Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/370

XIX

The Downfall of the Legend.

The Vague Inscription on the Last Monument … Relics in the Costerian Museum … Fac-simile of Janszoon's Autograph … The Coster Pedigree … Made by Gerrit Thomaszoon … Legend began with the Pedigree … Pedigree has been Falsified, and is of No Authority … Search by Van der Linde for Records concerning Coster … Archives of the Town and Church of Haarlem represent Coster as a Tallow-Chandler and Innkeeper … Coster living at Haarlem in 1483 … The Record of the Chair-Book … No Evidence that Coster was a Printer … Lourens Coster has been Confounded with Laurens Janszoon … Illustration of the House of Coster … Other Fac-similes of Portraits of Coster … Their Curious Dissimilarity … Absurdity of the Legend.

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We see in a square at Haarlem the monument of the fictitious personage Laurens Coster. It presents a sad figure. Behind this statue, sneering in mockery, is another colossal monument, which dominates and belittles it—a statue visible to us, but to Hollanders invisible—the statue of Ridicule.

Helbig⁠

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In the year 1856, on the sixteenth day of July, the day accepted as the anniversary of the invention, a statue of Coster was put up in Haarlem. The tablets of the pedestal bear inscriptions which are thus translated by Hessels:

LOURENS JANSZOON COSTER. INVENTOR OF THE ART OF PRINTING HOMAGE OF THE NETHERLAND NATION. MDCCCLVI. WITH MOVABLE LETTERS CAST OF METAL.

The date of the invention and the profession or position of the inventor are omitted. We cannot ascertain from the monument whether Coster was a sheriff or a sexton, whether he invented printing in 1423 or 1440. It may be inferred that there had been disagreements among the eminent men who erected this work of patriotism, and that they could not