fools, or perhaps he considered the two titles as identical. His "Narrenbeschwerung," or Conspiracy of Fools, in which Brandt's idea was followed up, is supposed to have been published as early as 1506, but the first printed edition with a date, appeared in 1512. It became so popular, that it went through several editions during subsequent years; and that which I have before me was printed at Strasburg in 1518. It is, like Brandt's "Ship of Fools," a general satire against society, in which the clergy are not spared, for the writer had not yet come in face of Luther's Reformation. The cuts are superior to those of Brandt's book, and some of them are remarkable for their design and execution. In one of the earliest of them, copied in the cut No. 139, Folly is introduced in the garb of a husbandman, scattering his feed over the earth, the result of which is a very quick and flourishing crop, the fool's heads rising above ground, almost instantaneously, like so many turnips. In a subsequent engraving, represented in our cut No. 140, Folly holds out, as an object of emulation, the fool's cap, and people of all classes, the pope himself, and the emperor, and all the great dignitaries of this world, press forward eagerly to seize upon it. [Illustration: _No. 139. Sowing a Fruitful Crop._] The same year (1512) witnessed the appearance of another poetical, or at least metrical, satire by Murner, entitled "Schelmenzunft," or the Confraternity of Rogues, similarly illustrated with very spirited engravings on wood. It is another demonstration of the prevailing dominion of folly under its worst forms, and the satire is equally general with the preceding. Murner's satire appears to have been felt not only generally, but personally; and we are told that he was often threatened with assassination, and he raised up a number of literary opponents, who treated him with no little rudeness; in fact, he had got on the wrong side of politics, or at all events on the unpopular side, and men who had more talents and greater weight appeared as his opponents--men like Ulrich von Utten, and Luther himself. [Illustration: _No. 140. An Acceptable Offering._]