A SIMILAR MS. This consists but of one volume, of a larger size, of 321 leaves.  It is also an historical Bible.  The illuminations are arranged in a manner like those of the preceding; but in black and white only, delicately shaded.  The figures are tall, and the females have small heads; just what we observe in those of the Roman d’Alexandre, in the Bodleian library.  It is doubtless a manuscript of nearly the same age, although this may be somewhat more recent.

LIBER GENERATIONIS IHI XTI.  Of all portions of the sacred text—­not absolutely a consecutive series of the Gospels, or of any of the books of the Old Testament—­the present is probably, not only the oldest MS. in that particular department, but, with the exception of the well known Codex Claromontanus, the most ancient volume in the Royal Library.  It is a folio, having purple leaves throughout, upon which the text is executed in silver capitals.  Both the purple and the silver are faded.  On the exterior of the binding are carvings in ivory, exceedingly curious, but rather clumsy.  The binding is probably coeval with the MS. They call it of the ninth century; but I should rather estimate it of the eighth.  It is undoubtedly an interesting and uncommon volume.

EVANGELIUM STI.  IOHANNIS.  This is a small oblong folio, bound in red velvet.  It is executed in a very large, lower-case, coarse gothic and roman letter, alternately:—­in letters of gold throughout.  The page is narrow, the margin is large, and the vellum soft and beautiful.  There is a rude portrait of the Evangelist prefixed, on a ground entirely of gold.  The capital initial letter is also rude.  The date of this manuscript is pushed as high as the eleventh century:  but I doubt this antiquity.

LIBER PRECUM:  CUM NOTIS, CANTICIS ET FIGURIS.  I shall begin my account of PRAYER BOOKS, BREVIARIES, &C. with the present:  in all probability the most ancient within these walls.  The volume before me is an oblong folio, not much unlike a tradesman’s day-book.  A ms. note by Maugerard, correcting a previous one, assigns the composition of this book to a certain Monk, of the name of Wickingus, of the abbey of Prum, of the Benedictin order.  It was executed, as appears on the reverse of the forty-eighth leaf, “under the abbotships of Gilderius and Stephanus.”  It is full of illuminations, heavily and clumsily done, in colours, which are now become very dull.  I do not consider it as older than the twelfth century, from the shield with a boss, and the depressed helmet.  There are interlineary annotations in a fine state of preservation.  In the whole, ninety-one leaves.  It is bound in red morocco.