In the closing paragraphs of his monograph on
_English Illuminated Manuscripts_ he thus sums up the pretensions of the
English school:--
'The freehand drawing of our artists under the Anglo-Saxon kings
was incomparably superior to the dead copies from Byzantine models
which were in favour abroad. The artistic instinct was not
destroyed, but rather strengthened, by the incoming of Norman
influence; and of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there is
abundant material to show that English book-decoration was then at
least equal to that of neighbouring countries. For our art of the
early fourteenth century we claim a still higher position, and
contend that no other nation could at that time produce such
graceful drawing. Certainly inferior to this high standard of
drawing was the work of the latter part of that century; but still,
as we have seen, in the miniatures of this time we have examples of
a rising school of painting which bid fair to attain to a high
standard of excellence, and which only failed for political
causes.'[1]
To this judicial pronouncement on the excellence of English manuscripts
on their decorative side, we may fairly add the fact that manuscripts of
literary importance begin at an earlier date in England than in any
other country, and that the Cotton MS.
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