name, brought the printing of the first Bible to completion, thus depriving the inventor of the financial success as well as of the glory. But Gutenberg was not discouraged. He immediately began, with a new set of letters, the printing of a second Bible, containing thirty-six lines in each column and so amounting to eight hundred and eighty-one leaves in size. He printed it in the years 1456 to 1458. Again his rivals, Fust and Schöffer, published, in 1462, a third Bible, called sometimes the Bible of Mainz. It has forty-eight lines in each column. Thus the printing of the Bible was inaugurated. The new art quickly spread all over Germany, and printing-presses were established at Strassburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Basel, Cologne, Lübeck, and many other places. The art entered France and England with less success, the government in both countries being partly opposed to it and partly trying to make it a royal privilege. Good printers worked at Paris and Lyons. The most splendid presses were at Venice, where the Doge championed the new art even against attacks from Rome. Before the year 1500 ninety-two editions of the Latin Bible were issued by these various presses, according to Mr. Copinger, who possessed the largest collection of printed Bibles. (He registers four hundred and thirty-eight editions of the Latin Bible during the sixteenth century.) In addition to these we have a great number of printed Bibles in the vernacular of Germany, France, Italy, Bohemia, and so on. There was a sudden outpouring of Bibles. But we must not overestimate the circulation. These editions contained scarcely more than two hundred copies each; they were most of them in large folio, very unwieldy, and the price was enormous, though, of course, not so high as it is now, when for one copy of Gutenberg's first Bible $20,000 is paid. The Bible was not available for the average man. We know of scholars copying for themselves the Bible or the New Testament from a printed Bible. The clergy were rather opposed to this printing. They did not in the least encourage the printers; on the contrary, they tried to cause as many difficulties as possible. Therefore the circulation was a limited one. Copies were bought by churches for their services, by princes, and by very rich merchants, as to-day a splendid work is bought more as a luxury than as something for daily use. One cannot say that at this period the Bible, even by printing, acquired a circulation among the people. [Illustration: PLATE XV--GUTENBERG'S FIRST BIBLE (42 lines, Mainz, 1453-1456) Copy at Leipzig, on parchment, beautifully illuminated. The capitals are painted by hand, but indicated by small printed letters. From "Erfindung der Buchdruckerkunst." Published by Velhagen & Klasing, Bielefeld, Germany.]