By E. Gordon Duff

The art of the wood-engraver may almost be said to have had no existence in England before the introduction of printing, for there are not probably more than half a dozen cuts now known, if indeed so many, that are of an earlier date. The few that exist are devotional prints of the type known as the 'Image of Pity,' in which a half-length figure of Christ on the cross stands surrounded with the emblems of the Passion.

It may be taken, I think, for granted that at the time Caxton set up his press at Westminster, that is, in the year 1476, there was no wood-engraver competent to undertake the work of illustrating his books. We see, for instance, that in the first edition of the Canterbury Tales there are no woodcuts, while they appear in the second edition; and it is not likely that Caxton would have left a book so eminently suited for illustration without some such adornment had the necessary craftsmen been available. As it was, it was not till 1480 that woodcuts first appeared in an English printed book, the Mirror of the World. In this there are two series of cuts. One, consisting of diagrams, is found in most of the MSS. of the book; the other, which represents masters teaching their scholars or at work alone, was a new departure of Caxton's. It is quite probable that they were intended for general use in books, indeed we find some used in the Cato, but they do not appear to have been employed elsewhere. The diagrams are meagre and difficult to understand, so much so that the printer has printed several in their wrong places. The necessary letterpress occurring within them is not printed (Caxton had not then a small enough type), but is written in by hand, and it is worth noticing that this is done in all copies in the same hand, and so must have been done in Caxton's office, some are fond enough to suppose by Caxton himself.

In the next year appeared the second edition of the Game of Chesse, with a number of woodcuts. The first edition, printed at Bruges by Caxton and Mansion, had no illustrations. The cuts are coarsely designed and roughly cut, but serve their purpose; indeed, they are evidently intended as illustrations rather than ornaments. Some controversy has at different times arisen as to whether these cuts were executed in England or abroad, but Mr. Linton has very justly decided in favour of England. The work, he says, is so poor that any one who could hold a knife could cut them, therefore there was no necessity to send abroad.

About 1484 we have two important illustrated books, the Canterbury Tales and the Æsop; the former with 28 illustrations, the latter with 186.

The cuts of the Canterbury Tales depict for the most part the various individuals of the Pilgrimage, and there is also a bird's-eye view of all the pilgrims seated at an immense round table at supper, which was used afterwards by Wynkyn de Worde for the 'Assembly of Gods.' The copies of German cuts in the Æsop, with the exception of the full-page frontispiece (known only in the copy in the Windsor Library), are smaller, and are the work of two, if not three, engravers. One cut seems to have been hurriedly executed in a different manner to the rest, perhaps to take the place of one injured at the last moment. It is not worked in the usual manner with the outlines in black—i.e. raised lines on the wood-block, but a certain amount of the effect has been produced by a white line on a black ground—i.e. by the cut-away lines of the wood-block.

The Golden Legend, which was the next illustrated book to appear, contains the most ambitious woodcuts which Caxton used. Those in the earlier part are the full width of a large folio page, and show, especially in their backgrounds, a certain amount of technical skill. The later part of the book contains a number of small cuts of saints very coarsely executed, and the same cut is used over and over again for different saints.

In 1487 Caxton first used his large woodcut device, which is probably, though the contrary is often asserted, of English workmanship. It is entirely un-French in style and execution, and was probably cut to print on the Missal printed by Maynyal for Caxton in order that the publisher might be brought prominently into notice.

About this time (1487-88) two more illustrated books were issued,—the Royal Book and the Speculum Vite Christi. The series cut for the Speculum are of very good workmanship, though the designs are poor, but all of them were not used in the book. One or two appear later in books printed by W. de Worde, manifestly from the same series. The Royal Book contains only seven cuts, six of which are from the Speculum. Some of the cuts occur also in the Doctrinal of Sapience and the Book of Divers Ghostly Matters.

