XVIII
The Growth of the Legend.
Perversion by Bertius … Romance of Scriverius … Date of Invention removed to 1428 … Illustration of First Statue to Coster … Date of 1420 given by Boxhorn … Rooman's Date of 1430 … History and Chronology of Seiz … Doubts of Hollanders … Discrepancies in the Dates on Medals … Meerman and his Unsatisfactory System … Fac-similes of Medals … Koning and his Prize Essay… Dr. De Vries's Theory … Radical Disagreements of the Authors … All Versions Enlargements of the Legend as given by Junius … An Article of Patriotic Faith in Holland … Monuments to Coster. Illustration of Last Statue.
At the end of the sixteenth century, the legend had two strong supports—the authority of an eminent scholar, and the patriotic pride of the Hollanders, who accepted it as truthful history. It did not, however, pass the ordeal of criticism unharmed: the weaker points of the legend were exposed by many German authors, and the weight of their objections compelled Dutch writers to attempt new explanations. Bertius,[1] writing in 1600, and evidently perplexed by the carelessness with which Junius had noticed Coster's first experiments, says, but without producing any proof, that "Coster invented the art of printing with engraved blocks or xylography. … the three-fold villain John Faust stole the invention." Here we see the unavoidable result of Junius's
- ↑ Wolf, Monumenta Typographica, vol. i, pp. 193 and 621.
