CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

sides of the table, on which the display was simple and tasteful, the eye being feasted as well as the palate. I was particularly struck with a large and handsome basket occupying the middle of the table, and filled with the most beautiful flowers. As soon as the soups were despatched, and the covers removed, an immense joint of roasted beef, as a compliment to us, stood revealed, towering over all the delicate dishes. After three courses, which would have done credit to Ude himself, the table, with the cloth still on, was replenished with the most delicious fruits, sweetmeats, and iced creams. The conversation during dinner, which lasted about

of the chateau. The steps at both sides were flanked by quantities of geranium and other fragrant plants in full bloom, which imparted an air of elegance to the scene. At our near approach, the venerable master of the house, the Marquis de Tourville, accompanied by another of his sons-in-law, the Vicomte de Saint Prosper, descended the steps where they had been waiting some time. The truly hospitable and kind manner in which we were thus welcomed, could only be equalled by that which we experienced from the ladies, when a few moments after we arrived at the vestibule, where they reiterated the same kind expressions in the most engag-two hours, was lively and entertaining. A number of ing manner. We then walked through the antechamber and billiard-room into the drawing-room, where we chatted for a short time, and then adjourned up stairs, preceded by the Marchioness and the Countess de Beaulieu, who pointed out our individual apartments, and quickly retired, warning us that we had not much time before dinner for the duties of the toilet. In a short time the great dinner bell rung, and when the ladies tapped at our door to conduct us to the drawingroom, we were not quite prepared to descend. When we made our appearance in the drawing-room, we found all the family assembled; therefore, whilst waiting for the announcement of dinner, let me describe our host, hostess, and family. The marquis numbers more than seventy years, although he does not appear so old: from his military bearing, no portion of his height is lost, and this, combined with an aquiline nose and eagle eye, give him such an imposing presence, that one cannot approach him without feeling a degree of awe. From infancy he had been in attendance upon Marie Antoinette, as his family was one of those who enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of that unfortunate queen.

merry stories were related of the mistakes made by English people in France, and vice versa; indeed the Comtesse de Beaulieu told some very laughable anecdotes of her own experience in London. After finger-glasses were handed round, we were all escorted back again in the same order to the drawing-room. On the way, we saw eight lovely little girls, all dressed alike, playing in the billiard-room. They accompanied us into the draw. ing-room, and as soon as coffee was dispensed, the party quickly broke into little social knots. Music, conversa tion, and looking at the gentlemen playing billiards in the adjoining apartment, made the evening pass most agreeably. When the drawing-room was lighting up a new contrivance struck us as having a pretty effect. Two brilliant lamps were placed in superb china vases, on each side of the mantel-piece, throwing down a light upon a pyramidal stand of flowers, which entirely concealed the fireplace. Tea was served at a late hour. The marquis told us that, although they always had this beverage in Paris, they had not yet habituated themselves to it in the country. Tea, indeed, is still a rare luxury among the French.

We had been so long accustomed to the narrow and uncomfortable beds in French hotels, that when, on having retired for the night, we sunk in capacious down couches, with linen akin to cambric, and pillows trimmed with fine lace, we could scarcely credit our senses that we were really in France. We arose early to enjoy the delightful view from our windows. The beautiful park, studded with lofty clumps of trees, re At eight o'clock the waiting-maid of the marchioness brought in a large tray covered with a napkin, upon which were placed tea, coffee, hot rolls, butter in curious devices covered with pieces of ice, and sundry kinds of cakes quite hot. The cups and saucers were each ornamented by a marquis's coronet, and were of the finest Sèvres china. The entire establishment being conducted by men servants, with the exception of the respective waiting. maids and nursery attendants, was the reason that the marchioness, in consideration of our English prejudices, was so kind as to let her own maid bring in our breakfast; which we enjoyed very much.

