18. Authors seldom publish their own works. They generally find it expedient, and, in fact, necessary, to intrust this part of the business to booksellers and publishers, from whom they usually receive a specified amount for the entire copyright, or a certain sum for each and every copy which may be sold during the term of years which may be agreed upon. The compensation is commonly insufficient to pay them for preparing the works for the press; but they are as well paid in this country as in any other. In this particular, however, there has been a manifest improvement within the last ten years. [Illustration] THE PRINTER. 1. From what has been said in a preceding article, it is manifest that the art of printing arose from the practice of engraving on wood. Letters were cut on wood as inscriptions to pictures, and were printed at the same time with them, by means of a hand-roller. The impressions were taken on one side of the paper; and, in order to hide the nakedness of the blank side, two leaves were pasted together. These leaves were put up in pamphlet form, and are now known under the denomination of _block-books_, because they were printed from wooden blocks. 2. Although the art of typographical printing can be clearly traced to wood engraving, yet so much uncertainty rests upon its history, that the honor of its invention is claimed by three cities--Harlem, in Holland, and Strasburg and Mentz, in Germany; and, at the present time, it is difficult to determine satisfactorily the merits of their respective claims. The obscurity on this point has arisen from the desire of the first printers to conceal the process of the art, that their productions might pass for manuscripts, and that they might enjoy the full benefit of their invention. 3. The advocates of the claims of Harlem state, that Laurentius Coster applied wooden types, and some say, even metal types, as early as 1428, and that several persons were employed by him in the business up to the year 1440, when his materials were stolen from him by one of his workmen or servants, named John, while the family were engaged in celebrating the festival of Christmas eve. The thief is said to have fled first to Amsterdam, then to Cologne, and, finally, to have settled in Mentz, where, within a twelvemonth, he published two small works, by means of the types which Laurentius Coster had used. 4. These claims in favor of Harlem, however, were not set forth until 120 years after the death of Coster; and the whole story, as then stated by Hadriamus Junius, was founded altogether upon traditionary testimony. Perhaps wood engravings, with inscriptions, may have been executed there; if so, the account may have originated from that circumstance.