Books made in this way were called block books. It required much time and a great deal of skill to engrave the blocks; and so this method of printing never came into very general use.
II. LAURENCE COSTER
About the beginning of the fifteenth century there lived in the old Dutch town of Haarlem a man whose name was Laurence Jaonssen. This man was much looked up to by all his neighbors; for he was honest and wealthy, and he had been in his younger days the treasurer of the town. He was the sacristan of the Church of St. Bavon, and for that reason he was called Laurence Coster, which means Laurence the Sacristan. As he grew old and gray, he became very quiet in his ways, and there was nothing that he liked so well as being alone, with the bright sun above him and the trees and flowers and birds all around him.
Every afternoon, as soon as he had dined, he threw his short black cloak over his shoulders, took his broad-brimmed hat from its peg, and with his staff in his hand sauntered out for a walk. Sometimes he strolled along the banks of the broad and sluggish river, picking flowers as he went; sometimes he rambled through the fields and came home by the great road which led around to the other side of the town. But he liked best to go out to the old forest which lay beyond the flat meadow lands a mile farther away. There the trees grew large and tall, and afforded a pleasant shelter on warm days from the sun, and in cooler weather from the keen winds that blow across the meadows from the sea.
When tired of walking, Laurence Coster would often sit down on the spreading root of some old beech tree; and then, to pass away the time, he would split off a piece of the bark, and with his knife would shape it into one of the letters of the alphabet. This was an old habit of his—a habit which he had learned when he was a boy; and afterwards, when he was just turning into manhood, it had been no uncommon thing for him to stroll into the woods and carve upon the trees the name of a young maiden whom he knew. Now, old and gray and solemn, the habit still remained with him. He liked to sit and cut out alphabets for the amusement of his little grandchildren to whom he carried them.
One day, having shaped the letters with more care than usual, he wrapped them up in a piece of parchment that he had in his pocket. “The children will be delighted with these, I know,” he said.
When he reached home and opened the package, he was surprised to see the imprint of several of the letters very clear and distinct upon the parchment. The sap, running out of the green bark, had acted as ink on the face of the letters. This accident set him to thinking.
He carved another set of letters with very great care, and then, dipping one side in ink, pressed them on a sheet of parchment. The result was a print, almost as good as the block pictures and block books which were sold in the shops, and were the only examples of printing then known.
“I really believe,” said Laurence Coster, “that with enough of these letters I could print a book. It would be better than printing by the block method; for I would not be obliged to cut a separate block for each page, but could arrange and rearrange the letters in any order that might be required.”
And so now, instead of idling his afternoons away, and instead of cutting letters merely for the children, he set earnestly to work to improve his invention. He made a kind of ink that was thicker and more gluey than common ink, and not so likely to spread and leave an ugly blot. He carved a great many letters of various sizes, and found that with his improved ink he could make clear, distinct impressions, and could print entire pages, with cuts and diagrams and fancy headings.