:> y : . OD-ENGBAYE* .!:>!! Airs mar. (1S68) THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES A BRIEF HISTORY OF WOOD -ENGRAVING FROM ITS INVENTION PRINTED BY Sl'OTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON HENRY VIII. IN COUNCIL (From HolinsheiTs ' Chronicles of England,' 1577) Page 100 A BRIEF HISTORY OF WOOD -ENGRAVING FROM ITS INVENTION BY JOSEPH CUNDALL AUTHOR OF 'HOLBEIN AND HIS WORKS' ETC. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, & COMPANY LIMITED St. IDunstan's IDOUSC FETTER LANE, FLEET STREET, E.G. l8 95 Art Library 03O CONTENTS CHAPTEE I PAGE On Pictures of Saints The print of The Virgin with the Holy Child in her Lap in the Bibliotheque Boyale de Belgique- On the print of St. Christopher in the Spencer Library at Manchester The Annunciation and the St. Bridget of Sweden ........ 1 CHAPTER II On the Block Books of the Fifteenth Century jji<a |9att- perum ; ^jpncalnpSte >atutt goljamiuS, &c. . . . 11 CHAPTER III The Block Books of the Fifteenth Century 1 Temptacio DiaboHQtmtitUm CanttCOriim, and others 20 CHAPTEE IV Block Book jfjierulum $?unianae ^albattont* Casus LuciferiThe Mentz Psalter of 1459 Book of Fables The Cologne Bible Niirnberg Chronicle Breydenbach's Travels .......... 28 CHAPTEE V On Wood-Engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century The Venice Kalendario of 1476 The Triumph of Petrarch The Hypnerotomachia Fnliphili Alio Manuzio Por- trait of Aldus ...... .40 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING CHAPTER VI On Wood-Engraving in France in the Fifteenth Century Engraving on Metal Blocks 'Books of Hours ' Famous French Publishers : Pierre Le Rouge, Simon Vostre, Antoine Verard, Thielman Kerver, Guyot Marchant, Philippe Pigouchet, Jean Dupre, and others . . .51 CHAPTER VII Wood-Engraving in England in the Fifteenth Century William Caxton, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troi/e Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers Game and Playe of the Chesse, &c. Wynkyn de Worde Richard Pynson . Gl CHAPTER VIII Wood-Engraving in Germany in the Sixteenth Century Albrecht Diirer Coronation of the Virgin The Apo- calypseThe Little Passion His Engravings on Copper The Triumphs of Maximilian The Triumplial Arch The Triumplial Car The Triumphal Procession . 69 CHAPTER IX Hans Holbein Dance of Death Bible Cuts Hans Liitzel- burger Dance of Death Alphabet The Little Masters Altdorfer Beham Brosamer Aldegrever Cranach . 81 CHAPTER X Wood-Engraving in Italy and France in the Sixteenth Century Giuseppe Porta of Venice Geoff roy Tory and Robert Estienne of Paris Borluyt's Figures from the New Testament Christophe Plantin of Antwerp . . 89 CONTENTS ix PAGE CHAPTEK XI Wood-Engraving in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries in Italy arid England Printing in Chiaro-oscuro in Venice Printing in Colour in Germany Habiti Antichi e Mctdcrni by Vecellio Wood-Engraving in England Foxe's Acts and Monuments Holinshed's Chronicles A Booke of Christian Prayers Dr. Cuningham's Cosmo- graphical Glasse ^Esop's Fables The French engraver Papillon . . 99 CHAPTER XII Thomas Bewick and his Pupils Select Fables History of Quadrupeds History of British Birds 2 'sop's Fables Prices at which these books were published Death of Bewick . . 108 CHAPTEE XIII Bewick's Successors John Bewick (his Brother) Looking- glass for the Mind Goldsmith's Poems Somerville's Chase 'Robert Johnson Charlton Nesbit Robert Elliot E. Bewick History of Fishes Luke Clennell William Harvey George Bonner W. H. Powis John Jackson Ebenezer Landells Eobert Branston F. W. Branston John Thompson J. Orrin Smith John and MaryByfield Samuel Williams W. T. Green 0. Jewitt C. Gray S. Slader J. Greenaway W. J. Palmer German En- gravers Modern English Engravers .... 116 INDEX .... . .129 THE WOOD-ENGKAVEE By Jost Amman (1568) A BRIEF HISTORY WOOD-ENGRAVING CHAPTER I ON THE EARLY PICTURES OF SAINTS MANY volumes have been written on the subject of Wood- Engraving, especially in Germany, Holland, and Belgium, where the art first flourished ; as well as in Italy, France, and England ; and some of the best of these books have been published during the present century. The most important of them are, Dr. Dibdin's celebrated bibliographical works ; ' A Treatise on Wood-Engraving,' by W. A. Chatto, of which a new edition has lately been issued > 'Wood-Engraving in Italy in the 15th Century,' by Dr. Lippmann ; and, above all, ' The Masters of Wood-Engraving,' a magnificent folio volume written by Mr. W. J. Linton himself a Master who, besides giving us the benefit of his technical knowledge obtained by the practice of the art for fifty years, presents us with copies, from blocks engraved by himself, of the most celebrated woodcuts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Many writers have asserted that the first wood- engrav- ings are to be found on playing-cards ; others maintain that B 2 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING the very rough prints on the playing-cards of the early fifteenth century were taken from stencil-plates. It is im- possible to decide the point, nor is it of much importance ; there is no evidence whatever as to the method of their production. They appeared in Europe about the year 1350 : they came from the East, but their positive history, according to Dr. Willshire, begins in the year 1392. 1 It has been asserted that many prints of Images of Saints pro- duced by means of wood-engraving preceded even playing- cards. The first undoubted fact that we can arrive at in the history of wood-engraving is that early in the fifteenth cen- tury there were to be found, in many of the monasteries and convents in various parts of Europe, prints of the Virgin with the Holy Infant, the most popular Saints, and Subjects from the Bible, which were certainly taken from engravings on wood; and we have now to describe some typical examples of primitive devotional pictures, printed by the xylographic process. The earliest of these woodcuts may date from 1380, and there are many which are assigned to the first half of the fifteenth century ; they were all intended to be coloured by hand, and are therefore simply in outline, without shading. The designs are usually good, but the execution is not always so meritorious. In the lioyal Library at Brussels there is a coloured print of The Virgin with the Holy Child in her lap, surrounded by four Saints in an inclosed garden. On the Virgin's right hand sits St. Catherine, with a royal crown on her head, the sword in her left hand, and, leaning against her feet, a broken wheel. Beneath is St. Dorothea crowned with roses, with a branch of a rose-tree in her right hand and the handle of a basket of apples in her left ; on the other side are St. Barbara holding her tower, and, under her, St. Margaret with a book 1 W. H. Willshire, Playing and other Cards in the British Museum, 1 vol. 8vo. (1876). THE VIRGIN WITH TOUE SAIKTS In the Bibliotteque Royale de Belgique 4 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING in her left hand ; her right hand clasps a laidly dragon, and a cross leans upon her arm. Outside the palings a rabbit is feeding ; a bird sits on the rail behind St. Catherine, two others are flying, and, above all, three angels are offering chaplets of roses to the Virgin ; a palm-tree is growing on each side of her. But the most important part of the print is the very solid three-barred gate at the entrance to the garden, for on the uppermost of the bars we distinctly read in: CCCC JTbtu . The print itself measures 14| inches in height by 9 inches in width, without reckoning the border lines. It was found pasted at the bottom of an old coffer in the possession of an innkeeper at Malines in 1844 by a well-known architect, M. de Noter, who, recognising its great importance, offered it to the Eoyal Library at Brussels. It has been reproduced in scrupulously exact facsimile and fully described in the work entitled 'iDocuments iconographiques et typographiques de la Bibliotheque Koyale de Belgique,' published by MM. Muquardt of Brussels. The small letters are supposed to represent nails in the gate. M. Georges Duplessis tells us that he has examined the print minutely several times, and that he does not believe this date has been tampered with in any way. Some collectors and would-be critics maintain that the drawing of the figures and the folds of the garments are of a later date than 1418 ; if they were to examine the works of Hubert and Jan van Eyck, and the paintings of Meister Stephan Lochner of Cologne, Eogier van der Weyden, and other artists who lived about this time, they woiild be sufficiently answered. Mr. Linton is of opinion (and there can be no better judge) that the style of the engraving does not compel him to attribute it to a later date than 1418, yet both he and Mr. Chatto ex- press their doubts as to its authenticit}' it appears to us, without sufficient reason. About the middle of the eighteenth century Herr Hein- ecken, a German collector of engravings, discovered, pasted ON THE SAINT CHRISTOPHER 5 inside the binding of a manuscript in the library of the con- vent of Buxheim in Suabia, a folio print brightly coloured of St. Christopher bearing the Infant Christ. The outlines are printed in black ink, not by any kind of press, but in much the same way as that used by wood- engravers of the present day in taking their proofs, who first ink the engraved surface with a printer's ball, then lay the paper carefully over the cut, waxed at the edges to hold the paper firmly, and rub the back of the paper with a burnisher. In the fifteenth century a roller called a frotton was used, as being more expeditious. Our illustration gives an idea of the original, which is still in the cover of the book in which it was discovered, and now in the Spencer Library at Manchester. The cut measures 11 inches in height by 8 inches in width, and is coloured after the manner of the time ; that is, the Saint's robe is tinted with red and the lining with yellow ochre, the nimbuses are of the same kind of yellow ; the robes of Christ and the monk are light blue, of the same tint as the water ; the grass and foliage are bright green ; the faces, hands, and legs are in a pale flesh-tint ; there are but five or six colours used, and they may have been either washed in by hand or brushed in through a stencil-plate. As hand colouring would be quicker and less troublesome, one does not see the advantage of the stencil. The inscription beneath the cut reads thus : Crfctafari farfcm Ute qttacumquc tucrfc f&iUtiima tree Ilia uentjpe Ute marte mala nan marferti n' terrio which may be rendered : On whatever day the face of Christopher thou shalt see, On that day no evil form of death shall visit thee. Mr. Linton is enthusiastic in praise of this cut. ' I am well content,' he says, ' to give some words of unstinted praise HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING ST. CHRISTOPHER The original (Hi . 6y 8i '.) is pasted inside the cover of an old manuscript boot in the Spencer Library now at Manchester ON THE SAINT CHRISTOPHER 7 to our St. Christopher for the design. I mind not the dis- proportionate space he occupies in the picture. Is not he famous as a giant ? The perspective also is good enough for me, as doubtless it was to those in whose interest the print was issued. It is certain he is crossing a stream ; we see a fish beneath the waves. He supports his colossal frame and helps his steady course with a full-grown fruit-bearing palm- tree fit staff for saintly son of Anak ; no heathen he ; the nimbus is roiind his head. As on his shoulders he bears the Lord of the World, can we fail to remark his upturned glance, inquiring why he is thus bowed down by a little child ? The blessing hand of the Blessed plainly gives reply. Look again, and see on one side of the stream the merely secular life ; is it not all expressed by the mill and the miller and his ass, and far up the steep road (what need for diminishing distance ?) the peasant with the sack of flour toiling towards his humble home. And on the other side is the spiritual life the hermit, by his windowless hut. the warning bell above ; he kneels in front, with his lantern of faith lifted high in his hand, a beacon for whatever wayfarer the ferryman may bring. Rank grasses and the fearless rabbit mark the quiet solitude in which the hermit dwells. I can forgive all short- comings. These old-century men were in earnest.' In the Spencer collection are two other prints which may be attributed to the same period as the St. Christopher. One is a picture of The Annunciation, which was found pasted on the end cover of the book (Laus Virginia) in which the St. Christopher was discovered. It is of similar size, and is printed with a dark-coloured pigment, probably by means of afrotton. The Angel Gabriel is kneeling before the Virgin, who also is kneeling ; she holds a book in her hand, and is represented in a kind of Gothic chapel ; a vase with flowers in it stands under one of the diamond-paned windows. The Holy Dove is descending in a flood of raj-s ; unfortunately the figure of the Almighty has been torn from the top left-hand HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING THE ANNUNCIATION The original (11J in. by 8J in.) is pasted inside the cover of an old manuscript book in the Spencer Library ON THE ANNUNCIATION 9 corner of the print. On one of the pillars of the chapel is a small scroll with the legend SUir jjracta plena miniums" trruni. The wood-engraver may produce his design in two ways, either by means of black lines on a white ground, or by white designs on a black ground. The two methods are here united, while in the St. Christopher one only (the first) is used. Notice the discreet use of masses of black to give force to the design, and to contrast with the lightness of the other part of the picture. The Annunciation belongs to quite a different school to the St. Christopher. The other print is of St. Bridget of Sweden (who died in 1373). She is seated at a sloping desk, writing with a stylus in a book. The motto above her head is a irtgtta 6tt Jj0t fttr tmS (' Bridget, pray to