V. Introduction of Printing into the Philippines.

As regards the introduction of printing itself into that archipelago, wherein (as writers agree) the first press was set to work in the opening years of the seventeenth century, yet there is dispute as to two points,—the precise date, namely, when the printing-press was first established there, and the country whence it was carried to those islands.

Arte y Reglas | de la Lengua | Tagala. | Por el Padre. F. Fray Francisco de. S. Joseph de la | Ordē de. S. Domingo Predicador General en la Prouincia | de. N. Señora del Rosario de las Islas Filipinas. |

[Here the Grand Seal of the Dominican Order (in wood) with this legend:]

| Mihi avtem ab | sit glorianisi incruce Dñi Ñri IESVXPIAD—| GAL. 6. |

| En el Partido de Bataan | galo, Año de 1610. |

Why, then, with this sample of early Philippine typography before his eyes, presumably yet extant on the shelves of the Museo de Ultramar, Retana (whose interesting description of Blancas’ Arte of 1610 will shortly follow) should have deemed it right to omit all mention of it in his latest bibliography, wherein, so far as I can read, there is not the slightest reference to it, seems truly a literary conundrum—one that, for me at least, baffles all power of solution.

However, accepting facts in the world of letters, as in the objective universe of God’s creation, as they stand, as we see them and know them, with the guidance of Retana himself, we now proceed (as promised) to a description of this Tagal grammar, the earliest specimen of Philippine typography known at least to be extant.

Blancas’ Arte is a book printed on rice paper—papel de arroz—with a preface of sixteen unnumbered pages and three hundred and eleven (of text) numbered, that is, three hundred and twenty-seven in all, yet in one instance wrongly paged, since the observant eye of our bibliographer has detected that what really is page 157 in the Arte has been printed “156,” the body of the grammar thus comprising, not 311 pages, as the printer has made it, but in reality 312.

On the verso of the title (that is, page 2) are given various licenses to print, issued among other officials by Miguel Ruiz of Binondoc (an old form apparently for the town now known as Binondo), this permit being dated February 6, 1609. Then follow the licenses of Father Blancas’ own provincial superior, dated Manila, June 3, and another official’s, whose name (Retana says) is missing by reason of the page having been torn, dated from Quiapo, on (month too wanting) 24, of the same year—1609—with the former.

On the third page, with the date July 28, 1609, we read the names of several Manila church-officers, eight in all, licensing Father Blancas’ Arte, among them the dean of the cathedral-chapter of Manila, the archdeacon Arellano, and Pedro de Rojas, who, as secretary apparently of that body, adds his attestation to the chapter-action above.

From pages 4 to part of 7 is a Tagal Hymn to the Holy Virgin, Mother of Our Lord; then following the finale of this hymn, a prayer to God, Almighty Giver of all intellectual light, for power to be granted His servants to learn of His wisdom and ability to tell it to the Tagals.

So much, then, for the still more ancient work than Bugarín’s dictionary of 1630.

But how much earlier than 1610, date of the Tagal Arte, or in what part of the Philippine archipelago, the press was at work, is a puzzle, that relying on the only authorities bearing in any manner on the priority of the press, we shall now seek to unravel.

The other is a history (published a few years ago) entitled La Orden de Predicadores, of the Dominicans (Madrid, 1884), by a member of that brotherhood, Father Martínez-Vigil, at one time resident at Manila, where he held a chair in the university of that city, and now (1900) bishop of Oviedo in Spain.

We shall, therefore, summon these two witnesses in the question in point of primeval Philippina.

But let us return to Luzon. If Aduarte is right in his assertion that Juan de Vera was “the first printer in the Philippines,” then the press was at work prior to the year 1610, and the Tagal Arte (just described) is not the forerunner of Philippine imprints.

So much for one of Retana’s oracles. Now pass we on to consider the second and only other writer that, with original sources at hand, has treated of this bibliographical problem, Father Martínez-Vigil, who, in the story of his order (named ahead) mentions this fact, that when resident at Manila he was shown a very rich codex—a MS.—of over six hundred folios, on Chinese paper, in perfect condition, for many reasons (all duly set forth) of unassailable authenticity, and albeit (he remarks) somewhat hard to decipher, except to a palæontologist, yet written with marvelous clearness and neatness of penmanship. In this MS., which (the Father says) was written during the years 1609–1610, besides an account of all notable occurrences in the islands from 1581 to 1606, with which latter year the story ends, four years earlier, you should observe, than Pinpin’s Arte of 1610, are also to be read these words: “Los que primero imprimieron fueron del órden de San Agustín el P. Fr. Juan de Villanueva, algunos tratadillos; mas del órden de Sto. Domingo el P. Fr. Francisco de San Joseph cosas mayores y de mas tomo el primero que escribió en lengua araya fué de la Compañia.”

Whereof, the meaning substantially is, that “the first printers (in the Philippines) were of the Order of St. Augustine, among them Father Juan de Villanueva, publisher of some small treatises—tratadillos; then others of the Order of St. Dominic, of whom Father Francisco de San Joseph printed works of larger bulk, and was the first of his brethren to write in araya (Tagal?).”

Here then, in these quotations from two Dominican monuments—Aduarte’s history and the MS. (quoted by Martínez-Vigil), the latter ending with events of the year 1606—you have all that antiquity tells of the introduction of the printing-press into the Philippines.

In brief, that is, Father Gaspar says that “in Lubao convent, where the order maintained a school of grammar and rhetoric, there was a press (brought from Japan), whereon many books were printed in Spanish, Pampanga, and Tagal.” May we not, then, be justified in surmising that this Lubao press was the one referred to in the MS. adduced by Martínez-Vigil, that attributes to Augustinians the introduction of typography into the Philippines? And, moreover, since the said ancient MS. ends with the year 1606, that this Lubao press was at work at a still earlier date?

But, enough. With no originals at hand, we feel disinclined to pursue this topic further as to the priority of printing in the islands, nor do we care to press the question, whether, namely, the first book of Philippine manufacture was Bugarín’s dictionary of 1630, Blancas’ Arte of 1610, or the Lubao tratadillos of 1606.

In our own colonies (we may observe) printing was introduced, first at Cambridge in Massachusetts, in 1638; while in Pennsylvania the first book printed—an almanac—by William Bradford, of Philadelphia, is dated 1685, a full half century later, that is, than the introduction of this “art preservative of arts” into Malaysia.