It is impossible not to think when examining Caxton's books that the use of woodcuts was rather forced upon him by the necessities of his business, than deliberately preferred by himself. He seems to have wished to popularise the more generally known books, and only to have used woodcuts when the book absolutely needed them. He did not, as some later printers did, simply use woodcuts to attract the unwary purchaser.

What cuts Caxton possessed at the end of his career it is hard to determine. The set of large Horae cuts which W. de Worde used must have been Caxton's, for we find one of them, the Crucifixion, used in the Fifteen O'es, which was itself intended as a supplement to a Horae, now unknown. In the same way there must have been a number of cuts for use in the 8vo Horae, but as that is known only from a small fragment, we cannot identify them. From similarity of style and identity of measurement we can pick out a few from Wynkyn de Worde's later editions, but many must be passed over.

On turning to examine the presses at work at the same time as Caxton's one cannot but be struck by the scarcity of illustrations. Lettou and Machlinia, though they produced over thirty books, had no ornaments that we know of beyond a border which was used in their edition of the Horae ad usum Sarum, and passed into the hands of Pynson. They seem to have been without everything except type, not having even initial letters.

The St. Alban's press was a step in advance. A few cuts were used in the Chronicles, and the Book of St. Alban's contains coats of arms, produced by a combination of wood-cutting and printing in colour.

The Oxford press was the most ambitious, and was in possession of two sets of cuts, in neither case intended for the books in which they were used. One set was prepared for a Golden Legend, but no such book is known to have been issued at the Oxford press. One of these cuts appears as a frontispiece to Lyndewode's Constitutions. It represents Jacobus de Voragine writing the Golden Legend, so that it did equally well for Lyndewode writing his law-book. Others of the series are used in the Liber Festialis of 1486, but as that was a small folio and the cuts were large, the ends were cut off, and they are all printed in a mutilated condition. The other cuts used in the Festial are small, and form part of a set for a Horae, but no Horae is known to have been printed at the Oxford press. It would be natural to suppose in this case that these cuts had been procured from some other printer who had used them in the production of the books for which they were intended; but the most careful search has failed to find them in any other book. Besides these cuts the Oxford press owned a very beautiful border, which was used in the commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle by Alexander de Hales and the commentary on the Lamentations of Jeremiah by John Lattebury, printed in 1481 and 1482. The printers owned nothing else for the adornment of their books but a rudely cut capital G, which we find used many times in the Festial.

The poverty of ornamental letters and borders is very noticeable in all the English presses of the fifteenth century. Caxton possessed one ambitious letter, a capital A, which was used first in the Order of Chivalry, and a series of eight borders, each made up of four pieces, and found for the first time in the Fifteen O'es. They are of little merit, and compare very unfavourably with French work of the period. The best set of borders used in England belonged to Notary and his partners when they started in London about 1496. They are in the usual style, with dotted backgrounds, and may very likely have been brought from France. Pynson's borders, which he used in a Horae about 1495, are much more English in style, but are not good enough to make the page really attractive; in fact almost the only fine specimens of English printing with borders are to be found in the Morton Missal, which he printed in 1500. In this book also there are fine initial letters, often printed in red. It is hard to understand why, as a rule, English initial letters were so very bad; it certainly was not from the want of excellent models, for those in the Sarum missals, printed at Venice by Hertzog in 1494, and sold in England by Frederic Egmont, contain most beautifully designed initials, as good as can be found in any early printed book.

Wynkyn de Worde, when he succeeded in 1491 to Caxton's business, found himself in possession of a large number of cuts, a considerably larger number than ever appeared in the books of Caxton's that now remain to us. The first illustrated book he issued was a new edition of the Golden Legend, in which the old cuts were utilised. This was printed in 1493. In 1494 a new edition of the Speculum Vite Christi was issued, of which only one complete copy is known, that in the library at Holkham. It probably contains only the series of cuts used by Caxton in his edition, for the few leaves to be found in other libraries have no new illustrations. About the same time (1494) De Worde issued several editions of the Horae ad usum Sarum, one in octavo (known from a few leaves discovered in the binding of a book in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford) and the rest in quarto. In the quarto editions we find the large series of pictures, among which are the three rioters and three skeletons, the tree of Jesse, and the Crucifixion, which occur in Caxton's Fifteen O'es. It is extremely probable that all the cuts in these editions had belonged to Caxton. The two cuts in the fragment of the octavo edition, however, are of quite a different class, evidently newly cut, and much superior in style and simplicity to Caxton's. It is much to be regretted that no complete copy of the book exists, for the neat small cuts and bold red and black printing form a very tasteful page.

