In this cut, cross-hatching may be observed in the drapery of the female figure, in the upper part of the two shields on each side of her, in the border at the top of the cut, and in other places. Whether the female figure be intended as a personification of the city of Mentz, as is sometimes seen in old books of the sixteenth century, or for St. Catherine, whose shrine on Mount Sinai was visited by Breydenbach in his travels, I shall not pretend to determine. The arms on her right are Breydenbach’s own; on her left are the arms of John, Count of Solms and Lord of Mintzenberg, and at the bottom of the cut those of Philip de Bicken, knight, who were Breydenbach’s companions to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem and the shrine of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. St. Catherine, it may be observed, was esteemed the patroness of learned men, and her figure was frequently placed in libraries in Catholic countries, in the same manner as the bust of Minerva in the libraries of ancient Greece and Rome. The name of the artist by whom the frontispiece to Breydenbach’s travels was executed is unknown; but I have no hesitation in declaring him to be one of the best wood engravers of the period. As this is the earliest wood-cut in which I have noticed cross-hatching, I shall venture to ascribe the merit of the invention to the unknown artist, whoever he may have been; and shall consider the date 1486 as marking the period when a new style of wood engraving was introduced. Wolgemuth, as associated with wood engraving, has too long been decked out with borrowed plumes; and persons who knew little or nothing either of the history or practice of the art, and who are misled by writers on whose authority they rely, believe that Michael Wolgemuth was not only one of the best wood engravers of his day, but that he was the first who introduced a material improvement into the practice of the art. This error becomes more firmly rooted when such persons come to be informed that he was the master of Albert Durer, who is generally, but erroneously, supposed to have been the best wood engraver of his day. Albert Durer studied under Michael Wolgemuth as a painter, and not as a wood engraver; and I consider it as extremely questionable if either of them ever engraved a single block. There are many evidences in Germany of Wolgemuth having been a tolerably good painter for the age and country in which he lived; but there is not one of his having engraved on wood. In the Nuremberg Chronicle he is represented as having, in conjunction with William Pleydenwurf, superintended the execution of the wood-cuts contained in that book. Those cuts, which are frequently referred to as excellent specimens of old wood engraving, are in fact the most tasteless and worthless things that are to be found in any book, ancient or modern. It is a book, however, that is easy to be obtained; and it serves as a land-mark to superficial enquirers who are