inished by gilt balls. The room is very small, with a crimson
and white tapestry hanging. Christine wears what may be called the
regulation color for literary ladies,--blue, with the extraordinary
two-peaked head-dress of the period, put on in a decidedly strong-minded
manner. At her feet sits a white dog, small, but wise-looking, with a
collar of gold bells round his neck. Before Christine stands a plain
table, covered with green cloth; her book, bound in crimson and gold, in
which she is writing, lies before her.

Christine's style of holding the implements,--one in each hand,--and the
case of materials for her work which lies beside her, are according to
representations of the _miniatori caligrafi_ at their labors; and, as
the art of caligraphy was well known at Bologna, so learned a man as
Thomas de Pisan must have been acquainted with it, and would have caused
his talented daughter to be instructed in so rare an accomplishment. It
is not therefore unreasonable to believe that, in the beautiful volume
now in the British Museum, the work of Christine's hand, as well as the
result of her genius, is preserved. The next picture shows us Christine
presenting her book to Charles VII. of France, who is dressed in a black
robe edged with ermine; he wears a golden belt, order, and crown. The
king is seated beneath a canopy, blue, powdered with _fleurs de lis_.
Four courtiers stand beside him, dressed in robes of different
colors,--one in pink, and wearing a large white hat of Quaker-like
fashion. Christine has put on a white robe over her blue dress, perhaps
as a sign of mourning,--she being then a widow. A white veil depends
from the peaks of her head-dress. She kneels before the king, and
presents her book.

Another and more elaborate picture represents the repetition of the same
ceremony before Isabelle of Bavaria, queen of Charles VI. We are here
admitted into the private royal apartments of the fourteenth century.
The hangings of the apartment consist of strips, upon which are
alternately emblazoned the armorial devices of France and Bavaria. A
couch or bed, with a square canopy covered with red and blue, having the
royal arms embroidered in the centre, stands on one side of the room.
The queen is seated upon a lounge of modern shape, covered to correspond
with the couch. She is dressed in a splendid robe of purple and gold,
with long sleeves sweeping the ground, lined with ermine; upon her head
arises a structure of s