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I cannot more fitly close this preliminary chapter than by quoting from the MS. note-books of Henry Bradshaw the opening sentences of his article ‘Typography’ for the Encyclopædia Britannica, an article which unfortunately was never completed.

‘Typography was, in the eyes of those who first used it, the art of multiplying books, of writing by means of single types capable of being used again and again, instead of with a pen, which, of course, could only produce one book at a time.ssss1

ssss1 This is clearly brought before us by the words of the first printers at Avignon, ‘ars artificialiter scribendi,’ a phrase used several times over in speaking of their new invention.

‘The art of multiplying single sheets, for which woodcut blocks could be used to serve a temporary purpose, may be looked upon as an intermediate stage, which may have given the idea of typography. When the reproduction of books had long passed out of the exclusive hands of the monasteries into the hands of students or hangers-on of the universities, any invention of this kind would be readily and rapidly taken up. When there was no Greek press in Paris, we find Georgius Hermonymus making a living by constant copying of Greek books for the scholars who were so eager for them. So Reuchlin in the same way supported himself by copying.