copied from it.

Gunther Zainer's Spiegel des Menschlichen lebens is again one of the most amusing of woodcut books. One may say that the book itself, one of the most popular of the Middle Ages, runs through all the conditions and occupations of men as then existing, from the Pope and Kaiser down to the field labourer, and, with full indulgence in the mediæval love of formal antithesis, contrasts the good and the evil side of them. The profuse illustrations to all this abound in excellent pieces of naïve characterisation; the designs are very well put together, and, for the most part, the figures well drawn, and draperies good and crisp, and the general effect very satisfactory as decoration. The designer in this book, however, has not been always so lucky in his cutter as those of the last two, and some of the pictures have been considerably injured in the cutting. On the other hand the lovely genealogical tree above mentioned crowns this book with abundant honour, and the best of the cuts are so good that it is hardly possible to rank it after the first two. Gunther Zainer's Speculum Humanæ Salvationis and his Golden Legend have cuts decidedly ruder than these three books; they are simpler also, and less decorative as ornaments to the page, nevertheless they have abundant interest, and most often their essential qualities of design shine through the rudeness, which by no means excludes even grace of silhouette: one and all they are thoroughly expressive of the story they tell. The designs in these two books by the by do not seem to have been done by the same hand; but I should think that the designer of those in the Golden Legend drew the subjects that 'inhabit' the fine letters of Gunther's German Bible. Both seem to me to have a kind of illuminator's character in them. The cuts to the story of Simon bring us back to those of Spiegel des Menschlichen lebens; they are delicate and pretty, and tell the story, half so repulsive, half so touching, of 'little Sir Hugh,' very well. I must not pass by without a further word on Sigismund and Guiscard. I cannot help thinking that the cuts therein are by the same hand that drew some of those in the Æsop; at any rate they have the same qualities of design, and are to my mind singularly beautiful and interesting.

Of the other contemporary, or nearly contemporary, printers Bämler comes first in interest. His book von den 7 Todsünden, etc., has cuts of much interest and invention, not unlike in character to those of Gunther Zainer's Golden Legend. His Buch der Natur has full-page cuts of animals, herbs, and human figures exceedingly quaint, but very well designed for the most part. A half-figure of a bishop 'in pontificalibus' is particularly bold and happy. Rupertus a sancto Remigio's History of the crusade and the Cronich von allen Konigen und Kaisern are finely illustrated. His Rosencranz Bruderschaft above mentioned has but two cuts, but they are both of them, the one as a fine decorative work, the other as a deeply felt illustration of devotional sentiment, of the highest merit.

The two really noteworthy works of Sorg (who, as aforesaid, was somewhat a plagiaristic publisher) are, first, the Seusse, which is illustrated with bold and highly decorative cuts full of meaning and dignity, and next, the Council of Constance, which is the first heraldic woodcut work (it has besides the coats-of-arms, several fine full-page cuts, of which the burning of Huss is one). These armorial cuts, which are full of interest as giving a vast number of curious and strange bearings, are no less so as showing what admirable decoration can be got out of heraldry when it is simply and well drawn.

To Conrad Dinckmut of Ulm, belonging to a somewhat later period than these last-named printers, belongs the glory of opposing by his fine works the coming degradation of book-ornament in Germany. The Seelen-wurzgarten, ornamented with seventeen full-page cuts, is injured by the too free repetition of them; they are, however, very good; the best perhaps being the Nativity, which, for simplicity and beauty, is worthy of the earlier period of the Middle Ages. The Swabian Chronicle has cuts of various degrees of merit, but all interesting and full of life and spirit: a fight in the lists with axes being one of the most remarkable. Das buch der Weisheit (Bidpay's Fables) has larger cuts which certainly show no lack of courage; they are perhaps scarcely so decorative as the average of the cuts of the school, and are somewhat coarsely cut; but their frank epical character makes them worthy of all attention. But perhaps his most remarkable work is his Terence's Eunuchus (in German), ornamented with twenty-eight cuts illustrating the scenes. These all have backgrounds showing (mostly) the streets of a mediæval town, which clearly imply theatrical scenery; the figures of the actors are delicately drawn, and the character of the persons and their action is well given and carefully sustained throughout. The text of this book is printed in a large handsome black-letter, imported, as my friend Mr. Proctor informs me, from Italy. The book is altogether of singular beauty and character.

The Caoursin (1496), the last book of any account printed at Ulm, has good and spirited cuts of the events described, the best of them being the flight of Turks in the mountains. One is almost tempted to think that these cuts are designed by the author of those of the Mainz Breidenbach of 1486, though the cutting is much inferior.

All these books, it must be remembered, though they necessarily (being printed books) belong to the later Middle Ages, and though some of them are rather decidedly late in that epoch, are thoroughly 'Gothic' as to their ornament; there is no taint of the Renaissance in them. In this respect the art of book-ornament was lucky. The neo-classical rhetoric which invaded literature before the end of the fourteenth century (for even Chaucer did not quite escape it) was harmless against this branch of art at least for more than another hundred years; so that even Italian book-pictures are Gothic in spirit, for the most part, right up to the beginning of the sixteenth century, long after the New Birth had destroyed the building arts for Italy: while Germany, whose Gothic architecture was necessarily firmer rooted in the soil, did not so much as feel the first shiver of the coming flood till suddenly, and without warning, it was upon her, and the art of the Middle Ages fell dead in a space of about five years, and was succeeded by a singularly stupid and brutal phase of that rhetorical and academical art, which, in all matters of ornament, has held Europe captive ever since.

From John Zainer's Griseldis, Ulm, 1473

From Gunther Zainer's Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, Augsburg, C. 1471

From Gunther Zainer's Ingold, Das Golden Spiel, Augsburg, 1472

From John Zainer's Boccaccio de Claris Mulieribus, Ulm, 1473

From Gunther Zainer's