XVIII VARYING FORTUNES OF THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY 143 XIX CONSTANTINOPLE THE LATER CENTER OF LITERATURE 146 XX MONASTERIES AND THE MONASTIC INSTITUTION 154 INDEX 172 THE REIGN OF THE MANUSCRIPT I THE EPOCHAL INVENTION OF PRINTING The invention of printing at about the middle of the fifteenth century marks an epoch in the world's literature and in the history of the human race. Previous to this invention were spread out the events, the scenes, and the achievements of ancient and medieval times; after it came the marvelous unfoldings of the modern age. The introduction of typography or the art of printing by means of movable types set in operation an instrumentality which, for multiplying the effectiveness of all literary productions, is far beyond all adequate conception;--and this all apart from the time of its origin and the person of its originator. Printing as an invention and an art--for it is both--has been ascribed to the Chinese, and is said to have been known from, or from before, the dawn of the Christian Era. Mr. George H. Putnam states it as a fact that "Printing from solid blocks was done in China as early as the first century A. D.," and credits the art of printing from movable types to a blacksmith who turned out books in China toward the close of the tenth century, A. D., or early in the eleventh. And a writer in the _Encylopedia Britannica_ (Eleventh Edition) asserts that printed books were common in China in the tenth century, and that examples of xylographic or block printing in Japan date from the period of 754 to 770 A. D. However this may be, it remains true that, in relation to the spread of literature and the development of civilization, typography is occidental rather than oriental. Furthermore, we need to distinguish between the block printing of China and the great invention at the middle of the fifteenth century. Comparing impressions from engraved blocks of wood with the type-printing of Gutenberg, Professor Dobschütz says: "People had used woodcuts before his time. Engraving large blocks of wood with pictures and letters, they printed the so-called block-books as a cheap substitute for illuminated manuscripts. Gutenberg's great idea was that instead of using a woodcut block for the page one might compose a page by using separate movable letters, putting them together according to the present need, then separating them again."[1] It is generally conceded that the invention of printing from movable types, as an epoch of human history, had its real beginning in Germany, dates from the middle of the fifteenth century, and is associated with one named Johannes Gutenberg.