In the distance are seen the high mountain, to the top of which Christ was taken up by the Devil, and the temple from whose pinnacle Christ was tempted to cast himself down. The figure of Christ in this compartment is not devoid of sober dignity; nor is Satan deficient in diabolical ugliness; but, though clawed and horned proper, he wants the usual appendage of a tail. The deficiency is, however, in some degree compensated by giving to his hip the likeness of a fiendish face. In two or three other old wood engravings I have noticed a repulsive face indicated in a similar manner on the hip of the Devil. A person well acquainted with the superstitions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may perhaps be able to give a reason for this. It may be intended to show that Satan, who is ever going about seeking whom he may devour, can see both before and behind. [Illustration] [Illustration] The cut on the following page (90), which forms the compartment to the right, represents Adam and Eve, each with an apple: and the state in which Eve appears to be, is in accordance with an opinion maintained by several of the schoolmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The tree of knowledge is without fruit, and the serpent, with a human face, is seen twined round its stem. The form of the tree and the shape of the leaves are almost precisely the same as those of the olive-trees in the Apocalypse, uprooted by Antichrist. The character of the designs, however, in the two books is almost as different as the manner of the engraving. In the Apocalypse there is no attempt at shading, while in the book under consideration it is introduced in every page, though merely by courses of single lines, as may be perceived in the drapery of Christ in the preceding cut, and in the trunk of the tree and in the serpent in the cut subjoined. In this cut the figure of Adam cannot be considered as a specimen of manly beauty; his face is that of a man who is past his prime, and his attitude is very like that of one of the splay-footed boors of Teniers. In point of personal beauty Eve appears to be a partner worthy of her husband; and though from her action she seems conscious that she is naked, yet her expression and figure are extremely unlike the graceful timidity and beautiful proportions of the Medicean Venus. The face of the serpent displays neither malignity nor fiendish cunning; but, on the contrary, is marked with an expression not unlike that of a Bavarian broom-girl. This manner of representing the temptation of our first parents appears to have been conventional among the early German Formschneiders; for I have seen several old wood-cuts of this subject, in which the figures were almost precisely the same. Notwithstanding the bad drawing and the coarse engraving of the following cut, many of the same subject, executed in Germany between 1470 and 1510, are yet worse. [Illustration]