God for us '). In the left upper corner is a small representation of the Virgin with the Holy Infant in her arms, opposite is a shield with the letters S.P.Q.R. on it, referring to her journey to Rome. In the lower corners are, on the left, the palm and crown of martyrdom ; and on the right is a shield with the Lion rampant of Sweden. A pilgrim's hat and scrip hang on a staff behind the Virgin's seat. The print is roughly coloured, evidently by hand. Many other woodcuts of the same character have been discovered, which are believed to have been engraved in the first half of the fifteenth century. In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a print of St. Sebastian, bearing the date 1437, which was found in the monastery of St. Blaise in the Black Forest. ' Having visited,' says Herr Heinecken, ' in my last tour a great many convents in Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, and in the Austrian States, I everywhere discovered in their libraries many of these kinds of figures engraved on wood. They were usually pasted either at the beginning or the end of old volumes of the fifteenth century. These facts have confirmed me in my opinion that the next step of the io HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING engraver on wood, after playing-cards, was to engrave figures of Saints, which, being distributed and lost among the laity, were in part preserved by the monks, who pasted them into the earliest printed books with which their libraries were furnished.' Herr Heinecken possessed more than a hundred of these pictures of Saints. There can be little doubt they were produced in the monasteries and convents, and distributed to the people, especially in the processions of the Church, as aids to devotion. Among the thousands of monks who lived in the fifteenth century there must have been many men who, like Fra Angelico, were gifted with sufficient artistic taste to enable them to draw and engrave such a picture as the St. Christopher. II CHAPTER II IN the first half of the fifteenth century, before the invention of printing by means of movable type, many books were pro- duced in which the woodcuts and the text were engraved on the same page, or sometimes the text was on one page and the woodcut opposite. They were impressed on one side only of the paper, and the two blank pages were often pasted together. They are usually called Jjftirk linolts. Many of the cuts are more than ten inches in height by eight inches in width, and were probably cut with a knife upon smoothly planed planks of the pear-tree, or other fine-grained wood, or possibly some were engraved upon soft metal. The most celebrated of them are : I. 28 tfclta Paujjmim. Bible of the Poor. II. &jmtaTgj)rfte ^anctt jflofjannte. Visions of St. John. III. 8rrf#l0rtfnlrt.-The Art of Dying. IV. Cantirttm Cantirorum.- Solomon's Song. V. *ih6 flc 4p ffiraxiQco: _J||h^ foSJ M gg fyRrettt^aa^ BIBIIA PACPERUM TENTH PAGE (Reduced from 10 in. liy 7J .) 14 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING and other holy men whose writings are cited in the Latin text. The middle part of the page consists of three compart- ments, each of which is occupied by a subject from the Old or New Testament. The greater part of the text is at the sides of the upper portraits. On each side of those below is frequently a rhyming Latin verse. Texts of Scripture also appear on scrolls. The illustration, which is a much reduced copy of the tenth page (ft), will afford a better idea of the arrangement of the subject and of the texts than any mere lengthened description. The picture in the middle represents the Temptation of Christ by the Devil ; that on the right, the Temptation of Adam by Eve ; and that on the left, Esau selling his birth- right for a Mess of Pottage, which his Brother Jacob has evidently just cooked in the iron pot suspended over the fire on a ratchet in the chimney-breast. The ham and goat's flesh or venison hanging on the kitchen wall remind us of the Dutch paintings of two centuries later. Esau's bow and quiver will be seen to be of a very primitive character. On the thirty-second page (to give another example) we find in the middle compartment Christ appearing to His Disciples ; 011 the left, Joseph discovering himself to his Brethren ; and on the right, the Return of the Prodigal Son. At the bottom of the page are these rhyming Latin verses : Under Joseph and his Under the Return of the Brethren. \ Prodigal Son. Quos vex(av)it pridem Flens amplexatur Blanditur fratribus idem. Natum pater ac recreatur. Hie iliesus apparet : surgentis gloria claret. Which have been roughly translated : Whom lie so lately vexed The wept-one is embraced He charms as brother next. And as a son replaced, Here doth Christ appear, in rising glory clear. 1 6 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING The ' Biblia Pauperum,' although it could not be read by the laity, was evidently issued for their especial benefit, and, with the help of the priests, it afforded excellent lessons in Bible history. It is believed that the first copies were printed at Haarlem about A.D. 1430 to 1440. Five editions of the ' Biblia Pauperum ' are known as block books with the text in Lathi ; two with the text in German ; and several others were printed about 1475 with the text in movable type. At least three editions were printed in Holland, and seven or eight others appear to be of German origin ; the earlier are of the Dutch School. There are four copies, differing editions, in the British Museum, one in the Bodleian Library, and one in the Spencer Library. Some of the copies are coloured in a very simple manner. &pnraTj)p!>tJ >anrtt ;g}of)annte. This work consists of forty-eight pages of woodcuts about ten and a-half inches high by seven and a-half broad, printed in ink or distemper of a greyish-brown tint on thick paper on one side only. Each page is equally divided into two subjects, taken from the Apocalypse, one above the other. The cuts are engraved in the simplest manner, without any attempt at shading, as will be seen on examination of our print, which forms the first page of the book. In the upper half St. John is address- ing three men and one woman. The words in the label ConfarrSt afc tonlte per 4jrcatcatt'0iirm fcnitt Siofjannte Qrus tana ct tttt rf are literally ' Drusiana and the others are converted from idols by the preaching of the blessed John.' The letter a indicates page 1. In the lower half we see St. John baptizing Drusiana in a very small font in a small chapel ; outside are six ill-looking men trying to peep in through the chinks of the door. Over the chapel are the words ganttu ^DljaniTCS iapttian^, and over the men Cuttorrg glfoT0rum rrpInrantrS farta rjuS, literally, ' Wor- shippers of Idols spying on his acts.' Two of the idolaters BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 17 APOCALYPSIS SANCTI JOHANXIS O.ie of the earliest of the Slock Books 1 8 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING are armed with hatchets, as if they intended to break open the door. [The Latin words, in accordance with the usual practice of the monks, are contracted in a manner very puzzling to those unused to these mediseval writings.] There are several editions of the Apocalypsis, all apparently of German origin. Many bibliographers, treating of block books and arguing from the very simple style of the drawings and engravings, consider that the ' Apocalypsis ' was the first that was pro- duced. Many worse woodcuts were issued in the eighteenth century. It would be very hazardous indeed to fix a date by the quality of woodcut illustrations. In order to assist our readers in reading the text printed with the early woodcuts, we give them a key to the most usual abbreviations of Monkish Latin. 1. A right line, thus ( ), and a curve, thus (~), placed horizontally over a letter, denote : ( ) 1st, over a vowel in the middle or end of a word, that one letter is wanting, e.g. \edat=vendant, bonu = bonum, terra=terram. (~) 2nd, above or through a letter=the omission of more than one letter, e.g. aia=anzia, atr=aMer, aTia,=animalia, ab\aco=ablatio, Wintoii=Wintonia, not)=nobis, &c. A straight line through a consonant also denotes the omission of one or more letters, e.g. vob=vobis, q&=quod, &c. 2. r )=er, or re, as the sense requires, e.g. lra=terra, pdictus=predictus, i.e. prcedictus. 3. The diphthong is sometimes represented thup, terra or terre=teme. 4. A straight or curved line through the letter p, thus, p p=/jer, por, and par. A curved line, thus $=pro. 5. The character 3 at the end of a word=i/s, omnib3 = . omnibus, also et, deb^=debet. BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 19 6. The figure g at the end of a word=rum, ras, re?, ria, and ram; eo~j.=eorum, lib^=/ziras or libris, Windeso^ = Windesores, k\iei\o\=Alienoram, &c. 7. &=etiam, q :> =que ) quiet, and quod] 9 at commence- ment of a word = c0/n or con; 9mitto=committo, 5 victo= convicto. This contraction is also printed thus, c\. c\c = concordia or concessio. In the middle or end of a word 9 =?eMS, reb 9 =re&M?, Aug 9 ti^=Augusti ; also for os, ip9=post, -p^t=post. 8. In Domesday Book 7=e/, e=est, st=sunt, M= manerium, n\=modo, di.m=dimidius, &c. 9. .EsZ is sometimes written y --. 10. Points or dots after letters often denote contractions, e.g. di. etfi.=dilectus etfidelis, e. forest, ip\wrib.=pluribus. 11. ^1=^^^ later times. 12. A small letter placed over a word denotes an omission p i us=/y7-'w5, V-=tibi, qs=5wos, q i =qui, &c. 13. Xps, Xpc, Xpo, stand for Christus and its different cases. Me = Marie. These are the most common contractions. There are many more, including numerous technical terms, which" it would be useless for us to give for our present purpose. c2 20 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING CHAPTER III THE BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY (continued). &rg ijHavtCirtlt. Of all the block books known to us, this bears the palm for artistic merit. It is probable that the ' Ars Moriendi ' is of later date than the block books already described. Mr. George Bullen (Holbein Society, 'Ars Moriendi,' 1881, p. 4) was of opinion that the first edition was printed at Cologne in Germany about the middle of the fifteenth century. Others say that the quarto edition is the earlier. The illustrations belong to the lower Rhenish School, which, about the middle of the fifteenth century, was influenced by the style of Roger van der Weyde, and probably also by the work of some of the pupils of the Van Eycks. There are eleven woodcuts, about eight and a-half inches, by five and a-half inches, without including the frame-lines, printed on separate pages, and thirteen pages of text, all im- pressed on one side only of the paper. Five of the pictures represent a sick man in bed tempted by devils I. To Un- belief ; II. To Despair and Suicide ; III. To Impatience of Good Advice ; IV. To Vainglory ; and V. To Avarice. In the five opposite pictures the sick man is attended by Good Angels, who refute the arguments of the demons. In the eleventh print we witness the death of the sick man. The drawings are somewhat similar in manner to the works of Roger van der Weyde, who lived in the early part of the fifteenth century. BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 21 It was a time when art was beginning to awake from its long sleep, and such works as the ' Ars Moriendi ' were far in advance of any we know of belonging to the previous century. One of the best of the illustrations is from the last temptation : temptacio diaboli de avaricia, and is probably intended to be the presentation of a dream. The sick man's bed is on the roof of his house ! A diabolus, as tall as the house, points to a youth possibly the heir, who is leading a very Flemish-looking horse into a doorway and says, XntttrtfC tfjrtfauro take care of your treasures. The figures by the bedside must represent the father and mother, wife, sisters, and young son of the dying man. The diabolus on his right says $3r01)ftlfaS amtcte 'You may provide for your friends.' The heads of the diaboli in this print are more laughable than terrible, and suggest the make-up of a panto- mime rather than the demons who are messengers of the Evil One. On the next page an angel gives good counsel to the dying man. a figure of Christ on the cross is at his bed's head, and the Mother of Christ blesses him. A group of relations and friends still attend him, and beside them are sheep and oxen. In the foreground an angel is driving away a man and woman, who are evidently in great grief, and a crouching demon says, hrilf fartam ' What can I do ? ' Pictures like this appealed forcibly to the minds of the laity in the middle ages, and were doubtless fully explained to the uneducated by the religious dwellers in the monasteries and convents which at that time abounded throughout Europe. A reproduction of this book was issued a few years since by the Holbein Society. The designs were copied in careful pen-and-ink drawings by Mr. F. Price, and the text was translated and the pictures described by Mr. George Bullen, who also wrote a learned preface, enumerating the various editions of the book which are known to have been printed in different languages. Weigel printed a photographic repro- duction of this book in 1869. 