and because a whole sheet might have been printed in one day, and was _all at once_ pulled off, and not line by line, our venerable printer mystified the world. And all this was said at a time when so slow was the process of transcription, that one hundred Bibles could not be procured under the expense of seven thousand days, or of nearly twenty years' labour. Honest men, too eager in their zeal, particularly when their personal interests are at stake, sometimes strain truth on the tenter-hooks of fiction. The false miracle which our primeval printer professed he had performed we seem to have realized: it is amusing to conceive the wonderment of Caxton, were he now among us, to view the steam working that cylindrical machine which disperses the words of a speaker throughout the whole nation, when the voice which uttered them is still lingering on our ear! FOOTNOTES: [1] The city of Haarlem designs to erect a statue of COSTAR [since this was written the statue has been placed in the great square]; thus publicly, in the eyes of Europe, to vindicate the priority of this inventor of typography. But a statue is not the final argument which, like the cannon of monarchs (that _ultima ratio regum_), will carry conviction on the spot it is placed. Mentz has already erected a statue of GUTENBERG. I have no doubt that, in the present state of agitation, both these statues will have much to say to one another, as the mystical Pasquin and Marforio of typography. [2] "Some Observations on the Use and Original of the noble Art and Mystery of Printing," by F. Burges. Norwich, 1701. This is declared to be the first book printed at Norwich; where it appears that the establishment of a printing-office, so late as in 1701, encountered a stern opposition from its sage citizens. The writer did not know that as far back as 1570 a Dutch printer had exercised the novel art by printing religious books for a community of Dutch emigrants who had taken refuge at Norwich, according to the recent discovery of Dr. Cotton, in his "Typographical Gazetteer"--a volume abounding with the most vigorous researches. [3] Hallam's "Introduction to the Literature of Europe," i. 211. [4] Twenty copies of this famous Bible exist; one is preserved in our Royal Library. [5] Ottley's "Inquiry into the Early History of Engraving." See also note in "Curiosities of Literature," vol. i, p. 43. [6] Dr. WETTER, of Mentz, has lately shown that, contrary to the common opinion, Gutenberg himself printed long with _wooden blocks_; and that, instead of the invention of moveable types having been the result of long study, _it arose out of a "sudden fancy."_