transcription of characteristic traits of active life are freely developed. Considering how few traces of the art of painting, as exhibited either in panel pictures or in mural embellishments, remain to attest the condition of the arts in England and France in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, it is impossible for the student of Gothic art to overestimate the extreme interest which attaches to the chronological series of specimens of the painter's art which may be examined in the great metropolitan libraries of either country. It is very fortunate for our reputation that we are enabled, through so large a series of volumes as still exist, to trace such distinctive and national characteristics as enable us to assert, without fear of error, that so far as graphic dexterity is concerned, the English artificers were fully competent to execute all the artistic productions which have as yet been found upon our soil. That foreigners were freely employed there can be no doubt, but that the works which were executed by them could not have been executed by Englishmen, no one can with safety assert, who has traced with any considerable care the gradual development of English art through a series of English illuminated manuscripts. That illumination was excessively popular in England during the 14th century among the leading families, is proved by the numbers of coats of arms emblazoned in many of the most remarkable English manuscripts. Thus in the Salisbury Lectionary, in the Douce, in Queen Mary's, and in the Braybrooke Psalters, appear the ancient coats of some of the best blood in the country. A most interesting contemporary illustration of the precise terms upon which these noble patrons employed the best illuminators of the day has been furnished me by a kind and learned antiquarian friend,[65] in the shape of an extract from the fabric rolls of "York Minster,"[66] of which the following is a translation:--