most complete Printing Press then known, together with a variety of
collateral improvements, but the increasing, if not originating, that
impulse which has since carried this important branch of art so near to
perfection.

To those who are accustomed to Printing, and who are aware how much its
beauty depends on what is called the Press-work, to produce which long
practice and great manual dexterity are necessary, it might have
appeared impossible that any Machine could have been invented to perform
such an operation with any degree of precision and success; yet this the
continued labour of mechanical ingenuity has accomplished.

The Steam Printing Press is perhaps one of the most complete specimens
of the perfection of mechanical contrivance ever afforded. To this the
public are in a great degree indebted for that early and rapid
communication of intelligence which is now brought down almost to the
hour of the morning on which it is circulated. The Times Newspaper,
which was the first to adopt this astonishing invention, is still
printed by it with a rapidity which is scarcely conceivable.[10-*] An
inspection of it cannot fail to gratify every intelligent observer. Its
use has now become very general.

The Steam Press, however, is chiefly applicable where large numbers, or
great speed are required; for ordinary works, and fine Printing, the
hand Press is still preferred, and probably ever will be.

In a work like the present, it may not perhaps be deemed uninteresting
to take a brief view of the

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF PRINTING.

There appears to be no reason to doubt that, from a very remote period
in the history of the world, devices were used for the purpose of
transmitting to after times the records of important events, but these
are for the most part more a matter of curiosity than of positive
information. Of the Origin of Printing as now practised, the Rev.
Archdeacon Coxe gives the following account in his History of the House
of Austria:--"It took its rise about the middle of the fifteenth
century, and in the course of a few years reached that height of
improvement which is scarcely surpassed even in the present times. The
Invention was at first rude and simple, consisting of whole pages carved
on Blocks of Wood,[12-*] and only impressed on one side of the leaf:
the next step was the formation of moveable Types in Wood, and they were
afterwards cut in Metal, and finally rendered more durable, regular, an