In conclusion, it will be well to notice the growth of engraving on metal in England. The earliest specimen that I know of is the device first used by Pynson about 1496. It is certainly metal, and has every appearance of having been cut in this country. Some writers have put forward the theory that the majority of early illustrations, though to all appearance woodcuts, were really cut on metal. But wherever it is possible to trace an individual cut for any length of time, we can see from the breakages, and in some cases from small holes bored by insects, that the material used was certainly wood. Julian Notary had some curious metal cuts, but they were certainly of foreign design and workmanship, and the same may be said of the metal cuts found amongst the early English service books. The border on the title-page of the Cambridge Galen, usually described as engraved on metal, is really an ordinary woodcut. It is not till 1540 that we find a book illustrated with engravings produced in this country. This was Thomas Raynald's Byrth of Mankynde, which contains four plates of surgical diagrams. In some of the later editions these plates have been re-engraved on wood. In 1545 another medical book appeared, Compendiosa totius delineatio aere exarata per Thomam Geminum. It has a frontis

piece with the arms of Henry VIII., and forty plates of anatomical subjects. Other editions appeared in 1553 and 1559, and the title-page of the last is altered by the insertion of a portrait of Elizabeth in place of the royal arms. The Stirpium Adversaria nova authoribus Petro Pena et Mathia de Lobel of 1570 has a beautifully engraved title-page, and the 1572 edition of Parker's Bible contains a map of the Holy Land with the following inscription in an ornamental tablet: 'Graven bi Humfray Cole, goldsmith, an English man born in ye north, and pertayning to ye mint in the Tower, 1572.' Humfray Cole is supposed by some authorities to have engraved the beautiful portraits of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, and Lord Burleigh, which appear in the earlier edition of 1568. Saxton's maps, which appeared in 1579, are partly the work of native engravers, for at least eight were engraved by Augustine Ryther and Nicholas Reynolds. In 1591 there are two books,—Broughton's Concent of Scripture, and Sir John Harington's Ariosto. The latter contains almost fifty plates, closely copied from a Venetian edition, and was the most ambitious book illustrated with metal plates published in the century. There are a few other books published before 1600 which contain specimens of engraving, but none worthy of particular mention.

[22] This particular cut, which represents the Fool looking out of a window while his house is on fire, meant to illustrate the chapter 'Of bostynge or hauynge confydence in fortune,' is not used in the edition of 1517. It may, perhaps, occur in the edition of 1509, of which the unique copy is at Paris.

[23] Sir Thomas More, the friend and employer both of Pynson and Froben, had probably a good deal to do with this purchase of material.

INDEX