‘In fact, the two departments of compositor and corrector in the printing office were the direct representatives and successors of the scribe and corrector of manuscripts from the early times. The kind of men whom we find mentioned in the early printing offices as correctors, are just such men as would be sought for in earlier times in an important scriptorium. In our modern world, printed and written books have come to be looked upon as totally distinct things, whereas it is impossible to bring before our minds the state of things when books were first printed, until we look upon them as precisely the same. They were brought to fairs, or such general centres of circulation as Paris, Leipzig, or Frankfort, before the days of printing, just as afterwards, only that printing enabled the stationer to supply his buyers with much greater rapidity than before, and at much cheaper rates; so that the laws of supply and demand work together in such a manner that it is difficult to say which had more influence in accelerating the movement.’ CHAPTER II. THE INVENTION OF PRINTING. The earliest specimen of printing from movable type known to exist was printed at Mainz in 1454. In making this statement, I do not wish to pass over the claims of France and the Low Countries to the invention of printing, but only to point out that, in considering the question, we must put the evidence of the printed books themselves first, and then work from these to such documentary evidence as we possess. France has the documents but no books; the Low Countries neither the one nor the other; and therefore, if we are to set about our inquiries on any rational plan, we must date the invention of printing from the date of its first product. This is the famous _Indulgence_ of Nicholas V. to such as should contribute money to aid the King of Cyprus against the Turks. In the copy of the _Indulgence_ now preserved in the Meerman-Westreenen Museum at the Hague (discovered by Albert Frick at Ulm in 1762, and afterwards in the collections of Schelhorn and Meerman), the place of issue, Erfurth, and the date, November 15, have been filled in; thus giving us as the earliest authentic date on a printed document, November 15, 1454. In the years 1454 and 1455 there was a large demand for these _Indulgences_, and seven editions were issued. These may be divided into two sets, the one containing thirty-one lines, the other thirty lines; the first dated example belonging to the former.