DE MONSTRIS. 249 



soldiers in plate armour by whom Abraham is accom- 

 panied, and the clock in the parish church of Damascus. 



Then there is a charming audacity in the way in 

 which the same woodcut does duty for several subjects. 

 Take, for example, the two woodcuts which have just 

 been mentioned. Nineveh, which is figured in page 

 20, becomes Corinth in page 33. Then the same cut 

 which represents Damascus at an early period of the 

 History, becomes successively, Macedonia, Verona, 

 Ferraria, and the Province of Germany. The portraits 

 are just as versatile. There is one, for example, which 

 so irritated me by its persistent reappearance, that I 

 took the trouble to hunt it through the book. It re- 

 presents a close-shaven, wizen-faced, vulture-nosed, 

 under-jawed old gentleman, wearing a kind of fez cap, 

 and reading a book without looking at it. On page 

 59 he is Solon ; on page 80 he is Demetrius, and only 

 two pages further he is metamorphosed into Paretius. 

 On page 111 he is Suetonius, and on page 158 the 

 Venerable Bede. On page 200 he is St. Hugo (natione 

 Gallus)\ on page 213 he does duty for Barnardus of 

 Compostello, doctor ; and on the very next page he is 

 labelled as Alexander, doctor irrefragabilis. Page 227 

 reveals him as ' Johannes de Monte Villa, eq. aur nat 

 anglic ; ' and we finally take leave of him on page 240 

 as ' Johannes Grherson, cancellarius Parisiensis.' 



I have already mentioned that facial expression is 

 absolutely wanting in these various portraits, so that, 

 judging by the expression of the countenance, no one 



