The _Book of Durrow_ is far surpassed in beauty by the _Book of Kells_, so called from Kells in Co. Meath, in which monastery it had been preserved and doubtless written. This is also a MS. of the Gospels containing a mixed text, _i.e._, the Vulgate modified by additions, etc., from the old Latin. No words can convey an adequate idea of the beauty of this MS. This does not consist, as in some Oriental MSS., in a profusion of gilding--there is no gold whatever--nor in the addition of paintings independent of the text, but in the lavish variety of artistic adornment applied to the letters of the text, which justifies Professor Westwood in calling it “the most beautiful book in the world.” The ornament consists largely of ever-varying interlacing of serpents and of simple bands, with countless spirals alternately expanding and contracting in the peculiar “trumpet-shaped pattern.” The initial of every sentence throughout the Gospels is an artistic product, some of them exquisite, and no two precisely the same. In addition to this decoration, which adorns every page, there are many pages (about thirty) entirely full of ornament, showing the utmost skill and accuracy in almost microscopic detail. In fact, the detail is so minute that it often requires a lens to trace it; yet these minute lines are as firm as if drawn by a machine, and as free as if they were the growth of nature. The exquisite harmony of the colouring is as admirable as the elegance of the tracery. Little wonder that it was said to have been written at the dictation of an angel. “If you look closely,” says Giraldus Cambrensis, “and penetrate to the secrets of the art, you will discover such delicate and subtile lines, so closely wrought, so twisted and interwoven, and adorned with colours still so fresh, that you will acknowledge that all this is the work rather of angelic than of human skill. The more frequently and carefully I examine it, I am always amazed with new beauties, and always discover things more and more admirable.”[123] Some pages originally left blank contain charters in the Irish language, conveying grants of lands to the Abbey of Kells, the Bishop of Meath, the Monastery of Ardbraccan, by Melaghlyn, King of Meath, and other monarchs in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. [Illustration: A PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS.]