if it had depended on a liberal supply of vellum. Even if the restricted size of vellum could have been conformed to, there were not enough sheep at the end of the fifteenth century to supply the demands of printing presses for a week.
If the idea of printing books from movable types had been entertained by an ancient Roman bookseller, or by a copyist, during the earlier part of the dark ages, it may be doubted whether he could have devised the mechanism that is needed in the making of types. For types that are accurate as to body, and economical as to cost, can be made by one method only. It is, in the highest degree, improbable, that the scientific method of making types by mechanism could have been invented at an earlier date than the fifteenth century. There was mechanical skill enough for the production of any kind of ingenious hand work, but the spirit that prompted men to construct machines and labor-saving apparatus was deficient or but feebly exercised. There was no more of true science in mechanics than there was in chemistry. The construction of a suitable type-mould, with its appurtenances, during the dark ages, would have been as premature as an invention of the steam engine in the same period.
The civilization of ancient Rome did not require printing. If all the processes of typography had been revealed to its scholars the art would not have been used. The wants of readers and writers were abundantly supplied by the pen. Papyrus paper was cheap, and scribes were numerous; Rome had more booksellers than it needed, and books were made faster than they could be sold. The professional scribes were educated slaves, who, fed and clothed at nominal expense, and organized under the direction of wealthy publishers, were made so efficient in the production of books, that typography, in an open competition, could have offered few advantages.
Our knowledge of the Roman organization of labor in the field of book-making is not as precise as could be wished; but the frequent notices of books, copyists and publishers, made by many authors during the first century, teach us that
