Now if these copies of Donatus were not printed by means of movable type, why should they be mentioned rather than the many other works equally fitted to give a hint to Gutenberg? Why, in going back to the origin of the discovery, should his pupil say nothing of those illustrated legends which were xylographically cut and sold in all the Rhenish towns, and which the future inventor of printing must have seen hundreds of times? For the attention of Gutenberg to have been thus concentrated on a single object, there must have been some peculiar merit and some stamp of real progress in the mode of execution to distinguish the copies of Donatus printed at Haarlem from other contemporary work. Laurence Coster--the name attributed to the inventor of the process which Gutenberg improved--must have already made use of a method more closely allied than any other to the improvements about to follow, and destined to put a term to mere experiments. To suppose the contrary is to misunderstand the words of Ulrich Zell and the influence which he attributes to the Dutch edition of Donatus, from which Gutenberg derived "the first idea of his invention." It is still more difficult to understand how, if the Donatuses are block-printed, reversed letters are sometimes found in the fragmentary specimens which survive. There is nothing the least extraordinary in such a mistake when it can be explained by the carelessness of a compositor of movable type, but such a mistake would really be incredible on the part of a xylographic workman. What possible caprice could have tempted him to engrave occasional letters upside down? One could only suppose he erred, not from inadvertence, but with voluntary infidelity and in calculated defiance of common sense. The discovery which has immortalised the name of Gutenberg should be recognised and admired as the conclusion and crown of a series of earlier attempts in printed type. Taking into account the inadequacy of the movable type, whether of wood or of any other substance, first employed by the Dutch, and the perfection of the earliest specimens of German printing, it can and should be admitted that, before the publication of the "Letters of Indulgence," the "Bible," and other productions from the workshop of Gutenberg and his fellow-labourers, attempts at genuine typography had been already pursued, and to a certain extent rewarded with success. From the very confession of Ulrich Zell, a confession repeated by the anonymous author of the "Chronicle of Cologne" printed in 1499,[6] the first rude essay in the art (_prefiguratio_) was seen in the town of Haarlem. We may, in short, conclude that the idea of combining designs cut on wood with a separate letterpress in movable types, belongs in all probability to Holland.