which, as Meerman was a native of that country, he feized with avidity, and refolved to expand and confolidate them into a syste matic hiftory. Accordingly, after publishing a small octavo vo lume as a specimen of his large work, he appeared before the public, with his portrait, in his Origines Typographica, in two quarto vo lumes, along with a fictitious head of his beloved Cofter, beauti fully engraved by Houbraken. Meerman's is a learned and valuable work, and is in the hands of every bibliographer. The au thor had himself a fine library, and was exceedingly kind and liberal in giving the curious permiffion to fee it. But though it be abfolutely neceffary to poffefs his performance, yet it is not free from grofs errors, which have been attacked perhaps with too much feverity by the acute and experienced Heinecken. This latter was a German, and a like patriotic ardour induced him to give the palm of having difcovered the art of printing to the cities of Mentz and Strafburg. Heinecken, as now seems to be allowed, has paid too little attention to the antiquity of the claims of Haarlem, and Meerman infinitely too much: thus, although both fat out with profeffing to adhere to truth, both have described her not as he really was, but as they had conceived or wished her to be. The Parifian bibliographers, as their own me. tropolis had never been confidered the cradle of the typographic art; and as they had, in confequence, no national prejudices on this fcore to efpoufe, have been more juft and fatisfactory. The recent treatifes of Lambinet, Oberlin, Fischer, Daunou, and San. tander, are highly creditable to their refpective authors. The differtations of Camus upon the Claffification of a Library, upon a Book printed at Bamberg in 1461, and upon the celebrated Tewrdanckh, (vide p. xxiv. note, ante) in the firft, fecond, and third volumes of the Mémoires de l'Inftitut,' are well deferving the attention of the bibliographer. His illuftrations of the latter work, to be complete, fhould have had a fac-fimile of one of the beautiful cuts, as well as of the letter-prefs." P. xxxi, n. We next come to an account of the life of Caxton. In this, the whole biographical hiftory of our first printer, by Lewis, is included. Here are alfo numerous notes, and a plate of three fuppofed portraits of Caxton is prefixed, In this part of the work, the editor introduces his opinions on the Origin of Printing, as formed from various authorities, They are as follows, and we can bear willing testimony to their accuracy; and the reader is to be informed, that they effectually overturn and confute the hypothesis of Meerman in favour of Haarlem. "Lewis, p. 4, has two fhort fuperficial notes, the one from Fox's Acts and Monuments, the other from Richelet's Dictionary, upon the Origin of Printing, which are not worth transcribing, Again, at p. 131, he has extracted the paffage from Fox's Acts and and Monuments at length. Instead of thefe, the reader will be pleafed to accept of the following sketch relating to this important but most intricate and involved fubject: fo true being the remark of Oxonides, that- the Art of Printing, which has given light to moft other things, hides its own head in darkness;' or, accord ing to Daunou, We live too near the epoch of the difcovery of printing to judge accurately of its influence, and too far from it to know exactly the circumftances which gave birth to it.' "Henne (John) Geensfleifch de Sulgeloch, commonly called Gutenberg, the inventor of the art of printing with metal types, was born at Mentz, of noble and wealthy parents, about the year 1400. In the year 1424, he took up his refidence at Strafburgh as a merchant; but from a deed of accommodation between himfelf and the nobles and burghers of the city of Mentz in 1430, it is evident that he had then returned to his native place. That he was a wealthy man in 1434, is proved by a document adduced by Schoepflin. Between this period and 1439, he had conceived, and perhaps made fome few trials of, the art of printing with metal types. In the archives of the city of Mentz, Schoepflin difcovered a document of a procefs carried on by Gutenberg against one George Dritzehen, from which we learn, that the former had promifed to make the latter acquainted with a fecret art that he had recently discovered. In the fame document mention is made of four forms kept together by two ferers, or prefs-spindles, and of letters and pages being cut up and deftroyed to prevent any perfon from difcovering the art. "Oberlin, in his Exercices de Bibliographie, p. 44, thus tran flates the German paffages that relate to the fafile types :-' Go, take away the component parts of the prefs, and pull them to pieces, then no one will understand what they mean. Gutenberg intreated him to go to the prefs, and open it by means of two farews, and thus the feveral parts would feparate; that these need only be placed under the prefs, and no one would understand any thing about them. Gutenberg fent him to bring together all the different forms, which were pulled to pieces before him, becaufe there were fome with which he was not fatisfied. Dritzehen was particularly careful to fecure every bit of lead,' &c. Upon this very curious document, Lambinet remarks, that the want of cor. rect technical expreffions is fufficiently obvious in the early hiftory of the art of printing; hence the obfcurity of the original German paffages, and the difficulty of tranflating them. Every one, continues he, will conftrue thefe paffages according to his particular prejudices or partialities. It is remarkable that the ableft biblio graphers have differed upon the fubject of the materials with which Gutenberg at first printed, Schoepflin fuppofed them to have been metal; Fournier, Meerman, and Fifcher, were of opinion that they were compofed of wood," P. lxxxvii, n. We We now come to the account of the books printed by Caxton, and it is impoffible, and would be unjuft, not to approve and commend the perfevering diligence and great acutenefs which every page difplays. Mr. Dibdin's mode of defcribing these books is not only very different from that