One of the oldest collections of engravings with subject matter printed by this process is the "Speculum Humanæ Salvationis," mentioned by Adrian Junius in his "Batavia"--written, it would seem, between the years 1560 and 1570, but not published till 1588, many years after his death. Therein it is expressly stated that the "Speculum" was printed before 1442 by Lourens Janszoon Coster. It is true that Junius is speaking of events which occurred more than a century before the time to which he ascribes them: "on the testimony," as he says, "of very aged men, who had received this tradition, as a burning torch passed from hand to hand." And this belated narrative has appeared, and may still appear, somewhat doubtful. We ourselves consider the doubt to be exaggerated, but we shall not insist on that. The specimens survive which gave rise to such legends and commentaries; and it is fitting they should be questioned. Four editions of the "Speculum" are known, two in Dutch and two in Latin. It must be understood that we only speak of the editions which have no publishers' names, no dates, nor any sign of the place where they were published: the "Speculum," a sort of Christian handbook, much used in the Low Countries, having been frequently reprinted, with due indication of names and places, during and after the last twenty years of the fifteenth century. The oldest Dutch edition that is dated, the one of 1483, printed by John Veldenaer, reproduces certain engravings which had already embellished the four anonymous editions, with the difference that the plates have been sawn in two to suit the dimensions of a smaller volume. Hence, whatever conjectures may exist as to the date of the first publication, we have, at least, a positive fact: as the original plates only appear in a mutilated state in the copies printed in 1483, it is evident that the four editions where they appear entire are of earlier date. These questions remain:--first, whether they are earlier, too, than the second half of the fifteenth century--earlier, that is, than the time when Gutenberg gave to the world the results of his labour? and second, whether they originated, like the edition of Donatus, in a Dutch workshop? Doubt seems impossible on the last point. These four editions are all printed with the same cuts, on the same paper made in Brabant, and under the same typographical conditions, with the exception of some slight differences in the characters of the two Dutch editions, and the insertion of twenty leaves xylographically printed in one of the two Latin editions. Is it, then, likely, or even possible, that these books belong, as has been supposed, to Germany? [Illustration: FIG. 2.--THE HOLY VIRGIN AND THE INFANT JESUS. German Wood Engraving. (Fifteenth Century.)]