Having thus endeavoured to prove by a continuous chain of evidence that the principle of producing impressions from raised lines was known, and practised, at a very early period; and that it was applied for the purpose of impressing letters and other characters on paper, though perhaps confined to signatures only, long previous to 1423,--which is the earliest date that has been discovered on a wood-cut, in the modern sense of the word, impressed on paper, and accompanied with explanatory words cut on the same block;[I-25] and having shown that the principle of stencilling--the manner in which the above-named cut is coloured[I-26]--was also known in the middle ages; it appears requisite, next to briefly notice the contemporary existence of the cognate arts of die-sinking, seal-cutting, and engraving on brass, and afterwards to examine the grounds of certain speculations on the introduction and early practice of wood-engraving and block-printing in Europe. [Footnote I-25: “Till lately this was the earliest dated evidence of block printing known; but there has just been discovered at Malines, and now deposited at Brussels, a woodcut of similar character, but assumed to be Dutch or Flemish, dated MCCCCXVIII.; and though there seems no reason to doubt the genuineness of the cut, it is currently asserted that the date bears evidence of having been tampered with.”--Extract from Bohn’s Lecture on Printing.] [Footnote I-26: The woodcut referred to is that of St. Christopher, discovered by Heineken, pasted within the cover of a book in the Monastery of Buxheim, near Memmingen, in Suabia. It is of a folio size, and is coloured by means of stencils; a practice which appears to have been adopted at an early part of the fifteenth century by the German Formschneiders and Briefmalers, literally, figure-cutters and cardpainters, to colour their cuts and their cards. The St. Christopher is now in Earl Spencer’s library. (See a reduced copy of it at p. 46).]