"No. On the contrary it spread the art over France and Germany. By 1500 there were over fifty presses on the continent. In the meantime William Caxton, an English merchant, traveled to Holland to buy cloth, and there became so much interested in the books he saw and the tale of how they were printed that he purchased some type and, bringing it home, set up a printing press in London not far from Westminster Abbey. The first English book to be printed was dated 1474 and was called 'The Game of Chess.' Then came a Bible which was presented to the king. From this time on there was practically an end to the handwritten books made by the monks in cloisters and monasteries. Occasionally such a volume was made for the very rich because, as I told you, the elegant still considered paper and the printed book too common and cheap for their use. But with the steady improvement of ink and paper and the awakening desire of the masses to read what was printed came the dawn of religious liberty and the birth of learning." "It is a wonderful story!" cried Paul, much moved. "A book in itself, isn't it?" said his father. "It is an interesting fact, however, that Latin and the Latin text continued to be the language of the printed book for some time; this was not only because of an established precedent, but because the Renaissance in Italy revived an interest in classic literature. But by and by people demanded books in their native tongue. They wished to read something besides the classics--literature that was alive and a part of their own era. The written _novello_, or story, began to take the place of the ballads which the _trouveurs_, or minstrels who wandered from castle to castle, had chanted. One was no longer dependent on such a story-teller. The printed novel had arrived. Its form was still very crude, but it was nevertheless a story and a broader field for entertainment than was provided by the threadbare lives of the saints. Science, too, was making remarkable progress and the public was alert to read of Bacon and Galileo, as well as of Luther and Shakespeare. Had printing come earlier it would have been to a passive, indifferent populace; now it appeared in answer to the craving of a people thirsty to read of travel, invention, poetry; to consume the Tales of King Arthur, Sir John Mandeville's Travels, Sidney's 'Arcadia', Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Elizabethans reflected in England the rebirth of literature and learning which was sweeping all Europe at the time. Printing was not the herald, nor yet the servant, of this wonderful age; but was rather its companion, going hand in hand with it and making all the wealth of thought that it had to give available to us, as well as to those of its own day." "Long live Gutenburg!" exclaimed Paul.