angel are grouped in successive scenes, illustrating the mystical meaning of some verse of the Song. The artistic feeling displayed in the arrangement of the figures is such that the designs have been attributed directly to Roger Van der Weyden, the greatest of Van Eyck's pupils. This book, like the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum, came from the engravers and the printers of the Netherlands; but it shows progress in art beyond those works, more elegance and vivacity of line, more ability to render feeling expressively, and especially more delight in nature and carefulness in delineating natural objects.
In spite of these three chief monuments of the art of block-printing in the Netherlands, the claim of that country to the invention of the block-books is not undisputed. The Historia Johannis Evangelistæ ejusque Visiones Apocalypticæ, or the Apocalypse of St. John, much ruder in drawing and in execution, is the oldest block-book according to most writers, and especially those who maintain the claims of Germany to the honor of the invention. This volume has been ascribed by Chatto to Upper Germany, where some Greek artist may have designed it; but with more probability, by Passavant, to Lower Germany, and especially to Cologne, on account of the coloring, which is in the Cologne manner. The volume bears a surer sign of early work than mere rudeness of execution: it is hieratic rather than artistic in character; the artist is concerned more with enforcing the religious lesson than with designing pleasant scenes. But although for this reason a very early date (1440–1460) must be assigned to the book, the question of the origin of the art of block-printing remains unsettled, even if it be granted that the volume is of German workmanship. Some evidence
