DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 21 ) thus the forms of the letters were left in relief. These letters were then damped with some kind of ink, impressed on paper, and an exact copy of the original writing was the result. This process unquestionably contained the ele- mentary principles of the art of printing. But from the fact that the Chinese surrounded themselves with a huge impregnable wall, and had no commu- nication with the outer world, the invention re- mained their exclusive property. It was thus reserved in the first place for a Dutchman, and in the second for a German, to rein- vent that process which, owing to its ever-perfected methods, has become, in the course of time, the prime source of enlightenment and enjoyment to the world at large. At Haarlem in the North of Holland—a city famous for the cultivation of tulips, the rage for which at one time was so great that the sum of 9007. was paid for a single bulb—at Haarlem, in 1370, lived one Laurence Jaansen, who assumed the surname of Coster, the Dutch for sexton, his occupation. A paterfamilias, and a man of leisure, he occasionally took his grandchildren to walk in the groves of the neighbourhood. For their amuse- ment he one day cut the letters of the alphabet out of the bark of a tree with the intention of using them to spell the names of the little ones, He