Considering Gutemberg as the inventor of printing with moveable types; that his first attempts were made at Strasburg about 1436; and that with Faust's money and Scheffer's ingenuity the art was perfected at Mentz about 1452, I shall now proceed to trace the progress of wood engraving in its connection with the press.

In the first book which appeared with a date and the printers' names–the Psalter printed by Faust and Scheffer, at Mentz, in 1457–the large initial letters, engraved on wood and printed in red and blue ink, are the most beautiful specimens of this kind of ornament which the united efforts of the wood engraver and the pressman have produced. They have been imitated in modern times, but not excelled. As they are the first letters, in point of time, printed with two colours, so are they likely to continue the first in point of excellence.

Only seven copies of the Psalter of 1457 are known, and they are all printed on vellum. Although they have all the same colophon, containing the printers' names and the date, yet no two copies exactly correspond. A similar want of agreement is said to have been observed in different copies of the Mazarine Bible, but which are, notwithstanding, of one and the same edition.