We cannot supplement Zell’s imperfect description of early Dutch printing with knowledge or with inferences that might [p317] be derived from a critical examination of the Dutch _Donatuses_. These books, described by him as the prefiguration of typography, have been destroyed. There is no known copy of the _Donatus_, neither typographic nor xylographic, which can be attributed to a period before that of Gutenberg’s first experiments in Strasburg. The early typographic copies have the full-spaced lines, which were not in use before 1460 in any book; the xylographic copies are about as old, and, for the most part, are imitations of the typographic editions. Guided by these facts we have to conclude that it is not probable that the _Donatuses_ of Zell were printed from types. The frequent repetition of the statement that _the_ art was invented in Germany shows there was no confusion in the mind of the writer concerning the relative importance of the German and the Dutch method of printing. He clearly perceived, although he obscurely described, two distinct methods of book-printing: the first, the method used for printing the _Donatus_, which method was imperfect and but a prefiguration; the second, the method that was more masterly and subtile, the method that now is used. The second method was, without doubt, the making of accurate types in metal moulds, and the printing of great books. It was not the second invention, but the invention, inasmuch as it was the only invention that had a practical value. The _Donatus_ was printed, but it was not printed by _the art_. It was _the art as it is now used_, the only practical art of making types and books, of which Gutenberg was the first inventor. According to German historians, the first method was xylography. They say that it was the sight of some lost or now unknown copy of an engraved _Donatus_, which gave to Gutenberg the suggestion of the more subtile invention of movable types; that this _Donatus_ was not taken as a model for imitation—it served only as the suggestion of an entirely new method. Dutch historians say that it is unreasonable to assume that this _Donatus_ was engraved on wood. There is force in the argument that it is not probable that Ulrich Zell, [p318] the printer, who furnished the writer of the chronicle with his facts, and who, as a German, was proud that typography was a German invention, would have ascribed the first rude practice of printing to Holland, if this practice had been nothing but xylography. It cannot be supposed that Gutenberg was so ignorant of the productions of German formschneiders that he believed xylographic printing was done only in Holland. They say that the suggestive _Donatus_ which was made in Holland should have been a typographic book, printed as the _Speculum_ was printed, from types founded by an inferior method—a method that was never imitated.