tial letter
prefixed to the account of the _Assumption of the Virgin_, is abundantly
clever and whimsical; while that prefixed to the Life of _St. Aurelius_ has
even an imposing air of magnificence, and is the most important in the
volume.

Here is a curious _History of the Bible, in German verse_, as I learn, by
Rudolph, Count of Hohen Embs. Whether "curious" or not, I cannot tell; but
I can affirm that, since opening the famous MS. of the Roman
d'Alexandre,[12] at Oxford, I have not met with a finer, or more genuine
MS. than the present. It is a noble folio volume; highly, although in many
places coarsely, adorned. The text is executed in a square, stiff, German
letter, in double columns; and the work was written (as M. Le Bret informed
me, and as warranted by the contents) "in obedience to the orders of the
Emperor Conrad, son of the Emperor Frederick II: the greater part of it
being composed after the chronicle of Geoffrey de Viterbe." To specify the
illuminations would be an endless task. At the end of the MS. are the
following colophonic verses:

_Uf den fridag was sts Brictius
Do nam diz buch ende alsus
Nach godis geburten dusint jar
Dar su ccc dni vnx achtzig als eyn har_.

the "_ccc_" are interlined, in red ink: but the whole inscription implies
that the book was finished in 1381, on Friday, the day of St. Brictius. It
follows therefore that it could not have been written during the life-time
of Conrad IV. who was elected Emperor in 1250. This interesting MS. is in a
most desirable condition.

There are two or three _Missals_ deserving only of brief notice. One, of
the XIVth century, is executed in large gothic letter; having an
exceedingly vivid and fresh illumination of a crucifixion, but in bad
taste, opposite the well-known passage of "Te igitur clementissime," &c. It
is bound in red satin. Two missals of the xvth century--of which one
presents only a few interesting prints connected with art. It is ornamented
in a sort of bistre outline, preparatory to colouring--of which numerous
examples may be seen in the Breviary of the Duke of Bedford in the Royal
Library at Paris.[13] I examined half a dozen more Missals, which the kind
activity of M. Le Bret had placed before me, and among them found nothing
deserving of particular observation,--except a thick, short, octavo volume,
in the German language, with characteristic and rather clever
embellishments; especially in the borders.

There is a fol