The marquis in early life joined the allied army, and is linked in the dearest bonds of friendship with some of our brave old generals with whom he had served. After the Restoration, he was reinstated in his former rank and position, and succeeded in regaining a great part of his fortune. When Charles X. ascended the throne, he was intrusted with a high and respon-minded us of merry England. sible command of great honour, which he filled up to the moment of the Revolution. He has ever since lived apart from the court, and never takes his seat in the Chamber of Peers unless some question involving the vital interests of his country is to be agitated. The marchioness is the descendant of one of the most renowned families in France: her mother and grandmother both perished under the guillotine. She has passed middle life, is peculiarly graceful both in person and manner, has a sweet but sad expression of countenance, and in youth must have been beautiful. She dresses to perfection; never tries, by any youthful denudings, to take one year off her age; and wears her own nice gray hair. Her family consists of three daughters, who are all married. The eldest, the Countess de Beaulieu, always resides with her parents; she is an elegant, self-possessed, intelligent woman, with a very engaging expression, and excels in music and painting. She has six children. The comte, who is the heir of a house as ancient as that of his wife, is a handsome, dark-complexioned man, and highly accomplished. The youngest daughter, who was staying here, resembles a lovely young Englishwoman: she is a beautiful blonde, and is married to the Vicomte de Saint Prosper, eldest son to the Duke de Saint Prosper, with whom they reside nine months every year, the other three being passed at Linière. The vicomte is a tall, handsome, fair-complexioned man, and so much like a John Bull, that he has frequently been mistaken for an Englishman. They

have also six children.

On dinner being announced, the marquis politely offered one of us his arm, with the air of an old cavalier, and the rest of the company followed. According to French custom, the host and hostess sat at opposite

Fain would we now have rambled about the grounds, but, knowing that it is customary for the ladies to stay in their own rooms until the bell for the grand dejuner, or general breakfast, summons all the family, we constrained ourselves to conform to the rules of the house. By adhering to this plan, each separate family is enabled to make their own private arrangements, and give their orders for the day, the remainder of which they spend together free from household cares. The ladies have each a cup of coffee at eight o'clock, or earlier, and the gentlemen also when they are indisposed, but not others wise. Prevented from going out, we took the oppor tunity of taking a look round the apartments allotted for our use. Our bedrooms were very large, carpetted all over, and superbly furnished with footstools, arm and small chairs, sofas, marble-topped cabinets, chests of drawers, dressing-tables, and last, but certainly not least in our estimation, capacious mahogany bedsteads terminating at each end in Greek scrolls, and provided with two sets of curtains, appended to a gilt coronet fas tened into the wall, the outside hangings light-coloured silk, to match the window-curtains, the inside ones fine

clear white muslin. In the centre of each bedroom stood a library table, furnished with writing materials, matches, wafers, almanacs, wherein the saints' days were peculiarly notified; and these articles complete the list, with the addition of hanging pin-cushions at each side of the large looking-glass which stood on the mantel-piece. Attached to each sleeping apartment was a handsome dressing-room, leading to another small apartment designed for a waiting-maid, from which there is an exit to the corridor. Each visitor therefore may be said to have a cluster of two or three private apartments. The other parts of the mansion are on the same princely scale. It was built in the reign of Louis XIII., and ¡consists of a centre two storeys high, with a wing at each side of the same height. Staircases lead to the long corridors, which run from one end of the chateau to the other, and from which all the bedrooms are entered. The lower corridor is hung with family portraits-knights and belles of 'high degree'-and is lighted by the windows which form part of the façade. The lower floor of one of the wings contains the suite of rooms appropriated to the marchioness, the other those of the marquis, and the entire upper part of each is occupied by the children, their servants, and English governesses. The drawing, billiard, and dining-rooms are noble apartments, and, with antechambers, run the entire length and breadth of the chateau. In one of the drawing-rooms is placed a marble bust of the Duke de Bourdeaux, in a most conspicuous position. It is valuable both as a likeness, and as a fine work of art. Luxury and comfort are singularly combined in this charming room, from which the grounds can be entered by means of a flight of steps.

lish works, as madame cannot read them in the original. Sir Walter Scott's works occupied a large space. We were much amused, on opening one of his novels, by seeing an attempt at a translation of Edie Ochiltree's Scotch; and a very queer attempt it was. In a recess stood a handsome bedstead, draped with pale blue gros de Naples, covered by the most beautiful and delicate lace-work of that species called application. The coverlet and toilet-cover were likewise of the same material; the former was flounced round in a corresponding pattern. All these elegant specimens of needlecraft have been the result of the marchioness's own industry. In the middle of a large bow-window stood the toilet-table, covered by a profusion of silver, gold, china, Venice glass, and coloured stone dressing utensils. Near the fireplace is hung a rosary, in a glasscase, which was pointed out to us with pride and vencration, as it is believed to contain a piece of the true cross. The beads are formed from precious stones. This interesting object was presented to an ancestor of the marchioness by the celebrated Pére Joseph, the friend and agent of Richelieu.

