executed for Henry VII., which are carefully preserved in the printed book department of the same national establishment. After the reign of Henry VIII. the writing used in royal grants, and other legal instruments, soon became very like what we see in similar documents of the present day, though for a time the first letter was frequently illuminated.

The fine Gothic writing found in MS. books of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century has been divided into three classes: first, the deed Gothic, of which the specimens just described are fair examples; secondly, the set-cursive Gothic; and thirdly, the set-upright-the two latter styles being only used for books; the set-cursive principally for chronicles, romances, &c.; the set-upright for books of devotion: but the two styles sometimes change places in this respect. Towards the end of the fifteenth, and beginning of the sixteenth century, the set-upright nearly disappeared, the latest MSS. being nearly all in the set-cursive manner. Of the set-upright, an example from an English MS. preserved in the British Museum (Arundel, 109) will suffice; it is of the first half of the fifteenth century, and written in a fine upright regular hand, with brilliantly black ink (Plate XX. No. 4).

The next specimen (Plate XX. No. 5), an example from a very splendidlywritten MS., exhibits the set-cursive Gothic as it is found in a fine MS. written in Flanders during the fifteenth century; and the following specimen (Plate XX. No. 6) exhibits the set-cursive manner as practised in France at the same epoch. It is from one of the finest MSS. of the Bibliothèque Nationale, containing some of the most exquisitely-illuminated decorations that are known; especially some beautiful miniatures in grisaille, as it is termed—that is, entirely executed in different shades of gray, which produces a very pleasing effect, particularly in the illuminated borders.

These styles of Gothic hand, which had been perfecting themselves in Western and Northern Europe ever since the twelfth century, when first the rounded forms of the Roman uncial letters began to be abandoned, never attained the same degree of angularity or perfection in Italy. In that peninsula, where the ruins of ancient art strewed the ground in every direction, the preference for classical forms over medieval ones began to preponderate as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century; and in writing, as in other arts, this feeling prevailed over the angular forms of the Gothic letters, which were gradually abandoned for rounded ones, imitated from the uncial characters of late Roman MSS. The specimen (Plate XX. No. 7) is a fair example of this style of Italian writing, which was generally adopted in the fifteenth century. It is from a MS. copy of the works of Columella, and is one of the Arundel MSS. (No. 61) now in the British Museum. In the earliest printed books of Italy this character was imitated as exactly as the angular Gothic was in those of the north of Europe. The style of the Italian printing-types eventually prevailed over that of their northern inventors; and the letters of our present printed books are but slight modifications of those of the specimen of the Italian MSS. just described.

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Although highly decorative calligraphy may be said to have ceased after the beginning of the sixteenth century, yet the subsequent history of writing is far from being devoid of interest; for about that period, and indeed for more than half a century previously, it had become a more general accomplishment among private persons. So that where we quit the falling professors of the art, whose calling was taken from them by the printing-press, with the exception of engrossing for the lawyers, a trade still active, we find the practice of the art by private and unprofessional hands commencing; and in a series of examples from letters and other private documents from the earliest examples known to the present time, I shall attempt to shew the leading modifications which the national handwriting, as an art in general use, has undergone during the last four centuries.

But before quitting the subject of the calligraphic art and its professors, I must not omit to mention the illuminators of this epoch, as they carried the art to its highest pitch of finish and elaboration. In the early periods of the art, even those portions of MS. books which were the work of the pencil were, doubtless, in most instances, executed by the same hand as those produced by the pen, and the writer and illuminator were one and the same person. But at a later period, in such works as were executed by monks, who were, up to the fourteenth century, among the chief producers of MSS., the business was, no doubt, distributed to the most skilful in each branch of art, in each monastery -one taking the plain writing, for instance, another the decorative capitals, and another the illuminated borderings or illustrative miniatures.

This division of labour was still more strictly defined when the greatly increased demand for books, in the fifteenth century, caused great trading establishments for their production to spring up, especially in Flanders, in which the principle was well carried out. Bruges became, in consequence, a great mart for richly-illuminated books at that period; and in many MSS. executed by these "manufacturers," which have remained incomplete, spaces are found left blank, for the capitals and other illustrations, to be added by the illuminator after the scribe or writer had performed his allotted task.

The style of book-decorations became much more rich during the fifteenth century, first by the great increase of elaboration in the lace-work of the enriched bracket of the preceding epoch, which had now become a continued and often magnificent border, though still of open-work; and afterwards by the addition of richly-coloured grounds upon which the rich borderings were painted; these consisted of natural flowers, beautifully-wrought shells, feathers, jewels, and a variety of other objects, most exquisitely painted, the compositions being more or less homogeneous and artistically excellent, according to the skill and taste of the artist.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, such was the taste for MS. books enriched in this manner, that great artists were employed upon them, and Flemish MSS. were illuminated throughout by such pencils as those of