XIVth century. (Royal MSS. 20 B. vi. B. M.) VI., VII. Bedford Hours. (MSS. 18, 850 B. M.) VIII. Romance of the Rose. English, late XVth century. (Hast. MSS. 4, 425.) IX. Choir Book. Siena. Italian, XVth century. X., XI. Hokusai. Japanese, XIXth century. [Illustration] CHAPTER I. OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE ILLUSTRATIVE AND DECORATIVE IMPULSE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES; AND OF THE FIRST PERIOD OF DECORATIVELY ILLUSTRATED BOOKS IN THE ILLUMINATED MSS. OF THE MIDDLE AGES. My subject is a large one, and touches more intimately, perhaps, than other forms of art, both human thought and history, so that it would be extremely difficult to treat it exhaustively upon all its sides. I shall not attempt to deal with it from the historical or antiquarian points of view more than may be necessary to elucidate the artistic side, on which I propose chiefly to approach the question of design as applied to books--or, more strictly, the book page--which I shall hope to illustrate by reproductions of characteristic examples from different ages and countries. I may, at least, claim to have been occupied, in a practical sense, with the subject more or less, as part of my work, both as a decorator and illustrator of books, for the greater part of my life, and such conclusions as I have arrived at are based upon the results of personal thought and experience, if they are also naturally coloured and influenced from the same sources. All forms of art are so closely connected with life and thought, so bound up with human conditions, habits, and customs; so intimately and vividly do they reflect every phase and change of that unceasing movement--the ebb and flow of human progress amid the forces of nature we call history--that it is hardly possible even for the most careless stroller, taking any of the by-paths, not to be led insensibly to speculate on their hidden sources, and an origin perhaps common to them all.