are here, just look at the expression of
this little rabbit's ears, while he listens to the bombastic utterance
of this monkey who wears a stole!"

[Illustration: CARICATURE OF A BISHOP]

Such a fund of playful humour is seldom found in a single book as
that embodied in the Tenison Psalter, of which only a few pages
remain of the work of the original artist. The book was once the
property of Archbishop Tenison. These few pages show to the world the
most perfect example of the delicacy and skill of the miniaturist.
On one page, a little archer, after having pulled his bow-string,
stands at the foot of the border, gazing upwards after the arrow,
which has been caught in the bill of a stork at the top of the
page. The attitude of a little fiddler who is exhibiting his trick
monkeys can hardly be surpassed by caricaturists of any time. A
quaint bit of cloister scandal is indicated in an initial from
the Harleian Manuscript, in which a monk who has been entrusted
with the cellar keys is seen availing himself of the situation,
eagerly quaffing a cup of wine while he stoops before a large cask.
In a German manuscript I have seen, cuddled away among the foliage,
in the margin, a couple of little monkeys, feeding a baby of their
own species with pap from a spoon. The baby monkey is closely wrapped
in the swathing bands with which one is familiar as the early
trussing of European children. Satire and wrath are curiously blended
in a German manuscript of the twelfth century, in which the scribe
introduces a portrait of himself hurling a missile at a venturesome
mouse who is eating the monk's cheese--a fine Camembert!--under his
very nose. In the book which he is represented as transcribing, the
artist has traced the words--"Pessime mus, sepius me provocas ad
iram, ut te Deus perdat." ("Wicked mouse, too often you provoke me
to anger--may God destroy thee!")

In their illustrations the scribes often showed how literal was
their interpretation of Scriptural text. For instance, in a passage
in the book known as the Utrecht Psalter, there is an illustration
of the verse, "The words of the Lord are pure words; as silver
tried in the furnace, purified seven times." A glowing forge is
seen, and two craftsmen are working with bellows, pincers, and
hammer, to prove the temper of some metal, which is so molten that
a stream of it is pouring out of the furnace. Another example of
this literal interpretation, is in the Psalter of Edwin,