THE SAME WORK:  with the same date—­but the hand-writing is evidently more modern.  Of the illuminations, it will be only necessary to mention the large one at fol. iij.c. (ccc.) in which the gray tints and the gold are very cleverly managed.  At the end is seen, in a large sprawling character, the following inscription:  “Ce Livre est A Le Harne.  Fille Et Seur de Roys de France, Duchesse de Bourbonnois et dauuergne.  Contesse de Clermont et de Tourez.  Dame de Beaujeu." This inscription bears the date of 1468; not very long before which I suspect the MS. to have been executed.

THE SAME:  of the same date—­which date I am persuaded was copied by each succeeding scribe.  The illuminations are here generally of a very inferior character:  but the first has much merit, and is by a superior hand.  The text is executed in a running secretary Gothic.  There are two other MSS. of the same work which I examined; and in one of which the well known subject of the wheel of fortune is perhaps represented for the first time.  It usually accompanied the printed editions, and may be seen in that of our Pynson, in 1494,[39] folio.  I suspect, from one of the introductory prefaces, that the celebrated Laurent le Premier Fait was the principal scribe who gave a sort of fashion to this MS. in France.

PTOLEMAEUS, Latine.  A magnificent MS.—­if size and condition be alone considered.  It is however precious in the estimation of Collectors of portraits, as it contains one of Louis XII;[40]—­This portrait is nearly in the centre of the frontispiece to the book.  Behind the monarch stand two men; one leaning upon his staff.  A large gothic window is above.  A crucifix and altar are beneath it.  There is but one other similar illumination in the volume; and each nearly occupies the whole of the page—­which is almost twenty-three inches long by fourteen wide.  The other illumination is hardly worth describing.  This noble volume, which almost made the bearer stoop beneath its weight, is bound in wood:—­covered with blue velvet, with a running yellow pattern, of the time of Louis—­but now almost worn away.

TITE-LIVE.  Fol.  A noble and magnificent MS. apparently of the beginning of the XVth. century.  It seems to point out the precise period when the artists introduced those soft, full-coloured, circular borders—­just after the abandonment of the sharp outline, and thin coat of colour—­discoverable in the illuminations of the XIIIth and XIVth centuries.  The first grand illumination, with a circular border, is an interesting illustration of this remark.  The backgrounds to the pictures are the well-known small bright squares of blue and gold.  The text is in a firm square and short gothic character.

L’HISTOIRE ROMAINE:  No. 6984:  Folio, 3 vols. written in the French language.  These are among the shew books of the library.  The exterior pattern of the binding is beautiful in the extreme.  Such a play of lines, in all directions, but chiefly circular, I never before saw.  The date, on the outside, is 1556.  The writing and the illuminations are of the latter part of the XVth century; and although they are gorgeous, and in a fine state of preservation, yet is the character of the art but secondary, and rather common.