22 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING The ' Ars Moriendi ' was the most popular of all the block books. Before the end of the fifteenth century eight different editions had been issued, seven of them in Latin and one in French. M. Passavant states that he had met with thirty different imitations of it issued in Germany and Holland. There is but one quite perfect copy of the first edition of this book known, and this fortunately is in the British Museum. It was bought at the Weigel sale in Leipsic in 1872 for the large sum of 1,072 10s., exclusive of commission. Cant t cum Canticorum. The Church's Love unto Christ prefigured in ' The Song of Songs which is Solomon's.' This is a much more pleasing book than the ' Apocalypsis.' The figures are more gracefully designed and the engraver has shown much more knowledge of his art ; the indications of shading are in many instances very happily given. It con- sists of only sixteen leaves with two subjects, one above the other on each leaf; each picture is five inches high by seven wide, and is printed by means of friction in dark-brown ink or distemper, on thick paper. Our illustration is from the second leaf. In the upper subject we see the Bride and Bridegroom conversing, two maidens attending. The words on the scroll on the left are (STralje me : pnrft tr currrnuuS in o&nrcm unQttrnlarum tuarum, ' Draw me, we will run after thee : because of the savour of thy good ointments ' (Song of Solomon, ch. i., v. 4 and 3). On the scroll to the right, 0nct boy tua in auribud mete, ioj: ent'm tua ttulcid tt farted tua fcccora, ' Let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely ' (Song of Solomon, ch. ii., verse 14). In the lower subject, in which the Bride is seen seated by her maidens and the Bridegroom is standing near, on the left-hand scroll we read, urgr, prapcra, arnica men, ' My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away ' (ch. ii., verse 10) ; and on the right, pulchra rs arnica MUM, quam pulrhra rs ! nruh tut BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTUR Y 23 CANTICUJI CANTICOBCM SECOND LEAF (Much reduced) 2 4 HISTORY OF \VOOD-ENGRAVltiG rolumfcarum, afctfquc to qunlr tntrtns'muS latct, ' How beau- tiful art thou, my love, how beautiful art thou ! thy eyes are doves' eyes, besides what is hid within ' (ch. iv. 1). On the sixth leaf, the Bride and Bridegroom are eating grapes in a vineyard, three maidens attending, all seated. In the cut below, the Bridegroom is standing outside a garden wall over which the Bride is watching him. An angel is entering the gate, other angels with drawn swords are on the wall. It is supposed that these engravings were executed in the Netherlands : the female figures are said to be in the costume of the Court of Burgundy ! There are several shields of arms to be found in three of the subjects, and these have given rise to long dissertations by writers on heraldry. Mr. Chatto's book has engravings of eighteen of them with descriptions. One is the shield of Alsace, another of the house of "Wurtern- berg, a third of the city of Ratisbon ; and the cross-keys, the fleur-de-lis, the black spread-eagle, and a rose (much like our Tudor rose), may be seen on others. Several copies of the ' Canticum ' have been found, coloured and uncoloured. Two editions of the Canticum Canticoruin are known ; both appear to have emanated from Holland and the Low Countries, and both bear clear traces of the influence of the school of the Van Eycks. Cije JFtffUfC 8ljjf)n6rt. In the Print Room of the British Museum there is a ciirious little book (six inches by four inches in size) in which nearly all the letters of the alphabet are formed by grotesque figures of men. Except that it was bequeathed to the Museum by Sir George Beaumont, no one knows anything of its history ; but internal evidence warrants us in attributing it to the work of an engraver of the first half of the fifteenth century. The cuts are printed in a kind of sepia-coloured distemper which can be easily wiped off by means of moisture. There is one very curious thing connected with this work. In the cut forming the BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 25 letter L a young man is leaning on a sword, on the blade of which is plainly written Hatlttatt, 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 26 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING 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. &r iHcm0rairtft. This very curious book much more curious than beautiful contains fifteen designs and the same number of pages of engraved text. The designs are in- tended 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 BLOCK BOOKS OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 27 of Christ is on its right, and that of Moses on its left. A lute, from which three bells depend, lies across the eagle's breast ; this is supposed to refer to the Marriage in Cana, and a little numeral tells us that the account of it is in the second chapter. Between the outspread claws is a bucket surmounted by a crown. These are symbolical of the Well of Samaria and the Nobleman's son at Capernaum in chapter iv. On the bend of the eagle's outspread right wing is a fish and the numeral 5, referring to the Pool of Bethesda in chapter v., and on the left wing are five barley loaves and two small fishes, and a small 6, referring to the parable of the loaves and fishes in the sixth chapter. This very singular book must have been a great favourite with the priests, and perhaps with the laity, for it was reprinted over and over again. ]t appears to have been of German origin. Of the other block books mentioned in chapter ii. it would be tedious to give an account ; they are very similar to those we have just described. 28 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING CHAPTER IV SPECULUM HUMANE SALVATIONIS HISTORIANS tell us that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the cities of the Netherlands were the most popu- lous and the richest in all Western Europe. Bruges, Ghent, Liege and Brussels by their manufactures, and Antwerp by her commerce, in which she rivalled Venice, had become celebrated for their great wealth, the grandeur of their rulers, and the magnificence of their great Guilds. The more northern towns, too, Amsterdam, Haarlem, and Utrecht, and many cities of Germany, such as Mentz, Cologne, Strasburg, Niirnberg, Augsburg, and Basel, were rich and prosperous. It was among these cities that the sister arts of printing and wood-engraving first flourished. From undoubted evidence accumulated by the patience and labour of many bibliographers, it appears that the art of printing by means of movable type was not invented by any one man, but was the result of a gradual development of the art of engraving. In the fifteenth century, as in the nineteenth, there was an ever-growing demand for school books. One of the most popular of these in the fifteenth century was the ' Donatus,' a grammar so called from the name of the author. There was also a Latin Delectus called a ' Catho.' These were cheap books and were usually printed from engraved wood blocks. These and the block books already described were contemporary, and the im- mediate forerunners of separate types. (See Blades, ' Penta- teuch of Printing,' p. 12.) SPECULUM HUMANE SALVATIONIS 29 In certain editions of the ' Speculum ' there are to be seen woodcuts printed in ink of one colour and text in ink of another colour, from metal movable types. These types are rude in the extreme, far more so than the German Indul- gence of 1454, the very earliest known dated piece of print- ing. There is no doubt that the Donatuses were at first printed from wood blocks, both in Ger- many and the Low Countries, but there is not a single Dutch block-book Don- atus known, while there are some nineteen or twenty early type - printed Dutch Dona- tuses already catalogued. Therefore it ap- pears likely that Gutenberg sim- ply developed the process which had already been for some time in use in the Low Countries for Donatuses and similar books. The first book of importance that was printed at a press 30 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING and from movable type was the celebrated Bible l which Gutenberg produced at Mentz about the year 1455. About the same time it is asserted that Laurent Janszoon Coster of Haarlem issued the Speculum Humane Salvationis, and much discussion has risen as to which book has the prior claim. The Dutch insist on Coster as being the proto-printer ; the Germans not only assert the claim of Gutenberg but say that Coster is a myth ! The controversy is still carried on and there is little likelihood that it will ever be decided. In the year 1462 there was a small revolution in Mentz, owing to the rival claims of two Archbishops, and the city was sacked. The printers in the employment of Gutenberg and his partners, Fust and Peter Schoeffer, were scattered in every direction. Fifteen years afterwards printing-presses were to be ftmnd in every large city of Germany and the Nether- lands, as well as in Italy and France ; and about 1477, Caxton set up his first press in the precincts of Westminster Abbe} 7 . pcculum $jumanae J;albattante ' The Mirror of Man's Salvation.' This was the first book, printed from type, that had wood engravings. It is a small folio containing fifty-eight cuts, each of which is divided into two subjects, inclosed in an architectural frame, in which is the title in Latin. The cuts are placed at the head of the pages, of which they occupy one-third. It is to be noticed that, though the cuts are all printed in brown ink, the text beneath them is printed in black : probably because the prints were to be coloured. The arrangement and scope of this work are much like those of the ' Biblia Pauperum ' ; the subjects are taken from the Old and New Testaments, including the Apocrypha, and a few are from classic history. The illustrations are from the first page : Catfurf ILuctfcrt 1 It is often called the Mazarine Bible, because a copy was dis- covered, with notes written in it by the illuminator, in the library of Cardinal Mazarin. It is very scarce. In 1884 Mr. Quaritch bought a very fine copy from the library of Sir John Thorold, for which he paid 3,900. SPECULUM HUMANE. SALVATIONIS 31 ' The Fall of Lucifer 'and JBttttf trarttt ijamutcm air gmagtnrtn ct gumlitutttnem gttnm ' God created Man after His own imaere and likeness.' SPECULUM : THE FALL OF LUCIFER (Siie of the original cut) 32 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING We see that the arts of drawing and engraving had improved since the time of the ' Biblia Pauperum.' The figures are in better proportion : in many of the designs the folds of the dress fall more gracefully and the shading is more artistically done. There are four fifteenth-century editions of this work known, two with the text in Dutch, and two in Latin. Three editions are printed entirely with movable type, while part of the fourth the second Latin edition is certainly from engraved blocks. No one can tell the reason of this curious anomaly we can only conjecture. Experts tell the various editions by the state of the cuts ; when these are unblemished, it is assumed that they are of the first edition ; when a few of the lines of the cuts are broken, it is supposed that they belong to the second edition ; when many are broken, to the third edition, and so on. Mr. "NVoodbery 1 has so graphically described the ' Specu- lum ' that we cannot do better than quote his words : ' A whole series needs to be looked at before one can appreciate the interest which these designs have in indicating the subjects on which imagination and thought were then exercised, and the modes in which they were exercised. Symbolism and mysticism pervade the whole. All nature and history seem to have existed only to prefigure the life of the Saviour : imagination and thought hover about Him, and take colour, shape, and light only from that central form ; the stories of the Old Testament, the histories of David, Samson, and Jonah, the massacres, victories, and miracles there recorded, foreshadow, as it were in parables, the narrative of the Gospels ; the temple, the altar, and the ark of the covenant, all the furnishings and observances of the Jewish ritual, reveal occult meanings ; the garden of Solomon's Song, and the sentiment of the Bridegroom and the Bride who wander in it, are interpreted, sometimes in graceful or even poetic feeling, under the inspiration of mystical devotion ; old kings of pagan Athens are transformed into witnesses of Christ, 1 History of Wood-Engraving, 1883. THE COLOGNE BIBLE 33 w w S 1-1 - Ms ^ e l w ^ a 34 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING and, with the Sibyl of Rome, attest spiritual truth. This book and others like it are mirrors of the ecclesiastical mind ; they picture the principal intellectual life of the Middle Ages ; thej" show the sources of that deep feeling in the earlier Dutch artists which gave dignity and sweetness to their works. Even in the rudeness of these books, in the texts as well as in the designs, there is a na'ivetc, an openness and freshness of nature, a confidence in limited experience and contracted vision, which make the sight of these cuts as charming as conversation with one who had never heard of America or dreamed of Luther, and who would have found modern life a puzzle and an offence. The author of the Speculum laments the evils which fell upon man in conse- quence of Adam's sin, and recounts them : blindness, deaf- ness, lameness, floods, fire, pestilence, wild beasts, and law-suits (in such order he arranges them) ; and he ends the long list with this last and heaviest evil, that men should presume to ask " why God willed to create man, whose fall He foresaw ; why He willed to create the angels, whose ruin He foreknew ; wherefore He hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and softened the heart of Mary Magdalene unto repentance ; wherefore He made Peter contrite, who had denied Him thrice, but allowed Judas to despair in his sin; wherefore He gave grace to one thief, and cared not to give grace to his companion." What modern man can fully realise the mental condition of this poet, who thus weeps over the temptation to ask these questions, as the supreme and direst curse which Divine vengeance allows to overtake the perverse children of this world ? ' By far the most excellent book issued about this time is 5Thc falter, printed by Gutenberg's former partners, Fust and Schoeffer, at Mentz in 1459. The initial lettors, which are printed in red and blue and the Gothic type, all of which are in exact imitation of the best manuscripts, could not be excelled at the present day. The book belongs more to the BREYDENBACITS TRAVELS 35 FRONTISPIECE TO BREYDENBACH's TRAVELS (Much reduced) 36 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING History of Printing, but on account of its beautiful initial