Numerous writers have asserted that printing began at Leiria in Estremadura as early as 1466. Antonio Ribeiro dos Santos, who wrote a learned dissertation on the subject, seems to place his chief reliance on a statement made by Pedro Affonso de Vasconcellos in 1588, that Leiria was the first town to receive the art; and on a further assertion by Soares de Silva, that he had seen a quarto volume containing the poems of the Infante Dom Pedro, which had at the end a note that it was printed nine years after the invention of printing. The particular copy here referred to was destroyed in 1755; other copies of the book contain no imprint. Whatever may be said about the probability of printing having been introduced at an early date into Portugal, the fact remains that the first authentic dated book appeared at Lisbon in 1489. It is a _Commentary on the Pentateuch_, by Moses ben Nachman, and was printed by two Jews, Rabbi Samuel Zorba and Rabbi Eliezer. It was through the Jews, shortly to be so ungratefully treated, that printing was introduced into two out of the three towns of Portugal in which it was practised in the fifteenth century. They were, however, a people apart, and the books which they printed were for their own use, and in a tongue not understood by others. It was not till 1495 that two other printers, Nicolaus de Saxonia and Valentinus de Moravia, started at Lisbon to issue books in other languages than Hebrew. Another Jew, Abraham, son of Don Samuel Dortas or de Orta, printed the earliest books of Leiria, The first book, the _Proverbs of Solomon_, with a commentary, was issued in 1492; and other books appeared in 1494 and 1496. The third and last town in Portugal where we find a printing press in the fifteenth century was Braga. Here, in 1494, a certain German named John Gherlinc, who seems to have printed later at Barcelona, printed a _Breviary_ according to the use of the church of Braga. No other book is known to have been printed in this important town for the next forty years. In the British Museum is a _Hebrew Pentateuch_, printed at ‘Taro’ in 1487. It is not known where this place was; but it has been conjectured that the name is a misprint for Faro, a town of Portugal (though it might stand for Toro in Leon); and if this is so, the date of the introduction of printing into Portugal must be placed two years farther back. DENMARK AND SWEDEN.