Dibdin[1] alludes to an English clergyman who said that he was once the owner of one copy each of the Apocalypse, the Bible of the Poor, and the Ars Moriendi, all bound in one volume, on the cover of which was stamped an inscription certifying that "this volume was bound for the curate of the church in 142–." The last figure the clergyman had forgotten, but he was sure that the book was in its original binding, and that it must have been bound, and consequently printed, before 1430. The testimony is unsatisfactory.
THE CANTICLES.
This is a block-book[2] of sixteen pages, of small folio size. It is one of the few block-books which may be unhesitatingly pronounced as of Netherlandish origin. In general appearance it closely resembles the books previously noticed. The impressions are in brown ink, and on one side of the sheet; there are two illustrations on each page, and the two printed pages face each other; the explanations of the designs are in Latin, and are engraved in scrolls that surround the figures. According to some bibliographers, there are three editions of the book; according to others, the trifling variations which have been seized upon to justify the existence of a second and a third edition are only alterations or repairs that have been sustained by the original block. One edition contains at the head of the first page an engraved line, in the low Dutch or Flemish language, which may be translated thus: "This is the Prefiguration of Mary, the Mother of God, which, in Latin, is called The Canticles." Explanatory titles in block-books, and even in the earlier typographic books, are unusual. For this reason the genuineness of the inscription has been challenged, but it has been generally accepted as a true part of the original block.