letters, which, it is said, were drawn and engraved by Schoeffer, we feel constrained to notice it. A 3800ft of JfablcS issued from the press of Albrecht Pfister, of Bamberg, in 1461, may be mentioned as a very early work in which woodcuts and type were printed together ; it is a small folio of twenty-eight leaves, containing eighty- five fables in rhyme in the old German language, illustrated with a hundred and one cuts. They are of little merit and show no advancement in the art of wood-engraving. The only known copy of this book, which is in the Wolfenbiittel Library, was taken away by the French under Napoleon's orders and added to the Bibliotheque Nationale ; it was restored at the surrender of Paris in 1815. We cannot give a list of all the books containing wood- cuts that were issued in Germany at the end of the fifteenth century ; their name is legion. We must, however, mention two or three of the most important. In the C0I0QITC 3tJt6Ir, printed about the year 1475, there are one hundred and nine cuts, one of which we give as an example ; they are about equal in merit to those in the ' Biblia Pauperum,' but show no improvement. The subject of the cut is ' The Grief of Hannah.' We see Elkanah and his two wives, Hannah and Peninnah, in a room from which the artist has obligingly taken away one of the sides. In the Niirnberg Bible, printed in 1482, we find the same set of cuts. The $itrn&rrcj Chronicle, often quoted as an example of early German wood-engraving, is a folio volume containing more than two thousand cuts, which include views of cities, portraits of saints and other holy men, scenes from Biblical and profane history, and a great many other subjects, pro- duced, we are told, under the superintendence of Michael Wolgemuth and William Pleydenwurff, ' mathematical men skilled in the art of painting.' The same head does duty for the portrait of a dozen or more historians or poets the BREYDENBACWS TRAVELS 37 same portrait is given to many military heroes the saints are treated in the same way, and even the same view serves for several different cities. The cuts are bolder and more full of colour than any we have had before, and so far may be said to be in.advance, and this we must put down to the superin- tendence of Wolgemuth, who was an artist of repute. Chatto says they are the most tasteless and worthless things that are to be found in any book, ancient or modern but this is too sweeping an assertion. The work was compiled by Hartnian Schedel, a physician of Niirnberg, and printed in that city by Anthony Koburger in 1493. The most important book of this time, so far as the wood- cuts are concerned, is a Latin edition of Jjrcy&rnbach'sf Crailfte, which was printed in folio by Erhard Reuwich in Mentz in 148G. We give a much reduced copy of the frontispiece, which is without doubt the best example of wood-engraving of the fifteenth century. In this cut we see for the first time cross-hatching used in the shadows, in the folds of the drapery of the principal figure Saint Catherine, who is the patroness of learned men in the upper parts of the shields and beneath the top part of the frame. Bernard de Breydenbach, who was a canon of the cathedral of Mentz, was accompanied in his travels to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem and the shrine of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai by John, Count of Solnis and Lord of Mintzenberg, and Philip de Bicken, Knight. The arms of the three travellers are given in the cut with the names beneath them. Besides the frontispiece there are many other good engravings in this volume a picture of Venice, five feet long and ten inches high; views of Corfu, Modon, in Southern Greece, and the country round Jerusalem. There are also many pictures of animals, such as a giraffe, a unicorn, a salamander, a camel, and a creature something like an ouran-outang. Travellers saw wonderful things in those days ! It is a great pity that we do not know the names of the artists. 38 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING who drew and engraved the cuts in this most interesting book. Just at the close of the century we find the first humorous conception of German artists in the illustrations of the JLibis (Ship of Fools), written by Sebastian Brandt and THE BIBLIOMANIAC From ' A'attt Stutlifera ' (The Ship of Fools) printed at Basel in 1497. This very bold and original work had an immense success and was frequently reprinted. Every page is adorned with the antics of clowns and men in fools' caps and bells, in caricature of some absurdity, and the bibliomaniac is not spared : ' I have the first place among fools,' he is made to say ; ' I have heaps of books which I NAVIS STULTIFERA 39 rarely open. If I read them I forget them and arn no wiser.' As will be seen by the cut, though the perspective of the draughtsman is not to be praised, the work of the engraver is excellent ; the fineness of the lines is new to us and the shadows are well treated. Notice also the bindings of the books, with their bosses, hinges, and clasps ; nearly all are folios, and four or five are ornamented with the same pattern. The decoration at the side is evidently copied from an illu- minated manuscript. With this book we may fitly close our notice of German wood-engraving of the fifteenth century. 40 HISTORY OF WOOD ENGRAVING CHAPTER V ON WOOD-ENGRAVING IN ITALY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ALTHOUGH at this time Germany took the lead of all European countries so far as the illustrations of printed books are con- cerned, the transition from German to Italian art is like the change from the strong bleak winds of the North to the balmy air and sunny skies of the South. We are aware of the difference both of climate and of art in a moment : the very first picture presented to us reveals it. The Italians of the fifteenth century could not take up a handicraft without making it a fine art. Here is a title-page of a folio KALEN- DARIO produced in Venice in the year 1476. This is the first title-page on which the contents of the book, the name of the author, the imprint of the publishers, who were also the printers, and the date of the issue of the book, were ever given. Mark the decoration. Though the publishers were Germans, the artist who drew this border must have been an Italian ; and probably the engraver was an Italian also, for the book was produced at Venice. The character of the design suggests the work of an illuminator. The introduction of the printing-press must have interfered sadly with the writer of manuscripts and his brother the illuminator, and both were doubtless glad to avail them- selves of the new art. The manuscript writer may have turned compositor, and the illuminator may have been transformed into a book decorator. IN ITALY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 41 "We have before us a facsimile of a cut called ' The Triumph of Love,' which appeared as one of the illustrations of TRIUMPHI DEL PETRARCA, a book printed in Venice, in 1488. A man, seated with his hands bound behind him, is tied with a rope to a triumphal car which is drawn by four 'efh cpi a d.i ogni parte e un MJTO doro Sion fu piu preciolagemmxmai Dil kalendano : dje cratca cole ifu Con gran fadlita : ma gran lauoro lureo : e turn i fegnl fuotq Defcripti dil gran polo da ogm'laP Quando ti fole : e luna echpli fai ' Quantc terre fe rece a (to tbexoro In im mftant^u faiqual horafia Qual fara lanno : gionro : tempo : e mcxe s Cl>etutu ponn (on daftrologia- loanfTe dc monte regio queftP fcxc . Cogher tal fiutto acib non graue fil In bt cue cempo : e con pochi pencxe Chi teme cotal Tpcxt r Scsinpa oirtu 1 noinidiimprefToii Son quidi biflbdi lofTicolon ; -^ . Vcnetijs. \7t^ BcmarViiispiilorcU Auguln Pctrus lodcin" Ac Lanccncen Eabirdo? ufdol Uc Augn Ih TITLE-PAGE OF A FOLIO KALENDAKIO BY JOANNE DE MONTE REGIO, FEINTED AT VENICE IN 1476 (iHUCll reduced) horses ; on a ball of fire, which rises from the car, a blind- folded Cupid is shooting an arrow (apparently at the near leader) ; a great crowd of men and women, among whom we see a king and a mitred bishop, follow and surround the car, and on a distant hill we behold Petrarch conversing with his friend. There are two rabbits feeding calmly in the fore- 42 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING ground, notwithstanding the danger of the horses' hoofs, and the usual conventional designs for grass and flowers. The groundwork of the border of this curious print is black, with an Italian design carefully cut out in white, with but little shadow. From the waviness of many of the lines which should be straight, we think this print must be from an engraving on metal. Of all the wood- engravings executed in Italy in the fifteenth century, none can compare in excellence with those in the HYPNEROTOMACHIA POLIPHILI (Dream of Poliphilo) printed in Venice, by Aldus, in 1499. ' There are, in all, one hundred and ninety-two subjects, of which eighty-six relate to mythology and ancient history, fifty-four are pictures of processions and emblematic figures, thirty-six are architec- tural and ornamental, and sixteen vases and statues. They have been attributed to many different artists, the most probable of whom is Carpaccio. The subject of the ' Hyp- nerotomachia ' has been described as a ' Contest between Imagination and Love ' ; it is a curious medley of all kinds of fable, history, architecture, mathematics, and other matters, seasoned with suggestions which do not reflect credit on the moral perceptions of its author, a Dominican monk, named Francesco Colonna. An enthusiastic admirer of this book thus poetically describes it : ' There is, perhaps, no volume where the exuberant vigour of that age is more clearly shown, or where the objects for which that age was im- passioned are more glowingly described. The romantic and fantastic rhapsody mirrors every aspect of nature and art 1 An English version, neither faithful nor complete, was published in the time of Queen Elizabeth, 'At London, Printed for Simon Waterson, and are to be sold at his shop in St. Paule's Church- yard at Chepegate, 1502.' It is extremely scarce. Many of the pages, as giving examples of costume, have lately been reprinted by authority of the Science and Art Department. There is a French edition of Poliphilo, printed at Paris by Kerver in 1561, with illustrations in a late florid French style. IN ITALY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 43 in which the Italians then took delight peaceful landscape, where rivers flow by flower- starred banks and through bird- haunted woods ; noble architecture and exquisite sculpture, POLIl'HILO IN THE G.UIIJEN From ' llijpnerotomachia Poliphtti,' printed by Aldus tit Venice in 1493 44 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING the music of soft instruments, the ruins of antiquity, the legends of old mythology, the motions of the dance, the elegance of the banquet, splendour of apparel, courtesy of manners, even the manuscript, with its cover of purple velvet sown with Eastern pearls everything that was cared for and sought in that time when the gloom of asceticism lifted and disclosed the wide prospect of the world lying, as it were, in the loveliness of daybreak.' But it is more on account of the beauty of the cuts than the poetry of the author that this book has been so much admired and so frequently reprinted. Our illustration shows us where Poliphilo in his dream visits a bevy of fair maidens in a garden. These nymphs are not very beautiful, but, though they have such high waists, remark how gracefully their figures are drawn, and look at the action and the drapery of the damsel running away. The engraving is, without doubt, an exact facsimile of the artist's drawing ; the lines are clear and crisp, and are evidently the work of a practised hand. The drawing of the gateway and trees is simply conventional. We are sorry that we have not room for more of the illustrations of this remarkable work. In these early books it seems to have been nobody's business to record the name of the engraver who produced the illustrations, and, although the printer's name is gene- rally A - ery conspicuous in the colophon, the artist's name rarely, if ever, appears. But the work of certain masters of certain schools is generally recognised with ease, either by some peculiarity of manner, or by some particular mark. Tims one artist, who, towards the end of the fifteenth century, illustrated a few books printed in Italy, is known as 'the master of the dolphin,' because in most of his work this fish appears among the decorations. Another is known to us only by the name of 'the illustrator of the " Poliphilus," ' that quaint romance of Colonna which has taken a proud place in literature, not for its own intrinsic merits, but IN ITALY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 45 rather on account of- the beauty of its woodcuts, the name of whose author is still a matter of conjecture. We may here say a few words about Aldo Manuzio, better known in England by his Latinised name, Aldus Manutius, the celebrated printer, and some of the other early printers of Venice. One of the first to set up a press in Venice was Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, who had worked at Mentz, and who was the first to cut and introduce Roman type such as is now in use. At his death his business and plant were bought by a rich man, Andrea Torresano, of Asola, and the work was carried on successfully. Aldo Manuzio, who was born at Sernioneta, a village near Velletri, in 1450, received an excellent education, especially in Greek ; and the celebrated Pico da Mirandola made him tutor to his nephews, Alberto and Leonardo Pio, Lords of Carpi. Alberto Pio, under his master's training, became a great lover of literature ; and when Aldo conceived the idea of starting a printing-press, the young lord advanced him the necessary funds, and gave him a house in Venice near the Church of Sant' Agostino. Aldo then married a daughter of Torresano, and the two printing businesses were joined and carried on together under Aide's direction. His house, we are told, was a veritable colony ; besides the compositors' rooms and the press-rooms, he had closets for press-readers and studios for the special use of learned authors. The first ' printer's devil ' was a little negro boy who had been brought by one of the men from Greece. