famous is the university. They commonly carry strangers to the physic-school; and in the anatomy-hall you may see a great number of skeletons of men and beasts, many natural rarities, and other curiosities, as plants, fruits, animals, arms, strange habits, pictures, mummies, curious works, urns, idols, &c. I fear I should hardly be believed, if I related the story of a Prussian peasant, which is here painted. He had swallowed a very large knife, so that they were forced to cut open his stomach to get it out, after which he lived eight years. This knife is about seven inches long, including the handle, and about an inch wide at the broadest part. At the side of it is written, "Annorum 22, deglutivit cultrum hujus magnitudinis, Anno 1635, 29 Man." It is added, that Daniel Schuabius took out the knife the 9th of July following, in the presence of such and such physicians, whose names are there mentioned. The knife, to my knowledge, is still kept in a cabinet of rarities at Konigsberg. *

In the midst of the hall are the bones of an unfortunate thief, whom they derided to extremity, after they hanged him; they fixed his skeleton a-straddle upon that of an ox, because he had been a cow-stealer; they put his feet into shoes made of the skin of another thief, and his body into a shirt made of his own bowels.

The physic garden is not far from hence. A great number of rarities are still to be seen in the gallery of this garden, and in the cabinet, called the "Indian Cabinet," to which this gallery leads. I observed, among other things, an ape and a cat, which came into the world with wings, the hand of a mermaid,† a starling with long ears, a monster which issued out of a hen's egg, a piece of money of pasteboard, made at Leyden, when it was besieged by the Spaniards in 1574, and a serpent brought from Surinam, on whose skin are several natural figures, which resemble some Arabic characters. I make this last observation, because our guide very much admired this little wonder of nature: but, to speak freely, I find nothing singular in this, no more than on the back of common mackarels; or in the Greek letters which are formed, as some fancy, by the turnings and windings of the Meander. There is so universal and so odd a diversity of such conformations in the world, that it would be easy to find the like figures almost on the first thing we met with, if we would but look for them.

HAERLEM.-Haerlem is very large and very agreeable; and the linen and tape which are made here, have for a long time been its chief trade; but I hear that, at present, they have a great manufacture of silk stuffs. The great church (dedicated to St. Bavon)

*Instances of this nature are not, it is true, very common; but this appears to be too well authenticated to admit of doubt. There is another knife in the Museum at Vienna, which was extracted from the stomach of a Bohemian, in 1602. It had been in the stomach nine months.-EDITOR.

↑ In the Museum of Mr. Brookes, the anatomist, there is a skeleton of the head of the mermaid, which is, in fact, a species of seal.-EDITOR.

and the town house, are the stateliest buildings; and the wood of tall trees, with its long and straight walks, is one of the principal ornaments of the town.

Haerlem boasts of having given birth to Laurence Coster, who, if you will believe the people, was the first inventor of printing. But we know that John Guttenburg, of Strasburg, disputes that invention with Coster; and that the pretended conjurer, John Faustus of Mentz, will give place to neither. This blessed invention is also attributed to John Mantel, and to Conrad and Arnold, brothers, and burgesses of the same city of Mentz; as likewise, to Peter Scheffer, Peter Gernsheim, Thomas Peterson, Laurence Genson, one second John Guttenburg, and several others. It is strange that history is so intricate and entangled with fables, that we cannot discover the truth of so late a transaction: but, if we consider the nature and circumstances of the thing, we shall soon perceive the cause of this confusion; for the reason why we find the names of all those printers at Haerlem, Mentz, Spire, Strasburg, and other places, is, because they were all partners; and those who contributed to the change resolved to have a share in the glory. For this reason, every one of them claimed the honour of the invention; and since the controversy could not be easily decided, even at that time, it is not reasonable to suppose that we should be able to give a clearer view of it at such a distance.

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This new secret was quickly divulged, and the invention was communicated to the principal cities in Europe. I will not pretend to give an account of the persons by whom it was propagated; such an enquiry would engage me in a new labyrinth, for the imitators sometimes make more noise and disquiet than the inventors. Nor is the time of this invention less uncertain than the author. verily believe that every year is mentioned, as being the first epocha of printing, from 1420 till near the end of the same century. Coster, as far as I can perceive, had the greatest share in the first invention.* But neither he nor Faustus was the author of the finest and most useful improvement of it: for they engraved their characters on wood, as it is sometimes used at present, so that every plate became useless as soon as the impression was finished, since the letters could not be separated. The way of casting letters was not invented till some years after; and I think the honour of this invention is almost unanimously ascribed to one John Mantel. Aldus Manutius, that learned Venetian printer, found out the Italic characters, which, perhaps, received that name from the country where they were invented. He was also the first who printed in Greek and Hebrew. I shall conclude this digression with observ ́ing, that as there is nothing so advantageous, which is not attended with some accidental inconveniences: so the invention of an art,

*There are certainly no books of Faustus's impression so ancient as those which have been printed by Coster.-EDITOR.

which was so useful to the learned world, ruined the trade of those who lived by transcribing books.

