In the manufacture of this grammar, the block-book printers competed successfully with type-printers for many years. But typography improved while xylography declined; at the end of the fifteenth century, the copies made from type were decidedly superior. The engraved copies of the book were gradually cast aside as rubbish, for they contained no pictures, [p256] and had no features to justify their preservation. We cannot wonder that copies of the engraved _Donatus_ are scarce, but we must not infer from their present scarcity that they were not common before the year 1450. It is probable that more copies were printed of this than of any pictorial block-book; although we find no copies, we have trustworthy evidences that the _Donatus_ was printed before types were made. That the _Donatus_ was engraved and printed before the invention of typography is distinctly stated in the book now known as the _Cologne Chronicle_, which was published in that city by John Koelhoff, in the year 1499. The name of the author is unknown, but he writes with the confidence of a clear-minded thinker and a candid chronicler. He says that the following statement was communicated to him, by word of mouth, “by Master Ulric Zell, of Hanau, now a printer in Cologne, through whom the art was brought to Cologne.” Although the art [of printing], as has been said, was discovered at Mentz, in the manner as it is now generally used, yet the first prefiguration was found in Holland, in the _Donatuses_ which were printed there before that time. From these _Donatuses_ the beginning of the said art was taken, and it was invented in a manner much more masterly and subtle than this, and became more and more ingenious.[129] Mariangelus Accursius, a learned Italian of the fifteenth century, made a similar acknowledgment of the indebtedness of the men whom he regarded as the inventors of typography to the unknown printers of the _Donatus_ in Holland. He says: John Fust, a citizen of Mentz, and the maternal grandfather of John Schœffer, was the first who devised the art of printing with types from brass, which he subsequently invented in lead. Peter Schœffer, his son, added many improvements to the art. The _Donatus_ and _Confessionalia_ were printed first of all, in the year 1450. But the suggestion [of typography] was certainly made by the _Donatuses_ that had been printed before in Holland, from wooden blocks.