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the wood- engravers of Florence were celebrated for beautiful book illustrations in a distinct style. Those in the QUATRO REGGIE, Florence, 1508, are typical examples ; their chief characteristics are, great breadth ; masses of white and black 46 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING evenly balanced ; and the frequent use of white lines out of masses of black. TEOIULDO MANBZIO KNOWN AS ALDUS, PRINTER AT VENICE Some of the fine borders to these early Italian wood- engravings owe their distinctive character to earlier work of IN ITALY IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 47 engravers on metal. Thus the borders round the illustrations of the Venice folio of 1491 of the TRIUMPHS OF PETRARCH seem to be direct copies of engravings in metal by Filippo Lippi. The masses of white on a black background are very effective, and the strength of the colour increases the effect of the picture which the border surrounds. Between 1474 and 1512 Aldus printed for the first time the works of thirty-three Greek authors. The works of Aris- totle, brought out in four volumes, occupied three years. A learned Greek, Musurus of Crete, corrected the proofs, in which Aldus himself assisted. The workmen were nearly all Greeks. The Greek type was copied from the handwriting of Musurus, and the Italian, known as the Aldine, from the writings of Petrarch; this was cut by the celebrated artist-goldsmith, Francia of Bologna. The Aldine edition of Virgil (1501), now exceedingly rare, was the first book printed in this Italic type. Notwithstanding all his learning, energy, and philan- thropy, Aldus did not succeed in his business. Many of his books were pirated, wars and insurrections interrupted him, the League of Cambray caused him to close his works from 1506 to 1510, and he sold his books at a rate too cheap to be remunerative. The first printed edition of yEsop's FABLES, which appeared at Verona as early as 1481, and was reprinted at Venice in 1491, contains many excellent engravings inclosed in ornamental borders, thoroughly Italian in character. The figures are not unlike those in the ' Hypnerotomachia,' and .we can readily imagine that they were drawn by the same artist, who has given us little more than outlines, which the engraver has well cut in facsimile. The fable of ' The Jack- daw and the Peacock ' is particularly well done. An edition of OVID'S METAMORPHOSES appeared also at this time with tolerably good illustrations not so well engraved. There are some curious little cuts in the E PISTOLE DI SAN HIERONYMO VOLGARE, published in Ferrara in 1497, which 4 s HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING are more valuable for their originality than their beauty, either of drawing or engraving. The book was evidently intended for the use of the illiterate, to whom the quality of the pictures laid before them was of little consequence if they told the story that was meant for them to read with their eyes. The homely scene of Christ appearing like a Gardener with a hoe on His shoulder, addressing Marv Magdalene in A BOOTMAKER'S SHOP From the ' Decameron,' printed in Venice in 1492 an Italian pergola, would appeal to their feelings much more directly than the Transfiguration of Raphael. We do not find record of any other important wood- engravings in the history of printing in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century. Presses abounded everywhere, chiefly managed by Germans ; there was scarcely an important town in Italy without a printer ; few illustrated books, how- ever, were issued at this time. An edition of Boccaccio's IN ITAL Y IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTUR Y 49 ' DECAMERON,' with many excellent cuts, one of which, repre- senting a bootmaker's shop, we give as an illustration, was printed by the brothers Gregorio at Venice in 1492. And there are some illustrations in a book called ' FIORE DI VIRTU,' which appeared in Venice in the same year, that -- ^S"*" li 1 1 1 n i . rT"T _r T/ ?iX' > \\ - FRONTISPIECE TO A ' TERENCE,' PRINTED AT LYONS IN 1493 may be praised for the work of the wood-engraver, though the designer shows a sad ignorance of the laws of perspective and proportion. And we have before us an illustration to a poem by POLIZIANO, in which Giuliano dei Medici is kneeling before the altar of the goddess Minerva, where we see graceful drawing by the artist and fairly good engraving. It 50 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING l was printed in Florence, but the type bears no comparison with the beauty of the Aldine books. The love of colour, which is born in all Italians, led them to develop a process of making pictures in chiaroscuro by printing several wood-blocks one upon another, each block giving a separate tint. In fact, it was the beginning of the modern colour-printing. The invention of the new process was claimed by Ugo da Carpi, who reproduced several of the designs of Kaphael. In the beginning of the next century we find pictures printed in four different colours trying to imitate water-colour, or, rather, distemper drawings. (See p. 99.) At Lyons, about the same time, there was an illustrated edition of ' TERENCE ' published, with well-executed woodcuts, from which we are able to give only the frontispiece, ' The Author writing his book.' It is sufficient to show that the engraving is the work of a practised hand. CHAPTEE VI IJV FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTUEY BEFORE we begin our brief history of wood-engraving in France it will be well to speak of the technical part of the new art in the fifteenth century. We have already stated that the engraving of the ' St. Christopher ' and other large prints were cut with a knife on planks of apple or pear or other close-grained wood ; but there has always been much doubt about the small book illustrations which appeared in various countries quite at the end of the century. The dis- covery, however, of some engraved blocks of metal solved the difficulty. In those days workers in metal were to be found in all large towns ; the age of moulding and casting everything that could be cast had not then arrived : of course, coins and medals were made in the foundry ; but hand- work of the most perfect kind on metal was as common as wood-carving for the churches. Experts have discovered twisted lines in some of the old prints ; a line in a woodcut may easily be broken but it can hardly be bent, and it is now asserted that many of the wood- cuts, including the beautiful initial letters in Fust and Schoeffer's ' Psalter,' were really engraved on metal. The view of London at the head of the first page of the Illustrated London News is, we are told, cut in brass ; Mulready's well- known envelope, engraved on brass by the celebrated wood- engraver, John Thompson, may be seen in the South E 2 52 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING Kensington Museum ; and scores of other examples of metal- work of this kind might be cited. And there is no doubt that the famous illustrations of the Missal, or ' Book ol Hours,' issued in Paris between 1490 and 1520, were engraved on metal of some kind, perhaps on copper or some amalgam of tin and copper. There was a metal known as ' latten ' in those days, and probably the engraving was done on some material of this kind, not too hard to cut, not too soft to wear ORNAMENTS FROM ' HEUKES A L'US.UGE DE CHARTEE ' (1'ublished by Vostre) away. It will be noticed that the groundwork of many borders in the French books is filled with little white dots, crible it was called ; these dots are, in the first place, to imitate similar work in the gold grounds of the borders of illustrated missals, and, in the second place, to save the labour of cutting away so much of the metal as would be required for a white ground. These dots were evidently IN FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 53 made by means of a sharp and finely-pointed tool driven by a blow into the metal. (See page 59.) France was not early in the field with illustrated books, but she quickly made up for the delay by the excellence of her work, more especially in ornament. In 1488, Pierre Le Kouge, a printer and publisher, sent forth a book, ' LA MEB DES HISTOIRES,' which contains many charming designs, from which beautiful wall-papers we know of have been borrowed ; they are as well engraved as similar work at the present day, and only needed better ' over-laying ' by the pressman, an art but little practised at that time. This book contains the first decorative work by wood- engraving we have met with, and shows the great excellence of art in France at this period. There is a good example, though much reduced in size, among the illustrations of Mr. William Morris's paper ' On the Woodcuts of Gothic Books,' that he read before a meeting of the Society of Arts in January 1892 : it is printed in the Journal of the Society for February 12th. Besides Le Rouge, there were in Paris at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries four cele- brated printers, who were also publishers, whose books command our attention. Their names are Simon Vostre, Antoine Verard, Thielman Kerver, a German, and Guyot Marchant ; they all published the ' Book of Hours,' illustrated and decorated by the best artists and engravers of their time. There was likewise a printer named Philippe Pigouchet, who was also an engraver on wood, and who began by cut- ting blocks for Simon Vostre, and afterwards turned publisher on his own account. An important point to notice in con- nection with the illustrations of P'rench ' Books of Hours ' at this time is that they are nearly all inspired by German artists and nearly all copied from illuminated MSS. At the end of the fifteenth century the art of illumination was at its height in Paris. No one excelled the exquisite 54 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN (From a Missal published bu Simon Vostre) ' IN FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 55 work of Jean Foucquet, servant to the King, and Jean Perreal, painter to Anne of Brittany. Manuscripts contain- ing their miniature paintings command a large sum whenever they are offered for sale at the present day. These artists, it is said, gave their aid to the publishers of the ' Book of Hours ' (Heures a I'usage de Rome), which had such an enormoTis sale that each publisher produced an edition for himself. Mr. Noel Humphreys asserts, in his ' History of the Art of Printing,' that no fewer than sixty editions were published between 1484 and 1494. In his ' Introduction to the Study and Collection of Ancient Prints,' Dr. Willshire says : ' Towards the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries some well-known French printers Pigouchet, Jean Dupre, Antoine Verard, and Simon Vostre published some beautiful" Books of Hours," ornamented with engravings having some peculiar characters. The chief of these were that the ground and often the dark portions of the print were finely cribU or dotted white, serving as a means of "killing black" a practice then prevalent among French engravers ; secondly, each page of text was sur- rounded by a border of little subjects engraved in the same manner, and often repeated at every third page. . . . Not unfrequently they were printed in brilliant ink on fine vellum, that they might compete with the illuminated MS. " Books of Hours" then in fashion. The prints decorating these books have been generally considered to be impressions from wood.' But Mr. Linton says they are from engraved blocks of metal ; and every practical man will, we are sure, agree with the great living Master of Wood-engraving. Our first illustration is from a ' Book of Hours,' or Missal, published by Simon Vostre in 1488. It represents ' The Death of the Virgin,' a subject that was always chosen by the illustrator of religious books in those days ; in our account of wood-engraving in the next two centuries we shall frequently meet with it among the works of the great artists. The JaTna mea aperies $%** osmeuannunciabtt if THE PASSION OF OUB LORD (After a painting by Martin Schongauer. From a Missal by Simon Vostre) IN FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 57 Gothic framework of the cut is evidently borrowed from church ornament. The expression of the faces in the crowd of visitors is far in advance of anything we have seen hitherto in the German cuts ; and the engraving, which was probably on metal, is evidently facsimile of the drawing and is remark- ably well executed. The narrow border on the right of the cut is from an illuminated manuscript. In another of Vostre's Missals we find a copy of an engraving after the German painter, Martin Schongauer, ' Christ bearing the Cross,' enclosed in a French Renaissance frame. In the sky there is a good example of the criblc work of which we have spoken. The towers of Jerusalem in the background must have been evolved from the artist's inner consciousness : he certainly never saw the Holy City. Antoine Verard also published many 'Livres d'Heures,' 1 very much like Vostre's. We are told that he frequently printed a few copies on the finest vellum and had them coloured in exact imitation of the illuminated Missals. One of Verard' s patrons was the Due d'Angouleme, a noted biblio- phile, who commissioned him to print on vellum the romance of ' TRISTAN,' the ' Book of Consolation ' of Boethius, the ' Ordinaire du Chretien,' and the ' Heures en Francois,' all with illuminated borders and handsome bindings. For this great amount of work Verard received about 240Z., then equivalent perhaps to 1,OOOZ. of the present day. We give an outline copy of one of the pages of the romance of ' TRIS- TAN,' which will repay much attention both for the principal subject, the King's Banquet, and the tapestry on the wall, which ought to be coloured to be properly appreciated. This famous publisher issued also a huge chronicle in five folio volumes, the ' Miroir Historical,' profusely illustrated with good wood engravings ; the first volume in 1495, the last in 1496. 