Queen Mary's Psalter, containing also the history of the Old Testament in a series of small paintings, and the work richly illuminated throughout, had once an exterior worthy of it. The crimson velvet, of which only small particles remain to attest its pristine richness, is literally thread-bare; and the highly-raised embroidery of a massy fleur-de-lys is also worn to the canvas on which it was wrought. On one side scarcely a gold thread remains, which enables one, however, to perceive that the embroidery was done on fine canvas, or, perhaps, rather coarse linen, twofold: that then it was laid on the velvet, seamed to it, and the edges cut away, the stitches round the edge being covered with a kind of cordon, or golden thread, sewed over;--just, indeed, as we sew muslin on net. There are three, in the same depository, of the date of Queen Elizabeth. One a book of prayers, copied out by herself before she ascended the throne. The back is covered with canvas, wrought all over in a kind of tentstitch of rich crimson silk, and silver thread intermixed. This groundwork may or may not be the work of the needle, but there is little doubt that Elizabeth's own needle wrought the ornaments thereon, viz., H. K. intertwined in the middle; a smaller H. above and below, and roses in the corners; all raised high, and worked in blue silk and silver. This is the dedication of the book: "Illustrissimo ac potentissimo Henrico octavo, Angliae, Franciae, Hiberniaeq. regi, fidei defensori, et secundum Christum ecclesiae Anglicanae et Hibernicae supremo capiti. Elizabeta Majest. S. humillima filia omne felicitatem precatur, et benedictionem suam suplex petit." There is in the Bodleian library among the MSS. the epistles of St. Paul, printed in old black letter, the binding of which was also queen Elizabeth's work; and her handwriting appears at the beginning, viz. "August.--I walk many times into the pleasant fields of the Holy Scriptures, where I plucke up the goodliesome herbes of sentences by pruning: eate them by reading: chawe them by musing: and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together: that so having tasted thy sweeteness I may the less perceive the bitterness of this miserable life." The covering is done in needlework by the queen (then princess) herself: on one side an embroidered star, on the other a heart, and round each, as borders, Latin sentences are wrought, such as "Beatus qui Divitias scripturae legens verba vertit in opera."--"Vicit omnia pertinax virtus." &c., &c.[128] There is a book in the British Museum, very _petite_, a MS containing a French Pastoral--date 1587--of which the satin or brocade back is loaded with needlework in gold and silver, which now, however, looks heavy and tasteless. But the most beautiful is Archbishop Parker's, "De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae:" A.D. 1572.