book to unknown monks of Southern Germany, "about the year 1400." This copy of the Weekly Meditations is a favorable specimen of the combined workmanship of the copyist and the printer; but it is not the only one. Copies or fragments of manuscript books[1] with printed illustrations are in the British Museum, and in many European libraries.
These specimens of book-making during the period of its transition from writing to printing, give us some notions of the estimation in which the process of printing was held by the men who manufactured chap-books. It does not appear that they made use of printing because they thought it was a labor-saving process. They used it mainly, if not entirely, to supplement the deficient skill of the copyist. It was then as it is now — many could write, but few could draw. If the copyist who wrote the text had been competent to draw, the pictures would not have been engraved. Nor would these engravings have been made for one nor even for one dozen copies. We may properly suppose that enough copies were printed to justify the expense of engraving.
While it was expedient to engrave the pictures, it was inexpedient to engrave the text of a book. In many books, the letters constituted the largest part of the work, and to the engraver it was the more difficult part — the expense of engraving would more than offset all the advantages that might have been gained from printing. A full suite of blocks for the text would cost more than the writing of a hundred copies. To the stationer who could sell but few books, xylographic printing was not an economical process: the preliminary cost of engraving was too great. It would be an extravagant estimate to assume that the writer of the Weekly Meditations made one hundred copies of this book; but one
- ↑ They were common during the first quarter of the fifteenth century, Bernard, De l'origine de l'imprimerie, vol. i, p. 102. Fournier, De l'origine et des productions de l'imprimerie, p. 176. Papillon, Traité historique et pratique de la gravure sur bois, vol. i, p. 101. Guichard, Notice sur le Speculum, p. 118. They have been noticed also by Passavant. It is plain that copyists everywhere recognized the utility of engraving.