1 In a recent Catalogue, Mr. Quaritch offers no less than seven different editions of the illustrated ' Livre d'Heures ' printed by Verard, at prices varying from 6(W. to 200/. 58 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING Thielrnan Kerver, the German, also brought out many ' Books of Hours,' copying those issued by Simon Yostre in THE KING'S BANQUET (From the romance of 1 Tristan f pulilithfl by Antoin? Verard) a most barefaced way ; indeed, piracy of this kind was rampant all over Europe, and but little regarded. We give IN FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 59 a reduced copy of Kerver's book-mark ; in the original it will be seen that the background is crible, thus suggesting that it was cut on metal. It was Guyot Marchant who produced, in 1485, the first edition of the ' DANCE OF DEATH,' which contained seventeen engravings on ten folio leaves, with the text printed in the MARK OF THIELMAN KERVER old Gothic characters. This awe-inspiring but highly popular subject had been painted on the walls of many public build- ings in Germany and France, and in past ages it had always been a great favourite with the lower classes (many of our readers will remember a version of it on the walls of the curious old wooden bridge at Lucerne, the designs of which have doubtless been handed down by tradition) but Mar- 60 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING chant was the first who printed the story in a scries of woodcuts, well drawn and admirably engraved, and he had his reward, for the work was reprinted over and over again. The Pope, the Emperor, the Bishop, the Duke and the Duchess are given with much spirit, and are evidently the work of a clever draughtsman, who might, however, have made his Death a little less hideous. But there was a great love of the horrible in those days. A special chapter might well be devoted to the beautiful marks used by French printers. Guyot Marchant's mark represents leather- workers engaged at their trade, and above are a few musical notes. There are two varieties of this device. The mark of Jehan Du Pre is an elaborate piece of work, in which heraldry plays a conspicuous part, while that of Antoine Caillaut is pictorial. The Le Noirs used devices in which the head? of negroes figured prominently. The well-known mark of Badius Ascensius represents printers at work. Jehan Petit used several beautiful cuts, in which his mark forms part of an elaborate design. 6i CHAPTEE VII IN ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY IN the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries many of the finest churches in England were built by architects so celebrated that some of them were sent for to erect similar buildings in France. The beautiful carvings and highly decorated monuments still existing in our cathedrals prove that the art of sculpture in England was at that time little inferior to that of other countries. And in the British Museum and Bodleian Library, and many private collections, there is plentiful evidence that the miniature painters and illumi- nators were but little behind their brethren in Italy and France ; even the binders, as we see by existing work, used excellent ornament in the decoration of the covers of their books. Why is it, then, that we find the art of wood- engraving, when it was flourishing in all the chief countries on the Continent, almost at its earliest state of infancy in England ? This is a question very difficult to answer. Certainly our great printers, "William Caxton, and his successors, Wynkyn de Worde and Eichard Pynson, did not follow the example of the great typographers of Venice or the yet more-to-be-praised booksellers of Paris, who devoted so much energy and taste in the decoration of their books. Of the few cuts printed in the fifteenth century, such as they are, we must say a few words. The earliest are all 62 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING small devotional pictures, representing Scriptural subjects, as ' The Image of Pity,' a figure of Christ on the Cross surrounded by emblems of the Passion ; four or five only of these early cuts have been found. William Caxton, the first English printer, who was born in the Weald of Kent about the year 1422, was apprenticed to Robert Large, a rich mercer of London, who was Lord Mayor in 1440. In the following year the master died and Caxton went to Bruges, where he prospered in business, and in 1462 was made Governor of a Company of English Merchants who traded in Flanders, then the foremost mer- cantile country in the world. In 1471 Caxton gave up commerce and attached himself to the court of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, the sister of Edward IV. At the request of the duchess, he then translated the Le Recueil des Histoires de Troye, written by Raoul Lefevre, and employed Colard Mansion of Bruges to produce it. This was the first book printed in the English language. In passing his book through the press Caxton learned the new art, and with type bought of Colard Mansion he set up the first printing-press in England, at the sign of ' The Red Pale ' in the Almonry at Westminster, at the end of the year 1476. ' The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers,' which appeared in 1477, is believed to be the first book printed in England ; this was followed by ' The Morale Prouerbes of Cristyne,' and several other books, all without illustration. In 1478 he printed ' The Mirrour of the World,' the first book printed in England with cuts, one of which we give as an example ; and the more famous ' Game and Playe of the Chesse,' from the second edition of which we have taken as a specimen ' The Knight,' which Caxton thus describes : ' The knyght ought to be maad al armed upon a hors in such wise that he have an helme on his heed and a spere in his right hond, and coverid with his shelde, a swerde and a mace on his left syde, clad with an halberke and plates tofore his IN ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 63 breste, legge harnoys on his legges, spores on his hcelis, on hys handes hys gauntelettes, hys hors wel broken and taught, and apte to bataylle, and coveryd with hys armes.' (Ortho- graphy was not much regarded in those days.) This book is so rare and so keenly sought for that at the sale at Osterley MUSIC (/Vow Ctuclon't ' JJirrour of the World') Park in 1855 a perfect copy was bought for the enormous sum of 1,950?. In 1483 appeared ' The Golden Legende,' considered to be his magnum o^;?/, on account of the beauty of the typography ; and about 1490 ' The Tali-s of Cauntyr- burye ' with 27 cuts representing individual pilgrims, and one with all the pilgrims seated round a large table. It is 6 4 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING said that Caxton printed ninety-nine different works, of which sixty-four survive either in perfect books or in frag- ments, which may be consulted at the British Museum. He produced the first printed edition of Chaucer, Lydgate Gower, and Sir Thomas Malory's ' King Arthur.' He was THE KNIGHT (From Cajcton'i ' Game and J'laue of the Chesse ') an accomplished linguist, and translated and published Cicero's Orations ' De Senectute ' and ' De Arnicitia,' Virgil's ' J3neid ' and many other classical works. With one exception none of his books has a title-page, though some have prologues and colophons ; and the pages are not numbered. They are all printed in the Gothic IN ENGLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 65 character known as ' black letter,' and nearly all are in small folio size. Caxton, we are assured, received the patronage and friendship of all the great men of his time and was much esteemed throughout Europe ; and from a miniature painting in a beautiful manuscript in the library of Lambeth Palace we know that Earl Eivers presented him with his first book in his hand to the King, Edward IV. It is supposed that he died at the end of 1491 in his sixty-ninth year. Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's pupil and s'accessor, was a WYNKYN DE WORDE S MARK With Caxton's Initials native of Lorraine. He probably came over with him from Bruges, and so attached was he to his master, and so highly did he esteem him, that in all the nine book-marks that De Worde used, he always included the initials W. C. The mark we have given is of rare occurrence, and is one of the best pieces of engraving of the time. Bibliographers have found four hundred books printed by him ; among them is ' The Golden Legende,' with woodcuts (1493) ; a translation of ' Huon de Bordeaux,' from which Shakespeare borrowed the plot of his ' Midsummer Night's Dream'; and his best-known F 65 fJISTOKY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING work, often reprinted, ' Treatyses perteynynge to Hawkynge and Huntynge, and Fyshynge with an Angle,' by Dame Juliana Berners (149G), which contains many woodcuts, one of which, a man fishing, is very quaint (see engraving). A book which was ' imprynted at London in Flete Street in 1531,' called ' Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, A devoute Treatyse in Englysshe,' is illustrated by three curiously folded wood- cuts. De Worde was the first printer in England who used the Roman type. Several of his books have a woodcut on the title-page. In his ' History of Wood-engraving,' Mr. Chatto gives his opinion about the cuts of this period :' Although I am in- clined to believe that within the fifteenth century there were no persons who practised wood-engraving in this country as a distinct profession, yet it by no means follows from such nn admission that Caxton's and De Worde's cuts must have been engraved by foreign artists. The manner in which they are executed is so coarse that they mjght have been cut by any person who could handle a graver. Looking at them merely as specimens of wood-engraving, they are not generally supe- rior to the practice-blocks cut by a modern wood-engraver's apprentice within the first month of his novitiate.' Soon there were other printers in London. Richard Pynson began to publish books from his own press in Fleet Street. His first book illustrated with woodcuts appears to have been ' The Canterbury Tales,' printed before 1493. In the following year Pynson issued Lydgate's ' Falle of Princis ' with numerous small woodcuts by a master-hand, which appear too good to be English. For a ' Sarurn Missal ' of 1500, he used some beautifully engraved borders and ornaments, as well as a large cut of Archbishop Morton's coat of arms. Another of his important works was Lord Berners' translation of Syr John Froissart's ' Cronycles of Englande, Fraunce, Spayne, tike.' We give a 1 FYSHYXOE WYTII AN ANGLE ' (From'Ttie Boot of St. Albani,' printed bf \\'f>Uyn de H'orc/f i;i 1496) ra 68 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING copy of Pynson's ' Mark,' but we fear both this and De Worde's were engraved on the Continent. In 1498, Julian Notary established an office from which twenty-three books have been traced. Many of them have curious woodcuts, some of which seem to have descended to RICHARD PYNSON S MARK him from Caxton and Wynkyn de "Worde. We find the decoration of the covers of Notary's works mentioned with approval in the early history of book-binding, which arrived at a much greater perfection than wood- engraving in this country at the close of the fifteenth century. 6 9 CHAPTER VIII IN GERMANY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY WE must now retrace our brief history to Germany, where, under the immediate direction and control of such well- known artists as Albrecht Diirer of Niirnberg (b. 1471, d. 1528) and Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg (b. 1472, d. 1531), as well as of Lucas Cranach, a Franconian (b. 1472, d. 1553), and, afterwards, of Hans Holbein of Augsburg (b. 1497, d. 1543), the art of wood- engraving in its grandest and purest form arrived at its first culmination. This was in a great measure due to the liberal patronage of the Emperor Maximilian, who, possessing a great love of art, esteemed all painters, architects, designers, and engravers as highly as his warriors. He was fond of magnificence in a truly imperial way, and the superb series of wood-engravings the noblest the world has ever seen known as ' The Triumphs of Maximilian,' were the outcome of this generous tendency. Of these celebrated works, which were not completed when the Emperor died in 1519, we must speak in their proper place. It was to the genius of Albrecht Diirer and the engravers who translated his drawings into woodcuts that the art received its new vigour. Up to this time wood-engraving in Germany had been the work of craftsmen who were little better than mechanics ; but when Diirer and Burgkmair, who knew the capabilities of the art, made drawings on the wood expressly for the engravers to reproduce in exact lines, there 70 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING was a quick improvement which went on increasing in excellence for more than half a century. After the death of Holbein and his immediate successors, the art faded into insignificance in Germany for many years. The first important work of the early life of Albrecht Du'rer was a series of fifteen large drawings on wood repre- senting allegorical Scenes from the Apocalypse. They are mystical, indeed almost incomprehensible ; at the same time we are obliged to notice the tremendous vigour and the wonderful power of invention in the man who designed them. But his attempt to embody the supernatural led him into the most extravagant conceptions. ' In attempting to bring such themes within the power of expression which art possesses,' writes Mr. Woodbery, ' he strove to give speech to the un- utterable.' Yet the genius of the true artist was apparent through all his work. The most celebrated of the Apoca- lypse designs is the fourth in the book, ' The Opening of the First Four