Setting aside, therefore, the conclusions of Baron Heinecken and Wetter in regard to the party by whom, and the date when, the Speculum was originally printed, (which nevertheless are not without grounds for their support), this view of the question gives to some unknown brother or brethren the merit of having independently worked out the idea of separable letters on wood about the years 1450–53; thus adding one more to the number of known instances, when at certain historic periods the minds of individuals wholly unknown to each other, and in widely different parts of the world, have almost simultaneously worked out the same invention, or made the same discovery. Instances of such coincidences will no doubt at once occur to the minds of intelligent readers; I shall therefore only refer by way of illustration to the invention of Photography by M. Niepce and Mr. Fox Talbot, and the discovery of the planet Neptune by the English and French astronomers, Adams and Leverrier.
The rarity of copies of works in which the types used in the Speculum have been recognised, is accounted for by the fact of their speedy supercession by cast fusile metal types, when a knowledge of the Arts of Typography and Typefounding became spread throughout Europe by the dispersion of the workmen at Mentz, on the capture and sack of that city in 1462. Most, if not all of the early printers, were men of learning. Many of those who first practised the art in the Netherlands would consequently have been educated by the Brethren and Clerks of the Common Life; and amongst these some were very probably members of that fraternity. It is certain that at Brussels (1476) and at Zwolle, as well as at Rheingau (1474) and Rostock (1476), the Brethren speedily practised the new art as first brought to perfection at Mentz. And at one or other of these places, it is much more likely that Veldener obtained the cuts of the Mirror of Salvation, which he reprinted at Culembourg in 1483, than that he purchased them from the descendants of Coster at Haarlem;—a statement which, however much insisted upon by Dutch, and reiterated of late by French and English writers, is purely suppositious, and utterly void of the slightest foundation in fact.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] Schrijver, P. Laurecrans voor Laurens Coster. Haarlem, 1628. 4to.
[84] Hadrian Junius was born at Hoorn, in 1511, and is said to have been educated at a classical school of repute at Haarlem. He also studied at Louvain. He soon shewed himself a person of ability; and having embraced the medical profession, was appointed physician to the Duke of Norfolk, and afterwards to the King of Denmark. He is said to have taken up his abode in Haarlem in 1560, and to have resided there till 1572, when he quitted the city on account of the siege that then took place. According to Lypsius, he was the most learned man in Holland after Erasmus. His work Batavia was commenced late in life, and completed in January, 1575. His death took place at Middleburg, on the 16th June of the same year.
[85] The original will be found in the Appendix.
[86] The above translation is taken from the article on Printing in the Edinburgh edition (1815) of the Encyclopædia Britannica, supplemented by that given in Stower’s “Printers’ Grammar” (1808.) Both writers are strong pro-Costerians.
[87] Galius is probably the same who is called Claes Lottynz, Gael, Scabinus Haarlemi, as it is in the Fasti of that city, in the years 1531, 1533, and 1535. Quirinus in the same Fasti is called Mr. Quiryn Dirkszoon. He was many years amanuensis to Erasmus, as appears from his epistle 23rd July, 1529, tom iii. Oper. p. 1222. He was afterwards Scabinus in 1537 et seq., and Consul in 1552, et seq. But in the troubles of Holland he was cruelly killed by the Spanish soldiers, May 23, 1563.
[88] Meerman’s Account of the family and descendants of Laurent Janssoen, vol. i. p. 38, et seq.