This fac-simile gives an imperfect notion of the abbreviations, the blackness and obscurity of a page of the _Donatus_, but it is a fair specimen of the forbidding appearance of all the printed work of the fifteenth century. The illustration of the modern method of arranging the same letters shows the superior perspicuity of modern types and of modern typographic method. Not every reader of this age has a just idea of the extent of his obligation to what may be called the minor improvements of typography. It may be safely said that many men owe much of their scholastic knowledge to the systematic arrangement and the inviting appearance of modern types and books. The school-boy who glances over this fac-simile will quickly see the depth of the quagmire from which he has been delivered by the invention of types. [Illustration: Fac-simile of an early Dutch Horarium. [From Koning.]] To support his theory that this fragment of the _Donatus_ is but a part of one of the many copies of the book which were printed in Holland before the invention of typography, Koning submits the fac-simile of a page from an old _Horarium_, or manual of devotion, which was copied by him from the original block. He says that this block once belonged to Adrien Rooman, a Haarlem printer of the seventeenth century, who had received it from one of the descendants of Coster. That Coster engraved or printed this block is highly improbable, but it is, without doubt, a [p261] very old piece of engraving. It can be fairly attributed to the fifteenth century, but no good evidence has been adduced to show that it was made before the invention of types. The block is practically worn out: the letters have been so flattened by impression that many of them are illegible. It must here be noticed that the letters of this _Horarium_ do not interlock, as they do in many of the block-books. A ruled line drawn between the printed lines will show only a few and unimportant interferences of letters. This evenness in lining, which is properly regarded as one of the peculiarities of typography, seems out of place in an early block-book. But it is not confined to the _Horarium_. There are copies of the xylographic _Donatus_ that closely resemble typographic editions of the same period. They agree, line with line, page with page, and almost letter for letter, with the typographic model. That these xylographic copies were made from the engraved transfers of some typographic model is proved not only by the uniformity and parallelism of the letters, but by the square outline to the right of every page. These peculiarities are never produced in the workmanship of men who draw letters on a block.