It were well if writers on the origin of typography would obey the injunction of Sir Thomas Browne, who thought it not inexpedient for those who seek to enlighten mankind on any particular subject, first to acquire some knowledge thereof themselves, so that the labor of readers should not so generally be profitless. In an article by Bishop McIlvaine, and another in Frazer’s Magazine, by an anonymous contributor, the exercise of _necromancy_ is imputed to Fust, the inventor or supposed inventor of printing. Nine of every ten persons who write any thing on the subject fall into the same error; they have something always to say of Fust and the devil; curious anecdotes to rehearse of the multiplication of copies of the Scriptures in Paris and elsewhere; spells and incantations by the inventor of the "black" art to describe, &c. But this is all induced by ignorance of the facts. John Fust, the putative inventor of printing, was a shrewd silversmith, and we suspect a knavish one, for without having any thing to do with the _invention_ of the "art preservative of arts," he managed to rob another of the credit and profit of it. He was, however, never in Paris; he was never in his lifetime accused of the exercise of magical arts; he simply endeavored to make as much money as he could in Germany by underselling the copyists in the book market. All stories in which necromancy is attributed to him or to any other printer; all accounts of the opposition of the priests to typography as an infernal invention; in fine, the whole popular idea of Faust and the devil, is a modern contrivance, and originated in this manner: Some bookmaker, about the year 1580, undertook to write a history of printing; he had an indistinct recollection of Professor Faustus of the University of Wittenberg, and in his book blended as many of his adventures as he could remember with the memoirs of John Fust the printer; and from that day a succession of ignorant chroniclers have considered two men, of totally different characters, living at different times, as one individual.