BREVIARE DE BELLEVILLE:  Octavo. 2 volumes.  Rich and rare as may be the graphic gems in this marvellous collection, I do assure you, my good friend, that it would be difficult to select two octavo volumes of greater intrinsic curiosity and artist-like execution, than are those to which I am now about to introduce you:—­especially the first.  They were latterly the property of Louis XIV. but had been originally a present from Charles VI. to our Richard II.  Thus you see a good deal of personal history is attached to them.  They are written in a small, close, Gothic character, upon vellum of the most beautiful colour.  Each page is surrounded by a border, (executed in the style of the age—­perhaps not later than 1380) and very many pages are adorned by illuminations, especially in the first volume, which are, even now, as fresh and perfect as if just painted.  The figures are small, but have more finish (to the best of my recollection) than those in our Roman d’Alexandre, at Oxford.

At the end of the first volume is the following inscription—­written in a stiff, gothic, or court-hand character:  the capital letters being very tall and highly ornamented. “Cest Breuiare est a l’usaige des Jacobins.  Et est en deux volumes Dont cest cy Le premier, et est nomme Le Breuiaire de Belleville.  Et le donna el Roy Charles le vj^e.  Au roy Richart Dangleterre, quant il fut mort Le Roy Henry son successeur L’envoya a son oncle Le Duc de Berry, auquel il est a present." This memorandum has the signature of “Flamel,” who was Secretary to Charles VI.  On the opposite page, in the same ancient Gothic character, we read:  “Lesquelz volumes mon dit Seigneur a donnez a ma Dame Seur Marie de France.  Ma niepce." Signed by the same.  The Abbe L’Epine informs me that Flamel was a very distinguished character among the French:  and that the royal library contains several books which belonged to him.

BREVIARY OF JOHN DUKE OF BEDFORD.  Pursuing what I imagine to be a tolerably correct chronological order, I am now about to place before you this far-famed Breviary:  companion to the MISSAL which originally belonged to the same eminent Possessor, and of which our countrymen[34] have had more frequent opportunities of appreciating the splendour and beauty than the Parisians; as it is not likely that the former will ever again become the property of an Englishman.  Doubtless, at the sale of the Duchess of Portland’s effects in 1786, some gallant French nobleman, if not Louis XVI. himself, should have given an unlimited commission to purchase it, in order that both Missal and Breviary might have resumed that close and intimate acquaintance, which no doubt originally subsisted between them, when they lay side by side upon the oaken shelves of their first illustrious Owner.  Of the two performances, however, there can be no question that the superiority lies decidedly with the Missal:  on the score of splendour, variety, and skilfulness of execution.