never have attained their present proud preeminence amongst the nations of the earth. at present be detected by the most zealous philologist. Moreover, each author wrote in his own dialect, or to speak more correctly, in the pure native English of his own part of England. Hence the diction of an author of those times in many cases appears to us more archaic than the diction of his contemporaries, or even of some of his predecessors. But in proportion as men of letters became familiar in their reading with the nearly uniform English language of printed books, they followed or approached that uniform English in their own writings. The language continued to receive changes by the introduction of new words and phrases, and by the zeal for imitating Latin models, which grew to excess in many of our prose writers not long after the close of the Fifteenth century. Many more modifications of etymology, and some of syntax, took place before the modern English language can be said to have been substantially established throughout the country; but that amount of uniform establishment never could have been effected at all, without the intervention and the extended use of the art of printing."-Sir Edward S. CREASY'S History of England. 8vo. 1870. vol. ii. pp. 556-7. What the Art of Printing did in this respect for England, it likewise did in all other countries to which it was carried, in greater or lesser degrees, according to the amount of freedom it enjoyed, or of restriction to which it, and the people to whom it spoke, were subjected. Religion, Arts, Sciences, Commerce, and Civilization, have had the greatest scope, and been most fully developed, wherever the Press has been the least restricted. Its free action is as necessary to the well being of a State, as the free action of the lungs is to the well being of the human body. This is well illustrated in the history of unhappy Poland, where the Liberty of the Press was first proclaimed in the Sixteenth century. But the narrow-minded bigots who succeeded the monarch who proclaimed it, beheld in it a portent foreboding evil to themselves; and they not only speedily abrogated it, but followed up that step with measures destructive of the most cherished privileges of the Polish nation.* The result was fatal, as well to the country as to the kings who misruled it. Corrupted, crushed, enslaved,-every vent for * l'ide Reformation of Poland, by Count V. KRASINSKI, 2 vols. 8vo. Nisbet, 1838-10. the expression of patriotic feeling choked up, -and the voice of the people stifled by the stern gripe of the strong hand of the despot,the doom went forth, and the record against her was written as against Great Babylon of old,-"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN." "God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it. Thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting. Thy kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians." The Freedom of the Press is the birthright of the Anglo-Saxon race, the hard-won palladium of all other rights; and yet, while there are few amongst that race who do not rightly appreciate the blessings flowing therefrom, the great majority are ignorant of the origin or the history of the Art, the privileges of which they so highly prize, and over which, with watchful jealousy, they guard against every thing that bears the semblance of encroachment. This ignorance is doubtless, in the main, owing to the expensive nature and technical character of many of the works in which such information has been published. These works, forming of themselves a distinct class of literature, are neither few in number, nor wanting in interest. Some of the more important are indeed hardly procurable; and in the far East, where works of the kind must be imported for individual use, writing upon special subjects of European lore is beset with difficulties from which authors in the mother country are happily relieved.* Acting however, on the maxim of Lord Bacon, "that every man is a debtor to his profession, from the which as men do, of course, seek to receive countenance and * For assistance in this matter, I am much indebted to my father, Mr. ROBERT SKEEN, under whose able teachings. I was thoroughly instructed in, and made a master of my craft-the Art of Printing. I have also to acknowledge, with thanks, the material aid received from Mr. H. W. CASLON, the eminent Type-founder, as well as from my publishers, Messrs. TRÜBNER and Co., of Paternoster Row. C profit, so ought they, of duty, to endeavour themselves by way of amends to be a help thereunto," I have spared no pains in this endeavour; and am not without hope of imparting to my readers some interesting particulars concerning the origin and history of the Noble Art "That stamps, renews, and multiplies at will, thus creating "a moral atmosphere which is, as it were, the medium of intellectual life, on the quality of which, according as it may be salubrious or vicious, the health of the public mind depends."* Printing from surfaces of wood, engraved in relief, is an art which appears to have been known in China from time immemorial. Its origin there is hidden in the obscurity of * SOUTHEY'S "Colloquies." |