of the art of printing, than is furnished by the annexed fac-simile of a page in the Biblia Pauperum, ("Bible for poor folks,") the oldest printed book in the world. This extraordinary book is of uncertain date. (No printed book has a date prior to 1457.) There are, as we believe, only two copies of it in America, one in the possession of James Lenox, of New-York,—the other in the Astor Library.
The maker of this book was the unconscious inventor of the art of printing. Wood-engraving was in use for ages before it occurred to the mind of man that a letter might be as easily reproduced in that way as a picture or figure. To convey scriptural history to the minds of the common people, the wood-engravers (whose art was invented to multiply and cheapen the production of playing-cards) made little pictures representing scenes described, and events narrated, in the Bible. For the benefit of the few who could read, it was customary to write on the margin, or at the foot, of the page on which the woodcut was printed, a few words descriptive of the subject or object delineated. This was always done with a pen, by a regular scribe, until, one day, it occurred to the wood-engraver employed on the Biblia Pauperum, that these words might be as easily