Seals,' a wonderfully grand conception of the Four Horsemen going forth to conquer ; Death on the pale horse below, and ' Hell following him.' (Revelation vi. 8.) King, burgher, peasant and priest, have all fallen beneath him. Although we are expressly told that Du'rer himself printed this work in 1498, it by no means follows that he engraved the woodcuts ; they are greatly in advance of any previous work of the kind, and this may be attributed to the fact that the artist who designed them knew the best capabilities of the art. If he and the unknown engraver had learned the advantages of lowering the face of the wood when delicate lines were required, and the present methods of overlaying the cuts to prodiice greater intensity of colour, some of the engravings of Diirer's time would be models of excellence. The series of the Apocalypse was succeeded by three others in which the human interest is far greater. These were what the artist himself called ' The Larger Passion of IN GERMANY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 71 Our Lord,' a series of eleven large cuts, with a vignette on the title-page ; ' The Life of the Virgin,' a series of twenty cuts ; and ' The Smaller Passion of Our Lord,' a series of thirty-six cuts of less size, with a well-known vignette of ' Christ Mocked ' on the title-page. These works mark an important era in the history of wood-engraving and clearly led onwards to its future development. They were all pub- lished between 1510 and 1512, and so great was their popu- larity that the celebrated Italian engraver, Marc Antonio Raimondi, reproduced the whole of ' The Smaller Passion ' in copper-plate much, as may be imagined, to Diirer's annoyance. In the ' Larger Passion of Our Lord ' we find representa- tions of the Last Supper, Christ on the Mount of Olives, the Betrayal, the Scourging, Christ Mocked, Christ Bearing his Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and other subjects from the New Testament ; and so deeply did the highly- wrought artist feel the awful importance of his subject that he repeated some of these events in at least five different series. In all of them his characters are dressed in the uncotith habiliments of German peasants, and we see bits of German villages ; but in this respect he only followed the example of the great Italian painters, who clothed the most sacred figures in the costumes of their own towns, and, when possible, gave an Italian landscape for a background to their pictures of the Holy Land. The series of twenty large engravings called ' The Life of the Virgin ' was published and sold by Diirer himself in book form at about the same time (1510), and was equally well received by the German people, who were at that time in a state of religious ferment consequent on the preachings of Martin Luther, and Diirer was one of his prominent disciples. But it was the series of thirty-seven smaller woodcuts, known as ' The Lesser Passion,' that was most popular ; in some measure, perhaps, because the prints are of a more THE VIRGIN CROWNED BY TWO ANGELS. BY ALBRECHT DCBER Engraved by Jerome Andre (?) IN GERMANY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 73 handy size. All the subjects of ' The Larger Passion ' are repeated, with variations, in this series, and twenty-five others from the Life of Christ are added. By a happy chance, thirty-five of the original woodcuts of this series are preserved in the British Museum. In the year 1840 they were reprinted, by permission of the trustees, under the care of Mr. Henry Cole. The wood was found to be much worm-eaten, but all injury was deftly repaired by Mr. Thurston Thompson, and a small edition of the work was issued ' with an exhaustive introduction by Mr. Cole. The most admired of all the works of Diirer are the large plates known as ' The Knight, Death, and the Devil,' ' The Conversion of St. Eustace,' ' Melencolia,' ' St. Jerome in his Chamber,' and several others which he engraved or etched on copper with his own hands and which he himself pub- lished. Fine impressions of these marvellous works are now as eagerly sought for as celebrated Rembrandt etchings. Dtirer made also many drawings on wood which were en- graved and printed under his immediate supervision, and issued in separate sheets. Of one of the most beautiful, of these, ' The Virgin crowned by two Angels,' we are able to give an impression which is an exact facsimile (reduced) of a print of the year 1518. Nothing of its kind can exceed the brilliancy of the original, the engraving is as nearly per- fect as possible, and were it not for the hardness of the lines in the faces and other objects where softness is required, no craftsman of the present day could surpass its excellence as a product of the printing-press. Many other separate large wood- engravings, after Diirer's drawings, appeared between the years 1510 and 1518, such as 'The Holy Family with the three Rabbits,' ' St. Jerome in his Chamber,' ' The Flight into Egypt,' ' Beheading of St. John the Baptist,' and, among other strange subjects, a representation of a Rhinoceros. 1 It was printed, with descriptions in black-letter, at the Chiswick Press, and published by Joseph Cundall, 12 Old Bond Street, 1840. 74 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING Diirer also designed a frontispiece to his own book of poems, published in 1510. Three magnificent books illustrated with woodcuts of great size, the ' Theuerdank,' the ' Werskunig,' and the ' Frey- dal,' appeared in Germany early in the sixteenth century. The first is an epic relating to the Emperor Maximilian's journey to Burgundy on matrimonial affairs ; it was published in 1517. Hans Schaufelein drew the designs for a hundred and eighteen cuts, measuring (5| inches by 5^- inches each. The second is in honour of the Emperor's journeys in distant lands, and the third to celebrate his deeds of prowess. There are 237 designs, chiefly by Hans Burgkmair of Augsburg, in the ' Werskunig ' ; the blocks are still pre- served ; they remained unused till long after the Emperor's death, and were not published till 1775. The ' Freydal ' has never been completed, though the designs are still in existence. THE TRIUMPHS OF MAXIMILIAN But we have yet to speak of ' The Triumphs of Maximilian.' This imperial work, the most important production of the art of wood-engraving the world has ever seen, was executed by command of the Emperor Maximilian to convey to posterity a pictorial representation of the magnificence of his court, the splendour of his victories, and the extent of his dominions. It consists of three distinct sets of designs : (I.) The ' Triumphal Arch,' (II.) the ' Triumphal Car,' both from the hand of Albrecht Diirer, and (III.) the ' Triumphal Procession,' by Hans Burgkmair. The size of the work is immense ; if the whole series were laid out side by side it would cover about one hundred and ninety-two feet (64 yards !) The drawings were made on pear-wood and were cut by about eleven different engravers, of whom the most famous was Jerome of Niirnberg. Many of the original blocks are happily preserved in the Imperial Librarj' at Vienna, and on the backs of them are written the names or THE TRIUMPHS OF MAXIMILIAN 75 initials of the various engravers. It is evident, therefore, that at the beginning of the sixteenth century there was a recognised school of wood-engravers in Germany of consider- able importance. One of them, Jobst de Neger, or Dienecker, came from Antwerp ; a few lived at Niirnberg, others at Augsburg. Some idea of the ' Triumphal Arch ' is conveyed to our mind when we learn that it was drawn on ninety-two separate blocks of wood, and that when properly joined it is ten and a half feet high and nine and a half feet wide ! It was designed ' after the manner of those erected in honoiir of the Roman Emperors at Rome ; ' there are three gateways or entrances that in the centre is called the Gate of Honour and Power, on the right is the Gate of Nobility, on the left the Gate of Fame, a part of which is seen in the illustration. The arch itself is decorated with portraits of the Roman Emperors from the time of Jiilius Caesar, shields of arms showing the descent of the Emperor and his alliances, representations of his most famous e'xploits, including his adventures while chamois-hunting in the Tyrol, with ex- planatory verses in the German language cut in the wood. Above the central entrance is a grand tower surmounted by a figure of Fortune holding the imperial crown. The whole is a kind of epitome of the history of the German Empire. The ' projector of the design ' was Hans Stabius, who calls himself the historiographer and poet of the Emperor. The work was begun in 1515 four years before the Emperor's death and was not quite finished at the time of the death of the artist in 1528. Although we do not see the greatest excellence of Diirer's peculiar genius in this immense pro- duction executed to order, for it is too full of German fantasies and very unlike the classic simplicity of the old Roman arches, it will be found to contain the finest work cf the wood-engraver at that period. Some parts of it are of a marvellous delicacy that can hardly be surpassed. . THE GATE OF FAME (From the ' Triumphal Arch ' by Albrecht Diirtr. Engraved by Jerome Andre.) THE TRIUMPHS OF MAXIMILIAN 77 The ' Triumphal -Car,' also designed by Diirer at the suggestion of Stabius, is a richly decorated chariot drawn by six pairs of horses. In it the Emperor in his imperial robes is seated under a canopy amid allegorical figures represent- ing Justice, Truth, Clemency, Temperance, and the like, who offer to him triumphal wreaths. Over the canopy is an inscription : qttolf . in . rrlts . 30! . $|at . in . terra . Cactfar . crft. The Car is driven by Reason with Reins of Nobility and Power, and the horses are guided by female figures of Swift- ness, Prudence, Boldness, and similar eqiiine virtues. The whole of the design is seven feet four inches in length and about a foot and a half in height. To modern eyes the car is not prepossessing, the figures of the attendant damsels are by no means elegant, and the horses would not, we fear, meet with the approval of English critics. It brings to us a reminiscence of the funeral car of the Duke of Wellington, which, we remember, was designed by a German artist. Some parts of the decorations are excellent and the whole is well engraved. The ' Triumphal Procession ' is still more important. It consists of a series of one hundred and thirty-five large cuts, which, joined together, would cover in length one hundred and seventy-five feet (upwards of 58 yards !) A herald, mounted on a fantastic, foxir-footed winged gryphon, leads the procession ; next follow two led horses bearing a tablet with these words, doiibtless by Stabius : ' This Tmunph has been made for the praise and everlasting memory of the noble pleasures and glorious victories of the most serene and illustrious prince and lord, Maximilian, Roman Emperor elect, and head of Christendom, King and Heir of seven Christian kingdoms, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy and of other grand principalities and provinces of Europe.' More horses follow, then come falconers with hawks on their wrists, hunters of the chamois and the bear, behind them are elks ami buffaloes, richly caparisoned stags four 78 HISTORY OP WOOD-ENGRAVING abreast, and camels drawing decorated^chariots in which ride the musicians. The Emperor's favourite jester, Conrad von der Rosen, follows on horseback, bearing an immense flag ; HORSEMEN, THREE ABREAST, WITH BANNERS (From ' The Triumphal Procession' l>y Iliirgkmair. Cut by Dienecter and other emjravers) then come fools, fencing-masters, and soldiers of all kinds armed for every service, horsemen three abreast, with banners inscribed with the names of the great battles THE TRIUMPHS OF MAXIMILIAN 79 which the Emperor had won, cars filled with trophies taken from conquered nations, among them the ' Savages of Calicut ' natives of India one of them riding a huge i THE SAVAGES OF CALICUT {From ' The Triumphal Procession'' by Jfitrykmair. Cut by Ditnecker and other engravers) elephant, and numerous other figures filled up the immense length of the engraving. The whole work, though evidently intended to be a glorification of the great Emperor, is much So HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING more valuable to us at the present day as a marvel- lous record of the barbaric magnificence of the middle ages, and an outward aspect of secular life. ' The ideal of worldly power and splendour, the spirit of pleasure and festival, is shown forth in this marvellously varied march of laurelled horses and horsemen, whose trappings and armour have the beauty and glitter of peaceful parade. There is nowhere else a work which so presents at once the feudal spirit and feudal delights in such exuberance of picturesque and feudal display.' Diirer's designs for the ' Prayer-book of Maximilian ' also claim a short notice. Only three copies of the work are known to be in existence, one of which is in the British Museum. The margins are full of fanciful designs ; amid intertwining branches, birds are singing, apes are climbing, snakes creeping, and gnats flying. King David is charming a stork with his harp ; a fox is playing a flute to poultry. It is a curious mixture of the sacred and profane, for which Diirer has often been censured. The engraving of the sub- jects, which are in outline, is excellent. Si CHAPTER IX HANS HOLBEIN AND HANS LUTZELBURGER HANS HOLBEIN, who first saw the light at Augsburg in the year 1497, was the greatest artist ever born in Germany, and as he passed half of his artistic life in England we may claim some little share in the glory of his undisputed eminence. The son of a worthy painter of sacred pictures for the Church, he was brought up amidst all the paraphernalia of the studio, and at a very early age began to design title- pages, initial letters, and ornaments for numerous important books piiblished by Johann Froben, Valentine Curio, and other printers of Basel, and Christoph Froschover, of Zurich. Some of these folio title-pages, most