y been confuted by M.
Gourdin[119], who has bestowed considerable pains upon the elucidation
of the history and contents of this curious relic. He states that a sum
of fifteen thousand francs had been offered for it, by a countryman of
our own; but I should not hesitate to class this tale among the
numberless idle reports which are current upon the continent, respecting
the riches and the folly of English travellers. The famous Bedford
Missal, at a time when the bibliomania was at its height[120], could
hardly fetch a larger sum; and this of Rouen is in no point of view,
except antiquity, to be put in competition with the English manuscript.
Its illuminations are certainly beautiful; but they are equalled by many
hundreds of similar works; and they are only three in number, the
_Resurrection_, the _Descent of the Holy Ghost_, and the _Death of the
Virgin_.--The volume appears to have been originally designed for the
use of the cathedral of Canterbury; as it contains the service used at
the consecration of our Anglo-Saxon sovereigns.

The Missal, which is also the object of M. Gourdin's dissertation, is
from the convent of Jumieges. Its date is established by the
circumstance of the paschal table finishing with the year 1095. It
contains eleven miniatures, inferior in execution to those in the
Benedictionary; and it ends with the following anathema, in the
hand-writing of the Abbot Robert, by whom it was given to the
monastery:--"Quem si quis vi vel dolo seu quoque modo isti loco
subtraxerit, animae suae propter quod fecerit detrimentum patiatur, atque
de libro viventium deleatur et cum justis non scribatur."

As a memorial of a usage almost universal in the earlier ages of the
church, the _Diptych_, commonly called the _Livre d'Ivoire_, is a
valuable relic. The covers exhibit figures of St. Peter and of some
other saint, in a good style of workmanship, perhaps of the lower
empire. The book contains the oaths administered to each archbishop of
Rouen and his suffragans, upon their entering on their office, all of
them severally subscribed by the individuals by whom they were sworn. It
begins at a very early period, and finishes with the name of Julius
Basilius Ferronde de la Ferronaye, consecrated Bishop of Lisieux, in
1784. In the first page is the formula of the oath of the
archbishop.--"Juramentum Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis jucundo adventu
receptionis suae.--Primo dicat et pronuntiet Decanus vel alius de
Majoribus v