st touching of Mendelssohn's compositions.

By this time the secret had transpired to the neighboring states, and
Mentelin, of Strasburg, and Pfister, or Bamberg, were, before the
beginning of 1462, in full activity. Indeed, Pfister is, by some, thought
to have printed before 1460; and his finely executed Latin Bible, in cast
type, was for many years regarded as the first.

At this critical period, when the art was reaching its zenith, the
operations of the Mainz printers were suddenly brought to a standstill
by the siege and capture of the city in 1462. The occasion of this was a
fierce dispute between the Pope and the people as to who had the right of
appointment to the archbishopric, lately become vacant. The original hive
of workmen dispersed to other states, and by degrees the mysteries of the
art became spread over the civilized world. Such, indeed, was the fame
printing had acquired, and its manifest importance, that every crowned
head sought to introduce it into his kingdom, and welcomed the fugitives.
Within a few years of this period the art had been carried by the
scattered German workmen into Italy, France, Spain, and Switzerland; and
before the close of the fifteenth century it was practised in more than
two hundred twenty different places.

Before entering upon the history of printing in England, I will take
leave to call your attention to a few prominent facts connected with its
progress abroad, as well as to some points of its early condition which
could not be conveniently introduced in chronological order. All the
books printed previously to 1465 are in the Gothic, or black letter,
which still remained the favorite in Germany and the Low Countries long
after the Italians introduced their beautiful Roman letter. The first
books in which any Greek type occurs are Cicero's _Offices_, printed
by Faust and Schoeffer in 1465, directly after the resumption of their
establishment; and _Lactantius_, printed the same year by Sweynheim and
Pannartz, in the monastery of Soubiaco at Rome. The first book printed
entirely in Greek was Constantine Lascar's _Greek Grammar_, Milan, 1476.

One of the earliest of the Italian books, and, to use the words of
Dr. Dibdin, perhaps the most notorious volume in existence, was the
celebrated Boccaccio, printed at Venice by Valdarfer in 1471. This book
deserves particular mention, because of an extraordinary contest which
once took place for its possession between two wealthy bi