of which are of an archi- tectural character, are veritable works of art, and are greatly treasured at the present day. Next we find him making illustrations for the New Testament, some of which were engraved on wood and some on metal, probably by Dienecker or Lutzelburger, though of this we have no direct evidence. But Holbein's greatest fame, as a designer of book- illustrations, is derived from his well-known series of the ' Dance of Death, 1 which was first given to the world in the year 1538, though from some proofs still in existence they are known to have been engraved before the artist's first visit to London in 1527. It is believed that the original forty-one drawings on wood were all cut by Hans Liitzelburger, who has been very properly called the ' True Prince of Wood- o 82 HISTORY OF WOOD. ENGRAVING Engravers,' for, in the opinion of our foremost critics, these 'Dance of Death ' cuts are the masterpieces of the art at that period, excelling even the work of Jerome Andre of Niirnberg on Diirer's ' Triumphal Arch.' Seventeen other designs were added to the ' Dance of Death ' afterwards, making the complete series fifty-eight. The original blocks HOLBEIN S DANCE OF DEATH TIIK KIXU are lost ; they have been copied on the Continent many times, and were reproduced in England in perfect facsimile and in the very best manner under the superintending care of Francis Douce, a celebrated antiquary, by John and Mary Byfield and George Bonner, all excellent engravers. Ac- companied by a learned dissertation by^Mr. Douce, the work HANS HOLBEIN AND HANS LUTZELBURGER 83 was published by William Pickering l in the year 1838. It is from electrotypes of these blocks that we are enabled to present to our readers the designs of ' The King,' The Queen,' ' The Astrologer,' and ' The Pedlar,' four of the best of the series. Wall-pictures of ' The Dance of Death,' with but little HOLBEIN S DANCE OF DEATH THE QUEEN artistic merit, existed at a much earlier period, and some of them may still be traced in the cloisters of old cathedrals. The subject was a great favourite with both priest and people in the Middle Ages ; it appealed to the feelings of rich and poor, old and young, and Holbein's ' fearful ' pictures, as 1 It is now issued by George Bell & Sons, who also publish Holbein's Bible Pictures. o2 8 4 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING soon as they appeared, met with immense popularity, which, to this day, has never ceased. Almost every class is repre- sented in them the King at his well-spread board is served by his fellow King, who fills his bowl ; the Qneen, walking with her ladies, is led into an open grave ; in a landscape, in which we see a flock of sheep, Death appears to an aged HOLBEIN'S DANCE OF DEATH TI1K ASTROI.OGEU Bishop ; here we see Death running away with the Abbot's mitre and crozier ; there he visits the Physician and the Astrologer. In the church is a Preacher who holds the people in awe, behind him is a Preacher more dread still ; the Miser with his bags, the Merchant with his bales, are alike surprised by Death ; the Knight's armour is defenceless, tli2 Pedlar with his basket cannot escape, the Waggoner with HANS HOLBEIN AND HANS LUTZELBURGER 85 his wine-cart is overthrown. All are represented in their turn the Duchess in her bed, the poor woman in her hovel, the child who is ruthlessly taken from his mother. We can imagine the sensation which such a work would create among a very impressionable people at that season of religious ferment, the greatest the world has ever known. Thirteen HOLBEIN S DAXCE OF DEATH THE PEDLAIl editions from the original blocks are known to have been printed between the years 1538 and 1563. About the same time another series of wood-engravings appeared, consisting of eighty-six designs by Holbein, drawn on wood larger than the ' Dance of Death ' blocks and just as well engraved, probably by Liitzelburger ; these were ' Scenes from Old Testament History,' generally known as ' Holbein's 86 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAV1XG Bible Cuts ' ; they were issued separately with descriptions in verse and were also used to illustrate Bibles. This series was also reproduced by the same artists who cut the ' Dance of Death,' under the superintendence of Mr. Douce ; and it is from electrotypes of these blocks that we are enabled to give our two Bible illustrations, ' The Happiness of the Godly ' (Psalm i.), and ' Joab's Artifice ' (2 Samuel xiv. 4). They THE HAPPINESS OF THE GODLY. HOLBEIN S BIBLE CCT8 Engraved by LiUzi-lbiiryer copy the original prints in exact facsimile, and, looking at them, one cannot but wonder at the high state of perfection to which the art of wood -engraving had attained nearly four hundred years ago. At that time, Germany stood alone in its excellence ; France, and even Italy, were far behind her ; and England and Spain were nowhere. We ought to add that both the ' Dance of Death ' and the ' Bible Cuts ' were HANS HOLBEIN [AND HANS LVTZELBUftGER 87 issued, with text, by the brothers Trechsel, the celebrated publishers of Lyons, in 1538, when Holbein must have been in England. A wonderful alphabet, with ' Dance of Death ' figures, evidently designed by Holbein, has &aunj$ tuljrlburgcr (jTarmtfrljntocr) grnant Jfranrft printed at the foot of the page. These letters were probably engraved on metal. A 'Peasant's JOAB'S ARTIFICE. HOLBEIN S BIBLE CUTS Engrarnl by Liifzrlburger Dance ' and ' Children's Sports,' designed as headings of chapters by the same artist, are well known, as they have been frequently reproduced. In the works of ' The Little Masters ' who succeeded Diirer and Holbein we are not much concerned. Albrecht Altdorfer (d. 1538) was a designer as well as an engraver on wood. Hans Beham (d. 1550 '?) is best known by his twenty- 88 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING six designs from the Apocalypse which Mr. Linton praises as of ' supreinest excellence.' He says, moreover, that they were probably engraved on metal (perhaps copper), by Beham himself, as well as his 81 little Bible cuts which were used to illustrate the first English Bible. He also designed and perhaps engraved several large cuts, one of which, ' The Fountain of Youth,' is four feet long ; another is ' The Dance of the Daughter of Herodias,' reprodxiced by Dr. Lippmann. Hans Brosamer (d. 1552) designed and engraved pictures for books. Heinrich Aldegrever (d. 1558) is well known for his portraits of Luther, Melanchthon, and the notorious John of Leyden. Virgil Soli? (d. 1562) was a prolific book- illustrator ; he designed a series of 216 Bible pictures, all of small size, as well as 178 cuts for Ovid's ' Metamorphoses,' and 194 for JEsop's Fables ; he also designed and probably engraved much ornament, especially for title-pages of books, some of which was very good. Jost Amman (d. 1591) is celebrated for his book of ' All Ranks, Arts, and Trades,' with one hundred and thirty-two figures. (See page 128). The religious books printed in Germany at the end of the sixteenth century were altogether inferior as regards their illustrations, though a few are fairly designed and executed. Ornamental borders, especially on title pages, were usual, and those designed by Lucas Cranach are of considerable merit. Many of the German printers' marks or devices, which are very well engraved, were the work of some of the best artists of the times. These were but expiring efforts, and by the end of the century, owing to continual warfare and internal disturbances, the art of wood-engraving in Germany was almost forgotten. 8 9 CHAPTER X IN ITALY AND FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY IN the early years of the sixteenth century, the printers of Florence issued many cheap popular books, chiefly Rappre- sentazioni, i.e. Plays, sacred or secular. These plays are generally badly printed in double columns, but they are illustrated with numerous cuts, some of which are of peculiar merit. The earliest known printer of them was Francesco Benvenuto (c. 151G-1545), but the majority appear to have been issued between 1550 and 1580, anonymously, though we know that Giovanni Baleni of Florence was the printer of some of these. There were also many quaint little tracts, metrical Novclle and Istorie, of which a collection has been found at the University Library, Erlangen ; a valuable description of them was published by Dr. Varnhagen. The poems are, as a rule, illustrated with small cuts, inclosed within a neat border, the subjects are tisually well chosen, and the drawing very good ; the treatment of some of the domestic scenes is worthy of Bewick. In striking contrast to the simplicity of these popular wood-engravings are the elaborate engravings which appeared in the more expensive books issued in the latter half of the same century, when illustrated editions of Dante, 90 fttSTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVJNG Boccaccio, Ovid, .*Esop's Fables, and Alciat's ' Emblems,' appeared, one after the other, but not one of these calls for FRONTISPIECE OF ' LE SORTI DI MARGOLIN! ' J}y Giuiej'pe 1'orta Venice 154U AV ITALY AND FRANCE special notice; nor did the best of their wood- engravings equal the work of Ltitzelburger. The frontispiece of a curious book, Lc Sorti di Marcolini da Forli, printed at Venice in 1540, of which we offer a reduced copy, gives us a good idea of the prevailing art of the period. It is said to be taken from a design by Raphael for his celebrated picture ' The School of Athens,' and we see by the tablet in the fore- ground that it was either drawn on the wood or en- graved by Joseph (Giuseppe ) Porta, known as Salviati, after his more celebrated master whom he accom- panied to Venice. In Paris, in the first half of the sixteenth century, there lived a very celebrated prin- ter, ' Geoffroy Tory, Peintre et Graveur, Premier Impri- meur Royal, Reforruateur de I'Orthographe, et de la Typo- graphic,' as he is described by his biographer, M. A. Bernard (Paris, 1857). He was born at Bourges in 1480, and in early life went to Paris, where he not only wrote books and printed them, but designed ornamental borders and engraved them. He also studied his profession in Italy, and brought back with him new ideas about printing and illustrating books. Such a man had great influence at that time, for he had much inborn taste and excellent skill, and publishers should all be proud of him as one of their most praiseworthy ancestors. He adopted the singular design the Pot-casse, of which we give a copy, as LE POT-CASSK icr of Geoff roii Tory) FKOM ' LES HECRE8 ' PRINTED BY SIMON DE COLIXES ngr at 12*. The price of the eighth edition, with additional cuts, published in 182o, wu.s one guinea.] Besides the engravings of quadrupeds, the best that had appeared up to that time, the numerous tail -pieces which Bewick drew from nature charmed the public immensely. We give an example, one of them in which a small boy, said to be a young brother of the artist, is pulling a colt's tail, while the mother is rushing to his rescue. This little cut gives an admirable idea of their style. Many of them are humorous many very pathetic, many grimly sarcastic, and all perfectly original. THOMAS BEWICK AND HIS PUPILS 113 As soon as the success of the ' Quadrupeds ' was assured, Bewick commenced without delay his still more celebrated book, the ' History of British Birds.' In making the drawings for this work he was much more at home, for he knew every feathered creature that flew within twenty miles of Ovingham, and it was all ' labour of love.' He worked with all his soul first at the 'Land Birds ' and afterwards at the ' Water Birds,' and THE WOODCOCK (From ' Ttte Water Birds ') it is on these two books that Bewick's fame both as a draughts- man and an engraver principally rests. We give a copy of the ' Yellowhammer,' which the artist himself considered to be one of his best works, and the ' Woodcock,' in which all the excellences of his peculiar style may readily be traced. The first volume, the ' Land Birds,' appeared in 1797, and was received with rapture by all lovers of nature. Again, I 114 HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING the tail-pieces, pictures in miniature, were applauded to the ekies, and the gratified author was beset on all sides with congratulations. Mr. Beilby wrote the descriptions as before, and performed his work very creditably. The partnership between Ralph Beilby and Thomas Bewick was dissolved in 1797, and the descriptions to the second volume, ' The Water Birds,' which did not appear A FARMYARD (From 'The Land Birds') till 1804, were written by Bewick himself, and revised by the Rev. H. Cotes, Vicar of Bedlington. It is known that Bewick was assisted in the tail-pieces by his pupils, Robert Johnson as a draughtsman, and Luke Clennell as an engraver, but it is certain that every line was done under his immediate super- intendence, and no doubt the originator of these excellent works was beginning to feel that he was no longer young. 7 HO MAS BEWICK AND HIS PUPILS 115 [Of the first edition of the ' Land Birds ' 1,000 were printed in demy octavo at 10s. Qd., 850 on thin and thick royal octavo, at 13s. and 15s., and twenty-four on imperial octavo at 1 Is. The first edition of the ' Water Birds ' in 1804 consisted of the same number of copies as that of the ' Land Birds,' but the prices were increased re- spectively to 12s., 15s., 18s., and 1 4s.] The only book of importance on which Bewick was engaged after 1804 was an edition of ' yEsop's Fables,' which was published in 1818. Mr. Chatto says : ' Whatever may be the merits or defects of the cuts in the Fables, Bewick cer- tainly had little to do with them for by far the greater number were designed by Robert Johnson and engraved by W. W. Temple and William Harvey, while yet in their apprenticeship.' Bewick amused himself by re-writing the Fables, to which he contributed a few of his own, but he was in no sense a literary man, and several qf his greatest admirers openly expressed their disappointment at the bock ; even his supreme advocate, Dr. Dibdin, said : ' I will fear- lessly and honestly aver that his " -