Discovery of the Book of Four Stories, with Imprint of Albert Pfister . . . Its Types the same as those of the Bible of 36 lines . . . Pfister regarded as an Inventor of Printing . . . Description of Book of Four Stories . . . Its Colophon . . . Book of Fables . . . Colophon and Fac-simile . . . Other Books by Pfister . . . Pfister not a Type-founder . . . Probably an Engraver on Wood . . . Could not have Printed the Bible of 36 lines . . . Pfister probably got his Knowledge of Printing from Gutenberg . . . Paul of Prague’s Notice of Printing at Bamberg . . . Sebastian Pfister . . . Pamphilo Castaldi . . . Absurdity of the Legend . . . John Mentel and his Epitaph . . . Gebwiler’s Statement . . . Fac-simile of the Arms of the Typothetæ . . . Specklin’s Statement . . . Plain Falsifications of History . . . Known Facts about Mentel and his partner Henry Eggestein. * * * * * It is, perhaps, possible to show of all inventions that somewhere somebody must have been very near to it. To assert of any invention whatever, that it could or should have been invented long ago, is nothing but chicane: we are to prove, incontrovertibly, that it was really invented, or else be silent. _Lessing._ * * * * * Schelhorn’s opinion that the _Bible of 36 lines_ was the Bible described by Zell—the book printed by Gutenberg in 1450—did not meet with the approval of those who had copies of the _Bible of 42 lines_. Men who had paid very large prices for the copies of an edition supposed to be the first, were loth to have it degraded to the inferior place of a second edition. The testimony of Zell was unceremoniously set aside; the written date of 1460 in one copy of the _Bible of 36 lines_ was regarded as indicating the date of printing, and the book was declared the work of Gutenberg between 1455 and 1460. Another hypothesis was soon presented. In 1792, Steiner, a clergyman at Augsburg, announced the discovery of the _Book of Four Stories_ with the imprint of Albert [p481] Pfister, Bamberg, 1462. Soon after, Camus read before the National Institute at Paris, a critical description of the book, in which he proved the identity of its types with those of the _Bible of 36 lines_. Thereupon, incautious readers rushed to the hasty inference that, as Pfister had made use of the types of the _Bible of 36 lines_, the Bible must have been printed by Pfister. Critics of authority did not hesitate to say that Albert Pfister, a printer unknown for three centuries, and of whom there is no tradition, might have been an inventor of printing, the rival, and perhaps the predecessor and teacher, of John Gutenberg. As we know Pfister only through his books, it will be proper to examine their workmanship before this hypothesis can be considered. They are not numerous: sixteen books and pamphlets have been attributed to him, but his claim to eight has been disproved.[334]