Another circumstance had no doubt an influence on the mediæval taste for grotesque and caricature--the natural rudeness of early mediæval art. The writers of antiquity tell us of a remote period of Grecian art when it was necessary to write under each figure of a picture the name of what it was intended to represent, in order to make the whole intelligible--"this is a horse," "this is a man," "this is a tree." Without being quite so rude as this, the early mediæval artists, through ignorance of perspective, want of knowledge of proportion, and of skill in drawing, found great difficulty in representing a scene in which there was more than one figure, and in which it was necessary to distinguish them from each other; and they were continually trying to help themselves by adopting conventional forms or conventional positions, and by sometimes adding symbols that did not exactly represent what they meant. The exaggeration in form consisted chiefly in giving an undue prominence to some characteristic feature, which answered the same purpose as the Anglo-Saxon nickname and distinctive name, and which is, in fact, one of the first principles of all caricature. Conventional positions partook much of the character of conventional forms, but gave still greater room for grotesque. Thus the very first characteristics of mediæval art implied the existence of caricature, and no doubt led to the taste for the grotesque. The effect of this influence is apparent everywhere, and in innumerable cases serious pictures of the gravest and most important subjects are simply and absolutely caricatures. Anglo-Saxon art ran much into this style, and is often very grotesque in character. The first example we give (cut No. 31) is taken from one of the illustrations to Alfric's Anglo-Saxon version of the Pentateuch, in the profusely illuminated manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton., Claudius B iv.), which was written at the end of the tenth, or beginning of the eleventh, century. It represents the temptation and fall of man; and the subject is treated, as will be seen, in a rather grotesque manner. Eve is evidently dictating to her husband, who, in obeying her, shows a mixture of eagerness and trepidation. Adam is no less evidently going to swallow the apple whole, which is, perhaps, in accordance with the mediæval legend, according to which the fruit stuck in his throat. It is hardly necessary to remark that the tree is entirely a conventional one; and it would be difficult to imagine how it came to bear apples at all. The mediæval artists were extremely unskilful in drawing trees; to these they usually gave the forms of cabbages, or some such plants, of which the form was simple, or often of a mere bunch of leaves. Our next example (cut No. 32) is also Anglo-Saxon, and is furnished by the manuscript in the British Museum already mentioned (MS. Cotton., Tiberius C vi.) It probably represents young David killing the lion,