Although a flowered border surrounding a whole page may be observed as occurring twice in Veldener’s edition of the Fasciculus Temporum, printed at Utrecht in 1480, yet I am inclined to think that the practice of surrounding every page with an ornamental flowered border cut in wood, was first introduced by the Parisian printers at a period somewhat later. In 1488, an edition of the “Horæ in Laudem beatissimæ virginis Mariæ,” in octavo, was printed at Paris by Anthony Verard, the text of which is surrounded with ornamental borders. The practice thus introduced was subsequently adopted by the printers of Germany and Holland, more especially in the decoration of devotional works, such as Horæ, Breviaries, and Psalters. Verard appears to have chiefly printed works of devotion and love, for a greater number of Horæ and Romances proceeded from his press than that of any other printer of his age. Most of them contain wood-cuts, some of which, in books printed by him about the beginning of the sixteenth century, are designed with considerable taste and well engraved; while others, those for instance in “La Fleur des Battailes,” 4to, 1505, are not superior to those in Caxton’s Chess: it is, however, not unlikely that the cuts in “La Fleur des Battailes” of this date had been used for an earlier edition.[IV-52] [Footnote IV-52: A good specimen of early French wood engraving may be seen in the large cut forming a kind of frontispiece to the “Roman du Roy Artus,” folio, printed at Rouen in 1488 by Jehan de Bourgeois. This cut, which occupies the whole page, represents King Arthur and his knights dining off the round table. A smaller one occurs at the beginning of the second part, and both are surrounded by ornamental borders.] The “Hortus Sanitatis,” folio, printed at Mentz in 1491 by Jacobus Meydenbach, is frequently referred to by bibliographers; not so much on account of the many wood-cuts which it contains, but as being supposed in some degree to confirm a statement in Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography, and in Serrarius, De Rebus Moguntinis, where a _John_ Meydenbach is mentioned as being a partner with Gutemberg and Faust. Von Murr, as has been previously noticed, supposed that this person was a wood engraver; and Prosper Marchand,[IV-53] though without any authority, calls _Jacobus_ Meydenbach his son or his relation. [Footnote IV-53: Hist. de l’Imprimerie, p. 49.] This work, which is a kind of Natural History, explaining the uses and virtues of herbs, fowls, fish, quadrupeds, minerals, drugs, and spices, contains a number of wood-cuts, many of which are curious, as containing representations of natural objects, but none of which are remarkable for their execution as wood engravings. On the opposite page is a fac-simile of the cut which forms the head-piece to the chapter “De Ovis.” The figure, which possesses considerable merit, represents an old woman going to market with her basket of eggs.