That Schœffer really originated the Type-founder’s art is further proved by the account given of him by John Frederick Faust of Aschaffenberg,[73] who after attributing the origin of printing to his relative, Faust of Mentz, and describing the difficulties experienced with the ink in the earlier attempts; as well as the trouble and delay occasioned by the want of a suitable press to obtain impressions from the separable letters, proceeds as follows:--“He [Faust] had however, some people who actively assisted him in printing, composing, making ink, and so forth. Amongst these was a certain Peter Schœffer of Gernszheim, who entering into his master’s views, and being himself ardently desirous to improve the art, found out, by the good providence of God, the method of cutting (_incidendi_) the characters in a _matrix_, that the letters might easily be singly _cast_ instead of being _cut_. He _privately cut matrices_ for the whole alphabet; and when he showed his master the letters cast from those matrices, Faust was so pleased with the contrivance, that he promised Peter to give him his only daughter [grand-daughter] Christina in marriage, a promise which was in due time fulfilled. _But there were as many difficulties at first with these letters, as there had been before with those of wood_; the metal being too soft to support the force of the impression; but this defect was soon remedied, by mixing the metal with a substance which sufficiently hardened it.”[74] This sets the matter at rest, and shews that neither to Gutenberg nor to Faust was Schœffer indebted for suggestions which in their estimation were likely to lead to so important an invention--the fourth grand step in the newly-discovered Art,--the method of rapidly _casting_ fac-simile types in fusile metal.[75]