Although the balance of opinion is now, and always has been, in favour of Gutenberg, the battle has been long and furious. The diligence of the disputants in collecting data in support of their theories has been equalled only by the vigour and ferocity with which some of their number have maintained their opinions. Each side has charged the other with forging evidence, and ink and abuse have been freely poured out in the cause of typographical truth. Yet though sought for during several centuries, no conclusive proof has been discovered by either side; typographical truth remains in her well, and the identity of the inventor of moveable types seems almost as hard to determine as that of the man in the iron mask or the writer of the letters of Junius. The partisans of Coster have been as eminent and as able as those of Gutenberg, and thus the unlearned enquirer finds it difficult to declare for one rather than the other, without investigating for himself all the ins and outs of this involved subject. Even then, without some previous bias in one or the other direction, he would probably find himself halting between two opinions. Such an investigation is obviously out of the question here, and even were it practicable it could hardly be lipped that where so many doctors disagree our modest effort would produce any valuable result. We shall therefore do no more than briefly set forth some of the chief arguments on either side as fairly as may be, but without attempting an exhaustive examination of the evidence, first, however, declaring ourselves as followers of the majority and partisans of Gutenberg, by way of sheet anchor.