Gunther Zainer's Spiegel des Menschlichen lebens is again one of the most amusing of woodcut books. One may say that the book itself, one of the most popular of the Middle Ages, runs through all the conditions and occupations of men as then existing, from the Pope and Kaiser down to the field labourer, and, with full indulgence in the mediæval love of formal antithesis, contrasts the good and the evil side of them. The profuse illustrations to all this abound in excellent pieces of naïve characterisation; the designs are very well put together, and, for the most part, the figures well drawn, and draperies good and crisp, and the general effect very satisfactory as decoration. The designer in this book, however, has not been always so lucky in his cutter as those of the last two, and some of the pictures have been considerably injured in the cutting. On the other hand the lovely genealogical tree above mentioned crowns this book with abundant honour, and the best of the cuts are so good that it is hardly possible to rank it after the first two. Gunther Zainer's Speculum Humanæ Salvationis and his Golden Legend have cuts decidedly ruder than these three books; they are simpler also, and less decorative as ornaments to the page, nevertheless they have abundant interest, and most often their essential qualities of design shine through the rudeness, which by no means excludes even grace of silhouette: one and all they are thoroughly expressive of the story they tell. The designs in these two books by the by do not seem to have been done by the same hand; but I should think that the designer of those in the Golden Legend drew the subjects that 'inhabit' the fine letters of Gunther's German Bible. Both seem to me to have a kind of illuminator's character in them. The cuts to the story of Simon bring us back to those of Spiegel des Menschlichen lebens; they are delicate and pretty, and tell the story, half so repulsive, half so touching, of 'little Sir Hugh,' very well. I must not pass by without a further word on Sigismund and Guiscard. I cannot help thinking that the cuts therein are by the same hand that drew some of those in the Æsop; at any rate they have the same qualities of design, and are to my mind singularly beautiful and interesting.