been found in bindings, only one perfect copy, now in the Bodleian, is known. It contains a number of large cuts of a very German appearance and quite unlike any others of the period. Some are used also in the York Manual printed for De Worde in 1509.
About this time too a number of popular books in English, some adorned with rude woodcuts, were issued by John of Doesborch, a printer in Antwerp. Among them may be mentioned The wonderful shape and nature of man, beasts, serpents, &c., the Fifteen Tokens, the Story of the Parson of Kalenbrowe, and the Life of Virgilius. A still earlier Antwerp cut, which had been used by Gerard Leeu for the title-page of his English Solomon and Marcolphus, found its way to England and was used by Copland.
In the last years of Henry VII.'s reign, from 1501 to 1509, a few books may be mentioned as particularly interesting from their illustrations. In 1502 De Worde printed the Ordinary of Chrysten Men, a large book with a block-printed title. It was reprinted in 1506. In 1503 appeared the Recuyles of ye Hystoryes of Troye, a typical example of an illustrated book of the period. There are about seventy cuts of all kinds, of which twelve were specially cut for the book: many others were used in the Morte d'Arthur, and the rest are miscellaneous. In 1505 we have the 'Craft to live and die well,' of which there is another edition in the
following year. In 1506 appears the Castle of Labour, one of the few books entirely illustrated with cuts specially made for it; in 1508 the Kalendar of Shepherdes. The cuts in these last three books were all ultimately derived from French originals. An edition of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome, of which the only known copy is imperfect, appeared about 1506, though the cuts which illustrate it were made before 1500. The fragment contains seven cuts, but the set must have consisted of eleven. They are very careful copies of those used by Gerard Leeu in his edition of 1490, and have lost none of the feeling of the originals.
Three books only of Pynson's production during this period call for special notice. About 1505 he issued an edition of the Castle of Labour, with very well-cut illustrations closely copied from the French edition. In 1506 appeared his edition of the Kalendar of Shepherdes, which is illustrated for the most part with cuts obtained from Vérard, and in 1507 an edition of the Golden Legend. Of each of these books but one copy is known.
For some unknown reason, the accession of Henry VII. acted in the most extraordinary way upon the English presses, which in that year issued a very large number of books. Perhaps the influx of visitors to London on that occasion made an unusual demand; but at any rate a number of popular books were then issued. Amongst them are Rychard Cuer de Lyon, the
Fiftene Joyes of Maryage, the Convercyon of Swerers, the Parliament of Devils, and many others. Besides these there were, of course, a number of funeral sermons on Henry VII., many of which have curious frontispieces. One of these was used again a little later, for the funeral sermon of the King's mother, the Lady Margaret, the royal pall and effigy on it being cut out and replaced by an ordinary pall. This method of inserting new pieces into old blocks, technically termed plugging, was not much used at this period when wood-engraving was so cheap. An excellent example, however, will be found in the books printed for William Bretton, which contain a large coat of arms. A mistake was made in the cutting of the arms, and a new shield was inserted, the mantling and supporters being untouched. Another notable book of that period is Barclay's Ship of Fools, issued by Pynson in 1509. It contains one hundred and eighteen cuts, the first being a full-page illustration of the printer's coat of arms. The rest are copies, roughly executed, of those in the original edition. Another version of this book, translated by Henry Watson, was issued the same year by Wynkyn de Worde. It is illustrated with a special series of cuts, which are used again in the later editions. Of the original edition of 1509 only one copy is known, printed on vellum and preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Stray cuts from this series are found in several of De Worde's other books, but may be at once
recognised from the occurrence of the 'fool' in his typical cap and bells.
About this time and a little earlier the title was very often cut entire on a block. The De Proprietatibus of c. 1496 contains the first and the most elaborate specimen, in which the words 'Bartholomeus de proprietatibus rerum' are cut in enormous letters on a wooden board; indeed the whole block was so large that hardly any copy contains the whole. Faques, Pynson, and others used similar blocks, in which the letters were white and the background black (one of Pynson's printed in red is to be found in the Ortus Vocabulorum of 1509), but their uncouthness soon led to their disuse. Numbers of service books were issued by Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde, profusely illustrated with small cuts, most of which appear to have been of home manufacture, though unoriginal in design. It is worth noticing one difference in the cuts of the two printers. Pynson's small cuts have generally an open or white background, De Worde's are, as a rule, dotted in the French style. Since in some of their service books these two printers used exactly similar founts of type the identification of their cuts is of particular value. But these service books almost from the first began to deteriorate. The use of borders was abandoned, and little care was given to keeping sets of cuts together, or using those of similar styles in one book. We find the archaic cuts of Caxton, the delicate pictures copied
from French models, and roughly designed and executed English blocks all used together, sometimes even on the same page. The same thing is noticeable in all the illustrated books of the period. De Worde used Caxton's cuts up to the very end of his career, though in many cases the blocks were worm-eaten or broken. The peculiar mixture of cuts is very striking in some books. Take as an example the edition of Robert the Devil, published about 1514. No cut used in it is original: one is from a book on good living and dying, another from the Ship of Fools,[22] a third is from a devotional book of the previous century, and so on. In the Oliver of Castile of 1518, though there are over sixty illustrations, not more than three or four are specially cut for it, but come from the Morte d'Arthur, the Gesta Romanorum, Helias Knight of the Swan, the Body of Policy, Richard Cuer de Lion, the Book of Carving, and so on, and perhaps many are used in several. Indeed, W. de Worde minded as little about using the same illustrations over and over again as some of our modern publishers.