in literary purſuits. Sometimes, too, the ladies of the fifteenth century practiſed drawing and painting,—arts which, inſtead of being, as formerly, reſtricted almoſt to the clergy, had now paſſed into the hands of the laity, and were undergoing rapid improvement. The illuminated manuſcript of "Boccace des Nobles Femmes," which furniſhed the ſubject of our laſt cut, contains ſeveral pictures of ladies occupied in painting, one of which (illuſtrating the chapter on "Marcie Vierge") is repreſented in our cut No. 267. The lady has her palette, her colour-box, and her
ſtone for grinding the colours, much as an artiſt of the preſent day would have, though ſhe is ſeated before a ſomewhat ſingularly formed frame-work. She is evidently painting her own portrait, for which purpoſe ſhe uſes the mirror which hangs over the colour-box. It is rather curious that the tools which lie by the fide of the grinding-ſtone are thoſe of a ſculptor, and not thoſe of a painter, ſo that it was no doubt intended we ſhould ſuppoſe that ſhe combined the two branches of the art. In one of the illuminations of the manuſcript of the "Romance of the Roſe," which has been quoted before, preſerved in the Britiſh Muſeum, we have a picture of a male painter, copied in our cut No. 268, and intended to repreſent Apelles, who is working with a palette and eaſel, exactly asartiſts
