“About one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, Laurens Zanssen Coster inhabited a decent and fashionable house in the city of Haarlem, situated on the market-place, opposite the royal palace. The name of Coster was assumed, and inherited from his ancestors, who had long enjoyed the honourable and lucrative office of coster or sexton to the church. This man deserves to be restored to the honour of being the first inventor of printing, of which he has been unjustly deprived by others, who have enjoyed the praises due to him alone. As he was walking in the wood contiguous to the city, which was the general custom of the richer citizens and men of leisure, in the afternoon and on holidays, he began to cut letters on the bark of the beech; with these letters he enstamped marks upon paper in a contrary direction, in the manner of a seal, until at length he formed a few lines for his own amusement and for the use of the children of his brother-in-law. This succeeding so well, he attempted greater things; and, being a man of genius and reflection, he invented, with the aid of his brother- or son-in-law, Thomas Pietrison, a thicker and more adhesive ink, as the common ink was too thin and made blotted marks. With this ink he was able to print blocks and figures, to which he added letters. I have seen specimens of his printing in this manner. In the beginning he printed on one side only. This was a Dutch book, entitled _Spiegal enser Behoudenisse_. That it was one of the first books printed after the invention of the art, appears from the leaves, which are pasted together, that the naked sides might not be offensive to the eyes; and none at first were printed in a more perfect manner. As this new species of traffic attracted numerous customers, thus did the profits arising from it increase his love for the art and his diligence in the exercise of it.