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.

ROYAL BIOGRAPHY OF FRANCE. Fol. This exquisite volume may be justly
designated as the _nonpareil_ of its kind. It is rather a book of
PORTRAITS, than a MS. with intermixed illuminations. The scription, in a
sort of cursive, secretary gothic character, merits not a moment's
attention: the pencil of the artist having wholly eclipsed the efforts of
the scribe. Such a series of exquisitely finished portraits, of all the
Kings of France (with the unaccountable omission, unless it has been taken
out, of that of Louis XII.) is perhaps no where else to be seen. M. Coeure,
the French artist employed by me, stood in ecstasies before it! These
portraits are taken from old monuments, m