letter L a young man is leaning on a sword, on the blade of which is plainly written London, and on the cloak of the youth lying below we read, in a current hand usual at that date, the word Bethemsted. The figures, grotesque as they are, were drawn by a better artist than those who designed the block books. We know that the art of engraving was in a very low state in England at the time we are speaking of; we should therefore rejoice if we could anyhow prove that these very early specimens of wood-cutting were done in this country.
In the letter F, which we have given as an illustration, very much reduced from the original, a tall man is blowing a very long trumpet; a youth, bending down to form the crotch of the letter, is beating a tabor; while a nondescript animal lies couched at his feet.
Many other block books exist in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Spencer Library, Manchester, and in the large libraries on the Continent besides those we have mentioned. Some were printed, long after the introduction of printing, in Venice and in the cities of Lower Germany.
Before the beginning of the fifteenth century we have no record of any examples of wood-engraving of an artistic kind, except, as we have said, the designs on playing-cards, and the workmanship of these, whether it was by woodcuts or by a stencil-plate, was very crude. The art really came into existence in the first quarter of that famous fifteenth century. There were scores of men at that time who could carve excellently well in stone or wood, or who could design
and make beautiful jewels, and some of these men, probably monks in their monasteries, as well as secular craftsmen, drew and cut the first wood-engraving. No one knows who they were.
Up to the year 1475 the original method of wood-cutting changed very little; nearly every print was in outline with a thick and a thin line. A few, such as those in the 'Ars Moriendi,' had a little shading of the most primitive kind. They were intended to be coloured, and, among the prints that have been preserved, experts say they can detect the manner of colouring prevalent in Upper or Lower Germany, the Rhine Provinces, or the Netherlands. Towards the end of the century came a transition. Shading was introduced and even cross-hatching was executed by the best wood-engravers of the time. The art took, as it were, a sudden bound, and in a few years attained a height which we at the end of the nineteenth century find it hard to excel. But of this we must speak in a future chapter.
Ars Memorandi.—This very curious book—much more curious than beautiful—contains fifteen designs and the same number of pages of engraved text. The designs are intended to assist the memory in reading the Gospels, and perhaps to assist the friars in preaching to the people. To the Gospel of St. John, with which the book begins, there are three cuts allotted, and as many pages of text; to St. Matthew five cuts and five pages of text; to St. Mark, three cuts and three pages of text; and to St. Luke, four cuts and four pages of text.
In every print an allegorical figure is represented; an eagle symbolical of St. John, an angel of St. Matthew, a lion of St. Mark, and an ox of St. Luke.
The first cut is intended to represent, figuratively, the first six chapters of St. John's Gospel. An upright eagle, with spread wings and claws, has three human heads—that of the Saint with a dove above it is in the middle, the head