III.
EARLY PRINTED BOOKS IN THE NORTH.
Fig. 7.—Source of this letter unknown.N 1454 the art of printing in movable types and with a press had been perfected in Germany; soon afterward the art of block-printing, although it continued to be practised until the end of the century, began to fall into decay, and the ancient block-books, in which the text had been subsidiary to the colored engravings, speedily gave place to the modern printed book, in which the engravings were subsidiary to the text. This change did not come about without a struggle between the rival arts. In all the great cities of Germany and the Low Countries, the block-printers and wood-engravers had long been organized into strong and compact guilds, enforcing their rights with strict jealousy, and privileged from the first to make use of movable types and the press; the new printers, on the other hand, were comparatively few in number, disunited and scattered, accustomed to go from one town to another, and every attempt by them to insert woodcuts into their books was looked upon and resented as an encroachment on the art of the block-printers and the wood-engravers. At first
