4io

THE ART OF

at the Doves Bindery under the direction of his friend Mr.Cobden-Sanderson. The intention was to have it of whitestamped pig-skin mounted upon a pair of wooden boards,after the old manner. The design consists of a centralpanel, trellissed in a diaper of lozenges, charged each withaTudor rose spray; framed within a border of vine branches,leaves and grapes. Labels run above and below, bearing,in Gothic letter, the one the legend “ Geoffrey Chaucer,”the other “ Kelmscott.” The remaining spaces are occupiedby patterns of conventional foliage.

On August 21st, 1896, was finished “The Flowre andthe Leafe and the Boke of Cupide, God of Love, or theCuckow and the Nightingale.” This work was publishedas a supplementary volume, it having been determined bycompetent scholars that the poems, generally attributed toChaucer, are not really his work. Rev. Professor Skeat,indeed, has gone so far as to produce what looks like con-clusive evidence that the author of the latter was SirThomas Clanvoye; while the former was the work of alate fifteenth century poetess.

On May 7th, 1896, was finished the first volume of are-issue, to be completed in eight volumes, of “ TheEarthly Paradise,” with a title-page, new borders (occurringat the beginning of each story), and special marginalornaments to the poems of the months. This work, ad-vertised to appear, one volume at a time, at intervals ofabout three months, was still in progress at the time ofMorris’s death, the first volume having been published inJuly, 1896.

On July 7th, 1896, was finished “ Laudes Beatae MariaeVirginis,” Latin poems taken from a Psalter written inEngland about a.d. 1220. This is remarkable as the firstKelmscott Press book printed in three colours, black, redand blue—the latter colour being a new experiment ofMorris’s. Rev. E. S. Dewick has pointed out the interest-ing fadt “that these poems were printed in 1579, in ai6mo. volume, with the title Psalterium Divae VirginisMariae, &c. . . . This Tegernsee edition contains a Con-clusio of four verses in the same metre as the Aves, but