Those who advocate the claims of Holland against Germany largely base their belief on the existence of various printed books and fragments of Dutch origin, undated, and affording no clue to the time and place at which they were printed, or to their printer, whether Coster or another. It is much more likely, they say, that these were the first rude attempts at typography, and that they gave the idea to the Mentz printers, who forthwith improved upon it, than that the Mentz printers should have given the idea to the Dutch, who, so far from improving upon it, produced these clumsy imitations of fine German work. And Mr Hessels, who made a complete examination of the evidence in favour of Gutenberg, was unable to say either that Gutenberg invented type-printing, or that he did not invent it. On the other hand, "it is certainly possible," say the writers of the _Guide to the British Museum_, "that actual printing may have been previously executed in Holland; although, to our minds, the improbability of the printers who are asserted to have produced _Donatus_ and the _Speculum_ from moveable types ten years before Gutenberg having produced nothing but the like kind of work for nearly twenty years after him outweighs all the arguments which have been advanced in support of their claim. It is at all events certain that, without some very direct and positive evidence on the other side, mankind will continue to regard Gutenberg as the parent of the art, and Mainz as its birthplace." Within recent years a claim for the honour of the invention has been put forward on behalf of quite another part of the world. Some early fifteenth century documents discovered at Avignon make unmistakable references to printing, and not to xylography, and from them we learn that Procopius Waldfoghel, a silver-smith of Prague, was engaged in printing at Avignon in 1444, and had undertaken to cut a set of Hebrew types for a Jew whom he had previously instructed in the art of printing. No specimens of his work are known, and it is therefore impossible to say exactly to what process these records refer, but it has been conjectured that it may have been some method of stamping letters from cut type, and not from cast type by means of a press. Since Coster is the hero of the well-known story quoted above, and since as regards our present purpose there is less to be said of him than of Gutenberg, we will briefly recapitulate what is known about him, and the foundations on which his fame as a typographer rests, before dealing more at length with Gutenberg and the Mentz press.