information concerning Coster. He had cause to think that history had been falsified by other historians of the legend. Through the study of the archives, Van der Linde ascertained that there lived in Haarlem, in the fifteenth century, a citizen whose name was Lourens Janszoon Coster, the son of one Jan Coster who died in 1436. The results of the search were as curious as they were unexpected, as will be fully understood after an examination of this translation of the originals:
| 1441 | .. | On the evening of the 13th, settled with lou koster for 15 pounds and 12 pounds of oil, each pound an ancient butdrager, and 34 pence for soap and tallow candles, together 22 guilders 3 pence. |
| 1441 | .. | Louwerijs Janssoen, for 72 pounds of candles, which have been burnt by the guards in the town hall during the year—for each pound an ancient butdrager. |
| 1441 | .. | Louwerijs Jans, aforesaid, for the candles burnt in the tower in honor of Our Lady, during this year, as was agreed with him. |
| 1442 | .. | Lourijs Coster, paid for having repaired the lantern of Our Lady in the tower. |
| 1442 | .. | Lourijs Coster, for 40 pounds of tallow candles which the guards in the town hall burnt; cost each pound an ancient butdrager. |
| 1442 | .. | Paid to lou coster 8 guilders for oil and soap. |
| 1442 | .. | To lou coster for soap, candles and other things, 15 pence. |
| 1447 | .. | On the 14th day of March, paid to Louwerijs Coster for 5 pounds of candles burnt in the tower in honor of Our Lady. |
There can be no mistake about the business of this man. The Lourens Janszoon Coster described on the old pedigree as the famous man who brought the first print in the world, and in Batavia as a wealthy citizen, a man of leisure and of enlarged mind, and the inventor of engraving on wood and typography, was certainly an obscure tallow-chandler, who sold oil and candles.[1] The anti-climax is sufficiently absurd, but worse remains. The archives give us more than a clue to the origin of Coster's wine-flagons. It seems that, some time
- ↑ There is, of course, no reason why a chandler could not have invented typography, but we have no evidence that this chandler invented anything. Our knowledge of the tastes of the man, as shown in his selection of a new business, is enough to prove that he was not at all like the later chandler, Benjamin Franklin, with a leaning to types and letters.
