Footnote from original book:

According to Dr. Brinckmann (p. 228), the inking of one block with several colors is occasionally carried so far as to produce a complete picture in several colors at one. impression. Among other prints, he describes one of a gray grasshopper feeding on the reddish meat of a piece of watermelon, the green rind and the black seeds of which are also seen. The four colors named are applied, each separately, to different parts of the block. We have here the principle of rubbing in a plate in different colors, used so extensively by the printers of the colored stipples produced in the eighteenth century and now again popular. The principle has not, however, been applied to relief printing among us, except by Wm. Blake, and even by him only to a very limited extent.

The earliest attempts at color-printing made by the Japanese, were, of course, much simpler, beginning with from two to four blocks. See Dr. Anderson's catalogue, before quoted, p. xvii; also Brinckmann.