literature abounded, and which the collector must judge as best he
can.

The name of "missal" is commonly and falsely given to all old
service-books by the booksellers, but the collector will easily
distinguish one when he sees it, from the notes I have given. In a
Sarum Missal, at Alnwick, there is a colophon quoted by my lamented
friend Dr. Rock in his "Textile Fabrics." It is appropriate both to
the labours of the old scribes and also to those of their modern
readers:-


"Librum Scribendo--Jon Whas Monachus laborabat -
Et mane Surgendo--multum corpus macerabat."


It is one of the charms of manuscripts that they illustrate, in
their minute way, all the art, and even the social condition, of the
period in which they were produced. Apostles, saints, and prophets
wear the contemporary costume, and Jonah, when thrown to the hungry
whale, wears doublet and trunk hose. The ornaments illustrate the
architectural taste of the day. The backgrounds change from
diapered patterns to landscapes, as the modern way of looking at
nature penetrates the monasteries and reaches the scriptorium where
the illuminator sits and refreshes his eyes with the sight of the
slender trees and blue distant hills. Printed books have not such
resources. They can only show varieties of type, quaint
frontispieces, printers' devices, and fleurons at the heads of
chapters. These attractions, and even the engravings of a later
day, seem meagre enough compared with the allurements of