But in endeavouring to ascertain the time when this latter work was printed, there are still two important points to be considered; and these are, the age of the paper, and the date of the costume and armour of the figures represented in the vignettes. On both of these points Mr. Ottley’s writings are most instructive. As regards the first, the only guides are the paper-marks, and as the same marks continued to be used by manufacturers for many successive years, it follows, that although the _Speculum_ might possibly have been printed when peculiar marks were first made use of, the printing may, just as likely, not have taken place till many years later: the only certainty, therefore, that an undated paper-mark affords, is, that the work in which it appears could not have been printed prior to the time when it has been ascertained that that particular mark was originally introduced. The marks observed in the paper on which the earliest edition of the _Speculum_ is printed, consist of a fleur-de-lis (or anchor) an unicorn, two keys side by side, a hand, a St. Catharine wheel, a circle enclosing the letters M A with a coat of arms beneath; and the letter P; and in the later Latin edition, the letter Y. These three last are considered the most important, and are dealt with as such by Mr. Koning. As to the circle with the letters and coat of arms, he says, the initials signify without doubt, the initials of Margaret, widow of William, Count of Holland, and the mother of the Countess Jacqueline, the arms being those of Bavaria, whence he concludes, that the paper was manufactured during the reign of the Countess Jacqueline in Brabant and Hainault, after her marriage with the Dauphin, and before the treaty of transfer made to Philip of Burgundy in 1433, it being the custom of manufacturers of paper in the fifteenth century to put the arms of their sovereigns in their marks. Mr. Ottley, however, points out, that this usage was rare before the latter part of the century, although afterwards the practise became common. The letter P, which Koning considers to have been the initial of Philip of Burgundy (who reigned in Brabant from 1430 to 1467,) was found by him, he says, in a memorandum of accounts of the date 1432; and he remarks further, that “a large proportion of the books printed in Holland in the latter part of the fifteenth century, have this paper-mark, which will never be found in any book, nor in any paper, coming from Germany or from Italy.”