Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/299

 THE LAMBETH MAZARINE TESTAMENT. 245 eiices were tlicii so greatly affecting the Englisli school of illumination as to obscure established characteristics. But the bold floreated ornament with bracket borders, known as English 15th century art, together with the foliage inter- weaving with the gold bars, which separate the columns of text, tend with other features, to a decided opinion in favour iif English workmanship. One point of a different character ^vhich sives much curious interest to the Lambeth volume, maintaining, at first sight, the illusion as to its being written by hand, is the fact that each page of the vellum had been prepared as though for the office of the scribe. Horizontal and perpendicular lines are ruled to guide the hand of the copyist, as was customar}' with mediaeval M8S. From this circumstance it might be inferred that the present copy was among the earliest printed." I have not been able to come to the same conclusion as Mr. Kershaw regarding the style of illumination. To my eyes it looks foreign — I should say Flemish. But I give this opinion with the utmost deference to superior authority. Mr. Tupper, who has prepared the fac-simile which illus- trates this article, has sent some very careful notes respect- ing the two copies of the Mazarine Bible in the British ]Iuseum, and this Lambeth Testament. From them I gladly extract the fullowintr : — O " In respect of the printing, there can be no doubt that the two Bibles in the British museum (the King's copy on paper, and the Grenville copy on vellum) and the Lambeth Testament w^ere produced from the same types, and, so far as I have examined, the three Testaments are from the same setting of those types : my examination, liowever, has necessarily been very partial, and a side- by-side comparison might possibly show some exception in respect of the identity of setting. The propriety of this reservation will be evident when I mention that a portion of the 1st book of Kings in the King's copy, is not of the same edition (i.e. is not from the same setting of types) as the corresponding portion in the Grenville cop}-. This, I believe, has not before been noticed, despite the con- spicuous fact of two rubrics in that portion of the King's copy being the only pi-inted rubrics in the book. That the portion in question belongs to a later edition, seems a fair conclusion, but demands further investigation." (Then follow remarks on the dill'ercnce in size between