The gentlemen and the marchioness having proposed a walk through the grounds, in order to show them to us, we readily assented, and were greatly pleased with the excursion. The walks were diversified, and so well laid out, that from different points of the higher grounds we had charming prospects of the country around, including the old village and church of Linière. Finally, we visited the orangerie and hothouses, and were then conducted by the marchioness to her favourite spot, laid out to resemble, and called an English garden. She showed us a small parterre of pretty Scotch roses, which The ladies had the kindness again to call at our door, had been sent her as a present from the venerable Lord to convey us down stairs as soon as the bell rang for Lynedoch, a brother in arms of the marquis. We had general breakfast. We found all the family assembled scarcely returned to the house, when we were told to in the drawing-room. Some of the gentlemen had been prepare for a drive, as they wished us to see some of walking in the grounds, others in the village, and the the neighbouring chateaux. When we were ready, three intellectual comte had been giving his accustomed Ger- handsome equipages drove up-a caleche, Brougham, man lessons to his daughters. We were all conducted and the Comte de Beaulieu's favourite, each drawn by in the same order to the dining-room as we had been a pair of fine English horses. We visited two chateaux. the preceding evening. We found the beautiful polished One of these contained a rare collection of paintings table covered by a delicious melange of poultry, joints by the old masters, hung in a gallery evidently copied of roasted meat, bread, cakes, potatoes in divers forms, from the Louvre. The luxury of everything there was and most recherché made dishes. Tea, coffee, and cho- regal. Precious bronzes and antique marble busts were colate were poured out from silver pots by servants at distributed through the apartments. The dining-room each person's desire, the cups and saucers alone being was worthy of Lucullus. The house had belonged to placed on the table. Eggs, poached and dressed in oil, one of the ancient noblesse, whose widow, after his we found to be delicious: they were, however, served decapitation, had been obliged to sell it for a trifle to a singly in small earthenware pipkins with handles, which citizen. This man had a daughter, in whom all his certainly appeared rather incongruous amongst such a wealth centered; she married a young member of the brilliant display of plate. Sweetmeats of the rarest and old aristocracy, and is now a widow with two children. most curious description, strawberries, cherries, and Some years back, her husband was sent as ambassador various fruits, some of them iced, were also present; to England by Louis XVIII. We were particularly likewise wines and liqueurs-the whole reminding me of struck by the sofas with awnings dispersed through the the far-famed breakfasts of the Scotch. The absence of grounds, and by an octagon room, some of the windows a table-cloth, however, gave a foreign air to the repast. of which opened upon the lawn; they had also awnings Finger-glasses, as at dinner, was the signal for rising over them, and at cach side of the steps flowers in foom table, when we were again marshalled to the draw- vases. A beautiful ornamented cottage in the grounds ing-room, where all the children were assembled, prepa- was most tastefully furnished, and would make a charmratory to their walking out. They breakfast at half-ing summer abode. The riding-house and some of the past seven o'clock, and have all their lessons over by stables are built with the stones which once formed a twelve, after which they take exercise and dine. Music, part of the celebrated convent, the 'Port Royal,' where reading, and different kinds of needlework occupy them the virtuous Arnaulds flourished so long, both as reforuntil five o'clock, when they take some light supper, mers and as the great supporters of Jansenism. At the and appear in the drawing-room, after their parents' other chateau the garden pleased us most. The noble 1. unner, for about an hour-a custom which is infinitely duke who is the proprietor seldom visits it; therefore it preferable to the English habit of admitting a troop of presented a very different appearance from the one we children into the dining-room during the dessert. had just quitted. On our return we entered a very Having settled ourselves in the drawing-room, some ancient church, with most exquisitely painted windows. of the party sat down to embroidery, and others to Madame de Beaulieu was much pleased at her eldest reading, the table being covered with newspapers just daughter, nine years old, being able to recognise and arrived from Paris; whilst we visited by invitation narrate the different Scripture histories set forth thereon. the apartments of the marchioness, which, as before As soon as we arrived within sight of the great altar, observed, occupy all the ground-floor of the left wing. all our friends, gentlemen as well as ladies, dropped We entered her library from a door in the drawing upon their knees, and appeared for some minutes to be room leading into it, and were much pleased to find lost in devotion. After a delightful drive, we returned such a choice collection of French translations of Eng-to Linière just in time to dress for dinner.