A curious specimen of engraving is to be found in the Scala Perfectionis, by Walter Hylton, also printed in 1494. It represents the Virgin and Child seated under an architectural canopy, and below this are the words of the antiphon beginning, 'Sit dulce nomen d[=n]i.' These words are not printed from type, but cut on the block, and the engraver seems to have treated them simply as part of the decoration, for many of the words are by themselves quite unreadable and bear only a superficial resemblance to the inscription from which they were copied.

An edition of Bartholomaeus' De proprietatibus rerum issued about this time has a number of cuts, not of very great interest; and the Book of St. Albans of 1496 has an extra chapter on fishing, illustrated with a picture of an angler at work, with a tub, in the German fashion, to put his fish into. It has also a curiously modern diagram of the sizes of hooks. In 1498 De Worde issued an illustrated edition of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. The cuts are very ambitious, but badly executed, and the hand of the engraver who cut them may be traced in several books. In 1499 an edition of Mandeville was issued, ornamented with a number of small cuts, and about this time several small books were issued having cuts on the title-page.

Richard Pynson's first illustrated book was an edition of the Canterbury Tales, printed some time before 1492. At the head of each tale is a rudely executed cut of the pilgrim who narrates it. These cuts were made for this edition, and were in some cases altered while the book was going through the press to serve for different characters: the Squire and the Manciple, the Sergeant and Doctor of Physic, are from the same blocks with slight alterations. In 1494 came an edition of Lydgate's Falle of Princis, a translation from the De Casibus virorum et feminarum illustrium of Boccaccio, illustrated with the cuts used by Jean DuprÉ in his Paris edition of a French version of the same work in 1483. One of the neatest of these, depicting Marcus Manlius thrown into the Tiber, is here shown. About 1497 an edition of the Speculum Vite Christi was issued, with a number of neatly executed small cuts, and in 1500 Pynson printed the beautiful Sarum Missal, known as the Morton Missal. Special borders and ornaments, introducing a rebus on the name of Morton, were engraved for this, and a full-page cut of the prelate's coat of arms appears at the commencement of the book.

Foreign competition was also at this time making its influence felt on English book-illustration. W. de Worde had led the way by purchasing from Godfried van Os, about 1492, some type initial letters, and at least one woodcut. Pynson, early in the sixteenth century, obtained some cuts from VÉrard, which he used in his edition of the Kalendar of Shepherdes, 1506, and Julian Notary, who began printing about 1496, seems to have made use of a miscellaneous collection of cuts obtained from various quarters. He had, amongst other curious things, part of a set of metal cuts executed in the maniÈre criblÉe, which have not been traced to any other book, but appear to have passed at a considerably later date into the hands of Wyer, who commenced to print before 1524. When W. de Worde left Westminster in 1500 to settle in Fleet Street, he parted with some of his old woodcuts to Notary,—woodcuts which had been used in the Horae of 1494, and had originally belonged to Caxton. All these miscellaneous cuts appear in his Golden Legend of 1503, and the large cut of the 'Assembly of Saints' on the title-page seems also to have been borrowed. It was used by Hopyl at Paris in 1505 for his edition of the Golden Legend in Dutch, and passed afterwards with Hopyl's business to his son-in-law Prevost, who used it in a theological work of John Major's. The engraved metal ornamental initials were obtained from AndrÉ Bocard.

