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 11½ inches in height by 8½ 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:—

which may be rendered:

ST. CHRISTOPHER
The original (11½ in. by 8½ in.) is pasted inside the cover of an old manuscript book in the Spencer Library now at Manchester.

Mr. Linton is enthusiastic in praise of this cut. 'I am well content,' he says, 'to give some words of unstinted praise to our St. Christopher for the design. I mind not the disproportionate 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 round 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 shortcomings. 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 Virginis) in which the St. Christopher was discovered. It is of similar size, and is printed with a dark-coloured pigment, probably by means of a frotton. 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 rays; unfortunately the figure of the Almighty has been torn from the top left-hand corner of the print. On one of the pillars of the chapel is a small scroll with the legend

THE ANNUNCIATION
The original (11½ in. by 8½ in.) is pasted inside the cover of an old manuscript book in the Spencer Library.

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 o brigita bit got für uns ('O 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

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.