d--seven
hundred sheets per hour--that, until the introduction of steam, they far
outstripped Europeans. Gibbon, it will be remembered, regrets that the
emperor Justinian, who lived in the sixth century, did not introduce the
art of printing from the Chinese, instead of their silk manufacture.

Block-printing ushered in the great epoch; and the first dawn of it
in Europe seems to have been single prints of saints and scriptural
subjects, with a line or two of description engraved on the same wooden
plate. These are for the most part lost; but there is one in existence,
large and exceedingly fine, of St. Christopher, with two lines of
inscription, dated 1423, believed to have been printed with the ordinary
printing-press. It was found in the library of a monastery near Augsburg,
and is therefore presumed to be of German execution. Till lately this was
the earliest-dated evidence of block-printing known; but there has since
been discovered at Malines, and deposited at Brussels, a wood-cut
of similar character, but assumed to be Dutch or Flemish, dated
"MCCCCXVIII"; and though there seems no reason to doubt the genuineness
of the cut, it is asserted that the date bears evidence of having been
tampered with.

There is a vague tradition, depending entirely on the assertion of a
writer named Papillon, not a very reliable authority, which would give
the invention of wood-cut-printing to Venice, and at a very early period.
He asserts that he once saw a set of eight prints, depicting the deeds
of Alexander the Great, each described in verse, which were engraved in
relief, and printed by a brother and sister named Cunio, at Ravenna,
in 1285. But though the assertion is accredited by Mr. Ottley, it is
generally disbelieved.

There is reason to suppose that playing-cards, from wooden blocks, were
produced at Venice long before the block-books, even as early as 1250;
but there is no positive evidence that they were printed; and some insist
that they were produced either by friction or stencil-plates. It seems,
however, by no means unlikely that cards, which were in most extensive
use in the Middle Ages, should, for the sake of cheapness, have been
printed quite as early, if not earlier, than even figures of saints; and
the same artists are presumed to have produced both.

From single prints, with letter-press inscriptions, the next stage, that
of a series of prints accompanied by letter-press, was obvious. Such are
our first rec