Some time before 1510 an extremely curious book, entitled the Passion of our Lorde Jesu, was printed abroad, probably in Paris. The uncouthness of the language seems to have brought about its destruction; for, though many fragments have been found in bindings, only one perfect copy, now in the Bodleian, is known. It contains a number of large cuts of a very German appearance and quite unlike any others of the period. Some are used also in the York Manual printed for De Worde in 1509.

About this time too a number of popular books in English, some adorned with rude woodcuts, were issued by John of Doesborch, a printer in Antwerp. Among them may be mentioned The wonderful shape and nature of man, beasts, serpents, &c., the Fifteen Tokens, the Story of the Parson of Kalenbrowe, and the Life of Virgilius. A still earlier Antwerp cut, which had been used by Gerard Leeu for the title-page of his English Solomon and Marcolphus, found its way to England and was used by Copland.

In the last years of Henry VII.'s reign, from 1501 to 1509, a few books may be mentioned as particularly interesting from their illustrations. In 1502 De Worde printed the Ordinary of Chrysten Men, a large book with a block-printed title. It was reprinted in 1506. In 1503 appeared the Recuyles of y^e Hystoryes of Troye, a typical example of an illustrated book of the period. There are about seventy cuts of all kinds, of which twelve were specially cut for the book: many others were used in the Morte d'Arthur, and the rest are miscellaneous. In 1505 we have the 'Craft to live and die well,' of which there is another edition in the following year. In 1506 appears the Castle of Labour, one of the few books entirely illustrated with cuts specially made for it; in 1508 the Kalendar of Shepherdes. The cuts in these last three books were all ultimately derived from French originals. An edition of the Seven Wise Masters of Rome, of which the only known copy is imperfect, appeared about 1506, though the cuts which illustrate it were made before 1500. The fragment contains seven cuts, but the set must have consisted of eleven. They are very careful copies of those used by Gerard Leeu in his edition of 1490, and have lost none of the feeling of the originals.

Three books only of Pynson's production during this period call for special notice. About 1505 he issued an edition of the Castle of Labour, with very well-cut illustrations closely copied from the French edition. In 1506 appeared his edition of the Kalendar of Shepherdes, which is illustrated for the most part with cuts obtained from VÉrard, and in 1507 an edition of the Golden Legend. Of each of these books but one copy is known.

For some unknown reason, the accession of Henry VII. acted in the most extraordinary way upon the English presses, which in that year issued a very large number of books. Perhaps the influx of visitors to London on that occasion made an unusual demand; but at any rate a number of popular books were then issued. Amongst them are Rychard Cuer de Lyon, the Fiftene Joyes of Maryage, the Convercyon of Swerers, the Parliament of Devils, and many others. Besides these there were, of course, a number of funeral sermons on Henry VII., many of which have curious frontispieces. One of these was used again a little later, for the funeral sermon of the King's mother, the Lady Margaret, the royal pall and effigy on it being cut out and replaced by an ordinary pall. This method of inserting new pieces into old blocks, technically termed plugging, was not much used at this period when wood-engraving was so cheap. An excellent example, however, will be found in the books printed for William Bretton, which contain a large coat of arms. A mistake was made in the cutting of the arms, and a new shield was inserted, the mantling and supporters being untouched. Another notable book of that period is Barclay's Ship of Fools, issued by Pynson in 1509. It contains one hundred and eighteen cuts, the first being a full-page illustration of the printer's coat of arms. The rest are copies, roughly executed, of those in the original edition. Another version of this book, translated by Henry Watson, was issued the same year by Wynkyn de Worde. It is illustrated with a special series of cuts, which are used again in the later editions. Of the original edition of 1509 only one copy is known, printed on vellum and preserved in the BibliothÈque Nationale. Stray cuts from this series are found in several of De Worde's other books, but may be at once recognised from the occurrence of the 'fool' in his typical cap and bells.

