Page:The Library (Lang).djvu/110



With regard to chronology, it may be roughly asserted that the earliest books which occur are Psalters of the thirteenth century. Next to them come Bibles, of which an enormous issue took place before the middle of the fourteenth century. These are followed by an endless series of books of Hours, which, as the sixteenth century is reached, appear in several vernacular languages. Those in English, being both very rare and of great importance in liturgical history, are of a value altogether out of proportion to the beauty of their illuminations. Side by side with this succession are the Evangelistina, which, like the example mentioned above, are of the highest merit, beauty, and value; followed by sermons and homilies, and the Breviary, which itself shows signs of growth as the years go on. The real Missal, with which all illuminated books used to be confounded, is of rare occurrence, but I have given a collation of it also. Besides these devotional or religious books, I must mention chronicles and romances, and the semi-religious and moral allegories, such as the "Pélérinage de l'Ame," which is said to have given Bunyan the machinery of the "Pilgrim's Progress." Chaucer's and Gower's poetry exists in many MSS., as does the "Polychronicon" of Higden; but, as a rule, the mediæval chronicles are of single origin, and were not copied. To collate MSS. of these kinds is