Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/489

Rh As they had happily succeeded in this undertaking, Fust and Schœffer bound their workmen by oath to conceal the process with the greatest secrecy; but they showed to friends, whenever it pleased them, the first experimental types of wood, which they tied up with a string and preserved. My uncle, Doctor John Fust, testified that he had seen, with the manuscripts which were bequeathed by the inventor, these experimental types of wood, and that he had held in his hands the first part of his edition of the Donatus.

The unknown author further says that John Gutenberg was one of the friends to whom Fust and Schœffer showed the wood types; that Gutenberg, professing to admire their ingenuity, took a great interest in their enterprise, and lent Fust and Schœffer money, thereby entangling them in an agreement, from which they could not extricate themselves until Gutenberg had acquired a right to use the invention, by which use he wrongfully enjoys the honor of first inventor. Here we may stop. It would be a waste of time to expose, one by one, the falsehoods of a statement so flatly contradicted by many unimpeachable evidences. It is very clear that the writer had no new facts to tell us about the invention. He has told us not how it was made, but how he wished it had been made that it might redound to the honor of the Fusts.

What later writers have said about the value of Schœffer's services need not be considered, for they also have produced no new facts: they have based their opinions entirely on the incorrect information of Faustus, Trithemius and Schœffer. We may pass, without further delay, to the examination of the claims made for other alleged inventors of printing.