[15] Or sardonyx (Lamprecht says topaz.) [16] A photograph of the cover is sold by F. Linz of Trèves. In our own National Library, again, we have the Athelstan Gospels (Harl. 2788), also in all probability executed at Metz. At Paris (Nat. Lib., Theol. Lat. 266) is the Evangeliary of Lothaire--a most beautiful example of gold-writing and ornament. So we might enumerate a score of splendid MSS., and classify them into their various minor schools. But such is not our object. All we want here is a general but clear idea of the style as a whole. To characterise it broadly by the names of its most important elements we should call it a Lombard-Saxon style--the interlacing bands and knots and other minor features and the main character of the writing being of Saxon origin, the classical foliages and manner of painting the figures and certain ideas of design Lombardic, strengthened by direct contact with the sources of the latter style. Whatever variations there may be, they can generally be accounted for according to locality and centre of production. We have instanced a few examples of the earlier time as showing the principal features of the style. Under the Emperor Charles the Great's grandson, Charles the Bald, Carolingian illumination reached its highest point of excellence, and the MSS. executed for him or his contemporaries accordingly give a correct idea of what Carolingian illuminators considered as good work. The chief centres were still Tours and Metz--the latter a branch of the former, but gradually developing distinct features of its own; and among the productions of these schools there still remain precious--we might say priceless--examples, such as the Vivien Bible of the Paris Library, so-called because presented by Count Vivien, Abbat of St. Martin's of Tours, to Charles the Bald in 850.[17] It contains a fine picture of the presentation with _beardless_ figures. It has also a number of exceedingly splendid initials showing strong Byzantine influence--capitals of columns of classic origin and traces of Merovingian in letter forms and ornamental details. It is like the Evangeliary of Lothaire, already mentioned, a most sumptuous example rich in silver and gold--the latter having a grand portrait of Lothaire seated on his throne. Both MSS. are in the National Library at Paris, the Vivien, No. 1 (Theol. Lat.), the Lothaire, No. 266. But the one example to which we would call the reader's attention, though among the earlier productions of the period, as not only most readily accessible, but most precious to the English student, is the celebrated Alcuin Bible in the British Museum (Add. MS. 10546). This venerable MS. is a copy of the Vulgate revised by Alcuin himself, and said to be exactly similar to the one at Bamberg. Biblical revision was perhaps the most important of his many literary occupations, and this volume is reasonably believed to be the actual copy prepared for presentation to Charlemagne under the