Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/385

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XX

John Gutenberg at Strasburg.

Gutenberg's Place as an Inventor … His Birth at Mentz … Subsequent Residence in Strasburg. Early Suits at Law … His Probable Marriage … Is Sued by Claus Dritzehen … The Judge's Statement … Testimony of the Witnesses … Gutenberg the Chief of an Association … Engaged in a Secret Art … Notices of a Press and of a Mysterious Tool of Four Pieces … Notices of Forms that were Melted, and of Printing … Decision of the Judge … Gutenberg's Reputation for Knowledge of Curious Arts … Polishing Stones … Making Mirrors … The Secret Art was Printing with Founded Types … Secret was not in the Press … Illustration of Old Screw Press … Testimony of the Earlier Authors … Tool of Four Pieces was a Type-Mould … Fac-simile of Garamond's Mould … Fac-simile of an Early Donatus …. Gutenberg's Financial Embarrassments and Failure.

But whoever were the inventers of this Art, or, (as some Authors will have it,) Science, nay, Science of Sciences (say they), certain it is, that in all its Branches it can be deemed little less than a Science … For my part, I weighed it well in my thoughts, and I find … that a Typographers ought to be a man of Science. By a Typographer, I do not mean a Printer … I mean such a one, who by his own Judgment from solid reasoning with himself, can either perform, or direct others to perform, from the beginning to the end, all the Handy-works and all the Physical Operations relating to Typographie. Such a Scientifick man was doubtless he who was the first Inventer of Typographie.

Joseph Moxon, 1683.

Moxon did not overrate the rank of typography among the arts. It is a science, and, like all sciences, is the fruit of the knowledge which comes only by study. Like all sciences, it came in the fullness of time, when the world had been prepared for it, but it came only to him who had qualified himself for its handiworks from beginning to end. In the description of the work of John Gutenberg about to be related, imperfect as it must be by reason of our ignorance of his thoughts and plans, we shall clearly see that the invention of typography was not, as Junius would have us believe, the result of a happy thought or of a flash of inspiration. It