Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/373

Rh examined it, are suspicious circumstances. We see that men who wrote hundreds of pages of speculations to support the claims of Coster—men who translated and reprinted many columns of irrelevant chaff for the sake of one little kernel of grain—willfully suppressed what they maintained was a most convincing evidence of the truth of the legend. It was not suppressed because it was too long: the entire pedigree can be printed in two pages.

The reasons for withholding the pedigree were apparent when it was put in the Museum. The reading of the words in the first row at once produced the impression that its importance had been vastly overrated; that its information was of little value; that it was almost worthless as evidence of the priority of Dutch typography. Dr. Van der Linde, who made a critical examination of the writing soon after it was placed in the Museum, revealed the astonishing fact that the most important entry had been falsified. This entry, which contains the only portion of any interest in an inquiry concerning the invention of printing by Coster, consists of the following lines:

The date first written was 1446, but in this column, and in others, objectionable entries have been effaced and falsifications have been attempted. The figure 6 has been partially rubbed out; it has been replaced by a 0, so that the careless reader will construe the date as 1440. There can be no hesitation whatever on this point; the figures first written surely were 1446. "We see here a fable arise before our very eyes. A Haarlem citizen has a pedigree made for him, probably to put it up in his inn. … But the frame wants lustre, and so the pedigree is linked by the probably totally fictitious Lucye, the second wife, to a Haarlemer—to a Haarlemer who (the awkwardness and naïveté of the expression may not surprise