should be offered as a present to a reigning sovereign. So for the present I shall adhere to its former description in the show-case in the King's Library, and describe it here in its place as having been bound for Edward VI. It is covered in green velvet, with a border parallel to the sides stamped in gold and bearing the legends, "Esto FIDELIS USQUE AD MORTEM ET DABO TIBI CORONAM VITAE-Apoc. 2 " on one side, and on the other" FIDEM SERVAVI QVOD SVPEREST REPOSITA EST MIHl CORONA JVSTITIAE--2 TIM. 4." In the centre of each cover is the royal coat-of-arms enclosed within a Garter, crowned, appliqué in pieces of colored silk and stamped in gold, beautifully designed and beautifully executed, and the first instance of velvet or silk stamped in gold that is known to me. On the gilt edges designs are stamped, or "gauffred" as it is called, and painted. On the front edge the arms of the University of Oxford. On the upper edge a crowned Tudor rose with the initials E. R., and on the lower a portcullis with the same initials. There are other instances where the similarity between the emblems and initials of these two sovereigns, Edward VI. and Elizabeth, causes considerable doubt as to which of them was actually the owner, and I think that generally the date of the printing of such books must be considered as some authority, although among the arguments for or against the attribution of a binding to any particular owner, or author, it may be said that the date of the printing of the book must generally be esteemed at a small value.

A book which has some of the peculiarities of Berthelet's work upon it is found in a copy of Bude's Commentarii Lingu Graecae, printed at Paris in 1548. It is covered in calf, and has a rectangular border running parallel with the edges of the boards on each side. This border is colored black, but it has the uncommon addition of stamped arabesques in gold upon this black. At the outer corners are arabesques in outline, and in the inner corners double roses stamped in gold. In the centre a framework of two interlaced squares, stained black, enclose the royal coat-of-arms and initials.

The same workman who executed this binding also made one for Queen Mary, which I shall describe further on. At Windsor there is a fine little binding on a copy of Strena Galteri Deloeni: ex capite Geneseos quarto deprompta, etc. It is bound in white leather, and ornamented with the royal coat-of-arms in the centre, Ranked by the letters" E. R.," and surrounded by a scattered arrangement of double roses, daisies, cornucopire, and stars, all enclosed in a small decorated border. It is probably by Berthelet, and is in excellent condition. In the British Museum there are instances of bindings in white leather made for Henry VIII. and for Mary, but there is no instance of one made for Edward VI., so that this Windsor binding is of considerable interest apart from its beauty.

A copy of Herodotus' and Thucydides' works, bound together in one cover, belonged most likely to Edward VI. It is part of the old royal library, and is bound in brown calf, with a broad outer border of Italian character enclosing the royal coat-of-arms, crowned, within a flamed circle. The flamed circle first occurs, as may have been noted, on the volumes bound for Edward when Prince of Wales, and it is afterwards used on several of his later volumes, and also on many that were bound for Queen Mary. What the meaning of this flamed circle is I have not been able to conjecture, it may possibly only be intended for ornament. Berthelet, doubtless, liked to use circles or parts of circles on his bindings, and in this taste he was following the lead of much more ancient English binders, as the circle is characteristic of the splendid blind stamped English work of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.