About 1434 we find him living in Strasburg, and, in partnership with a certain Andrew Drytzcher, endeavouring to perfect the art of typography. How he was induced to direct his attention towards this object, and under what circumstances he began his experiments, it is impossible to say; but there can be no doubt that he was the first person who conceived the idea of _movable types_--an idea which is the very foundation of the art of printing. An old German chronicler furnishes the following account of the early stages of the great printer's discovery:-- "At this time (about 1438), in the city of Mentz, on the Rhine, in Germany, and not in Italy as some persons have erroneously written, that wonderful and then unheard-of art of printing and characterizing books was invented and devised by John Gutenberger, citizen of Mentz, who, having expended most of his property in the invention of this art, on account of the difficulties which he experienced on all sides, was about to abandon it altogether; when, by the advice and through the means of John Fust, likewise a citizen of Mentz, he succeeded in bringing it to perfection. At first they formed or engraved the characters or letters in written order on blocks of wood, and in this manner they printed the vocabulary called a 'Catholicon.' But with these forms or blocks they could print nothing else, because the characters could not be transposed in these tablets, but were engraved thereon, as we have said. To this invention succeeded a more subtle one, for they found out the means of cutting the forms of all the letters of the alphabet, which they called _matrices_, from which again they cast characters of copper or tin of sufficient hardness to resist the necessary pressure, which they had before engraved by hand." This is a very brief and summary account of a great invention. By comparison of other authorities we are enabled to bring together a far greater number of details, though we must acknowledge that many of these have little foundation but in tradition or romance. Let us, therefore, take a peep at the first printer, working in seclusion and solitude in the old historic city of Strasburg, and endeavouring to elaborate in practice the grand idea which has been conceived and matured by his energetic brain. Doubtlessly he knew not the full importance of this idea, or of how great a social and religious revolution it was to be the seed, and yet we cannot believe that he was altogether unconscious of its value to future generations.