[Illustration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY. SPECULUM HUMANÆ VITÆ. (AUGSBURG, GÜNTHER ZAINER, _circa_ 1475.) (_Size of original, 6-5/8 in. × 10-5/16 in._)] [Sidenote: XIIITH AND XIVTH CENTURY MSS.] The Tenison Psalter (Addit. MS. 24686) is a specimen of English thirteenth century work. "Probably executed for Alphonso, son of Edmund I., on his contemplated marriage with Margaret daughter of Florentius, Count of Holland, which was frustrated by the prince's death on 1st August, 1224." The full-page miniatures arranged in panels--in some instances four on a page, with alternate burnished gold and dark blue diapered backgrounds behind the figures, and in others six on a page, the miniature much smaller, and set in a larger margin of colour, alternate red and blue--are very full, solid, and rich in colour with burnished gold. The book is further interesting, as giving excellent and characteristic instances of another and very different treatment of the page (and one which appears to have been rather peculiarly English in style), in the spiny scrolls which, often springing from a large illuminated initial letter upon the field of the text, spreads upon and down the margin, or above and below, often holding in its branching curves figures and animals, which in this MS. are beautifully and finely drawn. Note the one showing a lady of the time in pursuit of some deer. In the thirteenth century books the text is a solid tower or column, from which excursions can be made by the fancy and invention of the designer, up and down and above and beneath, upon the ample vellum margins; in some cases, indeed, additional devices appear to have been added by other and later hands than those of the original scribe or illuminator. There is a very remarkable Apocalypse (Brit. Mus. MSS. 17353; formerly belonging to the Carthusian house of Vau Dieu between Liège and Aix) by French artists of the early fourteenth century, which has a series of very fine imaginative and weird designs (suggestive of Orcagna), highly decorative in treatment, very full and frank in colour, and firm in outline. The designs are in oblong panels, inclosed in linear coloured borders at the head of each page, and occupying about two-thirds of it, the text being written in double columns beneath each miniature, with small illuminated initials. The backgrounds of the designs are diapered on grounds of dark green and red alternately. The imaginative force and expression conveyed by these designs--strictly formal and figurative, and controlled by the ornamental traditions of the time--is very remarkable. The illustrator and decorator are here still one. Queen Mary's Psalter (Brit. Mus. MS. Royal 2, B. VII.), again, is interesting as giving instances of a very different and lighter treatment of figure designs. We find in this MS., together with illuminations in full colours and burnished gold, a series of pale tinted illustrations in Bible history drawn with a delicate pen line.