Placing side by side a number of Psalters and Hours, and tracing by comparison the prevalence of single sets of designs--all, however, originating in the wonderful vitality of the thirteenth century--is a very interesting study, though seldom possible. It was possible to make such a comparison, however, in 1874, when a large number of magnificently illuminated books were exhibited together at the rooms of the Burlington Club in London. It was then seen that when the form and subject of a decoration were once invented they remained fixed for all generations. A Psalter of the thirteenth century, probably of Flemish execution, which was in the collection of Mr. Bragge, was ornamented with borders containing grotesque figures, and had a calendar at the beginning, every page of which represented a scene appropriate to the month, with the proper sign of the zodiac. Thus, under January there was a great hooded fire-place, and a little figure of a man seated and warming himself. The chimney formed a kind of border to the page, and at the top was a stork on her nest feeding her brood. This MS. was so early that some good judges did not hesitate to assign it to the end of the twelfth century. Close to it was a Book of Hours, written in the fifteenth if not early in the sixteenth century, and under January we have the self-same scene, though the grotesqueness, and indeed much of the quaint beauty of the design has disappeared. It is the same with scriptural and ritual scenes. The Bibles always had the same set of pictures; the Psalter and Hours the same subjects; and the same arrangement of colors was handed down as suitable for the representation of certain scenes, and was unvaried.