The mode of printing adopted by the Chinese, is more simple, less expensive, and till recent improvements more expeditious than our own. Stereotype, or block printing, is still almost entirely practised by them, and their language, consisting principally of arbitrary characters, they have not deemed it necessary either to cut or cast an assortment of types, to distribute or recompose as other nations do, but have in preference cut the characters for each separate page of each separate work.

The first part of the process is, to write out the page in the square form of the character, and carefully to lay it on the block, which has already been smoothly planed, and spread over with a glutinous paste; the paper is then rubbed until it is quite dry. As much of the paper as can be got away is now removed, when the figures it bore are seen adhering to the block in an inverted form; somewhat dim indeed in appearance; but the application of oil brings them out fully and vividly. The reader will probably recognise a similar process being applied to the transferring of engravings to wood prepared for the purpose, a fashionable amusement among the ladies of England a few years ago. After the paper has been thus removed, the first operation of the Chinese engraver is, to cut straight down by the sides of the letters, from top to bottom, removing the vacant spaces between the lines, with the exception of the stops. All the strokes that run horizontally are then engraved, afterwards the oblique, and then the perpendicular ones throughout the entire line. This prevents the necessity for turning the block round for every letter, and the consequent loss of time. The workman now proceeds to the central parts, and, very shortly afterwards the page, usually containing five hundred characters, is complete. One hundred characters a-day is the compliment for an ordinary engraver, and for this labour his remuneration is only sixpence.

The printing process is no less curious. The page is placed in the centre of a table; on one side is a pot of liquid ink with a brush, and on the other, a pile of paper. In the front stands a piece of wood, bound round with the fibrous parts of a species of palm, which serves for a rubber. The block being inked with the brush, a sheet of dry paper is taken with the left hand, and placed carefully on it; the printer then hastily seizes the rubber,

with his right hand, and passes it over the paper once or twice very rapidly, and the impression is produced. Immediately the printed sheet is removed, another is laid on, and another, and another, in rapid succession, until the whole number to be printed are thrown off. A Chinese printer thus without wheel, screw, lever, or even a wedge, will produce no fewer than three thousand impressions in a day. The process being thus far completed, the pages are folded exactly in the middle, then collated, adjusted, stitched, cut, and sewn, and for the whole the printer receives but ninepence a thousand.

The apparatus of a Chinese printer consists merely of his gravers, blocks, and brushes; all of which he may carry on his shoulder, and travel without difficulty from place to place. With paper and lamp-black he does not burden himself, as he can purchase these articles wherever he may wish to sojourn, and by merely borrowing a table, he may print his editions by hundreds or thousands, as he finds a market for them.

The facilities of the Chinese, too, are great for printing cheaply; their paper is thin, ten sheets of demy size cost only one halfpenny, and the small wages paid allow books to be produced for a mere trifle. Europeans of course pay double for the same works. It has been said that in China there are more books and more people to read them than in any other country in the world; it would, therefore, be natural to argue that they ought to be the wisest of the human race. But while printing has enabled them to multiply copies of their ancient books, it has rather tended to discourage the compilation of new works, and to confine them to an imitation of antiquity, thus rivetting the chains in which superstition and custom have held them. But a new day has dawned on China; the recent edict of the emperor gives freedom to a profession of Christianity, the heralds of the gospel may therefore go forth offering, with the living voice, its rich and precious blessings, "without money and without price,' while in tracts, and books, and especially the Holy Scriptures, the people of that vast empire may read in their own tongue all that is needful to make them wise for eternity.

Europeans are not indebted to the Chinese for their knowledge of the art of printing, for before the passage to the east by the Cape of Good Hope was dis

The earliest print from a wood block of which we have any certain date, is in the collection of earl Spencer. It represents the father of St. Christopher carrying the infant Saviour across the sea. The date is 1423. It was found pasted within one of the leaves of a Latin manuscript of the year 1417, in one of the most ancient convents in Germany.

At the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Italians, Germans, Flemings, and Dutch began to engrave on wood and copper. Books of images, as they were called, were now produced, some without text, and some with it. The pages in these books were placed in pairs facing each other, and, as only one side of the leaves was impressed, the blank pages came also opposite to one another, which, being placed together, gave the whole the appearance of a book printed in the ordinary way on both sides the paper. Such, even to the present day, is one mode of bookprinting in China. In this instance, the text corresponding to the figures is sometimes placed below, sometimes on the side, and not unfrequently they proceed as a label from the mouth of the person or figure.

