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the Good, Duke of Burgundy, and was written for him at the Hague in 1456.
The illustration represents S. Jerome seated in his study. From arm to arm
of the chair extends a desk of a very firm and solid construction. The
ends of this desk apparently drop into the heads of the small columns with
which the arms of the chair terminate. The saint has in his left hand a
pointed _stylus_, and in his right a pen, which he is holding up to the
light. On the desk beside the manuscript lies an ink-horn. To the right of
the saint's chair is a hexagonal table with a high ledge round it. There
is no evidence that this table has a screw; but the small subsidiary desk
above it seems to be provided with one. It will be observed that the
support of this desk is not directly over that of the table beneath it.
The desk is provided with two slits--an ingenious contrivance for dealing
with a roll. On the table, besides an open book, are a pair of spectacles,
four pens, a small box which may contain French chalk for pouncing, and
what looks like a piece of sponge.

[Illustration: Fig. 149. S. Jerome in his study.

From _Les Miracle de Nostre Dame_, written at the Hague in 1456.]

I now figure two different sets of library appliances. The first (fig.
150) is from a manuscript of the _Livre des Proprietes des Choses_, in the
British Museum, written in the fifteenth century[540]. The writer is
seated in one of those low chairs which occur very frequently in
miniatures, and look as if they were cut out of a single block of wood.
His desk, which is quite independent of the chair, is of the simplest
design, consisting of a piece of wood supported at an angle on two carved
uprights. On his left stands a very elegant piece of furniture, a table
with a desk at a considerable height above it--so high, in fact, that it
could only be used standing. This upper desk is fitted with a little door
as though it served as a receptacle for small objects.

[Illustration: Fig. 151. S. Luke writing his Gospel.

MSS. Douce, Bodl. Lib. Oxf., No. 381.]

The second example (fig. 151) shews S. Luke sitting on a bench writing at
a table[541]. The top, which is very massive, rests on four legs, morticed
into a frame. In front of this table is a desk of peculiar form; the lower
part resembles a reversed cone, and the upper part a second cone of
smaller diameter, so as to leave space enough between the two bases for a
ledge to rest books on. Round the base of the des