Three of the four methods of printing here named were invented or developed within a period of fifty years. If the statements of some historians could be accepted, this period should be contracted to thirty years. There is no disagreement, however, as to the order of their introduction. Xylography, the rudest method, was the first in use; typography, a more useful method, soon followed; copper-plate printing, the artistic method, was the proper culmination. The order of invention was that of progressive development from an imperfect to a perfect method. The introduction of three distinct methods of printing, by different persons and in different places, but during the same period, shows that a general need of books or of printed matter had given a strong impulse to the inventive spirit of the fifteenth century. It may also be inferred that the inventors of printing had been benefited, in some way, by recent improvements or developments in the mechanical processes of which printing is composed. [p029] II Antique Methods of Impression and their Failure. Transfer of Form by Impression one of the Oldest Arts . . . The Stamped Bricks of Assyria and Egypt . . . Assyrian Cylinders of Clay . . . Greek Maps . . . Roman Theories about Combinations of Letters . . . Roman Stamps . . . The Brands and Stamps of the Middle Ages . . . English Brands . . . Stamping is not Printing . . . Ink then used was Unsuitable for Printing . . . Printing Waited for Discovery of Ink and Paper . . . Romans did not Need Printing . . . Printing Depends on a multitude of Readers . . . Readers were few in the Dark Ages . . . Invention of Printing was Not purely Mechanical . . . Printing needs many Supports . . . Telegraph . . . Schools . . . Libraries . . . Expresses . . . Post-Offices . . . A Premature Invention would have been Fruitless. * * * * * The stamps of the ancients, and the impressions from the seals of metal, found in deeds and conveyances of the lower ages, prove nothing more than that mankind walked for many centuries upon the borders of the two great inventions of typography and chalcography, without having the luck to discover either of them, and appear neither to have had any influence on the origin of these arts, nor to merit any place in their history. _Lanzi._ * * * * *