which our more than Athenian love of political information constantly supplies. Of such dispatch, a Plantin would, perhaps, have denied the possibility. Books of learning, however, especially when written in the dead languages, are indeed more slowly brought forth but hardly with equal perfection. The mistaken avarice, and the gross ignorance of the modern editor, often frustrates all the past labour of printers, correctors, and commentators, who have toiled with aching eyes in the revisal of proof sheets, and in the collation of manuscripts. By one of those laudable artifices which prevent private avarice from withholding public benefits, the art was stolen from Haarlem, and brought to` Oxford by Frederic Corselles. But while we are considering the introduction of printing into England, not to commemorate the names of Bourchier, Turnour, and Caxton, who were most instrumental to it, would be an omission equally negligent and ungrateful. Nor should the tribute of praise be any longer withheld by neglect from earl Tiptoft and earl Rivers, who, at this period, were restorers and patrons of learning in our own country, and who contributed to its advancement, in imitation of their contemporary, Pius the Second in Italy, both by their munificence and example. No. CXXXVIII. On the Moral, Political, and Religious Effects of Printing, with concluding Remarks. THE literary advantages derived from the invention of printing are so obvious, that to point them out with were contained in manuscripts sometimes illegibly written, and often mutilated or corrupted, a number of men arose whose knowledge and sagacity enabled them to ascertain and exhibit, by the newly discovered art, the genuine reading. Such men were greater benefactors to mankind than many who have been more celebrated; nor is it an ill grounded glory which Italy derives from her Manutii, Germany from her Froben, France from her Stephani, the Netherlands from their Plantin, and England from her Caxton. Every student looks back with regret on those times when an Erasmus corrected what an Aldus printed; when, like the painter of antiquity, a printer exposed his production to the passenger, and solicited censure; and when the legislature of a great nation provided by a statute, with a penalty, for the correctness of publications. To prefer, with implicit attachment, all the earlier productions of the art to the more recent, were to be actuated with the narrow spirit of a typographical virtuoso; yet the truth is, what indeed was to be expected from the superior learning of those who were formerly concerned in the process, they surpass the most splendid editions of later times, in the one great excellence of correctness. It is true, indeed, that the fungous production of the modern writer, appears with a splendour of paper, and brilliancy of type, unknown in the fifteenth century; and, if the work is written in the vernacular language, and on a familiar subject, is perhaps sufficiently correct. It is true, likewise, that considering the expedition of the artisan, the degree of correctness with which the common papers of intelligence appear, is really wonderful, and affords a striking instance how much industry can effect, when stimu which our more than Athenian love of political information constantly supplies. Of such dispatch, a Plantin would, perhaps, have denied the possibility. Books of learning, however, especially when written in the dead languages, are indeed more slowly brought forth but hardly with equal perfection. The mistaken avarice, and the gross ignorance of the modern editor, often frustrates all the past labour of printers, correctors, and commentators, who have toiled with aching eyes in the revisal of proof sheets, and in the collation of manuscripts. By one of those laudable artifices which prevent private avarice from withholding public benefits, the art was stolen from Haarlem, and brought to Oxford by Frederic Corselles. But while we are considering the introduction of printing into England, not to commemorate the names of Bourchier, Turnour, and Caxton, who were most instrumental to it, would be an omission equally negligent and ungrateful. Nor should the tribute of praise be any longer withheld by neglect from earl Tiptoft and earl Rivers, who, at this period, were restorers and patrons of learning in our own country, and who contributed to its advancement, in imitation of their contemporary, Pius the Second in Italy, both by their munificence and example. No. CXXXVIII. On the Moral, Political, and Religious Effects of Printing, with concluding Remarks. THE literary advantages derived from the invention of printing are so obvious, that to point them out with But the moralist, no less than the man of letters, finds himself interested in the consequences resulting from the mechanical mode of multiplying the copies of books. To this cause, he attributes that change in the manners and sentiments which has taken place within the interval of a century or two, and which cannot escape even superficial observation. Philosophy once preserved among a chosen few, with the selfishness of an Alexander, who reprimanded Aristotle for divulging the secrets of science, has now diffused its influence on the mean as well as the great, the gay and the fair as well as the severe and studious, the merchant and the manufacturer as well as the contemplative professor. Pamphlets and manuals, on every subject of human inquiry, are circulated by the assiduous trader at a small price, among the lowest ranks of the community, the greatest part of whom have been furnished with the ability of reading by an eleemosynary education. A tincture of letters, which was once rare, and formed a shining character, has pervaded the mass of the people, and in a free country like our own, where it is not checked in its operation by political restraints, has produced remarkable effects on the general system of morality. Much good has resulted from it: happy, if it had not been mixed with that characteristic alloy of human happiness, much evil. Learning thus communicated to the vulgar, has taught the savage ferocity of gross ignorance to yield to gentleness and humanity; but it has also superinduced a general indolence, refinement, and false delicacy. It has been the means of exhibiting, to the best advantage, the image of virtue in her natural beauty; but it has also held up to view the meretricious charms of vice in the false ornaments superadded by a corrupt imagination. It has been a steady light to lighten men in the leading them into the mazes of error, and plunging them at last into the depths of misery. If it has often tempted us to boast of living in an enlightened age, it has no less frequently induced us to regret the old times of ignorant, but innocent simplicity. If we sometimes look back with a mixture of scorn and pity on the unlettered ages that preceded us; we also sometimes confess ourselves ready to renounce the pride of superior knowledge for the solid happiness of that rational probity, which, though it may not have receded, has not kept pace with our progress in scientific improvement. Here, however, the old maxim will be suggested to every one, that a good argument against the use of a thing, cannot be drawn from its abuse. It will at the same time be remembered, that the present times are ever seen through the fallacious mediums of prejudice and passion; and that the censures of the satirist may not arise from real degeneracy, but that common propensity which has, in all ages, given rise to invectives against the prevailing manners. If it is true, that improvement in knowledge is a natural and laudable object of human desires, the more general that improvement, the happier and more perfect is human nature, and the more estimable that art from which it is principally derived. But however equivocal the effects of the universal dissemination of literature on the morals of those who cannot judge and select with the same ease with which they can procure books, there is no doubt of their being beneficial among others, whose judgment is directed by liberal culture, and whose sentiments are undepraved by fashionable dissipation, Before the introduction of printing, the student, who revolted at the idea of languishing in the sloth of Monkery, had scarcely any scope for his industry and talents, but in the puerile perplexities |