It

Of all the works printed from wooden blocks, the "Biblia Pauperum," or "Poor Man's Bible," is perhaps the rarest as well as the most ancient; and is a specimen of the books of Images without text. is a manual, or a kind of catechism of the Bible for the use of young persons, and, as its name denotes, of the common people, who were thus enabled to obtain, at a comparatively low price, an imperfect knowledge of some of the events recorded in the Scriptures. Being much in use, and the copies being scarce, those now extant in the libraries of the curious are in a bad condition; but who can cast his eye upon one of these mutilated volumes without feelings of the liveliest interest?

This "Poor Man's Bible" consists of

forty plates, which serve as illustrations of the sentiments extracted from the Scriptures, the whole being engraved on wood on one side of the leaves of paper, so that when folded they are placed opposite to each other. Each plate, or page, contains four busts, two at the top and two at the bottom, together with their historical subjects. The two upper busts represent the prophets, or other persons, whose names are always written beneath them; the two lower busts are anony mous. The middle of the plates, which are all marked by letters of the alphabet, in the centre of the uppermost compartment, is occupied by three historical pictures, one of which is taken from the New Testament; this is the type, or principal subject, and occupies the centre of the page between the two anti-types of other subjects which allude to it. The inscriptions which occur at the top and bottom of the page, consist of texts of Scripture and Leonine verses, the ends of which rhyme to the middle, and are so named from Leo, the inventor. Of all the ancient "Books of Images," with text, the one called "Speculum Salutis," is considered the most perfect as to design and execution. It is a collection of historical passages of Scripture with a few from uninspired history, having some relation to biblical subjects. So popular was this "Mirror of Salvation," that it was translated into German, Flemish, and other languages, and very fully pointed. Two Latin editions are extant without date. The impressions in both are sixtythree in number, and are executed from the same blocks, but in that which is reputed to be the most ancient the explanations of twenty-five not in very regular succession, are printed from entire wooden blocks; while the remaining thirty-eight and the five leaves of preface, are wholly executed with type.

The great step made towards perfecting the art of printing is traced to the year 1456. To the honour of its completion the claims of different individuals have been advanced. The Dutch historian, Hadrianus Junius, traces it to Laurentius Coster, an inhabitant of the city of Haarlem. The story is, while walking in the wood near the city, according to the general custom of the citizens and men of leisure on holidays, he cut out letters on the bark of the beech, and stamped marks on paper, "in the manner of a seal," until at length he formed a few lines for his own amusement, and for the use of the

children of his brother-in-law. It is also said, that by the aid of a relative, he invented a thicker and more adhesive ink, and with it he was able to print blocks and figures, to which he added letters. But the pretensions of Coster rest on the narrative of Junius. The authors who have written in favour of Haarlem being the birth-place of printing have not a single contemporary document by which their statement can be sustained.

Trithemius lived near to the time in which this art originated, and as he was careful in deriving his intelligence from the purest sources, his statements are entitled to particular respect. Referring to the year 1450, he says, that about this time the art of printing and casting single type was found in the city of Mentz, by John Guttenberg, who, having spent his whole estate in the discovery, received the advice and assistance of John Faust and others. "Having begun," he continues, "with cutting characters of the letters upon wooden planks, in their right order, and completed their forms, they printed a vocabulary, but could make no farther use of these forms, because there was no possibility of separating the letters which were engraved on the planks. To this succeeded a more ingenious invention; for they found out a way of stamping every letter of the Latin alphabet, in what they called matrices, from which they afterwards cast their letters either in copper or tin, hard enough to be printed upon, which they first cut with their own hands. It is certain that this art met with no small difficulty from the beginning of its invention, as I heard thirty years ago, from the mouth of Peter Schoeffer de Gernsheim, citizen of Mentz, and son-in-law to the first inventor of the art. For when they went about printing the Bible, before they had worked off the third quire, it had cost them already more than four thousand florins. But the aforesaid Peter Schoeffer, then servant and afterwards son-in-law to the first inventor, John Faust, being a person of great ingenuity, discovered an easier way of casting the letters, and perfected the art as we now have it." On Guttenberg, therefore, rests the honour of originating the art of printing with separate types; to Schoeffer is due the credit of improving what he accomplished, while Faust may be regarded as the patron of both.

In these efforts thus made, the object, so far as possible, was to resemble the characters used by the scriveners of that

time; and very probably this circumstance led to the story of Faust's selling the first printed Bibles for written ones, in Paris, and of his being charged with magic, in producing them so rapidly, so cheaply, and so exactly alike. The similarity to the manuscript works of the time was much favoured by the circumstance, that all the capital letters were left to be delineated with the pen, and decorated by the process of illumination,- -a fashion generally practised by the most ingenious artists on books then known.

