Ars Moriendi.--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 impressed on one side only of the paper. Five of the pictures represent a sick man in bed tempted by devils--I. To Unbelief; 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. {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, Intende thesauro--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 Provideas amicis--'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 pantomime 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, Quid faciam--'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.