About this time and a little earlier the title was very often cut entire on a block. The De Proprietatibus of c. 1496 contains the first and the most elaborate specimen, in which the words 'Bartholomeus de proprietatibus rerum' are cut in enormous letters on a wooden board; indeed the whole block was so large that hardly any copy contains the whole. Faques, Pynson, and others used similar blocks, in which the letters were white and the background black (one of Pynson's printed in red is to be found in the Ortus Vocabulorum of 1509), but their uncouthness soon led to their disuse. Numbers of service books were issued by Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde, profusely illustrated with small cuts, most of which appear to have been of home manufacture, though unoriginal in design. It is worth noticing one difference in the cuts of the two printers. Pynson's small cuts have generally an open or white background, De Worde's are, as a rule, dotted in the French style. Since in some of their service books these two printers used exactly similar founts of type the identification of their cuts is of particular value. But these service books almost from the first began to deteriorate. The use of borders was abandoned, and little care was given to keeping sets of cuts together, or using those of similar styles in one book. We find the archaic cuts of Caxton, the delicate pictures copied from French models, and roughly designed and executed English blocks all used together, sometimes even on the same page. The same thing is noticeable in all the illustrated books of the period. De Worde used Caxton's cuts up to the very end of his career, though in many cases the blocks were worm-eaten or broken. The peculiar mixture of cuts is very striking in some books. Take as an example the edition of Robert the Devil, published about 1514. No cut used in it is original: one is from a book on good living and dying, another from the Ship of Fools,[22] a third is from a devotional book of the previous century, and so on. In the Oliver of Castile of 1518, though there are over sixty illustrations, not more than three or four are specially cut for it, but come from the Morte d'Arthur, the Gesta Romanorum, Helias Knight of the Swan, the Body of Policy, Richard Cuer de Lion, the Book of Carving, and so on, and perhaps many are used in several. Indeed, W. de Worde minded as little about using the same illustrations over and over again as some of our modern publishers.

For all books issued in the early years of the sixteenth century it was thought necessary to have at least an illustration on the title-page, so that practically an examination of the illustrated books of the period means almost an examination of the entire produce of the printing press. In time, when the subject has been thoroughly studied, it will be possible to separate all the cuts into series cut for some special purpose.

A rather important influence was introduced into the history of English book illustration about 1518, when Pynson obtained a series of borders and other material, closely imitated from the designs made by Holbein for Froben.[23] They are the first important examples of 'renaissance' design used in English books, and their effect was rapid and marked. Wynkyn de Worde, who in his devices had hitherto been content to use Caxton's trade-mark with some few extra ornaments, introduced a hideous parody of one of Froben's devices, poor in design, and wretched in execution. The series of borders used by Pynson were good in execution, and their style harmonised with the Roman type used by him at that time, but with other books it was different. The heavy English black letter required something bolder, and unless these borders were heavily cut, they looked particularly meagre. A very beautiful title-page of this type (here somewhat reduced) is that in Sir Thomas Elyot's Image of Governance, printed by Thomas Berthelet at London in 1540-41.

The illustrated books of this period offer a curious mixture of styles, for nothing could be more opposed in feeling than the early school of English cuts and the newly introduced Renaissance designs. The outsides of the books underwent exactly the same change, for in place of the old pictorial blocks with which the stationers had heretofore stamped their bindings, they used hideous combinations of medallions and pillars.

Before leaving this early period it will be as well to return a little, and briefly notice some of the more marked illustrated books produced by printers other than Pynson and De Worde. The two printers of the name of Faques, Guillam and Richard, produced a few most interesting books, and the device of the last named, founded on that of the Paris printer, Thielman Kerver, is a fine piece of engraving. The name was originally cut upon the block as Faques, and was so used in his two first books; but in order to make the name appear more English in form, the 'ques' was cut out and 'kes' inserted in type. The last dated book which he printed, the Mirrour of Our Lady of 1530, contains several fine illustrations; that on the reverse of the title-page depicting a woman of some religious order writing a book, has at the bottom the letters E. G. joined by a knot, which may be the initials of the engraver.

