Note 148 — IV.—Cut Wooden, versus Cast Metal Types.

Dr. Van Der Linde infers that the Latin edition of the Speculum, wholly printed with separable types, was the first, and the one with the twenty pages of solid blocks, the second. From the fact, that the curious manuscript of the “Spiegel der behoudenis,” (written on 290 8vo. leaves of vellum), which is preserved at Haarlem, has the following inscription at the end, “Dit boec is gheeyndet int jaer ons heren MCCCC ende III ende tsestich opten XVI dach in jul. Een ave Maria on God voer die scrijver;” and that another inscription in it states, that it belonged to “Cayman Janszoen of Zierickzee, living with the Carthusians near Utrecht;” the Dr. comes to the following conclusion: “Therefore, the Speculum was written, and finished in the Dutch language at Utrecht in 1464, in the days before the introduction of the art of printing.”... “Utrecht had an episcopal see, a gymnasium, a Burgundian prince,—indeed, if hypotheses are allowed, then is that of an Utrecht origin of the Specula provisionally, the only reasonable one.”—pp. 34, 38.