The book usually called the “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis,”[II-73]--the Mirror of Human Salvation,--which is ascribed by Hadrian Junius to Lawrence Coster, has been more frequently the subject of discussion among bibliographers and writers who have treated of the origin of printing, than any other work. A great proportion, however, of what has been written on the subject consists of groundless speculation; and the facts elicited, compared with the conjectures propounded, are as “two grains of wheat to a bushel of chaff.” It would be a waste of time to recite at length the various opinions that have been entertained with respect to the date of this book, the manner in which the text was printed, and the printer’s name. The statements and the theories put forth by Junius and Meerman in Coster’s favour, so far as the execution of the Speculum is concerned, are decidedly contradicted by the book itself. Without, therefore, recapitulating arguments which are contradicted by established facts, I shall endeavour to give a correct account of the work, leaving those who choose to compare it, and reconcile it if they can, with the following assertions made by Coster’s advocates: 1. that the Speculum was first printed by him in Dutch with wooden types; 2. that while engraving a Latin edition on blocks of wood he discovered the art of printing with moveable letters; 3. that the Latin edition, in which the text is partly from moveable types and partly from wood-blocks, was printed by Coster’s heirs and successors, their moveable types having been stolen by John Gutemberg before the whole of the text was set up. [Footnote II-73: It is sometimes named “Speculum Figuratum;” and Junius in his account of Coster’s invention calls it “Speculum Nostræ Salutis.”] The Speculum which has been the subject of so much discussion is of a small folio size, and without date or printer’s name. There are four editions of it known to bibliographers, all containing the same cuts; two of those editions are in Latin, and two in Dutch. In the Latin editions the work consists of sixty-three leaves, five of which are occupied by an introduction or prologue, and on the other fifty-eight are printed the cuts and explanatory text. The Dutch editions, though containing the same number of cuts as the Latin, consist of only sixty-two leaves each, as the preface occupies only four. In all those editions the leaves are printed on one side only. Besides the four editions above noticed, which have been ascribed to Coster and have excited so much controversy, there are two or three others in which the cuts are more coarsely engraved, and probably executed, at a later period, in Germany. There is also a quarto edition of the Speculum, printed in 1483, at Culemburg, by John Veldener, and ornamented with the identical cuts of the folio editions ascribed to Coster and his heirs.