today not only one of Ireland's
greatest glories but one of the world's wonders. After twelve
centuries the ink is as black and lustrous and the colors are as
fresh and soft as though but the work of yesterday. The whole range
of colors is there--green, blue, crimson, scarlet, yellow, purple,
violet--and the same color is at times varied in tone and depth and
shade, thereby achieving a more exquisite combination and effect. In
addition to the numerous decorative pages and marvellous initials,
there are portraits of the Evangelists and full-page miniatures of
the Temptation of Christ, His Seizure by the Jews, and the Madonna
and Child surrounded by Angels with censers. Exceptionally beautiful
are these angels and other angelic figures throughout the book, their
wings shining with glowing colors amid woven patterns of graceful
design. The portraits and miniatures and the numerous faces centred
in initial letters are not to be adjudged by the standard of
anatomical drawing and delineation of the human figure, but rather by
their effect as part of a scheme of ornamentation; for the Celtic
illuminator was imaginative rather than realistic, and aimed
altogether at achieving beauty by means of color and design. The Book
of Kells is the Mecca of the illuminative artist, but it is the
despair of the copyist. The patience and skill of the olden scribe
have baffled the imitator; for, on an examination with a magnifying
glass, it has been found that, in a space of a quarter of an inch,
there are no fewer than a hundred and fifty-eight interlacements of a
ribbon pattern of white lines edged by black ones on a black ground.
Surely this is the manuscript which was shown to Giraldus Cambrensis
towards the close of the twelfth century and of whose illuminations
he speaks with glowing enthusiasm; "they were," he says, "supposed to
have been produced by the direction of an angel at the prayer of St.
Brigid."

_The Gospels of MacDurnan _(now in the Archbishop's Library at
Lambeth) is a small and beautiful volume which was executed by an
abbot of Armagh who died in the year 891. A full-page picture of the
Evangelist precedes each Gospel, and a composite border frames each
miniature in a bewildering pattern of intertwining strapwork and
wonderful designs of imaginary beasts. Ornamental capitals and rich
borders give a special beauty to the initial pages of the Gospels.

_The Book of Armagh _(in the Library of T.C.D.) was carefully guarded