ishing
success. It was Minerva leaping on earth in her divine strength and
radiant armor, ready, at the moment of her nativity, to subdue and
destroy her enemies."

There is a curious story current about this Bible, which, as it is
connected with a popular fiction, I will venture to repeat. It is that
Faust went to Paris with some of his Bibles for sale, one of which,
printed on vellum and richly illuminated, he sold to the King for seven
hundred and fifty crowns, and another to the Archbishop of Paris for
three hundred crowns, and to the poorer clergy and the laity copies on
paper as low as fifty crowns, and even less. Faust does not appear to
have disclosed the secret of how they were produced, and probably let it
be supposed that they were manuscript; for the aim of the first printers
was to make their books equal in beauty to the finest manuscripts, and
as far as possible undistinguishable from them, to which end the large
capitals and decorations were filled in by hand.

The Archbishop, proud of his purchase, showed it to the King, who,
comparing it with his own, found with surprise that they tallied so
exactly in every respect, excepting the illuminated ornaments, as
convinced them that they were produced by some other art than
transcription; and on further inquiry they found that Faust had sold
a considerable number exactly similar. Orders, therefore, were given
without delay to apprehend and prosecute him as a practitioner of the
black art in multiplying Holy Writ by aid of the devil. Hence arose the
popular fiction of the Devil and Dr. Faustus, which, under different
phases, has found its way into every country in Europe, and probably gave
rise to Goethe's celebrated drama.

In 1455, as we find by a notarial document, dated November 6th of that
year, Faust separated from Gutenberg, and successfully instituted
proceedings against him for money advanced. Gutenberg, who had exhausted
all his means in bringing his invention to maturity, was obliged to
mortgage and in the end surrender all his materials, and, it should seem,
his printed stock. His impoverishment may easily be accounted for when we
are told, as a received fact, that before the first four sheets of his
Bible were completed he had already expended four thousand crowns upon
it--a large sum in those days. Of this his then wealthier partner reaped
all the subsequent advantage.

After this period, Faust, and his son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer, in
possess