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 XXIV

Lessing.

opinion that the Bible of 36 lines was the Bible described by Zell—the book printed by Gutenberg in 1450—did not meet with the approval of those who had copies of the Bible of 42 lines. Men who had paid very large prices for the copies of an edition supposed to be the first, were loth to have it degraded to the inferior place of a second edition. The testimony of Zell was unceremoniously set aside; the written date of 1460 in one copy of the Bible of 36 lines was regarded as indicating the date of printing, and the book was declared the work of Gutenberg between 1455 and 1460. Another hypothesis was soon presented. In 1792, Steiner, a clergyman at Augsburg, announced the discovery of the Book of Four Stories with the imprint of Albert