of Hours." It always contains, and usually commences with, a Calendar, in which are written against certain days the "obits" of benefactors and others, so that a well-filled Psalter often becomes a historical document of high value and importance. The first page of the psalms is ornamented with a huge B, which often fills the whole page, and contains a representation of David and Goliath, ingeniously fitted to the shape of the letter. At the end are usually to be found the hymns of the Three Children, and others from the Bible, together with the Te Deum; and sometimes, in late examples, a litany. In some psalters the calendar is at the end. These Psalters, and the Bibles described above, are very frequently of English work; more frequently, that is, than the books of Hours and Missals. The study of the Scriptures was evidently more popular in England than in the other countries of Europe during the Middle Ages; and the early success of the Reformers here, must in part, no doubt, be attributed to the wide circulation of the Bible even before it had been translated from the Latin. I need hardly, perhaps, observe that even fragments of a Psalter, a Testament, or a Bible in English, are so precious as to be practically invaluable.
3. We are indebted to Sir W. Tite for the following collation of a Flemish "Book of Hours":—
