The Dance of Death.

79

his belief th it the cuts had been previously and certainlyused at Basle. He then alludes to the supposed Germanedition, about the year 1530, but acknowledges that he hadnot been able to meet with or hear of any person who hadseen it. He next introduces to his reader's notice, andafterwards describes at large, a set of forty-one impressions,being the complete series of the edition of 1538, exceptone, and taken off with the greatest clearness and brilliancyof effect, on one side of the paper only, each cut havingover it its title printed in the German language, withmovable type. He thinks it possible that they mayoriginally have had German verses ■ underneath, and textsof Scripture above, in addition to the titles; a fact, he adds,not now to be ascertained, as the margins are clipped on thesides and at bottom. He says, it is greatly to be regrettedthat the blocks were never taken off with due diligence andgood printing ink, after they got into the hands of theLyons booksellers, and then introduces into his page twofac-similes of these cuts so admirably copied as to be almostundistinguishable from the originals. 14 One may, indeed,regret with Mr. Ottley the general carelessness of the oldprinters in their mode of taking off impressions from blocksof wood when introducing them into their books, and whichis so very unequally practised that, as already observed, theimpressions are often clearer and more distinct in laterthan in preceding editions. The works of the old designersand engravers would, in many cases, have been much morehighly appreciated, if they had had the same justice doneto them by the printers as the editorial taste and judgmentof Mr. Ottley, combined with the skill of the workmen,have obtained in the decoration of his own book. Withrespect to the impressions of the cuts in question, whenthe blocks were in the hands of the Lyons booksellers, thefact is, that in some of their editions they are occasionallyas fine as those separately printed off; and at the momentof making this remark, an edition, published in 1547, atLyons, is before the writer, in which many of the prints areuncommonly clear and even brilliant, a circumstance owing,in a great degree, to the nature of the paper on which thejfare impressed.

14 An Inquiry, Sec. ii. 762.