Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/367

Rh convocation of the States—clearly a man of wealth and distinction. There was a great pestilence in Haarlem in the latter part of the year 1439, and Koning says it seems probable that Koster was one of its many victims. Koster's only child was a daughter named Lucette, who married Thomas, the son of Pieter Pieterzoon—the Peter mentioned by Junius. Pieterzoon had three children, but with them the family name was lost. This Laurens Janszoon Koster invented xylography and typography. He experimented with types of wood, but did not use them for practical work. His types were founded in matrices of lead, and in moulds of metal; he invented printing ink, and printed his books with inking balls on a press. His materials were rude, but the process was substantially the same as that of modern printers. He printed the first edition of the Speculum in 1430, and sixteen other books before his death. His business as a printer was continued for some years, but in a feeble manner, by his grandsons. The thief of Koster's process was Frielo Gensfleisch.

In the town records Koster is not noticed as a printer, but Koning described his method of printing, his punches, moulds, matrices, presses, inking balls, ink, types, and printing office furniture, with as much boldness as if he had been eyewitness to the entire process. Nor was this his only error. It has since been proved that he willfully suppressed many important facts in the records which are of great importance in an examination of the life and services of Coster. It is plain that he was more intent on pleasing the national pride than on revealing the truth.

The speculations of Koning were destroyed by the keen criticisms of the authors who followed him. Dr. Abraham De Vries set aside impatiently nearly all the ingenious theories devised by former commentators. He repudiated the statement that Coster had been a sexton or sacristan, or that he invented engraving on wood. Warned by the failures of his predecessors, he advanced no new theory about the peculiarities of Coster's typographic process; he professed to be satisfied with the bald statement of Junius, and dogmatically maintained that Coster "was the inventor of typography, of the proper art of printing, the first who invented and practised