As I have now detailed our proceedings for one day, it would be only a vain repetition to continue to do so, as nearly every hour was spent much in the same manner, with some exceptions; as, for instance, when the day was wet, we each took our work and had some interesting conversation. The marchioness was engaged upon the finest piece of needlework we ever saw, which is intended as a cover for the great altar in her own church at Linière. Every day, after our first breakfast, we read until the general one, always over night providing ourselves with the books which we desired to peruse. During a morning excursion we visited the ruins of one of the strongholds of the bold Jean de Montford, Duke of Brittany, celebrated in one of the ruthless wars of the fourteenth century.

years old, is quite a musical genius. Both conduct themselves like women. They asked us such intelligent questions relative to our country, which they are most anxious to see, that it was a pleasure to answer them. They both speak and write our language correctly. The young vicomtesse has two lovely little boys who were beginning to lisp English; and from what I saw and heard here and elsewhere, I should imagine the time is not far distant when every one among the higher classes in France will be able to speak English as well as ourselves. The constant intercourse with England and America is forcing on this result.

I am now brought to the conclusion of my visit. The day of our departure from this charming mansion arrived, and we were obliged to bid adieu to our friends, whom we quitted with much regret, mingled with gratitude, for the very kind and hospitable manner in which we had been treated during our stay in the chateau.

'THE TRADE.'
SECOND ARTICLE.

BOOKSELLING AFTER THE INVENTION OF PRINTING.

During our stay we had many animated discussions relative to the difference both in manners and customs of our respective countries; but they all ended, as such conversations generally do, by leaving each individual wedded to the opinion expressed at first. One part of French chateau life had for some years puzzled us, but we think we understand it now; I allude to the harmonious manner in which many branches of one family reside under the same roof. The Marquis de Tourville, one day when speaking on this subject, said he rejoiced to entertain us at his chateau, that we might witness SOME time between the years 1430 and 1445, there lived the patriarchal manner in which he lived with his in Mayence a rich goldsmith, whose name was John daughters and their husbands and children, among Fust or Faust, the first man who sold a printed book. whom never a jar occurred. I am inclined to ascribe His name has always been associated with that of Gutthis felicity to the strict etiquette and habitual polite-tenberg and Schoeffer as one of the inventors of printness of the French. Although all relations, and living together in one house, each branch keeps itself to itself, and no one takes undue liberties with another. I observed that the two sons-in-law of the marchioness always addressed her as maman, or ma chère maman. One tolerably obvious reason for this clubbing together of families is narrowness of fortune. It will also be recollected that, by the new law of inheritance in France, properties are divided equally among the children, and all seem to maintain an equal hold on the paternal feel-Mayence, and opened his mind to Faust. The goldings. While acknowledging that this practice of equal division seems the most reasonable and just, I have, after all, doubts of its general efficacy. It no doubt appears scandalous, that, by our law of primogeniture, while the elder son gets all, the younger sons get nothing; yet it causes universal exertion, and is probably best for the nation at large. Few things are more striking to a stranger in France than the hosts of genteel idlers everywhere-men waiting for slices of their fathers' fortune; and it would not, I think, improve society in England to fill it with such a class of persons. I am, however, no politician, and speak diffidently on a ques

ing; but, as is reasonably to be inferred, erroneously; for in all the evidence with which the annals of typography supply us, he appears as the capitalist by whose pecaniary advances Guttenberg was able to bring his art into practical operation. Having vainly endea voured to produce good print in Strasburg, after expending a fortune, Guttenberg returned to his native town,

smith-manifestly a shrewd man of business-saw, from the progress his fellow-citizen had made in his new method of producing books, that the thing was likely to turn out a good speculation, and warmly embarked in it. A partnership was speedily entered into, and in 1445 a printing-press was set up in Mayence, for taking impressions from the wooden blocks with which Guttenberg commenced his art. The goldsmith and his associate worked in secret, and for some time without suc and a confidential person in their employ, hit upon cess; till Peter Schoeffer, an illuminator of manuscripts, the expedient of making moveable metal types by means of punches and matrices. Faust was so deAt the chateau, a German gentleman had been invited to meet us, and to remain for some days, as he had lighted with Schoeffer for his ingenuity, that he not the reputation of speaking English fluently. When this only took him into partnership, but gave him his worthy man, however, was placed next one of our party patience and capital were expended even after this addaughter in marriage. This happened in 1452. Much at dinner, not a word could he muster in our language; vance in the art made by Peter Schoeffer. The first and he appeared to discover for the first time that read-book they tried the new system on was the Latin bible, ing and speaking a foreign tongue are two separate things. He, however, conversed fluently in French; and being a very well informed man, we considered him a

tion of such moment.

