in 1820; the magnificent library formed by King George III., and presented to the Museum by his successor, in accordance with an arrangement with the Treasury, in 1823; and the choice collection bequeathed by the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, received in 1847. Since this last date the most valuable bequest of Printed Books has been that of the illustrated incunabula and the Shakespeare quartos and other Elizabethan rarities, received in 1911 as part of the fifty books, in manuscript or print, which by the will of Mr. A. H. Huth the Museum was allowed to select from the collection formed by his father, Henry Huth, and augmented by himself.

The Gallery in which the library of George III. was placed, and to which it gives its name, the 'King's Library,' was specially built for the reception of this collection in 1828, and was the first portion of the present building to be erected. Here, together with some specimens from the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts, is arranged an exhibition, drawn from the several collections of the Department of Printed Books, illustrating the history of printing and bookbinding, and including also some examples of first editions of famous English books. The first half of the exhibition is intended to illustrate the introduction and development of printing in Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Spain,

and England, the order of the countries as here given being that in which the art of printing with movable types is known to have been first used in them. The history of English Printing is continued down to the end of the Nineteenth Century, and examples are also shown of books printed abroad for the English market, and of early printing in Scotland, Ireland, and the Colonies. In Cases XIII. and xiv. are shown some famous English books, and the exhibition is continued with examples of printed music (xv., xvI.), maps (XVIII.), and early book-illustration (XIX.-XXII.). Case XVII. is at present reserved for specimens of the Handel Manuscripts deposited by His Majesty the King; Cases XXIII.-XXVI. for temporary exhibitions. In Cases XXVII., XXVIII. are shown some English Royal Bindings, and in Cases xxix.XXXII. a collection of Bindings of printed books, illustrating the history of bookbinding in England, France, Italy, Germany, and Holland.

Case 1.-11.-BLOCKBOOKS

AND THE EARLIEST GERMAN PRINTING

IN the first compartment of Case I. are shown examples of books printed from solid blocks of wood, on which not only the illustrations but also the text was cut in relief. The earliest European picture bearing an undisputed date printed from a woodblock is the S. Christopher of 1423, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. When the task of cutting text as well as pictures was first achieved is not known. No extant blockbook bears a date earlier than 1470, and the long-accepted belief that letter-printing from the solid block was necessarily prior to that from movable types, and must therefore have been introduced by about 1440, is seriously challenged. A date nearer 1460, or even later, is now thought more probable. Only short works of a popular character were printed in this way from blocks, and the advantage of being able to print fresh copies, as required, without resetting, caused blockbooks to be produced as late as about 1525. Those considered the earliest were probably made in the Netherlands and the district of the lower Rhine, and were printed only on one side of each leaf, the impression being taken by rubbing, with a dabber or burnisher, the back of a sheet of paper laid on the thinly inked woodblock. The later blockbooks were printed in a press on both sides of the paper, with thicker and blacker ink.

When printing with movable types first began is still obscure. Contemporary documents show that experiments with some kind of printing with separate letters were being made at Avignon in 1444, and there are references to the results of other experiments at about the same date in Holland, which have been connected by a very confused tradition with the name of Lourens

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Janszoon Coster of Haarlem. The first type-printed documents which bear a printed date are the earliest issues of the two Indulgences here shown (Case I. Nos. 5 and 6). Earlier still than these are the fragments of a Calendar (now at Wiesbaden), which if intended to apply exclusively to any single year must be assigned to 1448, of a 'Sibyllenbuch' (one leaf at the Gutenberg Museum at Mainz), and of several editions of the most widely used schoolbook of the day, that of Aelius Donatus, ' De octo partibus orationis.' Of these last an example is here shown (Case I. No. 4). These early pieces can only be assigned to Johann Gutenberg, to whom nearly contemporary evidence ascribes the invention of the art of printing with movable types, and who was certainly the first German to practise it. The typographical authorship of the two Indulgences is disputed. In 1455 a goldsmith named Johann Fust obtained judgment against Gutenberg in an action for the repayment, with interest, of two loans of 800 gulden each, advanced in 1450 and 1452 in connection with printing. A witness in this action, Peter Schoeffer, worked in partnership with Fust from 1457 to the latter's death about ten years later, was said by his son to have received Fust's daughter in marriage as a reward for his new discoveries (adinventionibus), and in 1468 allowed the claim to be put forward on his behalf that by his skill in engraving (arte sculpendi) he had outdistanced both the Johns, i.e. Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust, who had started before him. The explanation which (though far from certain) gives the fullest weight to these facts suggests that Schoeffer proved his skill by cutting for Gutenberg the excellent small type used in the earlier of the two Indulgences, and was then bought over by Fust, who by the autumn of 1454 had good reason to despair of getting either money or books from Gutenberg. For Fust, Schoeffer may then have produced the second Indulgence, and the two together have printed the fine Latin Bible (Case I. No. 7), with 42 lines to a column, which is known to have been in existence before August 1456. Gutenberg, though temporarily beggared by the lawsuit of 1455, seems to have found fresh financial support, and it was