69 



works upon Natural History, Agriculture, or Botany, we find repre- 

 sentations of animals, trees, machines and implements, corresponding to 

 the text. Books upon horsemanship, falconry, or military tactics, are 

 elucidated in a similar manner. We must however remark, that the 

 costume exhibited in these paintings is very often that of the period in 

 which the artist lived, though the subject may relate to one long 

 anterior. In a large and fine manuscript of Bocaccio's *• Misfortunes of 

 Great Men," (French version) in the possession of the writer, the 

 costume exhibited in the miniatures belongs to the time when the book 

 was written, viz. : A.D. 1409 — a period which was a little after 

 Bocaccio's death. In the contemporary manuscripts of Froissarts 

 Chronicles, we find exactly the same costume : for example, the steeple- 

 like caps or bonnets of the ladies. These may be seen in Colonel 

 Johns's excellent translation of Froissart. 



I took occasion lately to examine that magnificent and most interest- 

 ing manuscript in the British Museum, entitled the Life of St. Edmund, 

 a poem, written by John Lydgate, who was a Monk in the great monas- 

 tery founded in Suffolk A.D. 633, and in 9*23 named after the Royal 

 Martyr, on his body being removed thither by order of king Canute. 

 This metrical production is in quarto, beautifully written, and embel- 

 lished with about 120 exquisite miniatures, depicting almost everj^ trade 

 and occupation of the time. It is the original book executed by order 

 of King Henry VI., and presented to him by the author, and is a fine 

 specimen of English art. 



The illuminations of manuscripts frequently exhibit" allegorical 

 subjects. Montfaucon gives an account* of a very elegant Greek MS. 

 written in the tenth century, containing all the psalms and sacred songs 

 that occur in the Old Testament, the illuminations of which abound 

 in bold personification. For example, the Song of Moses, on crossing 

 the Red Sea, is illustrated by a picture, in which a female figure 

 covering her head with a blue starry mantle signifies Night; a young 

 man sitting underneath her, clothed in a red garment and extending 

 a naked arm, is inscribed the Desert ; a dark naked and ferocious man, 

 standing in the sea and pushing Pharoah down into it with both his 

 hands, is called /3u^oc, the Abyss ; and behind him a woman, rising out 

 of the water and holding an oar in her hands, represents the Bed Sea. 



On the subject of antient MS. Maps, we might expatiate largely, and 

 especially on the bold conjecture and unfounded theory evinced in them, 

 which natiuully arose out of the ver}' imperfect geographical knowledge 

 of those days ; for Geography is emphatically the science of modem times. 



* Paleog. Grsca, p. 11. 