The Cambridge press of 1521-1522, from the scholastic nature of its books, required no illustrations, but it used for the title-page of the Galen a woodcut border, rather in the manner of Holbein, but evidently of native production. In 1536 this border reappears in a Dutch Prognostication printed at Antwerp. The Oxford press of the early sixteenth century borrowed some of its cuts from De Worde, but a few, such as the ambitious frontispiece and the four diagrams in the Compotus of 1519, were original.

John Rastell in his Pastyme of People used a number of full-page illustrations of the kings of England, coarse in design and execution, and very remarkable in appearance. Peter Treveris issued a number of books with illustrations, some of which are well worthy of notice. The Grete Herbal, first published in 1516, contained a large number of cuts. Jerome of Bruynswyke's Worke of Surgeri has some curious plates of surgical operations, and though the subjects are rather repulsive, they are excellent specimens of the wood-cutting of the period. Treveris' best known book is the Policronicon of 1527, printed for John Reynes, whose mark in red generally occurs on the title-page. This title-page is a fine piece of work, and has been facsimiled by Dibdin in his Typographical Antiquities. Some of the cuts and ornaments used by Treveris passed after his death into the hands of the Edinburgh printer, Thomas Davidson.

Lawrence Andrewe of Calais, who printed shortly before 1530, also issued some curious illustrated books. Before coming to England he had translated the extraordinary book, The wonderful shape and nature of man, beasts, serpentes, &c., printed by John of Doesborch, whom we have spoken of above. On his own account he issued the Boke of distyllacyon of waters by Jerome of Brunswick, illustrated with pictures of apparatus, and The Mirror of the World. This is founded on Caxton's edition, but is much more fully illustrated, the cuts to the Natural History portion being particularly curious. It is worth noticing that Andrewe, like some other printers at this time, introduced his device into many of the initial letters and borders which were cut for him, so that they can be readily identified when they occur, after his death, in books by other printers.

After the death of Wynkyn de Worde in 1535, ideas as regards book-illustration underwent a great change. Theology had become popular, and theological books were not adapted for illustration. The ordinary book, with pictures put in haphazard, absolutely died out; and cuts were only used in chap books, or in large illustrated volumes,—descriptions of horrible creatures, and the likenesses of comets or portents on the one hand, chronicles, books of travel, and scientific works on the other. The difference which we noticed between W. de Worde and Pynson, the one being a popular printer and the other a printer of standard works, is distinctly marked in the succeeding generation. While Wyer, Byddell, and Copland published the popular books, Grafton and Whytchurch, Wolfe and Day, issued more solid literature. The old woodcuts passed into the hands of the poorer printers, and were used till they were worn out, and it is curious to notice how long in many cases this took. On the other hand, the illustrations made for new books are, as a rule, of excellent design and execution, owing a good deal, in all probability, to the influence of Holbein, who, for the latter portion of his life, was living in England. As examples of his work, we may take two books published in 1548, Cranmer's Catechism, published by Walter Lynne, and Halle's Chronicles, published by Grafton. The first contains a number of small cuts, one of which is signed in full Hans Holbein, and two others are signed with his initials H. H. Some writers insist that these three cuts alone are to be ascribed to him, and that the rest are from an unknown hand. Besides these small cuts, there is one full-page cut on the back of the title of very fine work. It represents Edward VI. seated on his throne with the bishops kneeling on his right, the peers on his left. From the hands of the king the bishops are receiving a Bible. The cut at the end of Halle's Chronicles, very similarly executed and also ascribed to Holbein, represents Henry VIII. sitting in Parliament. Almost all the volumes of chronicles, of which a number were issued in the sixteenth century, contain woodcuts, and two are especially well illustrated,—Grafton's Chronicles, published in 1569, and Holinshed's Chronicles in 1577. The illustrations in the latter book, which Mr. Linton considers to have been cut on metal, do not appear in the later edition of 1586. Among the illustrations in the first edition, so Dibdin says, is to be found a picture of a guillotine.

