, for now art thou taken with me, and now must thou wenden in to mine habitation, condemned by right wife judgment of the fovereign judge. For now haft thou loft that lady that was thine helper and thine counsellor, Dame Grace de Dieu-it availeth thee nought for to look after her.'

*

"Confult Mr. Todd's edition of Spencer, vol. ii. cxxv. for an account of this curious book, which has recently (1803) been reprinted at Bristol in a small duodecimo volume, with a portraitof the author."

"The