DE MONSTRIS. 247 



tiara, and all having their mouths tightly shut, so that 

 if they are singing at all, they must be singing through 

 their noses. The creation of the world is ingeniously, 

 if simply, represented, by the disappearance of the 

 heads, and the appearance of successive concentric 

 circles within the open space, one circle being added 

 for each day. 



The earth being made, and the fishes, birds, and 

 beasts duly placed in it, we come to a delightful 

 Garden of Eden, walled and castellated, and its arched 

 entrance guarded by a portcullis, through which 

 trickle four diverging gutters representing the four 

 rivers of Paradise. As for Adam, he is certainly not 

 handsome, but he is very far superior to the Adam 

 represented in the frontispiece of a Family Bible now 

 before me. Wolgemuth's Adam, rudely though he be 

 drawn, is at least represented as the first man might 

 have been ; whereas the modern Adam has had his hair 

 nicely cut, parted, and curled has been shaved that 

 morning, and wears a pair of neatly shaped whiskers. 

 In fact, he looks as if he ought to wear clothes ; where- 

 as Wolgemuth's Adam looks as if clothing were no 

 more needed by him than by a Greek statue. Then we 

 have the creation of Eve, who is represented as being 

 pulled bodily out of a large circular hole in Adam's 

 side ; and so we proceed with the history of the world 

 until we come to the building of the ark. 



This woodcut has a strange fascination for me, in 

 its mingled truth and absurdity, strength and weakness* 



