In plate 17 there is real Flemish work. Here is pure grisaille at its best; no infusion of extraneous colour in the design, except in the tesselated pavement of yellow and white marble, and no glitter of illumination beyond what is given by a gold crown in the hands of one figure, and a couple of gold chains on the breasts of two others. This is indeed a true historical picture broadly conceived, well composed, and admirably executed. The perspective is excellent, and we realise clearly the size and depth of the large vaulted chamber, lighted only from the doorways and the open window-spaces,--in which the eight personages are grouped. The manuscript from which the miniature is taken was written and illustrated, almost undoubtedly, at Bruges about 1470 for a nobleman of the Lannoy family, a member not of the principal house which still flourished in Flanders, but of the transplanted branch in Picardy. Plate 18 is taken from an English manuscript of considerable interest. A number of armorial bearings, which are found on the margins of the pages, show that it was written either for the Marquis of Dorset, Edward IV's son-in-law, or for one of his children. Whichever was the case, the book was in the possession of John Grey, dominus de Blisworth, the son or near relative of the Marquis, in the early part of the sixteenth century; and there is a record added in the calendar of the death of Dame Elizabeth Grey, this John's wife, about 1520-30. The miniatures are good, but not excellent; better in composition than in design, and showing grave deficiencies with regard to perspective. They are, however, well executed and well painted; and the borders are remarkably elegant. The conventional large foliage, of architectonic character, is admirably disposed upon small and appropriate fields of gold; and the twining {92}branchlets that bear tiny buds and small leaves and flowers are not so crowded as to hide the vellum ground. The border is indeed a fine decorative composition, without a fault, and thoroughly English in style. There is an inscription at the foot of the miniature which inspires curiosity to learn who the writer was. She was evidently a woman of high position; for only such a personage would have been allowed to write in a Prayerbook of the kind. The words are, "Madame, I pray you remember her that ys yours and evver sall be," but the bookbinder has unfortunately cut off the signature. The person addressed was no doubt Dame Elizabeth Grey. The writing is strangely like that of Henry VII, but cannot of course have been his. It is possibly as late as 1520.