resemblance to the paintings that adorned [p071] the walls of churches and monasteries. The image print of the fifteenth century was the prototype of the modern chromo. The St. Christopher, a bold and rude engraving on wood, which represents the saint in the act of carrying the infant Saviour across a river, is one of the most remarkable of the image prints. This print was discovered in the cover of an old manuscript volume of 1417, among the books of one of the most ancient convents of Germany, the Chartreuse at Buxheim, near Memmingen, in Suabia.[17] The monks said that the volume was given to the convent by Anna, canoness of Buchau, who is known to have been living in 1427. The name of the engraver is unknown. This convent is about fifty miles from Augsburg, a city which seems to have been the abode of some of the early engravers on wood. The date is obscurely given in Roman numerals at the foot of the picture. ‹f›Christoferi faciem die quacunque tueris, Millesimo cccc.‹/f› ‹f›Illa nempe die morte mala non morieris. rrº tertio.‹/f› In whatsoever day thou seest the likeness of St. Christopher, In that same day thou wilt at least from death no evil blow incur. 1423. The date 1423 is evidence only so far as it shows that the block was engraved in that year. The printing could have been done at a later date. As it is printed in an ink that is almost black (in which feature it differs from other early image prints, that are almost invariably in a dull or faded brown ink), there is reason to believe that this print was made some time after the engraving, when the method of making prints with permanent black ink was more common. [p072] This engraving has its merits as well as its absurdities. Chatto says that the design is better than any he has found in the earlier type-printed books; that the figure of the saint and that of the youthful Christ are, with the exception of the extremities, designed in such a style that they would scarcely discredit Albert Durer himself. The accessories are grotesquely treated. One peasant is driving an ass with a loaded sack to a water-mill; another is toiling with a bag of grain up a steep hill to his house; another, to the right, holds a lantern. The relative proportions of these figures are but a little less absurd than those made famous in Hogarth’s ironical study of false perspective. [Illustration: The Annunciation.] These faults of drawing are counterbalanced by real merits of engraving. There is a noticeable thickening and tapering of lines in proper places, a bold and a free marking of the folds of drapery, and a general neatness and cleverness of cutting that indicate the hand of a practised and judicious engraver. This engraving of St. Christopher is obviously not the first experiment of an amateur or an untaught inventor.