leaves 37 and 38; (9) Berlin Royal Library, wanting the leaves 1 (blank), 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, while in place of the (xylogr.) leaves 52 and 61 it has the same (type-printed) leaves of the second Latin edition; several of the other leaves are bound in a wrong order; (10) Pembroke library at Wilton House, wanting the leaves 1 to 7 and 64, while the leaves 9 + 18 have been supplied from the second (type-printed) Latin edition; (11) Copy, represented now by the leaves 15 + 28, which appear as duplicates in the Hanover copy (above, No. 7); (12) Ottley (Invention of Printing, p. 287) mentions another copy as having belonged to Mr Singer, which wanted three or four leaves, but has since been taken to pieces and dispersed. See further Holtrop, Cat. bibl. reg. Hag. 560; idem, Mon. typ. p. 22 and facs. pls. 20, 21; Bernard, Orig. i. 13 sqq.; Sotheby i. pl. xxxii.; Campbell, Ann. No. 1570 (who wrongly states that the two copies in the Paris National Library belong to the unmixed Latin edition).
Efforts have from time to time been made to account for the unusual mixture of xylography and typography in this one book, and to assign a date to it and the other editions, with the further view of ascertaining the date of their printer, as for him the honour Bernard. of the invention of printing is claimed. Bernard (1853) was uncertain as to the chronological order to be assigned to the various editions, but, without stating his reasons, concluded that at least six or seven must have been issued, and that the xylographic leaves of the mixed Latin (his edition A), are the remains of a first complete, entirely xylographic edition. As there is a close resemblance between the letters of the xylographic and typographic texts, and both texts agree, with a few exceptions, word for word with the corresponding texts of the other Latin Ottley. edition (which, being wholly typographical, is called the unmixed Latin), Ottley in 1816 concluded that the xylographic pages were facsimiles from those of the typographically printed unmixed Latin edition, which the publisher caused to be made after having lost, through some accident in his office, not only those sheets already typographically printed, but also his types. In support of this theory he pointed to some defects or breakages in the pillars, dresses, &c., of the woodcuts of the xylographic pages which he did not find in the same woodcuts in the unmixed Latin edition; so that he thought the latter must be the first edition. Secondly, as the scrolls in the last vignette (Daniel interpreting the handwriting on the wall) are black in the Inglis copy of the unmixed Latin edition, but white in all the copies of the mixed Latin and the other editions, he concluded that the former must have been printed before the woodcutter had cut away the piece of wood which produced the black scroll, which was to him an additional proof that the unmixed Latin edition was the first. These theories were adopted by Sotheby in 1858 and again by Schreiber in two treatises on xylography (in Centralbl., 1895, p. 20 sqq.; in the Gutenberg-Festschrift, Centralbl., 1900, p. 46 sqq.; and in his Manuel de la gravure sur bois, 1902, iv. 114 sqq., vii. pls. 48, 49, viii. pls. 79, 80). The latter author is of opinion that xylography was not employed for the multiplication of books till about 1468-1470, and that about that time printing with movable metal types was almost unknown in the Netherlands. Hence he thinks that the woodcut illustrations in the various editions of the Speculum were printed somewhere in the Netherlands, and the sheets afterwards sent to Germany, most likely to Cologne, for the purpose of having the texts added by typography. These proceedings, he fancies, were successful twice, once with what he calls the first (unmixed) Latin, secondly with the first Dutch edition, but on the third return journey a part of the material of the second (mixed) Latin edition, that is the ten sheets in question, all packed in one parcel, were lost, and the publisher, in a hurry to sell his copies, had these sheets replaced by xylography.
As a careful examination of the mixed Latin and other editions clearly shows their real condition and the order of their issue, we do not discuss Schreiber's improbable theories. As to those of Ottley and Sotheby, some of the lines which they regarded as broken in the copy or copies of the mixed Latin edition which they examined, are intact in other copies of the same edition, so that no reliance can be placed on these defects and breakages, which are clearly due to printing from wooden blocks, a process which admittedly causes more defects in the impressions than printing from types. Of the black and white scrolls we speak below.
It is to be noticed first of all that the legends underneath the woodcuts are in Latin, so that they were no doubt engraved for a Latin edition. But, unless we take the twenty xylographic leaves as remains of a complete xylographic edition issued (at Haarlem) before the invention of printing, there would be no Latin edition to connect the woodcuts with in the first instance, as the primitive types and workmanship of one, if not two, of the Dutch editions described below show that these must have been printed before the 44 type-printed leaves of the mixed Latin edition, and also before the wholly type-printed unmixed Latin edition, the types of which are new and far better cast.
Incidentally, this fact that the types of the mixed Latin edition are later than those of the Dutch editions disposes also of another theory favoured by some authors, viz. that during the progress of the xylographic edition its printer invented the movable type, and thereupon stopped his xylographic work to complete the book by means of type, so that in this mixed Latin edition we were to see the transition from xylography to typography.
