Note 108 — Early Typography. CHAPTER IV.
Reading edition
“If,” says Santander, “we examine all the authors without exception who have written in favour of Haarlem, we shall not find the smallest proof, the least contemporaneous document, in support of their pretensions; all that we read in them, all that they allege, reduces itself to the narrative of Junius, which was itself composed from light hearsay evidence, and which each writer comments upon according to his fancy.” &c., &c.
“What!” exclaims Ottley, “are the fragments of Donatuses, found in Holland, and printed in the same type as the Speculum, to be considered as no evidence whatever of early printing in that country,” &c., &c., &c.—Invention of Printing, p. 117.
“Coster was the first to use moveable [cast metal] types.... This view is not only supported by one of the earliest writers on the subject, but by ... Ulric Zell,” who says “Item: although this art was discovered at Mentz at first in the manner in which it is now commonly used, yet the first example of it was found in Holland,” &c.—Blades’s Life, &c. of W. Caxton, vol. i. p. 59.