113. _Nullus and Nemo._--I have two old quarto tracts, of eight pages
each, printed, as seems both by the type and by an allusion contained in
one of them, between 1520 and 1530, or thereabouts. They are part of a
satirical controversy, the subject of which is very obscure, between
_Nemo_ of Wittemberg, and _Nullus_ of Leipsic. Though printed, we must
suppose, at the two places, the opponents have evidently clubbed for a
woodcut to be common to the two title-pages.
In this cut an unfortunate householder stands in an attitude of despair,
surrounded by what are as much in our day as in his the doings of
_nobody_, as broken crockery, hardware, &c. In the distance his kitchen
is visible, in which two nobodies are busy with his meat and wine. A
young woman is carrying an infant to the priest to be baptized; and from
the way in which the worthy man holds up his finger, we may fear she has
just confessed that it is nobody's child. Can any of your readers give
any information?