cross-hatching was almost as generally employed to obtain depth of colour and shade as in Germany. The wood-cuts which appear in works printed at Venice between 1550 and 1570 are generally as good as most German wood-cuts of the same period; and many of them, more especially those in books printed by the Giolitos, are executed with a clearness and delicacy which have seldom been surpassed. [Footnote IV-63: The letter M at the commencement of the next chapter affords an example of this style of engraving.] Before concluding the present chapter, which is more especially devoted to the consideration of wood engraving in the first period of its connexion with typography, it may not be improper to take a brief glance at the state of the art as practised by the Briefmalers and Formschneiders of Germany, who were the first to introduce the practice of block-printing, and who continued to exercise this branch of their art for many years after typography had been generally established throughout Europe. That the ancient wood engravers continued to practise the art of block-printing till towards the close of the fifteenth century, there can be little doubt. There is an edition of the Poor Preachers’ Bible, with the date 1470, printed from wood-blocks, without place or engraver’s name, but having at the end, as a mark, two shields, on one of which is a squirrel, and on the other something like two pilgrim’s staves crossed. Another edition of the same work, though not from the same blocks, appeared in 1471. In this the engraver’s mark is two shields, on one of which is a spur, probably a rebus for the name of “Sporer;” in the same manner that a pair of folding-doors represented the name “Thurer,” or “Durer.” An engraver of the name of Hans Sporer printed an edition of the Ars Moriendi from wood-blocks in 1473; and in the preceding year Young Hans, Briefmaler, of Nuremberg, printed an edition of the Antichrist in the same manner.[IV-64] [Footnote IV-64: Von Murr says that “Young Hans” was unquestionably the son of “Hans Formschneider,” whose name appears in the town-books of Nuremberg from 1449 to 1490. He also thinks that he might be the same person as Hans Sporer.--Journal, 2 Theil, S. 140, 141.]