of history," writes Dr. Van der Linde, concerning Haarlem, "on the field of typography may be scanty; on the field of xylography it does not yield anything."
This recital of the names and the fortunes of the earlier printers of Haarlem is not altogether irrelevant; it furnishes a proper introduction to the legend of Haarlem. The first printer in Haarlem, Jacob Bellaert, whose art must have been a wonder to simple people, closed his office after two or three years of unsuccessful labor, and probably went to some other place. The printers who followed him at long intervals were equally unsuccessful. Van der Linde thinks that it is around the first printing office of Haarlem that the vague traditions have clustered.
In none of the notices of early Netherlandish printing do we find any mention of Coster of Haarlem, or any description of printing by types. There is extant, however, an allusion, which cannot be passed by unnoticed, to the printed work of one Brito of Bruges, who, about 1481, printed a little book entitled The Book of Doctrine for the Instruction of Christians. The first page of this book says that it is a copy of two great tablets in the Church of Our Lady of Terouanne; the last page has this inscription in six lines of faulty Latin rhyme:
Fac-simile of the Types of John Brito.[1]
[From Holtrop.]
- ↑ Behold what favor is due to the writing! Compare work with work and examine copy with copy [i. e. notice the uniformity of the letters]. Consider how clearly, how neatly, how handsomely, John Brito, a citizen of Bruges, prints these works, having discovered a very wonderful art, nobody having instructed him, and the very astonishing implements also, not less praiseworthy.