great addition to our little society. He bore the jokes passed upon his failure of English with much good humour. The perfect harmony which prevailed in this family was delightful to witness. The venerable marquis was considered by the children as common property during the hour they remained in the drawing-room after dianer. One beautiful urchin climbed his knee; a little girl scated herself on the other; one pulled his hair; another mounted on his back: in fact, he resembled Gulliver when the Lilliputians covered him all over. The parents were likewise besieged; but the instant the time for going to bed arrived, there was no hankering, no shuffling, to gain half an hour. Strict obedience was demanded, and, I must say, cheerfully paid. The Comtesse de Beaulieu's two eldest daughters played the piano remarkably well. The second, who is only eight

and before twelve sheets of it had been printed, Gutten berg and Faust had expended upwards of 4000 florins, exertion, the bible was completed.* A good number of Still they persevered, and after three years of laborious this-the first of all first editions-having been struck off ready for the market, the next thing was to devise means for disposing of them, and it was determined that Faust should travel with copies, calling them manuscripts. It is certain,' says Lambinet, that Faust, Schoeffer, and their partners, sold or exchanged in Germany, Italy, France, and the most celebrated universities, the books

issued-was a folio, in two volumes, consisting of 637 leaves, printed
*This bible-the first perfect printed book which ever was
in large Gothic or German characters.
It has no date, and is
known by bibliopolists as the Mazarine bible,' a copy of it having
been discovered, long after it was printed, in the library of Cardinal
have since turned up. It is executed with wonderful accuracy and
Mazarine, in the College des Quartre Nations. Several other copies
neatness, considering it was the first specimen of the press.

which they had printed." This was a matter of very great difficulty and delicacy. The process by which the books were produced was a secret, which every person whom Guttenberg or Faust took into their employ Such is a bare outline of the career of one of the was bound by oath not to divulge; to say that the bibles parents of printing, and the sole father of modern bookwere produced otherwise than by the usual plan, would selling. John Faust (otherwise John Hand) was the have partly divulged the secret, and it was for that very reverse of such a necromancer and personal friend reason that the whole of their work was executed in of the Evil One as tradition and error have succeeded in exact imitation of writing. The bible was printed on picturing him. The truth is, he is often confounded parchment, the capital letters illuminated with blue, with Jean-Frederic Faust, a charlatan and almanacpurple, and gold, after the manner of ancient manu-maker, who lived about a century after the goldsmith's scripts, and they were sold as such at manuscript price death, and upon whose history Goëthe, the German -namely, sixty crowns. poet, constructed his celebrated play. Nothing could be more opposite than the characters of the two men: the one a plodding, yet withal liberal and far-sighted tradesman; the other a quack, but one, we may mention, not quite unconnected with the mysteries of the book-trade. To insure his almanacs a large sale, he advertised them as having been annually dictated to him by Beelzebub. The confounding of the two men took its rise most likely from the cunning of the monks, after the Reformation; of which, there is no question, the diffusion of the bible, by means of the press, was the primary cause. They therefore owed John Faust no good-will for the part he unwittingly took in destroying their system, and tried to defame his memory by mixing up his life with that of a mountebank.

him. In that year the plague raged in the French capital, and John Faust fell a victim to it, far away from his home and his friends.

