acquainted with only the following instances approaching to the idea of pictures, several of which indeed occur in Psalters which may have suggested the attempt:—
1. "The Virgin and Child," surrounded by four angels, in the Book of Kells. (Copied in my " Palæographia.")
2. "The Temptation of Christ," a most singular composisition, in the same manuscript.
3. "The seizure of Christ by two Jews," in the same manuscript.
4. "The Virgin and Child," in one of the fragments of the Gospels at St. Gall.[1]
5. "The Crucifixion," also at St. Gall.
6. "The Crucifixion," in the Psalter of St. John's College, Cambridge. (Copied in my " Palæographia.")
7. "David's Combat with the Lion," in the same manuscript.
8. "David's Combat with Goliath," in ditto. A most strange design; the Giant being represented with his head downwards, and his legs in the air, reaching to the top of the drawing.
In addition to these eight drawings, I have now the pleasure of adding notices of two others, of which copies are annexed, which may be said to have been discovered quite recently at the British Museum. They occur in the Cottonian Manuscript of the Psalter (Vitellius, F.xi.), which was so greatly injured by the Cottonian fire, that the subject of the fragments remained undetermined, so that it is not mentioned in either of the Cottonian catalogues. Having recently been carefully mounted, by the directions of Sir F. Madden, that gentleman has ascertained it to be a copy of the Psalter, which, upon examination, appears to me to have been executed by the scribe of the Psalter of St. John's College, Cambridge, above mentioned. The character is the same fine semiuncial in both, written with extreme beauty and care. The illuminated initials are very similar, and it is ornamented with two drawings, in precisely the same rude style as those above mentioned in the St. John's College volume. Unfortunately, the frag-
- ↑ A complete series of fac-similes of the St. Gall illuminations (upwards of twenty quarto drawings in number) have been obtained by the Record Commission. They are in the style of the Gospels of Mac Regol and Book of Kells. They have been engraved, printed, and coloured at the public expense years ago, but still are suffered to lie unheeded and forgotten among other valuable materials in the presses of the Rolls House in Chancery Lane. The public have a right to inquire why they have not long since been published.
