). Note “Arabic” numerals (15) in margin.
The tail of the Initial
is formed of a dragon, the head of which rests on the O-part: its wings project into the inner margin (and these in the plate, which shows a fragment of a verso page, run into the fold between the pages): the tail (together with the background) descends till a convenient point is reached from which the lower scroll-work springs. The tail, wing, and claws above, belong to a magpie which is perched on the initial.
THE DRAWING: see reference to this at p. [203], and below.
Sir Edward Maunde Thompson (p. [39], “English Illuminated MSS.”) says of this—
“—the Additional MS. 24686 in the British Museum, known as the Tenison Psalter, from its having once formed part of the library of Archbishop Tenison. This psalter is one of the most beautiful illuminated English manuscripts of its time, but unfortunately only in part, for it was not finished in the perfect [p427] style in which it was begun . . . in the first quire of the text the ornamentation is of peculiar beauty. . . .”[133]
“—the progress of the art [since the earlier part of the thirteenth century] . . . is . . . manifest. There is more freedom in the drawing, the stiffness of the earlier examples is in great measure overcome; and the pendant has thrown out a branch which has already put forth leaves. A great variety of colours, blue, rose, vermilion, lake, green, brown, as well as burnished gold, is employed in the composition of the large initial and its accompanying pendant and border, and the small initials are of gold laid on a ground of blue or lake, and filled with lake or blue; while the ribbons which fill up the spaces at the ends of the verses are alternately of the same colours and are decorated with patterns in silver on the blue and in gold on the lake.”
“The group of the dismounted knight despatching[134] a gryphon, which has proved too much for the horse, upon whose dying body the expectant raven has already perched, is tinted in lighter colours. It is an instance of the use to which marginal space was put, particularly by English artists, for the introduction of little scenes, such as episodes in romances or stories, games, grotesque combats, social scenes, &c., often drawn with a light free hand and most artistic touch. Without these little sketches, much of the manners and customs, dress, and daily life of our ancestors would have remained for ever unknown to us.”