156 Botanical Illustration [ch. 



diagrams by a draughtsman "who generaHzed his know- 

 ledge of the object." In Dr Payne's own words, "Such 

 figures, passing through the hands of a hundred copyists, 

 became more and more conventional, till they reached their 

 last and most degraded form in the rude cuts of the Roman 

 Herbarium, which represent not the infancy, but the old 

 age of art. Uncouth as they are, we may regard them 

 with some respect, both as being the images of flowers 

 that bloomed many centuries ago, and also as the last 

 ripple of the receding tide of Classical Art." 



The illustrations of the ' Herbarium' of Apuleius were 

 copied from pre-existing manuscripts, and the age of the 

 originals is no doubt much greater than that of the printed 

 work. Those here reproduced are taken from a copy in 

 the British Museum, in which the pictures were coloured, 

 probably at the time when the book was published. 



Colouring of the figures was characteristic of many of 

 the earliest works in which wood-engraving was employed. 

 In cases where uncoloured copies of such books exist, there 

 are often blank spaces in the wood-cuts, which were left in 

 order that certain details might afterwards be added in 

 colour. The origin of wood-engraving is closely connected 

 with the early history of playing-card manufacture. Playing- 

 cards were at first coloured by means of stencil plates, and 

 the same method, very naturally, came to be employed in 

 connection with the wood-blocks used for book illustration. 



The engravings in the 'Herbarium' of Apuleius are 

 executed in black, in very crude outline. At least two 

 colours, now much faded, were also employed by means 

 of stencilling. The work was coarsely done, and the 

 colours only "register" very roughly. Brown appears 

 to have been used for the animals, roots and flowers, and 

 green for the leaves. The drawings show some rather 

 curious mannerisms. For instance, in the first cut labelled 

 " Vettonia," each of the lanceolate leaves is outlined con- 

 tinuously on the one side, but with a broken line on the 

 other. It has been suggested that the illustrations in the 

 'Herbarium' are possibly not wood-engravings, but rude 

 cuts in metal, excavated after the manner of a wood-block. 



We have already referred to the imaginative portrait 

 of the Mandrake (Plate V). Figures of the animals whose 



