Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/255

Rh six leaves of small folio, made up in one section. At the beginning of each of its twelve written chapters is the impression of an engraving on wood. The date 1440 is found in two of the engravings. The only known copy of this book is held by the Royal Library of Brussels. It is a curious circumstance that this copy, possibly in its original binding, which contains a printed date earlier than that of any other block-book, should also contain two printed leaves of the Bible of the Poor. Holtrop says that the book was composed by Henry Bogaert, canon of a monastery near Brussels, who was born in 1382 and died in 1469. He was the author of many small religious books, of which the Exercise on the Lord's Prayer is one. The illustrations of this book and of the Pomerium Spirituale were probably made at the same time and by the same engraver.

This is not a book, but a print on a single sheet eleven inches wide and sixteen inches high. It differs from the image prints in the pettiness of its cuts and the abundance of its text, for which reason it may properly be described among the

block-books with text. The nature of the work is clearly set forth in the preface, The Temptations of the Devil, as he tempteth men to the Seven Mortal Sins. The Devil, who, with a claw-hook in his hand, stands in the corner to the left, has beneath him the list of these seven sins. The tempted man is