as well as foreign universities during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. Nor can I pass over institutions that have so
eminently contributed to the literary reputation of this country, and
that still continue to exercise so conspicuous an influence over her
taste and knowledge, as the two great schools of grammatical learning,
Winchester and Eton--the one founded by William of Wykeham, bishop of
Winchester, in 1373; the other in 1432, by King Henry the Sixth.[929]

[Sidenote: Invention of printing.]

But while the learned of Italy were eagerly exploring their recent
acquisitions of manuscripts, decyphered with difficulty and slowly
circulated from hand to hand, a few obscure Germans had gradually
perfected the most important discovery recorded in the annals of
mankind. The invention of printing, so far from being the result of
philosophical sagacity, does not appear to have been suggested by any
regard to the higher branches of literature, or to bear any other
relation than that of coincidence to their revival in Italy. The
question why it was struck out at that particular time must be referred
to that disposition of unknown causes which we call accident. Two or
three centuries earlier, we cannot but acknowledge the discovery would
have been almost equally acceptable. But the invention of paper seems to
have naturally preceded those of engraving and printing. It is generally
agreed that playing cards, which have been traced far back in the
fourteenth century, gave the first notion of taking off impressions from
engraved figures upon wood. The second stage, or rather second
application of this art, was the representation of saints and other
religious devices, several instances of which are still extant. Some of
these are accompanied with an entire page of illustrative text, cut into
the same wooden block. This process is indeed far removed from the
invention that has given immortality to the names of Fust, Schoeffer,
and Gutenburg, yet it probably led to the consideration of means whereby
it might be rendered less operose and inconvenient. Whether moveable
wooden characters were ever employed in any entire work is very
questionable--the opinion that referred their use to Laurence Coster, of
Haarlem, not having stood the test of more accurate investigation. They
appear, however, in the capital letters of some early printed books. But
no expedient of this kind could have fulfilled the great purposes of
this inventi