This view of the case completely meets an objection which has been raised by Mr. Ottley. “If,” says he, “Faust had been brought up as a goldsmith, he may reasonably be supposed to have possessed acquirements applicable to the art [printing] which now engaged his attention, and among others, the arts of carving, chiselling, and casting. If we suppose Faust not to have busied himself at all with the various details and processes of the new art, during the above five years’ partnership, but that he left the entire direction and management to Gutenberg (as these writers would have us to believe), he must, one would think, have been but ill able to do without him, when in 1455, he brought the above action for the recovery of the monies he had advanced; and this objection to their system, appears to me to be worthy of consideration, nay to be almost decisive.” The objection thus raised so far from being decisive, is not only not so, but it has no solid foundation in fact. Nothing in the law-process shews that Faust had anything whatever to do with the management and working of the printing establishment. It was entirely in Gutenberg’s hands; Faust merely contracting with him to find the money to carry it on, (_pay wages, &c._), for which he was to receive usury at the rate of 6 per cent, _and, in addition_, a share of the profits, whatever they might ultimately be. As a partner, he would have had to bear his share of the _losses_, as well as to be a participator in the gains of the undertaking; but against the contingency of loss he took good care to guard himself. It is evident therefore, that to have foreclosed his mortgage over the materials before he was in a position to entrust them to some one who could work them to his advantage, would have been an act of folly which he was far too shrewd a man of business to commit. But as soon as Schœffer revealed his invention, and stipulated his terms, all objections to a foreclosure were removed. The money was demanded; the action brought; and we have seen with what results. But whatever were the motives which actuated either Faust or Schœffer in their treatment of Gutenberg, the immediate effect of Schœffer’s invention would be, to cheapen and facilitate the production of types, as much as, if not more than, the effect of the original invention by Gutenberg in cheapening and facilitating the multiplication of copies of works previously only attainable in manuscript. Printing was thus rendered at once, what it was scarcely possible to have been before, a profitable, if not a highly remunerative pursuit. But with the success which resulted from Schœffer’s invention, came the downfall of the venerable Guild of Writers; and the ancient copyists laid down their pens in despair, intuitively feeling that thenceforth the occupation of the scribe was gone.