more comic than terrible, and it is evident that the artists who executed them cared very little for the wicked tricks of the Evil Spirit." We may be sure that the artist who could sketch the devil fiddling upon a pair of bellows with a kitchen dipper had outgrown the horror which that personage had once excited in all minds. Such a sketch is here reproduced from a Flemish MS. in the library of Cambrai. [Illustration: Devil fiddling upon a Pair of Bellows.] But this could not be said of the great mass of Christian people for centuries after. Luther, as the reader is aware, speaks of the devil with as absolute an assurance of his existence, activity, and nearness as if he were a member of his own household. God, he once said, mocks and scorns the devil by putting under his nose such a weak creature as man; and at other times he dwelt upon the hardness of the conflict which the devil has to maintain. "It were not good for us to know how earnestly the holy angels strive for us against the devil, or how hard a combat it is. If we could see for how many angels one devil makes work, we should be in despair." Many devils, he remarks with curious certainty, are in forests, in waters, in wildernesses, in dark pooly places, ready to hurt and prejudice people; and there are some in the thick black clouds, which cause hail, lightnings, and thunderings, and poison the air, the pastures, and grounds. He derides the philosophers and physicians who say that these things have merely natural causes; and as to the witches who torment honest people, and spoil their eggs, milk, and butter, "I should have no compassion upon them--I would burn them all." The Table-talk of the great reformer is full of such robust credulity. Luther represented, as much as he reformed, his age and country. In these utterances of his we discern the spirit against which the humor and gayety of art had to contend, and over which it has gained a tardy victory, not yet complete. Let us keep in mind also that in those twilight ages, as in all ages, there were the two contending influences which we now call "the world" and "the church." In other words, there were people who took the devil lightly, as they did all invisible and spiritual things, and there were people who dreaded the devil in every "dark pooly place," and to whom nothing could be a jest which appertained to him. Humorous art has in it healing and admonition for both these classes. [Illustration: Oldest Drawing in the British Museum, A.D. 1320.]