To youre begynnyng send gode fyne,

Saynt Christofre botefull (helpful) on see and lond,

Joyfully make you see Engelond.

Twenty years after his release from imprisonment, Talbot was slain (July 20, 1453), fighting against a Breton force at Chatillon. It is possible that he may have carried his Hours on his person, for it was in the cottage of a Breton peasant that it was discovered a few years ago, and it seems likely that a Breton soldier may have found it on the battle-field, and transmitted it to his descendants as an heirloom. As an example of another kind of interest, we may instance a Horae at the Bodleian, on four of whose leaves are drawn most delicate and beautiful representations of religious processions. The best of these has been reproduced in the Proceedings of the Palæographical Society, and it is impossible to overrate the charm of the drawing.

In 1473 Nicholas Jenson printed a Horae at Venice; three years later, Matthias Moravus followed his example at Naples, and the earliest of Caxton's four editions was probably printed not much later than 1478. But these were all ordinary books, with no special beauty about them except what they might receive from the 'rubrisher,' or illuminator, after the printer had done his work. It was not till 1487, just a third of a century after the issue from the press of the first printed document bearing a date, that any serious attempt was made to supplant the manuscript Horae by printed editions. The first essay was made by Anthoine Vérard, of Paris, and is said—I have never seen a copy of it—to have been a poor production, 'without frontispieces' (whatever that may mean), or borders to the text. The success, however, with which it met was apparently sufficient to encourage Vérard to renew his attempt, and in 1488 or thereabouts he issued his 'Grandes Heures,' a fine quarto, with fourteen large engravings, and borders in four compartments to every page. In 1489, he reprinted the book in much cheaper form, using most of the large engravings which now occupied a whole page apiece, and devising for the borders smaller figures, in which scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord were set forth with their Old Testament types. Meanwhile other publishers had not been idle, for, in 1488, Jean du Pré, or Johannes de Prato, as he called himself on his Latin title-pages, issued the first of the few Horae which proceeded from his press; and in 1491 Philippe Pigouchet printed his first known edition, and not long afterwards entered into relations with Simon Vostre, an enterprising bookseller, which resulted in the publication of at least a score of editions, all extraordinarily rare, during the next twenty years. Towards the end of this century, and in the early part of the next, other Paris firms of printers and publishers joined in the trade. Of these, Thielman Kerver, Gilles and Germain Hardouyn, Guillaume Eustace, Francois Regnault, and Geoffroy Tory were the most important, but Horae are extant bearing the imprint of more than thirty other firms besides these. The demand must have been very great, for Paris supplied not only the rest of France—and in the British Museum there are examples of Horae for the use of no fewer than thirty different French dioceses—but also England. Hence there was abundance of work for all, and the different publishers copied each other's editions with a freedom which is not a little embarrassing to the humble bibliographer.

The subjects of the fourteen full-page illustrations in the little 'Horae secundum usum Sarum,' which we have taken as our text, are as follows:-

i.The Betrayal of Christ (repeated after xiv.).
ii.The root of Jesse, from whose slumbering body a tree is springing, its branches being the Jewish kings, and the Virgin and Holy Child its summit (see page 54).
iii.The Holy Trinity adored by the Saints in heaven and by the Pope and Emperor and their followers upon earth.
iv.The Annunciation.
v.The Visitation.
vi.The Crucifixion.
vii.The Adoration by the Shepherds.
viii.The Annunciation to the Shepherds.
ix.The Adoration by the Magi.
x.The Presentation in the Temple.
xi.The Flight into Egypt.
xii.The Death of the Virgin.
xiii.S. John before the Latin Gate.
xiv.Dives and Lazarus.

These, with the exception of the last, which is not quite so common, occur in most Horae. Other illustrations, which are frequently found, especially in earlier editions, represent scenes from the life of David in connection with the Penitential Psalms, his gazing at Bathsheba, the consummation of his plan for the murder of Uriah, and his punishment. His victory over Goliath is also occasionally represented. We also find in several early editions 'Les Trois Vifs' placed over against 'Les Trois Morts,' three gay knights on one page and three grinning skeletons on another, and in Tory's 'Heures à l'usage de Paris' of 1527 we have a striking picture of Death, on his black horse, riding over the corpses of his victims to deliver yet another summons. The Calendar, again, is usually prefaced by a figure of a man, with all the organs of his body exposed, and lines drawn from them to the celestial bodies, which, in the popular beliefs, were supposed to influence their health and sickness. Of all these illustrations five or six different varieties are found; but from 1495 to the end of the century, the set of designs which was used for our little Sarum Horae was by far the most popular, and influenced the editions of all the leading publishers.

FROM TORY'S 'HORAE.' PARIS, 1525