Note 197 — XVII

There were many Johns among the early printers of Mentz: John Fust, John Gutenberg, John Petersheim, John Meydenbach. When it was thought proper to acquit Fust of this accusation, John Gutenberg was selected as the man; but the discovery of records which proved that Gutenberg was making experiments in typography at Strasburg during the year 1436, compelled the withdrawal also of this accusation. Meerman, with a skill in casuistry equal to the occasion, then undertook to prove that there were two Gutenbergs—brothers, but with different surnames—Johan Gensfleisch, the elder, and Johan Gutenberg, the younger; and that it was the elder brother who betrayed Coster and revealed the secret to John Gutenberg. It was a weak artifice. German historians have fully proved that Gutenberg’s brother Frielo had nothing to do with typography; that John Gensfleisch, the elder, was an uncle, not a brother,—old, rich and blind—of all men, most incapable of any attempt at the purloining or practising of an intricate art like printing. There is no evidence to inculpate Petersheim or Meydenbach.