books, and of the chronicles, poems, romances, and herbals, in which mediæval literature abounded, and which the collector must judge as best he can.
The name of "missal" is commonly and falsely given to all old service-books by the booksellers, but the collector will easily distinguish one when he sees it, from the notes I have given. In a Sarum Missal, at Alnwick, there is a colophon quoted by my lamented friend Dr. Rock in his "Textile Fabrics." It is appropriate both to the labours of the old scribes and also to those of their modern readers:—
"Librum Scribendo—Jon Whas Monachus laborabat—
Et mane Surgendo—multum corpus macerabat."
It is one of the charms of manuscripts that they illustrate, in their minute way, all the art, and even the social condition, of the period in which they were produced. Apostles, saints, and prophets wear the contemporary costume, and Jonah, when thrown to the hungry whale, wears doublet and trunk hose. The ornaments illustrate the architectural taste of the day. The backgrounds change from diapered patterns to landscapes, as the modern way of looking at nature penetrates the monasteries and reaches the scriptorium where the illuminator sits and refreshes his eyes with
