[Illustration: J. RIVERY. La coignée est ia mise à la racine des arbres: parquoy tout arbre qui ne fait pas bon fruit, sera couppé & ietté au feu, Mat. III. LA COIGNEE EST MISE A LA RACINE DES ARBRES PARQVOV LARBRE QUI NE PORTE CERA COPE] [Illustration: C. FROSCHOVER. CRISTOF FROSCHOWER ZV ZVRIC] [Illustration: N. BRYLINGER.] [Illustration: F. LE PREUX.] [Decoration] SOME DUTCH AND FLEMISH PRINTERS’ MARKS. [Illustration: J. VELDENER. velde] The introduction of the art of printing into the Low Countries, and the rival claim of Coster and Gutenberg, have proved a highly fruitful source of literary quarrels and disputations. It is not worth our while to enter, even briefly, into the merits of the arguments either for or against; and it will suffice for our present purpose to regard Johann Veldener, 1473-7, as the first printer. He was probably a pupil of Ulric Zell, and, like many others of the early Netherland printers, he does not appear to have remained long at one place. For example, he was at Louvain from 1473-7, at Utrecht 1478-81, and at Culemberg, 1482-4. His only Mark appears to be that given herewith, in which his name in an abbreviated form occurs between the two shields, on the right one of which appears the arms of Louvain. His most notable publications were two quarto editions of the “Speculum” in the Dutch language, one of which contained 116 and the other 128 illustrations, “printed from the woodcuts that had been previously used in the four notable editions; to make these broad woodcuts, which had been designed for pages in folio, Veldener cut away the architectural framework surrounding each illustration and then sawed each block in two pieces.” He received from the University the honorary title of Master of Printing, an honour which was also conferred on his more distinguished contemporary, Johann of Westphalia, 1474-96, for whom in fact is claimed the priority of the introduction of printing into Louvain. The first of the large number of books produced by the latter is by Petrus de Crescentiis, “Incipit liber ruraliũ cõmodorũ,” 1474, its colophon being printed in red. The accompanying exceedingly curious “souscription,” with portrait of the printer, is given from Lambinet’s “Recherches.” Thierry Martens, or Mertens, or Martin d’Alost (Theodoricus Martinus), may be regarded either as an early printer of Louvain, Antwerp, or Alost, for it is stated that he had presses working simultaneously at the three places; but Alost has the first claims, and it is said that he was printing here in 1473, although as a matter of fact he was only twenty years of age at this period. He was a distinguished scholar, and the friend of Barland and Erasmus, the latter making the following reference to the accompanying Mark, “l’ancre sacrée,” in the epitaph he wrote as a memorial of his friend: