judicial equity with which he decreed to Coster, Gensfleisch and Schœffer what he said was their share in the honors of the invention, the temperate tone and calm philosophic spirit in which the book was written, the breadth of scholarship displayed in exact quotations from a great number of authors, won admirers in all countries. The theory of Meerman about a contributive invention need not be examined here: it has been entirely refuted by many French and German authors; it was abandoned even by Hollanders[1] at the beginning of the present century. The authority of the book is at an end.
The conviction that all previously written defences of the legend were untenable, caused a scientific society of Holland to offer a prize for the best treatise on the invention. Jacobus Koning was the successful competitor. In 1816, he published, under the sanction of the society, the essay that had won the prize, under the title of "'The Origin, Invention and Development of Printing." It was an inquiry of more than ordinary merit—the first book on the subject which showed evidences of original research. Koning tried to supplement the many deficiencies of Junius, with extracts from the records of the old church and town of Haarlem, which he had studied with diligence. He brought to light a great deal of information about one Laurens Janszoon, whom he confounded, as Meerman had done, with Lourens Janszoon Coster. This is the substance of his discoveries and of his conclusions therefrom:
Koning describes the inventor as Laurens Janszoon Koster, and not as Lourens Janszoon. He says that Koster was born about 1370; that there are no records of his early life, and that his name does not appear on any of the registers of Haarlem, municipal or ecclesiastical, until he became a man of middle age. After this period of his life, notices are frequent. He was the sacristan of a church from 1421 to 1433. He was, at different times, alderman and presiding alderman, treasurer of the town, lender of money to the city, officer in the citizens' guard, member of the grand council, and deputy to a
- ↑ Dr. De Vries, the most eminent defender of the legend in this century, said: "The work of the learned but not very judicious Meerman had done more injury to the cause of Haarlem than the writings of all other antagonists."
