learning in the fifteenth century, and for the cultivation of
all the arts and sciences connected with its cultivation.

The downfall of the Roman Empire in the east and the discovery of the
art of printing happened about the same time. Scholars had long trembled
in view of the approach of Mahomet the second. Constantinople was
captured by the Turks in 1458; then Chrysoloras, Gaza of Thessalonica,
Demetrius Chalcondyles, Johannes Lascaris, Callistus, Constantius,
Johannes Andronicus, and many other learned Greeks, fled into Italy for
protection, where they found, at Florence, several Greek professors who
had been persuaded by Cosmo de Medici to settle in that city. They
settled in Florence and there interpreted the ancient writings which had
been kept in the eastern metropolis. The best Italian scholars fell in
with them and soon became enamored with the spirit of poetry, eloquence
and history. Here a better philosophy was soon taken up, and the cunning
of scholasticism, as known in the empty speculations of metaphysicians,
gave place to the more profitable principles of moral philosophy. The
study of the Greek language was introduced in England by William Grocyn,
a fellow of New College, Oxford, who died about the year 1520.

"To the mechanical genius of Holland we must ascribe the discovery of
the art of printing, for the original inventor was Laurentius John
Coster, of Haerlem, who made his first essay with wooden types about the
year 1430. The art was communicated by his servant to John Faust and
John Guttenberg, of Mentz. It was carried to perfection by Peter
Shoeffer, the son-in-law of Faustus, who invented the modes of casting
metal types."

Trihemius, in his Chronicle, written A.D. 1514, says he had it from the
mouth of Peter Shoeffer that the first book they printed with movable
types was the Bible, about the year 1450, in which the expenses were so
great that 4,000 florins were expended before they completed twelve
sheets. The author of a manuscript, Chronicle of Cologne, compiled in
1499, also says that he was told by Ulric Zell, of Cologne, who himself
introduced printing there in 1466, that the Latin Bible was first begun
to be printed in the year of Jubilee, 1450, and that it was in large
type. Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall possessed a copy of this curious Bible
in three volumes, bound in morocco. In his catalogue it was valued at
L126. There, is a beautiful copy of this work in the Bodleian (or
Bodleyan) L