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290 the book in which these faults occur, the Abecedarium should be the oldest piece of printed matter. One cannot imagine a printed book with more slovenly workmanship. Its types present all the irregularities of the Donatus previously described. The pages have but nine lines of types to each page, yet they are very crooked. This crookedness was partially produced by an unskillful fastening, or locking-up of the types, but it is plain that the types were of irregular size as to body, and that the letters were badly adjusted upon the bodies. Some types are high and others low to paper, and there are types that are legible at one end of the face and not at the other. The presswork is wretched: we see the evidences of too weak and badly distributed ink and of uneven impression. The text shows many faults of composition in the division of syllables. To the observer who is not an expert in typography, the workmanship of the book seems that of a man who had no experience in any department of printing: the faults do not appear to be those of a badly taught printer, but those of an experimenter.

For this reason the Abecedarium has been claimed by the Dutch historians of typography as the first production of the inventor of the art. They say that it was printed before any edition of the Speculum, and probably in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. A closer