adopted by his predeceffors, but he has every where enlivened his defcriptions by curious anecdote and fenfible remark. We fubjoin two fpecimens: the firft is the defcription of that very uncommon book, THE PYLGREMAGE OF THE SowLE, which the editor thus gives : "As Lewis, Ames, Oldys, and Herbert, have given rather a fuperficial account of this extraordinary production, which, perhaps, rather than Bernard's Ifle of Man*,' laid the foundation of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progrefs,' I fhall make no apology to the reader for the following fpecimens of its poetry and profe. The firft chapter, which treats How the foul departeth from the body,' and how the foul fiend affaileth the foul,' opens thus:As I lay in a Saint Lawrence night fleeping in my bed, me befel a full marvellous dream, which I fhall rehearse. Methought that I had long time travelled toward the holy city of Jerufalem, and that I had made an end and fully finifhed my fleshly pilgri mage, fo that I might no further travel upon my foot, but needs muft leave behind my fleshly careyne. Then come cruel death, and fmøte me with his venemous dart, through which ftroke body and foul were parted afunder. And fo anon I felt myfelf lift up into the air, feeing myfelf departed from my foul body; which when I beheld lying all dead without any moving, feemed me fe foul and horrible, that had I not right late there before iffued therefrom, I would nought have fuppofed that ever it had been mine. Then come there to this body the noble worthy lady the Dame Mifericorde, and kevered [covered] it, lapping [it] in a clean linen cloth, and fo full honeftly laid it in the earth. I faw also the Auterer that cleped is Dame Prayer; how that the fped ker to heaven-ward, wonder[fully] haftily before me: for no doubt I had full mestier thereof. For why? the foul horrible Sa. thanas [Satan] I faw coming toward me, full cruelly menacing me, and faying in this wife, I have here long time abiden thee, and privily for thee lain in a wait; fo it is now befallen that I have not failed of my purpose, for now art thou taken with me, and now muft thou wenden in to mine habitation, condemned by right wife judgment of the fovereign judge. For now haft thou loft that lady that was thine helper and thine counsellor, Dame Grace de Dieu-it availeth thee nought for to look after her.' "Confult Mr. Todd's edition of Spencer, vol. ii, cxxv. for an account of this curious book, which has recently (1803) been reprinted at Bristol in a small duodecimo volume, with a portrait of the author." The pyteous compleynt of the fowle, Cap. xv, "I am arryved to a perylous port Maugre my felf right here I mote foiourne "Burdon ne fcrip may I no lenger bere Fol. viii-ix. The following fpecimen has fomewhat better pretenfions to melody of metre. "Ye Confeffours and other holy fayntes " And yf that ye of your merytes grete Fol. xiii. rev. "The opening of the 34th chapter, or the introduction to the poem, which is fufficiently curious, is as follows: "But then heard I how humbly Dame Mifericorde gan to pray for me, and faid in this wife: Now dear Michael, quoth fhe, will ye vouchsafe awhile for to tarry in your judgment? I have a little thing to do above in heaven: I think there to purchase a grace, that nothing shall be to your prejudice.' Then faid the Provoft, It liketh me right well at your request for to abide: till that ye be returned, I pray you tarry nought. So then was the judgment fufpended in to the time that mercy had been in heaven; and fmartly, without tarrying, fhe had done her devoir, and was defcended down upon the fcaffold. And fothely fo faw I well fhe was that felf fair fweet, that bare her breaft always ready out of her bofom, which had me before hand in my fleshly life full often time comforted. And now the did me much more comfort, what tidings fhe brought.-In her hand the brought a skypet, and neying towards the balance with the head inclined, she said to the balancer- how is it, quoth fhe, in our party? Sothely, quoth Juftice, had ye nought tarried, in this court full long time paffed this pilgrim had been forjudged; witnefs upon truth and reason.' Now then, quoth Mifericorde, fhall I tell wherefore I have travelled?' And she took forth the Charter, and faid, 'I have been in prefence of our Lord Jefu Chrift, and his bleffed Mother, and before all the company of faints affembled together for help of this pilgrim. And fo have I here our Lord's grant and charter of pardon which I fhall read to fore you whereof who that will fhall have the copy.' Then fhe took forth a fair charter, affealed with gold, and read it openly word for word, whereof this is the fentence: The Charter of Mercy.' ["Then follows the poem of 14 ftanzas; very dull, and, in part, incomprehenfible.] "Herbert is miftaken in fuppofing the fourth and fifth chapters of the third book (which were wanting in his copy) to have any connection with the poem of the Life of the Virgin Mary. Thefe chapters are filled with a description of the pains in hell inflicted upon traitors, falfe judges, and falfe witneffes. "The third book is devoted to the defcription of the tortures of the damned; and amidst a good deal of burlesque imagery, there are fome few paffages of terrific fublimity. An angel conducts the author [who trembles with apprehenfion, and wishes to recede, but is peremptorily told by his guide that he must take it all with pacyence withouten ony grutchynge']' through the earth, right as birds paffen by the air;' and lays open to his view the inmoft receffes of hell. They arrive at a dark border which was ⚫ enclosed in compafs all the hell about-wonder marvelous blacke and derke ynowe.' Here they fee a group of unbaptifed innocents 'faft about moving and feeking, without any reft; as if they myght have iffue [egrefs] from that darknefs, like to a bird that always continually runneth in a cage for to feek an hole where he might efcape, and many hundred times effayeth the fame place, and never is the wifer. The author very naturally expreffes his surprise at this mode of punishment, but is told by his guide that it must ever continue |