Of this kind of printing I myself have seen some stamped block-books, the first essays of the art, printed on one side only, with the printed pages facing each other, and not upon both sides of the leaf. Among them was a book in the vernacular, written by an unknown author, bearing the title of _Spieghel onzer behoudenis_ [the edition in Dutch of the _Speculum Salutis_]. This book was among the _a b c s_ of the art—for an art is never perfected at its inception—and the blank sides of the leaf were united by paste, to hide the uncouthness of the unprinted pages. He subsequently changed the beech-wood letters for those of lead, and these again for letters of tin, because tin was a less flexible material, harder, and more durable. To this day may be seen in the very house itself, looking over on the market-place as I have said (inhabited afterward by his great-grandchild, Gerrit Thomaszoon, who departed this life but a few years since, and whom I mention only to honor), some very old wine flagons, which were made from the melting down of the remnants of these very types. The new invention met with favor from the public, as it deserved, and the new merchandise, never before seen, attracted purchasers from every direction, and produced abundant profit. As the admiration of the art increased, the work increased. He added assistants to his band of workmen; and here may be found the cause of his troubles. Among these workmen was a certain John. Whether or not, as suspicion alleges, he was Faust[186]—inauspicious name for one who was [p332] equally unfortunate and unfaithful to his master—or whether he was another of the same name, I shall not trouble myself to ascertain—for, I am unwilling to disturb the _shades_ of the dead, inasmuch as _they_[187] must have suffered from the reproaches of conscience as long as _they_ lived. _This_ man, although bound by oath to [preserving the secrets of] the typographic art, when he knew himself to be perfectly skilled in the operations of type-setting, in the knowledge of type-founding, and in every other detail appertaining to the work, seized the first favorable opportunity—and he could not have found a time more favorable, for it was on the night of the anniversary of the nativity of Christ, when all, without distinction, are accustomed to assist at divine service—and flew into the closet of the types, and packed up the instruments used in making them that belonged to his master, and which had been made with his own hands, and immediately after slunk away from the house with the thief. He went first to Amsterdam, thence to Cologne, and finally regained Mentz, as it were to an altar of safety so it is said, and as if beyond all possibility of a recapture, where, having opened his office, he reaped an abundant reward from the fruits of his theft. That is to say, within the space of a year, or about 1442, it is well