The priority of the xylographic over the typographic leaves is proved by the Pembroke (No. 10) and Berlin (No. 9) copies. In the former the third sheet of quire b (= the leaves 9 + 18 with the figures 5, 6 and 23, 24), the only type-printed sheet in this quire in the other copies (1 to 7 and 9), is not the same as in the other copies, but belongs to the unmixed or second Latin edition.[1]
A somewhat similar but still more important manipulation we observe in the Berlin copy, in which the fourth sheet of quire e (= the leaves 52 and 61), the only xylographic sheet in this quire in the other copies, is replaced by the corresponding type-printed sheet of the unmixed or second Latin edition.
All this makes it clear that the printer of the Speculum, some time after having become a type-printer instead of a block-printer, replaced gradually (or by one operation), forty-four xylographically printed leaves of his first edition by type-printed leaves, for the purpose of issuing the Latin edition, now known as the mixed Latin edition; then, at a later stage, prepared a new Latin edition, wholly printed in movable type (now known as the unmixed Latin edition), and afterwards used sheets of this latest edition, not only to replace more of his old xylographic sheets (as in the Berlin copy), but even (as in the Pembroke copy) some of the forty-four sheets which he had printed (evidently for no more copies than he calculated to have left of the old xylographic stock), in the first instance, for issuing the mixed Latin edition. We shall see below that he proceeded in a somewhat similar way in completing copies of his Dutch editions.
Hence the sequence of the Latin editions was thus: (1) The xylographic edition of 64 (?) or more leaves in 29 (?) or more chapters, of which we have only 20 leaves remaining, which was issued before the invention of printing withiniovable types, and was probably preceded in its turn by a xylographic or xylo-chirographic edition of at least 32 or more chapters; 2) another issue of 20 leaves of the preceding edition, in combination with 44 typographic leaves (the mixed Latin edition) printed for the purpose of replacing the corresponding xylographic leaves of the preceding edition, considered unfit for further publication, or discarded for other reasons; (3) the wholly typographically printed edition known as the unmixed Latin edition.
This clear sequence of the Latin makes it easy to explain that of the other editions of the Speculum.
Typographic Printing.
(Speculum type 1).—First edition of a Dutch translation of the Speculum, with the title, Spieghel der menschliker behoudenisse, hitherto called the first, or the unmixed, Dutch edition, or the Dutch edition in one fount of type. First issue entirely printed in type 1.
Judging by this and the third, the editions of the Dutch version of the Speculum must have had the same number of sheets, arranged (woodcuts and text) in the same way, as the mixed and unmixed Latin editions, with the exception of the preface, which required only 2 sheets (= 4 leaves). Hence complete copies consist of the quires a2 (prefatory matter), bcd7, e8 = 31 sheets or 62 leaves.
Holtrop, who gives a facsimile of one of its pages (Mon. pl. 22), regarded this edition as the last of all the Speculum editions, because he thought the type to be identical with that employed for the other editions, only here more used up. Bernard, however, saw that it was a different fount, and there can be no doubt that it is; it differs in form and size from Speculum type 2 as well as from, type 3, though it has all the characteristics and the family likeness of the two. Most of the letters might even be regarded as identical with those of type 3, if they were not slightly smaller. That it looks old and battered seems to be owing to bad ink having been used for the printing; it was, however, badly engraved and badly cast, for not one line in the book runs straight. For this reason alone this edition is to be placed before the next two, which are printed with a better type, especially the third. There are, however, more reasons for doing this. First of all, leaf 46 (with the figures 83: Semey, and 84: Rex amon) of Lord Pembroke's copy belongs to the 3rd edition (in Speculum type 3), so that the present edition, to which the Pembroke copy belongs, must have existed earlier. It appears from Holtrop's facsimile (Mon. pl. 22) that leaf 46 was duly printed in type 1 like the other leaves, of this edition. But the leaf 46, from which he took his facsimile, is an isolated one which found its way into the Meerman Museum at the Hague, but is wanting in the copy of the Communal Library at Lille. Hence this particular leaf is, perhaps, a cancel meant to be replaced (in the Lille copy) by another one of the 3rd edition, as in the Pembroke copy. The corresponding leaf of this sheet (33, with the figures 57: Cristus fleuit, and 58: Jeremias) is wanting in the Pembroke copy, so that we can obtain no further information. Another reason for placing this edition before the 3rd is found in the Haarlem copy (No. 5), the leaves 24 + 27, 25 + 26 of which also belong to the (3rd) edition, and were apparently meant to replace in that copy the corresponding leaves of this edition, which
- ↑ The Pembroke copy has this additional peculiarity that these leaves 9 + 18 consist each of two separate slips, one having the engraving, the other the text, the latter being pasted on to the bottom part of the former slip.
