is reputed, in law, the same person with the King; to imagine his death, or violate his wife, is high treason.

PRINCIPAL, the chief and most necessary part of a thing. In commerce, principal is the capital of a sum due or lent, so called in opposition to interest. It also denotes the first fund put by partners into a common stock, by which it is distinguished from the calls or accessions afterwards required.

PRINCIPAL point, in perspective, is a point in the perspective plane, upon which a line drawn from the eye perpendicular to the plane falls. It is in the intersection of the horizontal and vertical plane, and called the point of sight, and point of the eye. See PERSPECTIVE.

PRINCIPAL ray, in perspective, that which passes perpendicularly from the spectator's eye to the perspective plane. See PER

SPECTIVE.

PRINOS, in botany, winter-berry, a genus of the Hexandria Monogynia class and order. Natural order of Dumosæ. Rhamni, Jussieu. Essential character: calyx sixcleft; corolla one-petalled, wheel-shaped; berry six-seeded. There are seven species. PRINTERS, marks of. See PRINTING. PRINTING, the art of making an impression upon one body by pressing it with another. This art, in some way or other, has been known in all ages. It has been done upon wax, upon plaster, upon iron, by the ancients; their seals, their rings, their money, prove it. It has been done with wooden blocks upon cotton and silk by the Indians. Printing, therefore, in this limited sense, was common to all nations.

This art

is now divided into four distinct branches: 1. Common, or letter-press printing. 2. Rol. ling-press printing. 3. Calico-printing. 4. Stereotype-printing.

Printing by letter-press is the most curious branch of the art, and demands the most particular notice. It has been often remarked, that as seven cities in Greece disputed for the birth of Homer, so three cities in Europe, Haerlem, Strasbourg, and Mentz, claim the honour of the invention of printing. Without entering minutely into the disputes which have long agitated the minds of those who have felt a particular interest in this investigation, we state it as our opinion, that Guttemberg was the inventor of the art of printing by moveable types; that he began the art at Strasbourg, and perfected it at Mentz. In this opinion, the earliest writers who mention printing are all agreed.

That the first attempts at printing were made at Strasbourg is, we think, incontestably proved by the following circumstances. John Guttemberg entered into a partner. ship with Andrew Drizehennius, John Riff, and Andrew Heilmann, all citizens of Stras bourg, binding himself to discover to them some important secrets, whereby they should make their fortunes. Each at first contributed eighty florins, and afterwards 125. The workshop was in the house of Andrew Dritzehen, who died. Guttemberg immediately sent his servant Beildeck to Nicholas, the brother of the deceased, to request him to suffer no one to enter the workshop, lest the secret should be discovered, and the forms stolen. But this had already been done. This theft, and the claim which Nicholas made to succeed to his brother's share, occasioned a law suit, and the evidence of the servant affords explicit and incontrovertible proof in favour of Guttemberg, as the first who practised the art of printing with moveable types. The document, containing the account of this trial, &c. is dated 1439. It was published in the original German, with a Latin version, by Schopflin, in his "Vindicia Typographicæ." M. Lambinet, in his "Recherches Historiques sur l'Origine de l'Art de l'Imprimeries," published at Paris a few years ago, says, that the German is obscure, and that every one will interpret the equivocal words in favour of his own opinion. It is, however, manifest that Guttemberg expressly ordered that the forms should be broken up, and the characters dispersed; a fact clearly proving, that the art of printing was at that time a secret, and that moreover it was performed with moveable types. Guttemberg, after having sunk what he and his associates had embarked in this speculation, returned to Mentz, where he was born, and succeeded better in a partnership with Fust.

