The second chapter contains an account of the progress of the art as exemplified in the earliest known single cuts, and in the block-books which preceded the invention of typography. In this chapter there is also an account of the Speculum Salvationis, which has been ascribed to Laurence Coster by Hadrian Junius, Scriverius, Meerman, and others, and which has frequently been described as an early block-book executed previous to 1440. A close examination of two Latin editions of the book has, however, convinced me, that in the earliest the text is entirely printed from movable types, and that in the other--supposed by Meerman to be the earliest, and to afford proofs of the progress of Coster’s invention--those portions of the text which are printed from wood-blocks have been copied from the corresponding portions of the earlier edition with the text printed entirely from movable types. Fournier was the first who discovered that one of the Latin editions was printed partly from types, and partly from wood-blocks; and the credit of showing, from certain imperfections in the cuts, that this edition was subsequent to the other with the text printed entirely from types, is due to the late Mr. Ottley. As typography, or printing from movable types, was unquestionably suggested by the earliest block-books with the text engraved on wood, the third chapter is devoted to an examination of the claims of Gutemberg and Coster to the honour of this invention. In the investigation of the evidence which has been produced in the behalf of each, the writer has endeavoured to divest his mind of all bias, and to decide according to facts, without reference to the opinions of either party. He has had no theory to support; and has neither a partiality for Mentz, nor a dislike to Harlem. It perhaps may not be unnecessary to mention here, that the cuts of arms from the History of the Virgin, given at pages 75, 76, and 77, were engraved before the writer had seen Koning’s work on the Invention of Printing, Harlem, 1816, where they are also copied, and several of them assigned to Hannau, Burgundy, Brabant, Utrecht, and Leyden, and to certain Flemish noblemen, whose names are not mentioned. It is not improbable that, like the two rash Knights in the fable, we may have seen the shields on opposite sides;--the bearings may be common to states and families, both of Germany and the Netherlands.