The collection of types possessed by even the first-rate printers at this time were very defective, and far from including the necessary varieties for ordinary purposes. Abbreviations in spelling, and blanks left to be filled up with the pen were very common; Greek characters, particularly, were of much later introduction than the original types, which were in rude Gothic, mixed with the letter called "Secretary." The first points used were only the colon and the full stop, as still retained in some of the old versions of the Psalms; the appearance of the hyphen, where words are broken at the end of lines, and even the spacing out of the lines themselves to an equal length, are indications of improvement in the art. An intermixture of rubrics or red letters was very common at an early period. The character now called Italic was invented by Aldus, a Venetian printer, and called from him Aldine; it was used in printing quotations, until set aside in this respect by the double commas, or Guillemets, so termed after their inventor, a French printer.

The introduction of this art into England and the labours of Caxton must form the topic of a future paper. S.

ENGLISH HISTORY.

REIGN OF GEORGE III. 1793 To 1801.

An important period now comes under consideration-one of the most momentous, not only in the history of England, but of the world-and during which the annals of Britain are connected with the history of the whole earth. The lesser manifestations of evil which usually agitate men are lost in the outbreak that devastated all nations. Although half a century has since passed, the Christian historian is not yet able clearly to discern the immediate causes, while he feels

that their results are not yet fully ascertained. Like the prophet of old, he has yet to stand upon the mount before the Lord; and though the stormy wind and the earthquake may have passed, he hears not as yet, the still, small voice; he cannot but apprehend that the fire is yet behind. But he looks forward in faith-he believes it is, and will be, a purifying fire -that the Lord will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, (Mal. iii. 2, 3)-that his people will be cleansed, that they may offer to him an offering in righteousness, pleasant and acceptable unto the Lord, and that all shall not be utterly consumed. Having this principle for his guidance, the historian may proceed to contemplate the horrible scenes of confusion of which we are about to take a brief survey; he thereby has a clue to guide him, and he will be more than ever led to adore the Most High, who still, as of old, "ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men," Dan. iv. 17. He will see one spring up, as Nebuchadnezzar of old, a mighty conqueror, whose greatness reached unto the heavens, and his dominion to the end of the earth. Yet, like the Assyrian monarch, this mighty tree was hewn down, and only its stump left in the earth, bound as with a band of iron and brass. He acknowledged not the Lord, like the Assyrian, and he was left to decay and perish, like the stump of a newly-cleared allotment.

The beginning of the year 1793 was, indeed, an anxious period in England, and throughout all the continent of Europe. The faces of men already gathered blackness, and, to discerning minds, it was evident that a spirit was about to break forth from France, that would produce most important changes throughout the surrounding nations, though none anticipated the extent of the devastation that was to follow.

We may now mark how God had caused this spirit of revolution to be nourished by the efforts to suppress the doctrines of his word, in several countries of Europe, and in all to weaken its influence-how superstition, prevailing against those truths, had extinguished, or wholly obscured, the light of the Reformation, fostering a spirit of infidelity and atheism, which at length overturned the whole fabric of superstition, and for a time took its place, and how the Almighty said to that proud flood, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here

shall thy proud waves be stayed." The believer may from hence learn to look to the Most High with greater confidence, in any future hour of darkness—but at that time all was confused; neither the long line of causes, nor the probable results to which they led, could be traced. Men could only see what was immediately before them, and they could only act on what they knew. Even the small body of real Christians then in England had only indistinct views; but Newton, Romaine, and other believers then living, expressed in their writings their trust in almighty wisdom and power.

The former observed, in a private letter, written at that time, "The French affairs have taken an unexpected turn, but as their plan is founded in atheism, and defiance of God, and is in many parts of it contrary not only to Scripture but to nature, and as they have taken a strange delight in murders and massacres, I think when they have as instruments effected his purposes, which are probably very different from anything they are aware of, a day of account and retribution will come. Their attempt to establish a government, in which a regard to the great God shall have no place, is, I believe, the first experiment of the kind that ever was made. The heathens have always known that man is unmanageable, without some hold upon the conscience; and though their religions were false, they were, as to the purposes of civil govern nent, better than the proud schemes of French philosophers. Their views are not only impious, but in the highest degree foolish.'

It is well, both for ministers and private Christians, to have as little to do with politics as possible. It is a pit that has swallowed up the life and spirit, if not the very form of the religion of many professors. The Lord reigneth, and every issue will be directed by infinite wisdom and goodness, without our interference, unless he plainly puts it upon us as a duty. And can we wish to be under better management? It is true, He usually works by instruments, but there are some services which are not good enough for his own children. He can employ such men as composed the bulk of the French convention for labourers and scourgers. Sennacherib, with his subservient blasphemers, executed the Divine will, no less than Hezekiah by his prayers. And the proud Assyrians could do no more; they were thrown aside