About the year 1463, Faust set out on a bookselling expedition through Italy, Germany, and finally to Paris, with a stock in trade, consisting chiefly of bibles and psalters. In each place there every reason to believe he not only busied himself in selling his bibles and psalters, but organised agencies for the sale of his wares in his own absence. Having disposed of as many of his folios as he could to the Parisians at sixty crowns, he unwisely perhaps - reduced their price, first to forty, and then to twenty crowns. This naturally excited the apprehension and the ire of the libraires and scribes, of whom Paris was at that period the head quarters, there being no fewer than six thousand persons who subsisted by copying and illuminating manuscripts. It was not in nature that this large and important body-who held their privileges under the university-should sit tamely by and see a man selling for twenty crowns what they got from sixty to a hundred for. The rapidity with which Faust produced his pseudo-manuscripts, so as to supply the constant demands which his low charges produced on his stock, gave rise to a suspicion that he dealt with the Evil One. This suspicion was strengthened when the transcribers who were principally monks-set about comparing the various copies of Faust's bibles. They found a degree of resemblance in each of the books-even to the minutest dot-which they concluded could only have been prodaced by supernatural means. The enmity of the scribes against Faust as an underselling bookseller now threatened to become a religious persecution. The fraud once discovered, however, Faust's case was taken up by the civil power, and he was obliged to fly from Paris, to escape the officers of justice. He returned to Mayence, but found no rest there; wherever he had sold his books, he had of course practised deception, and the agents of justice were equally clamorous for him in his native town. He withdrew to Strasburg.

In the meanwhile, Mayence was taken by storm by Adolphus of Nassau. By this event Faust and Schoeffer's journeymen were dispersed, and deeming themselves absolved from their oath of secrecy, they carried the invention into various parts of Europe, many of them setting up presses of their own. Then, and not till then, Faust made a merit of necessity, and wrote and circulated a work in which he described the whole process by which his books were executed. That there should be no further doubt or ambiguity as to whether the productions of himself and partners were manuscripts or print, he placed at the end of his little book the following colophon or inscription: This present work, with all its embellishments, was done, not with the pen and ink, but by a newly invented art of casting letters, printing, &c. by me, John Faust, and my son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer, in the famous city of Mentz upon the Rhine.' In this, as in every other instance, honesty proved to be the best policy; for now that Faust had cleared up the mystery, he was no longer pursued as an impostor; and ultimately we find him in 1466 in Paris, making arrangements for establishing a permanent agency for the sale of the productions of his own and his son-inlaw's press. This, as we shall presently see, he effected. In the midst of his labours, however, death overtook

*Recherches sur l'Origine de l'Imprimerie '—(Researches on the Origin of Printing).

The venerable goldsmith, printer, and bookseller, did not depart this life till he had placed the Paris agency on a secure footing. The name of the agent he employed was Herman de Statten, and the agency was carried on at the house of one John Guymier, as we learn from a curious document found in a copy of Faust and Schoeffer's edition of the Latin bible. It is a deed of sale of the book to Tourneville, bishop of Angiers, and runs thus :-'I, Herman, a German, workman of the honest and discreet John Guymier, sworn bookseller of the university of Paris, acknowledge to have sold to the illustrious and learned master William, of Tourneville, archbishop and canon of Angiers, my most respectable lord and master, a bible, printed at Mentz (Mayence) upon vellum, in two volumes, for the price and sum of forty crowns, which I have absolutely received, which also I ratify by these presents, promising to abide by the same, and guaranteeing my lord, purchaser of the said bible, against any one who would dispossess him. In ratification of which I have hereunto affixed my seal, this 5th day of the month of April, in the year of our Lord M.CCCCLXX. Herman.'* By this we perceive that since they first came into Paris, the printed bibles were elevated in price.

It happened, unfortunately, that Herman of Statten failed to obtain any legal instrument of naturalisation in France; and when he died—which he did a few years after his master Faust-his effects were confiscated as the property of a foreigner. The books intrusted to him by Schoeffer, and amounting in value to 1100 francs, were included in the confiscation. Schoeffer, however, obtained restitution through the liberality of Louis XI. It is a striking illustration of the value and scarcity of money at that period, that the king of France found it inconvenient to pay the sum-equal only to L.45, 6s. 8d. at once; but did so in two yearly instalments!

The distribution of Faust, Schoeffer, and Company's workmen at the siege of Mayence in 1462, began by this time (1470) to operate throughout Europe, by supplying printers to various continental cities. At this early time most printers sold their own books; and if we state the different periods at which printing was introduced into various countries, we shall show also when books of print began to be sold in each place. The first introduction of this invention into Italy was at Subbiaco, in 1465; into Paris, in 1469; into England (Westminster), in 1474; into Spain (Barcelona), in 1475; into Abyssinia, in 1521; into Mexico, in 1550; into the East Indies (Goa), in 1577; into Peru (Lima), in 1586;

* Dr Dibdin's Bibliotheca Spenceria, vol. i. page 16, note.