Respecting these cuts, which in all probability were engraved by some one of the Formschneiders of Augsburg, Ulm, or Nuremberg,[II-15] P. Krismer, who was librarian of the convent of Buxheim, and who showed the volume in which they are pasted to Heineken, writes to Von Murr to the following effect: “It will not be superfluous if I here point out a mark, by which, in my opinion, old wood engravings may with certainty be distinguished from those of a later period. It is this: In the oldest wood-cuts only do we perceive that the engraver [Formschneider] has frequently omitted certain parts, leaving them to be afterwards filled up by the card-colourer [Briefmaler]. In the St. Christopher there is no such deficiency, although there is in the other cut which is pasted on the inside of the fore covering of the same volume, and which, I doubt not, was executed at the same time as the former. It represents the salutation of the Virgin by the angel Gabriel, or, as it is also called, the Annunciation; and, from the omission of the colours, the upper part of the body of the kneeling Virgin appears naked, except where it is covered with her mantle. Her inner dress had been left to be added by the pencil of the card-colourer. In another wood-cut of the same kind, representing St. Jerome doing penance before a small crucifix placed on a hill, we see with surprise that the saint, together with the instruments of penance, which are lying near him, and a whole forest beside, are suspended in the air without anything to support them, as the whole of the ground had been left to be inserted with the pencil. Nothing of this kind is to be seen in more recent wood-cuts, when the art had made greater progress. What the early wood-engravers could not readily effect with the graver, they performed with the pencil,--for the most part in a very coarse and careless manner,--as they were at the same time both wood-engravers and card-colourers.”[II-16] [Footnote II-15: There is every reason in the world to suppose that this wood-cut was executed either in Nuremberg or Augsburg. Buxheim is situated almost in the very heart of Suabia, the circle in which we find the earliest wood engravers established. Buxheim is about thirty English miles from Ulm, forty-four from Augsburg, and one hundred and fifteen from Nuremberg. Von Murr does not notice the pretensions of Ulm, which on his own grounds are stronger than those of his native city, Nuremberg.] [Footnote II-16: Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 105, 106.] Besides the St. Christopher and the Annunciation, there is another old wood-cut in the collection of Earl Spencer which appears to belong to the same period, and which has in all probability been engraved by a German artist, as all who can read the German inscription above the figure would reasonably infer. Before making any remarks on this engraving, I shall first lay before the reader a reduced copy.