least equal to that of neighbouring countries. For our art of the
early fourteenth century we claim a still higher position, and
contend that no other nation could at that time produce such
graceful drawing. Certainly inferior to this high standard of
drawing was the work of the latter part of that century; but still,
as we have seen, in the miniatures of this time we have examples of
a rising school of painting which bid fair to attain to a high
standard of excellence, and which only failed for political
causes.'[1]

To this judicial pronouncement on the excellence of English manuscripts
on their decorative side, we may fairly add the fact that manuscripts of
literary importance begin at an earlier date in England than in any
other country, and that the Cotton MS. of _Beowulf_ and the
miscellanies which go by the names of the _Exeter Book_ and the
_Vercelli Book_ have no contemporary parallels in the rest of Europe.

[Footnote 1: _English Illuminated Manuscripts._ By Sir Edward Maunde
Thompson, K. C. B. (Kegan Paul, 1895), pp. 66, 67.]

When we turn from books, printed or in manuscript, to their possessors,
it is only just to begin with a compliment to our neighbours across the
Channel. No English bookman holds the unique position of Jean Grolier,
and 'les femmes bibliophiles' of England have been few and
undistinguished compared with those of France. Grolier, however, and his
fair imitators, as a rule, bought only the books of their own day,
giving them distinction by the handsome liveries which they made them
don. Our English collectors have more often been of the omnivorous type,
and though Lords Lumley and Arundel in the sixteenth century cannot,
even when their forces are joined, stand up against De Thou, in Sir