Almost all authors who have devoted themselves to investigate this subject have asserted, but doubtless very erroneously, that engraving on metal was naturally derived from engraving on wood. Nevertheless, any one who gives but a slight consideration to the difference existing between the two processes must be led to the belief that the two arts must result from two distinct inventions. In wood-engraving, the impression is, in fact, formed by the portions of the block which are in relief; while in engraving on metal, the incised strokes give the lines of the print. Now, no one who has any knowledge of professional matters can for a moment doubt that, in spite of the similar appearance of the productions, there is a radical difference in the starting-points and modes of execution of these two methods. We certainly must consider it probable that the appearance of prints produced by wood-engraving may have suggested the idea of seeking to obtain a similar or better result by some other process; but that a process should be assimilated, as if by affiliation, to another diametrically opposed to it is a view we do not feel called upon to accept without reservation. Be this as it may, certain authors look upon wood-engraving as having been invented in Germany at the commencement of the fifteenth century. Others have derived it from China, where it was in use in the year 1000 of our era. Others, again, propound the opinion that the art of printing stuffs by means of engraved blocks was employed in different parts of Asia, to which it had been imported from ancient Egypt, at a period long before it was first thought of in Europe. These hypotheses being admitted, the whole question reduces itself into an inquiry as to the way in which the art made its entrance into Western Europe in the first half of the fifteenth century; this being the earliest date at which we find engravings made in Germany, France, and the Low Countries. [Illustration: Fig. 258.--“The Virgin and Infant Jesus.” Fac-simile of a Wood-Engraving of the Fifteenth Century. (Bibl. Imp., Paris.)]