in a certain position in a printed book, and in due relation to the size
of the page and the character of the type. English book-illustrators by
no means always realise this distinction, yet there is on the whole a
greater feeling for these proprieties in English books than in those of
other countries, and this is an important point in estimating merits.
Another important point is that the rule of the 'tint' or 'half-tone'
block, with its inevitable accompaniment of loaded paper, ugly to the
eye and heavy in the hand, though it has seriously damaged English
illustrated work, has not yet gained the predominance it has in other
countries. Our best illustrated books are printed from line-blocks, and
there are even signs of a possible revival of artistic wood-engraving.

In endeavouring to make good my assertion of what I have called the
occasional primacy of English book-work, I am not unaware of the danger
of trying, or seeming to try, to play the strains of 'Rule Britannia' on
my own poor penny whistle. As regards manuscripts, therefore, it is a
pleasure to be able to seek shelter behind the authority of Sir Edward
Maunde Thompson, whose words in this connection carry all the more
weight, because he has shown himself a severe critic of the claims
which have been put forward on behalf of several fine manuscripts to be
regarded as English. In the closing paragraphs of his monograph on
_English Illuminated Manuscripts_ he thus sums up the pretensions of the
English school:--

'The freehand drawing of our artists under the Anglo-Saxon kings
was incomparably superior to the dead copies from Byzantine models
which were in favour abroad. The artistic instinct was not
destroyed, but rather strengthened, by the incoming of Norman
influence; and of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there is
abundant material to show that English book-decoration was then at