s_]

14.--An Elizabethan Shepherdess, from a wood-block
illustrating a ballad (the inscription added) 23

15.--Beginning of the unique MS. of "Beowulf," preserved
in the British Museum 31

16.--Chaucer's pilgrims seated round the table of the
"Tabard" at Southwark, a reproduction of Caxton's
engraving in his second edition of the "Canterbury
Tales," 1484 45

17.--Robert the devil on horseback (_alias_ Romulus), being
the frontispiece of several romances in verse published
by Wynkyn de Worde, London, 1510 (?), 8vo. The history
of Robert is illustrated throughout 57

18.--The knight of the swan, from the frontispiece of the
metrical romance: "The Knight of the Swanne. Here
beginneth the history of ye noble Helyas knyght of the
swanne, newly translated out of frensshe," London,
Copland, 1550 (?), 4to 61

19.--"Then went Guy to fayre Phelis." From the metrical
romance "Guy of Warwick," London, 1550 (?), 4to, Sig.
Cc. iij 65

20.--Drawing by Isaac Oliver (b. 1556) after an Italian
model, from the original preserved in the British
Museum; illustrative of the cultivation of Italian art
by Englishmen in Tudor times 69

21.--Frontispiece to Harington's translation of Ariosto,
London, 1591, fol. This engraving and the numerous
copper-plates adorning this very fine book are usually
said to be English. But these plates were in fact a
product of Italian art, being the work of Girolamo
Porro, of Padua; they are to be found in the Italian
edition of Ariosto published at Venice in 1588, and in
various other editions. The English engraver, Thomas
Coxon (or Cockson), whose signature is to be seen at
the bottom of the frontispiece, only drew the portrait
of Harington in the space filled in the original by a
figure of Peace. Coxon, according to the "Dictionary of
National Biography" and other authorities, is supposed
to have flourished from about 1609 to 1630 or 1636. The
date on this plate (1st August, 1591), shows that he
began to work nearly twenty years earlier.

It must be added that this portrait of