HISTORY OF PRINTING,
AMD PROGRESS OP LITERATURE,
FROM THE INVENTION OF THE ART TO THE ABOUTION OF THE STAR CHAMBER, IN THE YEAR 1694.
How shall I speak thee, or thy power address, Thoa Ood of our idolatry — the Prkas ! By thee Reli^on, Liberty, and Laws, Exert their Influence, and advance their cause ; By thee, worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befell, DiflfVised, malte earth the vestibule of hell j Thou fountain at wtiich drlnlc the pood and wise : ThoD ever babbling spring of endless lies j Like Eden's dread probationary tree, Knowled^ of ^ood and evil is from thee. — Cowpia.
But not to make our eyes sore by looking; only on the hurt ; let us tome them on the bencflts of the well oploytd Press ; and we shall see it a mint of solid worth, the good it hath done, (and yet may do) betoft Inestimable ; itii Trath's Armory, the Bank of Knowledge, and Nursery of Religion, never suffering a want of the sincere Milk of the Wnd, nor Piety's Practice to be out of print (and that not only in one book) weekly issuing forth helps to doing, u nli ss knowing our duty.— Wbituics's Teara of the Prate, London, 1054.
It creates our sarprise, when we are told, that llie ait of printing, which has been styled the " Nuise and Preserver of the Arts and Sciences," slioald be so negligent of itself, as not to leave tbe smallest record of its own origin ; the inven- tors having been more ambitious of deserving, than of purchasing praise. That the invention of an art, so curious in its nature, and so highly beneficial in its consequence, should have been the boast and contention, not of individuals only, hot of cities and countries, is less surprising, than, that the inventor shouldhave neglected to secure to himself the honour of the discovery. Public gratitnde, at least, might have been expected to popetuate the name to which it owed such infi- nite obligations. But neither this, nor personal ambition, prevented the obscurity which has fallen on the subject, and which has nearly concealed from us the author, as well as the time and place, »hich his art commenced.
As many cities have contended for the honour of Ihu invention, and engaged the learned in defence of their respective claims, it cannot be improper to select the most considerable testimo- nies from those authors, who wrote soon after the discoTeiT, and were better acquainted with this luttei than those who lived at some distance of time after it, and may be supposed to have follow- ed their predecessors in the accounts they have
given us of the origin of printing. From the multiplicity of evidence, and the contradictory facts adduced by contending parties, difference of opinion may still exist, yet, from an impartial survey, there appears a preponderance of testi- mony, calculated to produce conviction, and to form the judgment of those who candidly inves- tigate the point.
" It is wonderful," says Lemoine, " but it is true, that the only art which can record all others, shotild almost forget itself."
To us of the present day, indeed, who are tena- cious only of the freedom of this inestimable art, but in no respect connected with its original dis- covery, the question is of less importance than to those cities which contend for the sake of inves- ting themselves with the honour of the inven- tion. But that which is every day growing more and more valuable to the whole moral world, and whose ultimate consequences, both as they con- cern religion, and embrace every thing that be- longs to human institutions, afford matter for speculation of the deepest interest, is worthy of our highest regard : and thus it is that the History of Printing becomes to us an object of the most laudable curiosity.
The chief causes to be assigned as having tended to occasion doubts with whom the art ac- tually originated, may be thus briefly summed
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