CHAPTER VI.
FREDERICK KOENIG: INVENTOR OF THE STEAM-PRINTING MACHINE.
"The honest projector is he who, having by fair and plain principles of sense, honesty, and ingenuity, brought any contrivance to a suitable perfection, makes out what he pretends to, picks nobody's pocket, puts his project in execution, and contents himself with the real produce as the profit of his invention."-- De Foe.
I published an article in 'Macmillan's Magazine' for December, 1869, under the above title.

The materials were principally obtained from William and Frederick Koenig, sons of the inventor.
Since then an elaborate life has been published at Stuttgart, under the title of "Friederich Koenig und die Erfindung Der Schnellpresse, Ein Biographisches Denkmal.

Von Theodor Goebel." The author, in sending me a copy of the volume, refers to the article published in 'Macmillan,' and says, "I hope you will please to accept it as a small acknowledgment of the thanks, which every German, and especially the sons of Koenig, in whose name I send the book as well as in mine, owe to you for having bravely taken up the cause of the much wronged inventor, their father--an action all the more praiseworthy, as you had to write against the prejudices and the interests of your own countrymen." I believe it is now generally admitted that Koenig was entitled to the merit of being the first person practically to apply the power of steam to indefinitely multiplying the productions of the printing-press; and that no one now attempts to deny him this honour.

It is true others, who followed him, greatly improved upon his first idea; but this was the case with Watt, Symington, Crompton, Maudslay, and many more.

The true inventor is not merely the man who registers an idea and takes a patent for it, or who compiles an invention by borrowing the idea of another, improving upon or adding to his arrangements, but the man who constructs a machine such as has never before been made, which executes satisfactorily all the functions it was intended to perform.