Admitting with the writers on the Haarlem side, that the Coster family was one of wealth and influence, how comes it, on the one hand, that the thief who stole the types and implements was not pursued, exposed and punished? or at any rate stripped of his stolen plumes, when so early as 1457 works were published in Mentz by printers who ascribed the whole merit of the invention to themselves?--and on the other, that having replaced the stolen types and other implements by new ones, and continuing to print until 1472, the descendants of Laurent never claimed the honor of the invention for themselves or their sire, although they must have known all along of what was taking place at Mentz,--where Faust and Schœffer were yearly publishing books with their names attached? How comes it that the family possessed no documents that in any way referred to the invention?--that they never kept by them copies of the works they are said to have printed?--that none of such works were known or found in Haarlem until 1654 or 1660, when a chestfull of old books without date or printer’s name was bought by the city authorities at a sale at the Hague--two centuries later, and at once attributed to them? _How is it that no Dutch writer or printer, from 1441 to 1588_, claimed the honor of the invention for his countryman Coster?--that neither Nicholas the son of Peter of Haarlem, who printed at Padua in 1476, and at Vicenza in 1477; Henri of Haarlem, who printed from 1482 to 1499 in different cities; and Gerard of Haarlem, who exercised the art at Florence in 1499, never claimed it for their brother citizen and birthplace? How comes it that the earliest known printers in Haarlem itself, John Andriesson and Jacob Bellaert, whose books are dated 1483 and 1485, are silent upon the subject?--that the first printers in Utrecht in 1473--and between that date and 1498, those of Alost, Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Culembourg, Delft, Deventer, Ghent, Gouda, Hertogenbosch, Leyden, Louvain, St. Maartensdyk, Niemegen, Oudenarde, Schiedam, Schoonhoven, Zwolle, and elsewhere in Holland and the Low countries, make no mention of it?--and that nothing whatever is known of any of the “multiplied workmen,” and “dependents,” whom Laurent Janssoen Coster, it is alleged, was obliged to employ to meet the demands made upon him by purchasers for copies of the products of the newly invented art? How, finally, is it to be accounted for, that while Coster’s descendants were living in Haarlem, when Van Zuyren, Coornhert, and Junius, were writing their works, those writers omitted to make inquiry of any member of the family on a subject respecting which the family were the parties most interested, and could have given the most authentic information? Perhaps they did; and when they asked for the story of the invention, discovered that the family had, like Canning’s knife-grinder, “no story to tell.”