Note 149 — IV.—Cut Wooden, versus Cast Metal Types.

Seven different kinds of types of the Speculum school have been identified, and these are used in 43 different specimens, many of which are second and subsequent editions. It is not however, material to the validity of the argument, that the whole of these seven different kinds of types should be proved to have been made of wood; it is enough, in the absence of the actual types themselves, that there is reasonable evidence, from their appearance in print, as well as from the probabilities of the case, that some of them were so made. To argue, that because Trithemius, Bergellanus, J. F. Faust, or others, may have misrepresented, unintentionally or otherwise, some of the leading facts in connection with the origin, or the inventors, of typography, therefore, on this one point of the original use of wooden letters, in which they all agree, they are not to be believed, is unworthy of one who assumes the functions of, and desires to be looked up to as, a sound historical critic.