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In the Weigel Collection was a specimen of English block-printing which is now in the British Museum; it is part of some verses on the Seven Virtues, but it is hard to ascribe any date to it. Another early cut is mentioned by Bradshaw as existing in Ely Cathedral. It is a cut of a lion, and is fixed against one of the pillars in the choir, close to the tomb of Bishop Gray, whose device it represents. This bishop died in 1479, so that an approximate date may be given to the cut. It is very probable that these last two specimens of block-printing are later than the introduction of printing into England, and the only ones that should be dated earlier are the British Museum and Bodleian Images of Pity.

A good many single woodcuts were executed in England before the close of the fifteenth century. They were mostly Images of Pity, such as have been mentioned, or ‘rosaries’ containing religious emblems, with the initials I. H. S. A curious cut in the Bodleian represents the Judgment, and below this a body in a shroud. Above the cut is printed, ‘Surgite mortui Venite ad Judicium,’ and below on either side of a shield the words, ‘Arma Beate Birgitte De Syon.’

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