"So far you are right, my dear boy," said his father, "it is recorded, that one Laurentius, of Harlem, was the first inventor of the leaden letters, which he afterwards changed for a mixture of tin and lead, as a more solid and durable substance. We may suppose this to have been about 1430. From this period, printing made a rapid progress in most of the chief towns of Europe. In 1490 it reached Constantinople, and was extended by the middle of the following century, to Africa and America. It was for a long time believed that printing was introduced into England, by one William Caxton, a mercer, and citizen of London, who having resided many years in Holland, Flanders, and Germany, had made himself master of the whole art, and set up a press in Westminster, in 1471. But a book has since been found, with a date of its impression at Oxford, in 1468, and is considered as a proof that printing began in that University before Caxton practised it in London. Emily, what have you got there bound so handsomely in morocco?" "Mrs. Chapone's Letters, papa, it is a present from mamma. And Maria has got European Scenes, for Tarry at Home Travellers, a very pretty book, full of engravings. And Caroline has chosen Keeper's Travels in Search of his Master." "Very well, my dear, and here is Sandford and Merton for our Theodore, half-bound in Russia. This leather is now made use of in libraries, because it preserves the books from the moth, the smell, perhaps, is not so agreeable. Other books are bound in calves' skin, which is a very pretty binding, and others are only half-bound, as it is called, or in boards. Now, if you are suited, we will pass on to the WATCH MAKER." [Illustration: _Watch Maker_]