scholars in all countries during the middle ages, and it gives us no clue to the place where they were printed. The paper-marks have been carefully scrutinized, in the hope that they would reveal the manufacture of the paper at some date or in some place, but reasonings made from paper-marks are now regarded as uncertain and of no practical value. We learn nothing through the study of the shapes or fashion of the engraved letters, for German-like characters have been found in block-books known to be Dutch, and peculiarities supposed to be Dutch have been found in German books. Nor can we glean anything of real value from a critical examination of the designs, which qould have been copied from manuscripts, or drawn in one country and printed in another.
The only mechanical feature which leads to positive conclusions as to age is the manner in which they were printed. The books printed in black ink and on both sides of the paper were certainly printed after the invention of typography, and by typographic apparatus. The books in brown ink and on one side of the paper are of an earlier period. There is a peculiar rudeness about the books in brown ink which is not to be found in typographic work, a rudeness which we know began with the makers of cards or printers of images. If we consider, as we must, that the block-books are only collections of image prints, which were put in the form of books as soon as paper became cheap and popular, we may conclude with confidence that they could have been made, and probably were made, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century.
The great popularity of the block-books even after 1450, when types had been invented, proves that the business of making them was then firmly established, and that it was not checked by the superior advantages offered by types. It is obvious that the block-printers of 1450 had long practice in the older method, that they were firmly attached to it, and would not abandon it in favor of the new invention. Their preference for the older method of xylography is very plainly shown by the numerous editions of the Donatus.
