Some writers have been of opinion that the art of wood-engraving was derived from the practice of the ancient caligraphists and illuminators of manuscripts, who sometimes formed their large capital letters by means of a stencil or of a wooden stamp. That large capitals were formed in such a manner previous to the year 1400 there can be little doubt; and it has been thought that stencils and stamps were used not only for the formation of capital letters, but also for the impression of a whole volume. Ihre, in a dissertation on the Gospels of Ulphilas,[II-5] which are supposed to be as old as the fifth century, has asserted that the silver letters of the text on a purple ground were impressed by means of heated iron stamps. This, however, is denied by the learned compilers of the “Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique,” who had seen other volumes of a similar kind, the silver letters of which were evidently formed with a pen. A modern Italian author, D. Vincenzo Requeno, has published a tract[II-6] to prove that many supposed manuscripts from the tenth to the fourteenth century, instead of being written with a pen, were actually impressed by means of stamps. It is, however, extremely probable that he is mistaken; for if his pretended discoveries were true, this art of stamping must have been very generally practised; and if so, it surely would have been mentioned by some contemporary writers. Signor Requeno’s examination, I am inclined to suspect, has not been sufficiently precise; for he seems to have been too willing to find what he sought. In almost every collection that he examined, a pair of fine compasses being the test which he employed, he discovered voluminous works on vellum, hitherto supposed to be manuscript, but which according to his measurement were certainly executed by means of a stamp. [Footnote II-5: This celebrated version, in the Mœso-Gothic language, is preserved in the library of Upsal in Sweden.] [Footnote II-6: Osservazioni sulla Chirotipografia, ossia Antica Arte di Stampare a mano. Opera di D. Vincenzo Requeno. Roma 1810, 8vo.] It has been conjectured that the art of wood-engraving was employed on sacred subjects, such as the figures of saints and holy persons, before it was applied to the multiplication of those “books of Satan,” playing-cards. It however is not unlikely that it was first employed in the manufacture of cards; and that the monks, availing themselves of the same principle, shortly afterwards employed the art of wood-engraving for the purpose of circulating the figures of saints; thus endeavouring to supply a remedy for the evil, and extracting from the serpent a cure for his bite.