Unhappy man! what bitterness must have filled thy heart, when enveloped in thy cloak, both arms crossed over thy weary breast, thou camest forth alone in the deserted streets of Maïence! Thou didst revolve in thy mind, doubtless, the mortifications thou hadst experienced in thy native town, thou didst think of those for whom thou hadst worked, and who now trampled on thee! Thy star was on the decline.
That very morning John Gutenberg had seen a copy of the magnificent Bible recently edited by Fust and Schoeffer, and, in spite of the secret pride of the printer, he could not deny to himself that his pupils had surpassed him. Gutenberg belonged to that class of men of genius, or choice spirits, destined by Providence to conceive the grandest ideas, to attain the most wonderful discoveries, but who are crippled in the details of execution, and incapable of drawing any material profit from their discoveries. Peter Schoeffer, on the contrary, reared in Paris, and trained to the intrigues of life, was, thanks to the facility of his conception, just the man to seize the idea of another, and to turn it to his own profit. Fust, now his father-in-law, was wonderfully useful to Schoeffer by his practical skill in business, and so we shall be easily believed when we assert that our two intruders had not much difficulty in excluding from their partnership the poor old inventor. From henceforward the sole masters of their trade, they conducted it in a manner infinitely lucrative to themselves.
Gutenberg found this out ere long. In the year of our Lord 1460, seeing his _Katholicon_, finished, before him, he examined it, and as he compared in his mind the meagre, ill-formed characters with the beautiful type of the _Psalter_ of Fust and Schoeffer, his soul was bowed down with an overwhelming sense of inferiority, and on that account he omitted to put his name in great letters at the end of his work, as the others had done. He contented himself with adding on the last page the following modest postscript:--“_This book has been printed with the assistance of the Most High, who by one stroke of His hand opens the mouths of babes, and who often deigns to reveal to the humble that which He hides from the wise._” Then he added--“_The whole was executed in the good city of Maïence, which forms a part of the glorious German nation, which it has pleased the goodness of God to distinguish by the light of His spirit, and the gift of His grace, above many other nations of the earth._” A pious and touching record from a son to his adoptive mother! grander, and above all more patriotic than that Roman pride which forbid that even after death the mortal remains should be restored to an ungrateful country!