MARKS USED IN THE CORRECTION OF PROOFS
From Johnson’s Typographia (1824), Vol. II, p. 216.
THE OPPOSITE PAGE CORRECTED
From Johnson’s Typographia (1824), Vol. II, p. 217.
Though a variety of opinions exist as to the individual by whom the art of printing was first discovered; yet all authorities concur in admitting PETER SCHOEFFER to be the person who invented cast metal types, having learned the art of cutting the letters from the Guttembergs: he is also supposed to have been the first who engraved on copperplates. The following testimony is preserved in the family, by Jo. Fred. Faustus of Ascheffenburg.
‘Peter Schoeffer of Gernsheim, perceiving his master Faust’s design, and being himself ardently desirous to improve the art, found out (by the good providence of God) the method of cutting (incidendi) the characters in a matrix that the letters might easily be singly cast, instead of being cut. He privately cut matrices for the whole alphabet, and when he showed his master the letters cast from those matrices, Faust was so pleased with the contrivance that he promised Peter to give him his only daughter Christina in marriage, a promise which he soon after performed. But there were as many difficulties at first with these letters, as there had been before with wooden ones; the metal being too soft to support the force of the impression: but this defect was soon remedied, by mixing the metal with a substance which sufficiently hardened it.’