We now come to the account given by Hadrian Junius,[84] in his work entitled Batavia, printed in 1588, thirteen years after his death.
This account[85] is supposed, from the context, to have been written in the year 1568, and in it the name of Coster appears for the first time.
“About a hundred and twenty eight years ago,” he says, “Laurentius Janssoen Coster inhabited a decent and fashionable house in the city of Haarlem, situated in the market place opposite the royal palace. The name of Coster was assumed, and inherited from his ancestors, who had long enjoyed the honorable and lucrative office of Coster or Sexton to the church. This man deserves to be restored to the honor of being the first inventor of printing, of which he has been unjustly deprived by others, who have enjoyed the praises due to him alone. As he was walking in the wood contiguous to the city, which was the general custom of the richer citizens and men of leisure, in the afternoon and on holidays he began at first to cut some letters upon the rind of a beech tree; which for fancy’s sake, being impressed on paper, he printed one or two lines as a specimen for his grand-children (the sons of his daughter) to follow. This having happily succeeded, he meditated greater things (as he was a man of ingenuity and judgment); and first of all with his son-in-law Thomas Peter (who by the way left three sons, who all attained the consular dignity), invented a more glutinous writing ink, because he found the common ink sunk and spread; and then formed whole pages of wood, with letters cut upon them;—of which sort I have seen some essays in an anonymous work, printed only on one side, entitled Speculum nostræ salutis: in which it is remarkable, that in the infancy of printing (as nothing is complete at its first invention), the back sides of the pages were pasted together, that they might not by their nakedness betray their deformity.—These beechen letters he afterwards changed for leaden ones, and these again for a mixture of tin and lead, as a less flexible and more solid and durable substance. Of the remains of which types, when they were turned to waste metal, those old wine-pots were cast, that are still preserved in the family house which looks into the market-place, inhabited afterwards by his great-grandson Gerard Thomas, a gentleman of reputation, whom I mention for the honor of the family, and who died a few years since. A new invention never fails to engage curiosity. And when a commodity never before seen excited purchasers, to the advantage of the inventor, the admiration of the art increased, dependents were enlarged, and workmen multiplied; the first calamitous incident! Among these was one John. Whether, as we suspect, he had ominously the name of Faustus—unfaithful and unlucky to his master,—or whether he was really a person of that name, I shall not much inquire; being unwilling to molest the silent shades, who suffer from a consciousness of their past actions in this life. This man, bound by oath to keep the secret of printing, when he thought he had learned the art of joining the letters, the method of casting the types, and other things of that nature, taking the most convenient time that was possible, on Christmas eve, when every one was customarily employed in lustral sacrifices, seizes the collection of types, and all the implements his master had got together, and, with one accomplice, marches off to Amsterdam, thence to Cologne, and at last settled at Mentz, as at an asylum of security, where he might go to work with the tools he had stolen. It is certain that in a year’s time, viz. in 1442, the Doctrinale of Alexander Gallus, which was a grammar much used at that time, together with the Tracts of Peter of Spain, came forth there, from the same types as Laurentius had made use of at Haarlem. These were the first products of his press. These are the principal circumstances that I have collected from credible persons, far advanced in years, which they have transmitted like a flaming torch from hand to hand. I have also met with others who have confirmed the same.”[86]
Junius’s principal informant was, he says, his tutor, Nicholas Galius, an old gentlemen of very tenacious memory, who related that when a boy, he “had often heard one Cornelius, a bookbinder (then upwards of eighty years of age, who had when a youth, assisted at the printing office of Coster), describe with great earnestness the numerous trials and experiments made by his master in the infancy of the invention. When he came to that part of his narrative touching the robbery, he would burst into tears, and curse with the greatest vehemence those nights in which he had slept with so vile a miscreant, declaring that were he still alive, he could with pleasure execute the thief with his own hands.” Junius states, that he received a similar account from Quirinus Talesius, the Burgomaster, who asserted that it was recited to him by the said Cornelius: the latter died in 1515.[87]
Of Laurent Janssoen Coster, it seems to be satisfactorily proved, that he belonged to the most distinguished and wealthy class of the inhabitants of the city. He was born, it is supposed, about 1370, or 1371; and notices of him appear in official records as an officer of the city guard, a member of the great council, sheriff, sheriff-president, and treasurer, from 1417 to 1434. From the treasurer’s accounts he seems to have enjoyed a rent-charge upon the city from 1422 to 1435. In 1440 an entry is made of the payment of a similar charge to one “Ymme, widow of Laurent Janssoen”; and as Haarlem was visited by a contagious malady in 1439, the probability is that Laurent was one of its victims. Of his family the following particulars have been handed down. His daughter Lucetta married Thomas the son of Pieter; and bore him two daughters and three sons, Pieter, André and Thomas, all of whom filled important public office. Pieter the son of Thomas, had a son called Thomas the son of Pieter, whose son Gerard, died before Junius wrote his work. The last descendant of the family was William the son of Cornelius Kroon, who died the 24th March, 1724.[88]
As the account inserted in Junius’s Batavia is the groundwork upon which all subsequent writers base their arguments in behalf of the claims they advance for Coster, it behoves us to note how far it agrees with the statements previously made by others.
It is alleged that Coster (1,) first cut letters on the bark of a beech tree for his amusement; (2,) then, with letters so cut, he made words and sentences for the instruction of his grand-children; after which he (3,) invented, with the assistance of his son-in-law, a more glutinous ink, whereupon he (4,) cut whole pages of letters on wood, and printed them. He next (5,) made letters of lead, and pewter, to supersede those of wood; (6,) becoming known as a printer, and a public demand arising for his productions, he (7,) engaged numerous workmen, one of whom (8,) stole all his materials, and carried them off to Mentz.
Neither Van Zuyren, nor Coornhert, give particulars on the first five points, and in regard to the 6th and 7th, their statements are opposed to those of Junius. They say the art, as invented at Haarlem, was rude and imperfect, and was not made public there; and although Coornhert says he had often been told of the family of the inventor, his name and surname, of the rude manner of printing first used, and had even had shewn to him the abode of the first printer; he neither gives his name nor describes the method adopted. Guicciardini gives his statement, as a matter of hearsay, for the truth of which he will not vouch; but in it there is this difference from those of Van Zuyren and Coornhert, that the author of the invention happening to die before the art was brought to perfection and had acquired repute, his servant, they say, went to reside at Mentz.
Here then are three writers, living at the same time with Junius, all making inquiries upon the same subject, and deriving their information from a common source, who differ from him on almost every point, and in some of the most material plainly contradict him.