Mr. Ottley, at page 285 of the first volume of his Researches, informs us that “almost all great discoveries have been made by accident;” and at page 196 of the same volume, when speaking of printing as the invention of Lawrence Coster, he mentions it as an “art which had been at first taken up as the amusement of a leisure hour, became improved, and was practised by him as a profitable trade.” Let any unbiassed person enter a printing-office; let him look at the single letters, let him observe them formed into pages, and the pages wedged up in forms; let him see a sheet printed from one of those forms by means of the press; and when he has seen and considered all this, let him ask himself if ever, since the world began, the amusement of an old man practised in his hours of leisure was attended with such a result? “Very few great discoveries,” says Lord Brougham, “have been made by chance and by ignorant persons, much fewer than is generally supposed.--They are generally made by persons of competent knowledge, and who are in search of them.”[III-57] [Footnote III-57: On the Pleasures and Advantages of Science, p. 160. Edit. 1831.] Having now given some account of the grounds on which Gutemberg’s claims to the invention of typography are founded, it appears necessary to give a brief summary, from the earliest authorities, of the pretensions of Lawrence Coster not only to the same honour, but to something more; for if the earliest account which we have of him be true, he was not only the inventor of typography, but of block-printing also. The first mention of Holland in connexion with the invention of typography occurs in the Cologne Chronicle, printed by John Kœlhoff in 1499, wherein it is said that the first idea of the art was suggested by the Donatuses printed in Holland; it being however expressly stated in the same work that the art of printing as then practised was invented at Mentz. In a memorandum, which has been referred to at page 123, written by Mariangelus Accursius, who flourished about 1530, the invention of printing with metal types is erroneously ascribed to Faust; and it is further added, that he derived the idea from a Donatus printed in Holland from a wood-block. That a Donatus might be printed there from a wood-block previous to the invention of typography is neither impossible nor improbable; although I esteem the testimony of Accursius of very little value. He was born and resided in Italy, and it is not unlikely, as has been previously observed, that he might derive his information from the Cologne Chronicle.