Then comes a period of some hundred or hundred and fifty years, during which the art may almost be said to be extinct; nor is it until within the last ten or twenty years that it has received much attention. Then, when lithographic printing, and various similar improvements, facilitated the reproduction of an indefinite number of copies of any given subject, and the still further invention of color-printing and chromo-lithography came into exercise, the value of a study of illuminated painting was perceived, and its applicability to all purposes of literary ornamentation developed. The title-pages of albums, of music, and of annuals; the covers of magazines and books; the initial letters of articles in periodicals; the decorations on circulars, cards, labels, and numberless other similar productions, whether printed, colored, gilded, or stamped--all will be found more or less derivable from the old style of illuminated manuscripts; indeed, a person who has not studied it can form little idea how largely its principles enter into all this kind of decorations. It has been said that this branch of the art of painting is so mechanical as to be easily taught in a few lessons to those who have no previous knowledge of drawing. This we cannot fully admit. It is true such persons may acquire a smattering of the art--a crude, inartistic style of working it; but, unless they have a correct eye, good taste, and some judgment, they cannot achieve anything that will not betray the amateur. It is by no means an easy matter to give practical written instructions for illuminated painting on vellum; for it is not merely directions as to what materials shall be used, and the mode of employing them, that are required, but principles for general guidance which have to be inculcated. The desired effects cannot be produced by a heterogeneous assemblage of forms and colors, but only by careful and artistic combinations of the appropriate and the harmonious. In the matter of letters, allegorical letters, suitable to the subject they are to commence, may be obtained by arranging animals, fishes, reptiles, &c. &c., into the requisite forms. [Illustration: Fig. 1.] Fig. 1 represents an L adapted for a paper on botany. For those who may wish to paint from these cuts, we state that the leaves are of sap-green, shaded with Prussian green, and just touched at the tips with gold; the small ones are more delicately tinted than the others. [Illustration: Fig. 2.] Fig. 2 is a T adapted for a paper on woods or forest trees. It is painted in Vandyke brown, and shaded with black, and the leaves and ground are green. In an old MS. at the British Museum, the human form is most oddly contorted into grotesque semblances of capital letters. An initial for a paper on war may be composed of armor, weapons, &c.