[Footnote II-22: In the Table des Matières to Jansen’s Essai sur l’Origine de la Gravure, Paris, 1808, we find “Dünkelspül (Nicolas) graveur Allemand en 1443.” After this specimen of accuracy, it is rather surprising that we do not find St. Alexius referred to also as “un graveur Allemand.”] [Footnote II-23: St. Alexius returning unknown to his father’s house, as a poor pilgrim, was treated with great indignity by the servants.] [Footnote II-24: Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 113-115.] In the Royal Library at Paris there is an ancient wood-cut of St. Bernardin, who is represented on a terrace, the pavement of which consists of alternate squares of yellow, red, and green. In his right hand the saint holds something resembling the consecrated wafer or host, in the midst of which is inscribed the name of Christ; and in his left a kind of oblong casket, on which are the words “_Vide, lege, dulce nomen_.” Upon a scroll above the head of the saint is engraved the sentence, “_Ihesus semper sit in ore meo_,” and behind him, on a black label, is his name in yellow letters, “_Sanct’ Bernard’_.” The cut is surrounded by a border of foliage, with the emblems of the four Evangelists at the four corners, and at the foot are the five following lines, with the date, impressed from prominent lines:-- _O . splendor . pudicitie . zelator . paupertatis . a mator. innocentie . cultor . virginitatis . lustra cors . apientie . protector . veritatis . thro num . fulgidum . eterne . majestatis . para nobis . additum . divine . pietatis . amen. (1454)_ This rare cut was communicated to Jansen by M. Vanpraet, the well-known bibliographer and keeper of the Royal Library.[II-25] [Footnote II-25: Jansen, Essai sur l’Origine de la Gravure, tom. i. p. 237. Jansen’s own authority on subjects connected with wood engraving is undeserving of attention. He is a mere compiler, who scarcely appears to have been able to distinguish a wood-cut from a copper-plate engraving.] “Having visited in my last tour,” says Heineken, after describing the St. Christopher, “a great many convents in Franconia, Suabia, Bavaria, and in the Austrian states, I everywhere discovered in their libraries many of those kinds of figures, engraved on wood, and pasted either at the beginning or the end of old volumes of the fifteenth century. I have indeed obtained several of them. These facts, taken altogether, have confirmed me in my opinion that the next step of the engraver in wood, after playing-cards, was to engrave figures of saints, which, being distributed and lost among the laity, were in part preserved by the monks, who pasted them in the earliest printed books with which they furnished their libraries.”[II-26]