The evidence in favour of Guttemberg appearing to us decisive, we shall not enter into any examination of the claims advanced by the other candidates for the honour of being the inventor of the art of letter-press printing. The names of those persons were John Fust, of Mentz; John Mental, of Stras bourg; and L. John Koster, of Haerlem. When the city of Mentz was taken by Adol phus, Count of Nassau, in 1462, Fust, and Schoeffer, servant and son-in-law to Fast, suffered materially with their fellow townsmen. Their associates and workmen dispersed to seek their fortunes, and the art was thus

diffused over Europe. When it was first established at Paris, the copiers, finding their business so materially injured, presented a memorial of complaint to the parliament, and that tribunal, as superstitions as the people, who took the printers for conjurers, had their books seized and con fiscated. Louis XI. who, villain as he was, was the friend and patron of letters, forbade the parliament to take any farther cognizance of the affair, and restored their property to the printers.

The art of printing now began to spread itself over a great part of Europe with astonishing rapidity. It was practised at Rome in the year 1467, and the year following it was introduced into England by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent W. Turner, master of the robes, and W. Caxton, merchant, to the continent to learn the art. Turner and Caxton met with one Corseiiles, an under-workman, whom they bribed with considerable presents and large promises, to come over to England, and instruct them in the art. This business having been accomplished, a press was set up at Oxford, which was afterwards removed to St. Albans, and after that to Westminster Abbey. The learned Dr. Conyers Middleton, and others, are inclined to doubt the truth of this part of the history of printing. It is certain, that Caxton did not return immediately to England, but continued some time on the continent, following the business of a printer. Indeed, both the origin and the history of the first introduction of the art of printing into this country are involved in doubt and obscurity, and nothing has ever yet been published perfectly satisfactory on this subject. We will, therefore, proceed to an account of

THE METHOD OF PRINTING.

The 'workmen employed in this art are compositors and pressmen. The first are those persons whose business it is to range and dispose the letters into words, lines, pages, &c. The pressmen are those who, properly speaking, are the printers, as they take off the impressions from the letters after they are prepared for that purpose by the compositors, The types being provided for the compositor, he distributes each kind, or sort, by itself, into small cells or boxes, made in two wooden frames, called the cases; the upper-case and the lower-case. The cells in the upper-case are ninety-eight in number; those of the lower case are fifty-four.

The upper-case contains two alphabets of capitals; large, or full capitals, and small capitals. They also contain cells for the figures, the accented letters, the characters used in references to notes, &c.; and one cell, being a middle one in the bottom row, for the small letter, k. The capitals in this case are disposed alphabetically.

The lower-case is appropriated to the small letters, the double letters, the points, parentheses, spaces, and quadrats. The boxes of the lower-case are of different sizes; the largest being for the letters most in use; but the arrangement is not in this instance alphabetical, those letters oftenest wanted being placed nearest to the compositor's hand. As there is nothing on the outside of the boxes to denote the letters they respectively contain, it is curious to observe the dexterity manifested by the compositor in finding and taking up the letters, as he wants them, from the different cells. Each case is placed in an inclined direction, that the compositor may reach the upper-case with ease.

The instrument in which the letters are set is called a composing-stick, which consists of a long plate of brass or iron, on the side of which arises a ledge, which runs the whole length of the plate, and serves to support the letters, the sides of which are to rest against it. Along this ledge is a row of holes, for introducing a screw to lengthen or shorten the line, by moving the sliders farther from, or nearer to, the shorter ledge at the end of the composing stick. Where marginal notes are required, the two sliding pieces are opened to a proper distance from each other. Before the compositor begins to compose, he puts a thin slip of brass plate, called a rule, cut to the length of the line, and of the same height as the letter, in the composing-stick, parallel with the ledge, against which the letters are intended to bear. The compositor being thus furnished with an instrument suited to hold the letters as they are aranged into words, lines, &c. he places his copy on the upper case, just before him, and holding the stick in his left hand, his thumb being over the slider, with the right he takes up the letters, spaces, &c. one by one, and places them against the rule, while he supports them with his left thumb, by pressing them against the slider, the other hand being constantly employed in setting in other letters. Having in this manner composed a line, he takes the brass rule from behind it, and places it before the letters of which it is composed, and