The illustration of the engraver on wood which appears in the same _Book of Trades_ puts before us a man in a richer dress, plainly a workman of higher grade than the stencil painter. He seems to be tracing outlines on the block. The technical accessories about this engraver are the same as those in use at this day—the graver, the whetstone, and, possibly, a water globe lens in the corner near the window casement.[29] [p095] Playing cards and engraving on wood bear to each other a curious relation. The introduction of the cards in Europe was soon followed by the revival, or as Bibliophile Jacob of Paris characterizes it, by the invention, of engraving on wood. Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to whether the art was revived or invented, it is certain that playing cards were the means by which early printing was made popular. Cards were the only kind of printed work which promised to repay the labor of engraving. People who could neither read nor write, and who had no desire to be taught either accomplishment, derived great pleasure from them. There was no other kind of printed matter, not even the image prints, which found so many buyers in every condition of society. The fixing of the earliest practice as a regular business of engraving on wood in Europe depends, in some degree, on the fixing of the date of the first introduction of playing cards. The determination of this date has been made a national question, and the theme of books containing much curious information. [Illustration: The Engraver on Wood. [From Jost Amman.]]