Of all the English printers of the latter half of the sixteenth century, none produced finer books than John Day, who, it has been suggested, engraved some of the woodcuts which he used. The best known, perhaps, of his books is the Book of Christian Prayers, commonly called Queen Elizabeth's Prayer Book, which he published in 1569. In a way, this book is undoubtedly a fine specimen of book-ornamentation, but as it was executed in a style then out of date, having borders like the earlier service books, it suffers by comparison with the 'Books of Hours' of fifty years earlier. Another book of Day's which obtained great popularity was the History of Martyrs, compiled by John Fox. We read on Day's epitaph in the church of Bradley-Parva—

Considering the popularity of the book, and the number of editions that were issued, we can hardly imagine that Day lost money upon it. The illustrations are of varied excellence, but the book contains also some very fine initial letters. One, the C at the commencement of the dedication, contains a portrait of Queen Elizabeth on her throne, with three men standing beside her, two of whom are supposed to be Day and Fox. Below the throne, forming part of the letter, is the Pope holding two broken keys.

Initial letters about this time arrived at their best. They were often very large, and contained scenes, mythological subjects, or coats-of-arms. A fine specimen of this last class is to be found in the Cosmographical Glasse, by William Cuningham, 1559. It is a large D containing the arms of Robert, Lord Dudley, to whom the book is dedicated. Very soon after this some ingenious printer invented the system of printing an ornamental border for the letter with a blank space for the insertion of an ordinary capital letter,—a system which soon succeeded in destroying any beauty or originality which letters had up to this time possessed.

In conclusion, it will be well to notice the growth of engraving on metal in England. The earliest specimen that I know of is the device first used by Pynson about 1496. It is certainly metal, and has every appearance of having been cut in this country. Some writers have put forward the theory that the majority of early illustrations, though to all appearance woodcuts, were really cut on metal. But wherever it is possible to trace an individual cut for any length of time, we can see from the breakages, and in some cases from small holes bored by insects, that the material used was certainly wood. Julian Notary had some curious metal cuts, but they were certainly of foreign design and workmanship, and the same may be said of the metal cuts found amongst the early English service books. The border on the title-page of the Cambridge Galen, usually described as engraved on metal, is really an ordinary woodcut. It is not till 1540 that we find a book illustrated with engravings produced in this country. This was Thomas Raynald's Byrth of Mankynde, which contains four plates of surgical diagrams. In some of the later editions these plates have been re-engraved on wood. In 1545 another medical book appeared, Compendiosa totius delineatio aere exarata per Thomam Geminum. It has a frontispiece with the arms of Henry VIII., and forty plates of anatomical subjects. Other editions appeared in 1553 and 1559, and the title-page of the last is altered by the insertion of a portrait of Elizabeth in place of the royal arms. The Stirpium Adversaria nova authoribus Petro Pena et Mathia de Lobel of 1570 has a beautifully engraved title-page, and the 1572 edition of Parker's Bible contains a map of the Holy Land with the following inscription in an ornamental tablet: 'Graven bi Humfray Cole, goldsmith, an English man born in y^e north, and pertayning to y^e mint in the Tower, 1572.' Humfray Cole is supposed by some authorities to have engraved the beautiful portraits of Elizabeth, the Earl of Leicester, and Lord Burleigh, which appear in the earlier edition of 1568. Saxton's maps, which appeared in 1579, are partly the work of native engravers, for at least eight were engraved by Augustine Ryther and Nicholas Reynolds. In 1591 there are two books,—Broughton's Concent of Scripture, and Sir John Harington's Ariosto. The latter contains almost fifty plates, closely copied from a Venetian edition, and was the most ambitious book illustrated with metal plates published in the century. There are a few other books published before 1600 which contain specimens of engraving, but none worthy of particular mention.