The next step in the progress of wood engraving, subsequent to the production of single cuts, such as the St. Christopher, the Annunciation, and the St. Bridget, in each of which letters are sparingly introduced, was the application of the art to the production of those works which are known to bibliographers by the name of BLOCK-BOOKS: the most celebrated of which are the Apocalypsis, seu Historia Sancti Johannis; the Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum; and the Biblia Pauperum. The first is a history, pictorial and literal, of the life and revelations of St. John the Evangelist, derived in part from the traditions of the church, but chiefly from the book of Revelations. The second is a similar history of the Virgin, as it is supposed to be typified in the Songs of Solomon; and the third consists of subjects representing some of the most important passages in the Old and New Testament, with texts either explaining the subject, or enforcing the example of duty which it may afford. With the above, the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis is usually, though improperly, classed, as the whole of the text, in that which is most certainly the first edition, is printed from movable metal types. In the others the explanatory matter is engraved on wood, on the same block with the subject to which it refers. All the above books have been claimed by Meerman and other Dutch writers for their countryman, Laurence Coster: and although no date, either impressed or manuscript, has been discovered in any one copy from which the period of its execution might be ascertained,[II-28] yet such appears to have been the clearness of the intuitive light which guided those authors, that they have assigned to each work the precise year in which it appeared. According to Seiz, the History of the Old and New Testament, otherwise called the Biblia Pauperum, appeared in 1432; the History of the Virgin in 1433; the Apocalypse in 1434; and the Speculum in 1439. For such assertions, however, he has not the slightest ground. That the three first might appear at some period between 1430 and 1450, is not unlikely;[II-29] but that the Speculum--_the text of which in the first edition was printed from metal types_--should be printed before 1460, is in the highest degree improbable. [Footnote II-28: A copy of the Speculum belonging to the city of Harlem had at the commencement, “_Ex Officina Laurentii Joannis Costeri. Anno 1440_.” But this inscription had been inserted by a modern hand--Idée Générale, p. 449.]