d
elegant, by being Cast, or Founded.

"The consequence of this happy and simple discovery was a rapid series
of improvements in every art and science, and a general diffusion of
knowledge among all orders of society. Hitherto the tedious, uncertain,
and expensive mode of multiplying books by the hand of the Copyist, had
principally confined the treasures of learning to Monasteries,[14-*] or
to persons of rank and fortune. Yet, even with all the advantages of
wealth, Libraries were extremely scarce and scanty; and principally
consisted of books of devotion and superstition, legends, or the
sophistical disquisitions of the schoolmen. An acquaintance with the
Latin classics was a rare qualification, and the Greek language was
almost unknown in Europe; but the Art of Printing had scarcely become
general before it gave a new impulse to genius and a new spirit to
inquiry. A singular concurrence of circumstances contributed to multiply
the beneficial effects derived from this invention, among which the most
considerable were the protection afforded to literature and the arts by
the States of Italy, and the diffusion of Greek learning by the literati
who sought an asylum in Europe after the capture of Constantinople.

"A controversy has arisen concerning the first discoverer of the art of
Printing, between the three towns of Haerlem, Mentz, and Strasburg,
each, from a natural partiality, attributing it to their own countryman.
The dispute, however, has turned rather on words than facts; and seems
to have arisen from the different definitions of the word "Printing." If
we estimate the discovery from the invention of the principle, the
honour is unquestionably due to Laurence Coster, a native of Haerlem,
who first found out the method of impressing characters on paper, by
means of carved blocks of wood. If moveable types be considered as a
criterion, the merit of the discovery is due to John Gutenberg, of
Mentz; and Schoeffer, in conjunction with Faust, was the first who
founded Types of Metal."--_Coxe_, vol. i. p. 421. 8vo.

Although some attempts have been made to support a different statement,
it is pretty generally admitted that William Caxton, who had lived
abroad and learned the art there, was the person who introduced Printing
into England; in this Stowe, Leland, and others agree, that "in the
almonry at Westminster, the Abbot of Westminster erected the first Press
for Book-printing that ever was in England, about the y