sum; and this of Rouen is in no point of view, except antiquity, to be put in competition with the English manuscript.  Its illuminations are certainly beautiful; but they are equalled by many hundreds of similar works; and they are only three in number, the Resurrection, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, and the Death of the Virgin.—­The volume appears to have been originally designed for the use of the cathedral of Canterbury; as it contains the service used at the consecration of our Anglo-Saxon sovereigns.

The Missal, which is also the object of M. Gourdin’s dissertation, is from the convent of Jumieges.  Its date is established by the circumstance of the paschal table finishing with the year 1095.  It contains eleven miniatures, inferior in execution to those in the Benedictionary; and it ends with the following anathema, in the hand-writing of the Abbot Robert, by whom it was given to the monastery:—­“Quem si quis vi vel dolo seu quoque modo isti loco subtraxerit, animae suae propter quod fecerit detrimentum patiatur, atque de libro viventium deleatur et cum justis non scribatur.”

As a memorial of a usage almost universal in the earlier ages of the church, the Diptych, commonly called the Livre d’Ivoire, is a valuable relic.  The covers exhibit figures of St. Peter and of some other saint, in a good style of workmanship, perhaps of the lower empire.  The book contains the oaths administered to each archbishop of Rouen and his suffragans, upon their entering on their office, all of them severally subscribed by the individuals by whom they were sworn.  It begins at a very early period, and finishes with the name of Julius Basilius Ferronde de la Ferronaye, consecrated Bishop of Lisieux, in 1784.  In the first page is the formula of the oath of the archbishop.—­“Juramentum Archiepiscopi Rothomagensis jucundo adventu receptionis suae.—­Primo dicat et pronuntiet Decanus vel alius de Majoribus verba quae sequentur in introitu atrii;—­Adest, reverende pater, tua sponsa, nostra mater, haec Rothom. ecclesia, cum maximo gaudio recipere te parata, ut eam regas salubriter, potenter protegas et defendas.—­Responsio Archiepiscopalis;—­Haec, Deo donante, me facturum promitto.—­Iterum Decanus vel alius;—­Firma juramento quae te facturum promittis.—­Ego, Dei patientia, bujus Rothom. ecclesiae minister, juro ad haec sancta Dei evangelia quod ipsam ecclesiam contra quoslibet tam in bona quam in personas ipsius invasores et oppressores pro posse protegam viriliter et defendam, atque etiam ipsius ecclesiae jura, libertates, privilegia, statuta et consuetudines apostolicas servabo fideliter.  Bona ejusdem ecclesiae non alienabo nec alienari permittam, quin pro posse, si quae alienata fuerint, revocabo.  Sic me Deus adjuvet et sancta Dei evangelia.”