on one side in the fore-ground.  One woman plays upon the guitar while the other eats her dinner.  The second volume has a fine illumination divided into four parts, with a handsome border—­not quite perhaps so rich as the preceding.  Among the subjects, there is a singular one of Lancelot du Lac helping a lady out of a cauldron in a state of nudity:  two gentlemen and a lady are quietly looking on.  The text appertaining to this subject runs thus:  “Et quant elle voit lancelot si lui dist hoa sire cheualiers pour dieu ostes moy de ceste aure ou il a eaue qui toute mait Et lancelot vint a la aure et prent la damoiselle par la main et lentrait hors.  Et quant elle se voit deliure elle luy chiet aux pies et lui baise la iambe et lui dist sire benoite soit leure que vous feustes oncques nes, &c.”  The top of the last leaf is cut off:  and the date has been probably destroyed.  The colophon runs thus: 

  Cy fenist le livre de tristan et de la
  royne yseult de cornouaille et
  le graal que plus nen va.

The present is a fine genuine old copy:  in faded yellow morocco binding—­ apparently not having been subjected to the torturing instruments of De Rome.

LE ROY ARTUS.  No. 6963.  Folio.  I consider this to be the oldest illuminated MS. of the present Romance which I have yet seen.  It is of the date of 1274, as its colophon imports.  It is written in double columns, but the illuminations are heavy and sombre;—­about two inches in height, generally oblong.  There are grotesques, attached to letters, in the margin.  The backgrounds are thick, shining gold.  At the end: 

Explicit de lanselot. del lac[41] Ces Roumans fu par escris.  En lan del Incarnation nostre Segnor. mil deus cens et sixante et quatorse le semedi apres pour ce li ki lescrist.

It is in a fine state of preservation.  Mons. Meon shewed me a manuscript of the ST. GRAAL, executed in a similar style, and written in treble columns.

LE MEME.  This is a metrical MS of the XIIIth century:  executed in double columns.  The illuminations are small but rather coarse.  It is in fine preservation.  Bound in green velvet.  Formerly the outsides of this binding had silver gilt medallions; five on each side.  These have been latterly stolen.  I also saw a fine PERCEFOREST, in four large folio volumes upon vellum, written in a comparatively modern Gothic hand.  The illuminations were to be supplied—­as spaces are left for them.  There is also a paper MS. of the same Romance, not illuminated.

ROMAN DE LA ROSE:  No. 6983.  I consider this to be the oldest MS. of its subject which I have seen.  It is executed in a small Gothic character, in two columns, with ink which has become much faded:  and from the character, both of the scription and the embellishments, I apprehend the date of it to be somewhere about the middle of the XIVth century.  The illuminations are small, but pretty and perfect; the backgrounds are generally square, diamond-wise, without gold; but there are backgrounds of solid shining gold.  The subjects are rather quaintly and whimsically, than elegantly, treated.  In the whole, one hundred and sixty leaves.  From Romances, of all and of every kind, let us turn our eyes towards a representation of subjects intimately connected with them:  to wit,