No book on this subject would be complete without something more than a passing reference to the earliest of all the fashions in illumination which have prevailed in our islands. This Plate gives some examples from the very curious manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, known as the "Book of Kells." This venerable volume contains the four Gospels in Latin, and, it is sometimes asserted, dates from the seventh century, but more probably belongs to the ninth. The late Sir M. D. Wyatt says of it: "Of this very book Mr. Westwood examined the pages, as I did, for hours together, without ever detecting a false line, or an irregular interlacement. In one space of about a quarter of an inch superficial, he counted, with a magnifying glass, no less than one hundred and fifty-eight interlacements, of a slender ribbon pattern, formed of white lines, edged by black ones, upon a black ground. No wonder that tradition should allege that these unerring lines should have been traced by angels." The examples before us are purposely taken from a less complicated page, but will be found sufficient to try the skill and patience of even the most painstaking student. The colors are rather more vivid than in the original, which has now greatly faded through age and ill-usage. There is little to be said as to the beauty of the design. Grotesques have an attraction in spite of their ugliness: but we can hardly expect the most enthusiastic admirer of antiquity to imitate these extraordinary complications of form and color, except as an exercise of skill and patience. In one respect, however, early manuscripts and especially manuscripts of this class, are well worthy of imitation. The writing is very clear and distinct. It is easier to read a charter of the seventh or the eighth century than one of the seventeenth. Illuminators might do worse than learn the old Irish alphabet, if only on this account.