These books glowing with gold and colour tell of days when time was no object, and the pious artist and scribe could work quietly and lovingly to make a thing of beauty with no fear of a publisher or a printer before his eyes, or the demands of world market. In the midst of our self-congratulation on the enormous increase of our resources for the rapid and cheap production of books, and the power of the printing press, we should do well not to forget that if books of those benighted centuries of which I have been speaking were few, comparatively, they were fit, though few--they were things of beauty and joys for ever to their possessors. A prayer-book was not only a prayer-book, but a picture-book, a shrine, a little mirror of the world, a sanctuary in a garden of flowers. One can well understand their preciousness apart from their religious use, and many have seen strange eventful histories no doubt. The Earl of Shrewsbury lost his prayer-book (the Talbot prayer-book) and his life together on the battle-field at Castillon (about thirty miles from Bordeaux) in 1453. This book, as Mr. Quaritch states, was carried away by a Breton soldier, and was only re-discovered in Brittany a few years ago. [Illustration: GERMAN SCHOOL. XVTH CENTURY. "DEUTSCHE UEBERSETZUNG DES EUNUCHUS DES TERENTIUS." (ULM, DINCKMUT, 1486.)] [Sidenote: MISSALS.] It has been suggested that the large coloured and illuminated initial letters in liturgical books had their origin as guides in taking up the different parts of the service; and, as I learn from Mr. Micklethwaite, in some of the Missals, where the crucifixion is painted in an illuminated letter, a simple cross is placed below for the votary to kiss instead of the picture, as it was found in practice, when only the picture was there, the tendency was to obliterate it by the recurrence of this form of devotion.