d the
general consent of Europe assigns the credit of it to Gutenberg. Of a man
who has conferred such vast obligations on all succeeding ages, it may be
desirable to say a few words.

John Gutenberg was born at Mainz in 1397, of a patrician and rather
wealthy family. He left his native city, it is said, because implicated
in an insurrection of the citizens against the nobility, and settled
at Strasburg, where, in 1427, we find him an established merchant, and
sustaining a suit of breach of promise brought against him by a lady
named Ann of the Iron Door, whom he afterward married. While resident
here, and before 1439, his attention appears to have been actively
directed to the art of printing, as we learn by a legal document of the
time, found of late years in the archives of Strasburg. He is there
stated to have entered into an engagement with three persons, named
Dreizehn, Riffe, and Heilmann, to reveal to them "a secret art of
printing which he had lately discovered," and to take them into
partnership for five years, upon the payment of certain sums.

The death of Dreizehn before he had paid up all his instalments led to a
suit on the part of his relations, which ended in Gutenberg's favor. In
the course of the evidence one of the witnesses, a goldsmith, deposed to
having received from Gutenberg three or four years previously--that
is, about 1435--upward of three hundred florins for materials used in
printing. Other witnesses proved the anxiety that Gutenberg had shown to
have four pages of type distributed which appear to have been screwed up
in chase, and lying on a press on the deceased's premises.

This would be evidence that Gutenberg had arrived at a knowledge of
movable types, either of wood or metal, and probably of both, before
1440; and, had it not been for the rupture of the partnership before
anything had been printed by the new process, Strasburg might have
claimed the honor which is now given to Mainz.

Soon after this--it is supposed in 1444--Gutenberg returned to his native
city, by leave of the town council, which he was obliged to ask, bringing
with him all his materials. In 1446 he entered into a partnership with
John Faust--a wealthy and skilful goldsmith and engraver--who
engaged, upon being taught the secrets of the art and admitted into a
participation of the profits, to advance the necessary funds, which he
did to the extent of two thousand two hundred florins. Goldsmiths, it
should be bo