tabulis ligneis scripti,”--letters engraved on wood-blocks,--which are mentioned in a preceding sentence. The inconsistency of Trithemius in ascribing the origin of the art to Gutemberg, and twice immediately afterwards calling Scheffer the son-in-law of “the first inventor,” Faust, is noticed by Schœpflin, and has been pointed out by several other writers. [Footnote III-27: Vindiciæ Typographicæ, pp. 77, 78.] In 1455 the partnership between Gutemberg and Faust was dissolved at the instance of the latter, who preferred a suit against his partner for the recovery, with interest, of certain sums of money which he had advanced. There is no mention of the time when the partnership commenced in the sentence or award of the judge; but Schwartz infers, from the sum claimed on account of interest, that it must have been in August 1449. It is probable that his conclusion is very near the truth; for most of the early writers who have mentioned the invention of printing at Mentz by Gutemberg and Faust, agree in assigning the year 1450 as that in which they began to practise the new art. It is conjectured by Santander that Faust, who seems to have been a selfish character,[III-28] sought an opportunity of quarrelling with Gutemberg as soon as Scheffer had communicated to him his great improvement of forming the letters by means of punches and matrices. [Footnote III-28: In the first work which issued from Faust and Scheffer’s press, with a date and the printer’s names,--the Psalter of 1457,--and in several others, Scheffer appears on an equal footing with Faust. In the colophon of an edition of Cicero de Officiis, 1465, Faust has inserted the following degrading words: “Presens opus Joh. Fust Moguntinus civis . . . . arte quadam perpulcra Petri manu _pueri mei_ feliciter effeci.” His partner, to whose ingenuity he is chiefly indebted for his fame, is here represented in the character of a menial. Peter Scheffer, of Gernsheim, clerk, who perfected the art of printing, is now degraded to “Peter, my _boy_” by whose hand--not by his ingenuity--John Faust exercises a certain beautiful art.]