[Footnote II-26: Idée Générale, p. 251. Hartman Schedel, the compiler of the Nuremberg Chronicle, was accustomed to paste both old wood-cuts and copper-plate engravings within the covers of his books, many of which were preserved in the Library of the Elector of Bavaria at Munich.--Idée Gén. p. 287; and Von Murr, Journal, 2 Theil, S. 115.] A great many wood-cuts of devotional subjects, of a period probably anterior to the invention of book-printing by Gutenberg, have been discovered in Germany. They are all executed in a rude style, and many of them are coloured. It is not unlikely that the most of these woodcuts were executed at the instance of the monks for distribution among the common people as helps to devotion; and that each monastery, which might thus avail itself of the aid of wood engraving in the work of piety, would cause to be engraved the figure of its patron saint. The practice, in fact, of distributing such figures at monasteries and shrines to those who visit them, is not yet extinct on the Continent. In Belgium it is still continued, and, I believe, also in Germany, France, and Italy. The figures, however, are not generally impressions from wood-blocks, but are for the most part wholly executed by means of stencils. One of the latter class, representing the shrine of “Notre Dame de Hal,”--coloured in the most wretched taste with brick-dust red and shining green,--is now lying before me. It was given to a gentleman who visited Halle, near Brussels, in 1829. It is nearly of the same size as many of the old devotional wood-cuts of Germany, being about four inches high, by two and three-quarters wide.[II-27] [Footnote II-27: Heineken thus speaks of those old devotional cuts: “On trouve dans la Bibliothèque de Wolfenbüttel de ces sortes d’estampes, qui représentent différens sujets de l’histoire sainte et de dévotion, avec du texte vis à vis de la figure, tout gravé en bois. Ces pièces sont de la même grandeur que nos cartes à jouer: elles portent 3 pouces de hauteur sur 2 pouces 6 lignes de largeur.”--Idée Générale, p. 249.]