This is a block-book[115] of sixteen pages, of small folio size. It is one of the few block-books which may be unhesitatingly pronounced as of Netherlandish origin. In general appearance it closely resembles the books previously noticed. The impressions are in brown ink, and on one side of the sheet; there are two illustrations on each page, and the two printed pages face each other; the explanations of the designs are in Latin, and are engraved in scrolls that surround the figures. According to some bibliographers, there are three editions of the book; according to others, the trifling variations which have been seized upon to justify the existence of a second and a third edition are only alterations or repairs that have been sustained by the original block. One edition contains at the head of the first page an engraved line, in the low Dutch or Flemish language, which may be translated thus: “This is the Prefiguration of Mary, the Mother of God, which, in Latin, is called _The Canticles_.” Explanatory titles in block-books, and even in the earlier typographic books, are unusual. For this reason the genuineness of the inscription has been challenged, but it has been generally accepted as a true part of the original block. [p216] The illustration opposite is the fac-simile, reduced in size, of the first page of the _Canticles_. The design is imperfectly explained by the legends in the engraving. ‹f›Osculetur me osculo oris sui; quia Let him kiss me with the meliora sunt ubera tua vino.‹/f› kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine. ‹f›Veni in hortum meum, soror mea sponsa I am come into my garden, my messui myrrham meum cum aromatibus sister, my spouse: I have meis.‹/f› gathered my myrrh with my spice. ‹f›Caput tuum ut Carmelus; collum tuum Thine head is like Carmel; sicut turris eburnea.‹/f› thy neck is like a tower of ivory. ‹f›Nigra sum, sed formosa, filiæ I am black but comely, O ye Jerusalem, sicut tabernacula cedar, daughters of Jerusalem; As sicut pelles Solomonis.‹/f› the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.