Well may the pious writer render thanks as he does, in a paragraph just preceding the colophon, "to God, to Jesus Christ, to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to all Saints," on the completion of such a volume, in every respect a model of what illuminated writing may be. It is somewhat deficient in pictures, although in the prologue and in that part of the Psalms in which David prophesies concerning our Saviour, specimens of the artist's abilities on a more extended scale than usual may be met with. In these, as in the initials and borders, manual dexterity is pushed to perfection, and combined with that occasional feeling for beauty and constant appreciation of humour, which form leading characteristics of that English school of illumination, of which "William of Devon" must ever be ranked among the worthiest. The expression of the little heads, and of the hands and feet, which are unusually well drawn for the period, is invariably given with the pen, scarcely any attempt being made at shading with the brush. The high lights are touched on most delicately with pure white; and deep blue, and burnished gold grounds looking like solid metal, are universal throughout the volume. Our plates, Technical Manual, Nos. 7, 8, 9, also from a Latin Bible in the Royal collection (No. 15, D 2), are of nearly the same period and style, but not quite so delicately wrought perhaps as the illuminations are which we meet with in Reg. 1, D 1. The former offer, however, the least exceptional aspect of English illumination of the Edwardian period--one in which vigorous but rather heavy colouring and firm but rather loaded outline dominate. In these specimens we at length see natural leafage of the vine, maple, &c., introduced, but scarcely yet allowed to throw itself about in Nature's wildly wilful way. From the 12th century onwards, important illuminated manuscripts exist to the present day in such profusion as to deter me from individualizing in this necessarily brief essay. I shall rather dwell upon general characteristics of style, and upon the influence of the leading patrons of the art, in its palmiest days, in England, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. In these countries the infinite activity of the mendicant friars kept up a steady demand for manuscripts of all kinds: thus Richard de Bury, bishop of Durham, the greatest bibliophile of his age, and the tutor when prince, and friend while sovereign, of Edward III., relates, that in all his book-hunting travels: "Whenever we happened to turn aside to the towns and places where the aforesaid paupers had convents, we were not slack in visiting their chests and other repositories of books; for there, amidst the deepest poverty, we found the most exalted riches treasured up; there, in their satchels and baskets, we discovered not only the crumbs that fell from the masters table for the little dogs, but, indeed, the show-bread without leaven,--the bread of angels, containing in itself all that is delectable."