[Footnote III-24: The words of Bär, who was almoner of the Swedish chapel at Paris in 1761, are these: “Tout le monde sait que dans ce temps les orfèvres exerçoient aussi l’art de la gravûre; et nous concluons de-là que Guttemberg a commencé par des caractères de bois, que de-là il a passé aux caractères de plomb.” On this passage Fournier makes the following observations: “Tout le monde sait au contraire que dans ce temps il n’y avoit pas un seul graveur dans le genre dont vous parlez, et cela par une raison bien simple: c’est que cet art de la gravûre n’a été inventé que vingt-trois ans après ce que vous citez, c’est-à-dire en 1460, par _Masso Piniguera_.”--Remarques, &c. p. 20. Bär mentioned no particular kind of engraving; and the name of the Italian goldsmith who is supposed to have been the first who discovered the art of taking impressions from a plate on paper, was Finiguerra, not Piniguera, as Fournier, with his usual inaccuracy, spells it.] There is no evidence to show that Gutemberg succeeded in printing any books at Strasburg with moveable types: and the most likely conclusion seems to be that he did not. As the process between him and the Drytzehns must have given a certain degree of publicity to his invention, it might be expected that some notice would have been taken of its first-fruits had he succeeded in making it available in Strasburg. On the contrary, all the early writers in the least entitled to credit, who have spoken of the invention of printing with moveable types, agree in ascribing the honour to Mentz, after Gutemberg had returned to that city and entered into partnership with Faust. Two writers, however, whose learning and research are entitled to the highest respect, are of a different opinion. “It has been doubted,” says Professor Oberlin, “that Gutemberg ever printed books at Strasburg. It is, nevertheless, probable that he did; for he had a press there in 1439, and continued to reside in that city for five years afterwards. He might print several of those small tracts without date, in which the inequality of the letters and rudeness of the workmanship indicate the infancy of the art. Schœpflin thinks that he can identify some of them; and the passages cited by him clearly show that printing had been carried on there.”[III-25] It is, however, to be remarked that the passages cited by Schœpflin, and referred to by Oberlin, by no means show that the art of printing had been practised at Strasburg by Gutemberg; nor do they clearly prove that it had been continuously carried on there by his partners or others to the time of Mentelin, who probably established himself there as a printer in 1466. [Footnote III-25: Essai d’Annales de la Vie de Jean Gutenberg, par Jer. J. Oberlin. 8vo. Strasbourg, An ix. [1802.]]