Among the divers rarities which are to be seen at the town-house of Haerlem, they keep, with particular care, in a casket of silver, and wrapped in silk, the first book (according to those of Haerlem) that ever was printed.* Its title is Speculum Humane Salvationis: it hath many figures. The keeping of this book is entrusted to several magistrates, who have every one his own key of the place where it is, which renders it not easy to be seen. The statue of Lawrance Coster is also to be seen in this place. The following inscription was put in letters of gold, on the door of his house, with these verses:―

MEMORIE SACRUM.

Typographia Ars Artium omnium Conservatrix.
Hic primum inventa circa annum 1440.
Vana quid Archetypose Præla Moguntia jactas?
Haerlemi Archetypos Prælaque nata scias.
Entulit hic, monstrante Deo, Laurentius Artem..
Dissimulare Virum-dissimulare Deum est.

If what Trigaltius and other travellers have said, be true, that printing is of so ancient usage in China, it is very probable, that those who first made use of it in Europe, were but imitators after all. Guy Panciroli does affirm it, and Count Moscardo, who quotes him, seems not to question the truth of it. Mezeray, a famous French historian, is also of the same opinion, in the life of Charles VII.; and all those who have written concerning the king

* The first book that was printed, with a date, is a Latin Psalter, in black letter; it was printed by Faustus and Schoeffer, in Mentz, August 14, 1457.-The first Latin classic ever printed was Cicero's Offices, printed in Mentz, 1645. The first Greek book that was printed is Lascaris's Greek Grammar, printed in Milan, January 30, 1476. A copy of this work was purchased for the King's library, at Dr. Askew's sale, in 1775, for £21 10s. The first Greek classic that was printed; was an edition of the Iliad and Odyssey, printed at Florence, in 1488, in 2 vols. folio. The first book printed in the English language, is the "Recueyll of the Hystoryes of Troye," in 1471; an imperfect copy of which was sold in 1812, for the almost incredible sum of one thousand and sixty pounds! But the first book printed in England is "The Game of Chess," in 1474; both printed in black letter, by Caxton. Down to the year 1540, the University of Oxford had printed but one classic, which was a book of Tully's Epistles, printed at the expense of Cardinal Wolsey. Cambridge had not printed any classic at this time. The first, Greek book printed in England was the "Homilies," printed in 1543, at the expense of Sir John Cheke, who established the Greek Lecture at Cambridge. From these facts, England, with its two splendid Universities, together with all its resources of wealth and learning, was sixty-seven years later than Milan in adding to Greek literature from its own press; and after Mentz had printed a Latin classic, Oxford followed at the respectful distance seventy-five years. That commercial cities on the Continent, at this early era, should have so far outstripped us in emu lation, is extraordinary; when, in the nineteenth century, to collect the scattered fragments of early typography, without limitation of expense, and without discri mination of their worth, has been sufficient to confer distinction on men of the first rank and fortune, of our time.-EDITOR.

dom of China, agree in that point: and chiefly John Mendoza Gonzales, who tells, in his history of that country, that he has seen a Chinese book, printed 500 years before printing was known in Europe. Such is the information that I have been able to gather on the subject; and I must feel vexed and grieved that my own native country had no part in the invention of this noble and useful art.

Meyer, John de Beka, and several other historians, do report, that in the year 1403 or 4, a mermaid was brought to Haerlem, who, by a furious tempest, was thrown on the neighbouring shore; that they accustomed her to eat several sorts of meat, but her principal food was bread and milk; that they taught her to spin; and that she lived many years. Others write that this mermaid was sent from Embden to Haerlem. J. G. à Leydis adds, that she would often steal away to return to the water, and that she had an odd kind of speech; but "Locutionem ejus non intelligebant, sed nec ipsa nostrum intellexit idioma," that is, they did not understand her speech, nor she our language; a very natural and likely consequence, I opine.-They also affirm that she was buried in a church-yard, because she had learnt to salute the cross.

COLOGN. They shewed us, in a great chapel, near the church of St. Ursula, the bones of the eleven thousand virgins, who were massacreed by the Huns, in the year 238; they are hung round the church almost in the same manner as the swords and pistols are ranged in the guard-chamber at Whitehall. These bones have no ornaments, except the heads, which are honoured in a particular manner; for some of them are put up in silver shrines, others in gilt boxes; there are none which have not, at least, their caps of cloth of gold, or a bonnet of crimson velvet, wrought with pearls or jewels. And this is what, together with the pretended "Three Kings," is the chief object of the devotion of Cologn, and from whence it takes the name of Cologn the Holy.' It is also for the same reason, that the arms of the city are, Argent, Eleven Flames Gules, with a Chief of the Second, charged with three Crowns Or.” The "eleven flames" are in memorial of the eleven thousand virgins, and the "three crowns" represent the three kings.

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In the church of the Maccabees there is a crucifix; but the most surprising and edifying circumstance of which is, that when the Hungarian pilgrims come to Cologn, they do each of them cut off a lock of hair from this peruke, and yet it never diminishes. The Carthusians (if you will take their own word for it) have the hem of Christ's garment, which was touched by the woman that had the bloody issue. When the women of Cologn are troubled with a flux of blood, they send some wine immediately to the Carthusians, that they may dip a piece of the relic in it; after which, a draught of the sanctified wine is esteemed an infallible remedy.

(To be Continued j

Domestic Intelligence.

The whole of our Domestic Intelligence is extracted from the Journals of the Island with trifling alterations.