Because such embellishments were, during the early and Middle Ages, and, in fact, until long after the invention of printing, almost invariably executed on vellum, there is no reason whatever why illumination should be applied to that material, or to paper, which has taken its place, only; wood, metal, slate, stone, canvass, plaster, all may be made to receive it. Again: because ancient illumination was almost entirely executed in colours, in the use of which water and some glutinous medium were the only "vehicles," there is no reason why modern illumination should not be worked in oil, turpentine, encaustic, fresco, tempera, varnish, and by every process in which decorative painting is ever wrought in these days. It is in such an extension that the most valuable functions of the art are likely to consist in all time to come. That utilitarian application which it, originally and for so many centuries, found in the production of beautiful books, copies of which could be elaborated by no other means than hand labour, has been, to a great extent, superseded by chromolithography and chromotypy. No doubt a wide field for useful, and even productive labour, is still left to the practical illuminator on paper and vellum, in designing and preparing exquisite originals for reproduction by those processes, as well as in the rich and tasteful blazoning of pedigrees, addresses, family records and memorials, and in the illustration for presentation, or for private libraries, of transcripts from favourite authors; but, at the same time, an equally elegant and useful application of the art would be to enrich ceilings, walls, cornices, string-courses, panels, labels round doors and windows, friezes, bands, chimney-pieces, and stained and painted furniture in churches, school-rooms, dwellings, and public buildings of all kinds, with beautiful and appropriate inscriptions, of graceful form and harmonious colouring. Such illumination would form, not only an agreeable, but an eminently useful decoration. How many texts and sentences, worthy, in every sense, of being "written in letters of gold," might not be thus brought prominently under the eyes of youth, manhood, and old age, for hope, admonition, and comfort. No more skill, energy, and taste are requisite for the production of this class of illumination than are essential for satisfactory work upon vellum and paper; and while in the one case the result of the labour may be made an incessant enjoyment for many, in the other, it is seldom more than a nine-days' wonder, shut up in a book or portfolio, and seen so seldom as scarcely to repay the amateur for the expense and trouble involved in its execution.