printing were men who could neither read nor write. The card-makers, who labored for the amusement of boyish tastes, were the ignorant nurses of an art which has preserved the learning of the world. They have had grand success. The once despised fabric of paper has displaced vellum; types do the work of reed and pen, and the work of perpetuating the literature of the world is done by mechanics.[1] Nor has this great revolution been restricted to mechanical processes in book-making. Medieval books are more than out of date: they are dead, beyond all revival. They are known to book-lovers chiefly by reputation. The writings of Anselm, Dun Scotus, Abelard, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas and Ockham, are read only through curiosity; they are as obsolete as the works of the old Greek philosophers.[2]
Although much had been done to prepare Germany and Flanders for the reception of printing, one thing was lacking. Printing waited for a wise appreciation of the utility of paper. For centuries paper had been regarded as a plebeian writing surface, unfitted for books, but good enough for shopkeepers, mechanics, and children who had or sought a smattering of education. It was necessary that the prejudices in favor of vellum should be uprooted, and that the practical superiority of paper should be recognized by men of higher authority than card-printers or poor scholars. This change in fashion was effectually made by the rich merchants of Flanders and Germany. The paper rejected of professional book-makers was not so strong nor so attractive as parchment, but it was flexible, durable, and much cheaper. There was no legislative intermeddling with its sale[3] as there had been with parchment.
- ↑ Laborde, a brilliant French writer on early printing, who traces the origin of printing to playing cards, acknowledges its very ignoble origin with evident mortification:—"What a mother for such a son!"
- ↑ The history of literature, like that of Empire, is full of revolutions; our public libraries are cemeteries of departed reputation; the dust accumulating upon these untouched volumes speaks as forcibly as the grass that waves over the ruins of Babylon. Hallam, Middle Ages.
- ↑ The University of Paris made no opposition to the free sale of paper. It was not subjected to taxes or duties in France, not even when oppressive taxes were levied on most manufactures. Didot, Essai sur la typographie, p. 730.
