7-2 



separate columns, is inclosed within a broad and beautifully illuminated 

 border. The figures of the Evangelists, with their symbolic animals, 

 are curiously painted in the front of their respective Gospels, and the 

 initial letter of each Gospel is richly illuminated, and so large as to fill 

 an entire page. 



In the same noble collection is deposited another MS. (No. 2831) of 

 the four Gospels — Vulgate version — written in letters of gold in the 

 tenth century. It is superbly illuminated, and adorned with pictures of 

 the following subjects, painted on purple ground, viz. : before the Gospel 

 of St. Matthew, in a circle, are, first, the representation of our Saviour 

 sitting enthroned, holding in his right hand the book of the new law, 

 that of the old law lying in his lap, with the four Evangelists, in the 

 four angles, kneeling; secondly, our Saviour standing, with St. John 

 resting his head upon his bosom ; thirdly, the portrait of St. Matthew ; 

 and fourthly, the Salutation of the Virgin Mary. Before St. Mark's 

 Gospel are a portrait of that Evangelist and the Salutation of the 

 Virgin. At the beginning of St. Luke's Gospel are his portrait and 

 the Crucifixion of our Saviour ; and before the Gospel of St. John are 

 the pictm'e of the EvangeHst and the x\scension of our Lord. 



In the same collection are magnificent manuscripts of a more modem 

 date, such as Chroniques de Froissart of the fourteenth century, in great 

 folio, (No. 4380,) filled throughout with large and magnificent repre- 

 sentations of battles, tournaments, banquets, and other transactions of 

 that period. Of these the late Colonel Johns availed himself in his 

 well-known translation of Froissart. To the treasures of the British 

 Museum many important additions have been made of late years, by 

 judicious purchases from the collections of Dr. Butler, the Duke of 

 Sussex, and others. 



In the Bodleian Library at Oxford, a number of choice manuscripts 

 are deposited; and Trinity College in Dublin may boast of several, 

 among which the most important are veiy early exemplars of the sacred 

 Scriptures, of great use in biblical as well as paleographical science. 



It is only of late years that the full value and extent of Irish as well 

 as Anglo-Saxon manuscripts has been thoroughly understood. That 

 our Sa.xon forefathers and their neighbours in Ireland excelled in cali- 

 graphy, is proved by several splendid examples which have come down 

 to our times. One of the most precious and early of these is a manu- 

 script of the Gospels preserved in the library of King George III., now 

 forming an important part of the national collection. It is of larga 

 size, eighteen inches by fourteen, the writing very clear, and several of 

 its leaves are stained with dark purple. At present seventy-seven 

 leaves only remain; but, from the numbering of the quaternions, the 



