Page:A History of Wood-Engraving.djvu/108

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106
A HISTORY OF WOOD-ENGRAVING

pared and adorned with woodcuts in his own honor, a prose work entitled The Wise King, and a poem entitled The Adventures of Sir Tewrdannckh. In these volumes the example of his own life is offered for the instruction of princes, and the history of his deeds, amours, courtship, perils, and temptations is written, once for the edification, but now for the amusement, of the world. The woodcuts in The Adventures of Sir Tewrdannckh are one hundred and eighteen in number, and are principally, if not entirely, the work of Hans Schäuffelin (1490?-1540); they show how Sir Tewrdannckh, attended by his squire, started out upon his travels, and what moving dangers he encountered in his hunting, voyaging, tilting, and fighting, under the guidance and instigation of his three great enemies, Envy, Daring, and Curiosity, who at last, when he is happily at the end of his troubles, are represented as meeting their own fate by the gallows, the block, and the moat. The engravings are marked by spirit, and due attention is given to landscape; but they are not infrequently too near caricature to be pleasing, and cannot pretend to rank beside the other works of Maximilian. This volume was printed during the Emperor's lifetime, and was the only one of his works of which he saw the completion. The Wise King was illustrated by two hundred and thirty-seven cuts, of which several bear Burgkmaier's mark, one the mark of Schäuffelin and one that of Hans Springinklee (1470?-1540). They picture the journey of the Emperor's father to Rome, the youth and education of the young prince, his gradual acquirement of the liberal arts—kingcraft, the black-art, medicine, the languages, painting, architecture, music, cookery, dancing, shooting, falconry, angling, fencing, tilting, gunnery, the art of fortification, and