(Vol. iv., p. 148.)
More than a few of your contributors have, I trust, concurred with me in
hoping, if not expecting, that something will be done to effect the
object presented to our notice through M.'s most judicious suggestion.
It will be admitted that now, for about thirty years, the study of the
history of early printing has been commonly neglected, frequently
despised. The extent of the advance or decline of any science in general
estimation can always be accurately computed by means of a comparative
view of the prices demanded at different periods for the works which
treat of it; and it is unquestionable, that books on bibliography, which
once were highly rated, have latterly become (at least to those who have
them already) provokingly cheap. In fact, unless some measures be
adopted to revive a taste for this important branch of learning, the
next generation will be involved in decrepitude and darkness with
respect to typographical antiquities.
M. has incidentally asked, "Do _different books_ circulate under the
title of _Fasciculus Temporum_?" I should say, strictly speaking,
Certainly not. But there is a sense in which the supposition is
perfectly true; for we not only meet with the genuine _Fasciculus_ of
1474, by Wernerus Rolevinck de Laer, but have also to encounter the same
work as it was interpolated by Heinricus Wirezburg de Vach, and
published for the first time in 1481. Ratdolt's edition of 1484, which
M. used, does not contain the remarkable substituted passage in which
the author was compelled to record the _invention_, instead of the
_propagation_, of printing; and it would appear, therefore, that that
impression does not belong to the Wirezburgian class. I have been
surprised at finding that Pistorius and Struvius have reprinted the
sophisticated, and not the authentic, book; and it is curious to see the
introduction of an "&c." along with other alterations in the account
given of the death of Henry VII. from the reception of a poisoned Host.
M. will instantly perceive that we cannot safely trust in a _Fasciculus
Temporum_ of, or after, the date 1481; but I can answer for the
agreement of the impression of Colon. 1479 with the _editio princeps_.
The citations respecting the Gutenberg Bible are not from the
_Fasciculus Temporum_, but from _Die Cronica van der hilliger Stadt van
Coellen_, A.D. 1499; the testimony of which (or rather of Ulric Zell
related therein) as to the origin of printing is very well known through
the Latin translation of it supplied by B. de Mallinckrot. (Clement,
vii. 221.; Meerman, ii. 105.; Marchand, _Hist. de l'Imp._, ii. 4. 104.;
Lambinet, 132.)