EXPLANATION OE THE PLATES.

39

PLATE X.

RECTO OF THE SIXTH LEAF; THIS HAS NO PAGING OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY,BUT WAS MARKED IN THE FIFTEENTH WITH THE LETTER/.

“ ‘ De tel maniere fu li sepouture d’un Sarrazin q’ io vi une fois.’ ”

" De telle maniere fut la sepulture d’un Sarrasin que je vis une fois.”

“ This is the representation of the sepulchre of a Saracen that I once saw.”

This tomb of a Saracen , or rather of a pagan, (for he who was not a Christianwas a Mahometan in the eyes of a contemporary of the Crusades, ) is ap-parently sketched from memory, and recals by its disposition the diptychs ofthe Lower Empire. But the inscription leaves no room to doubt that it was areal sepulchral monument which Wilars de Honecort had in mind when he madethis drawing. That he himself impressed it with its very manifest mediaevalcharacter is easily intelligible, for the faithful rendering of style in drawing is aquality entirely modern. Before Joseph Strutt published in 1789 his “ Antiquitiesof England,” with engravings in which the Archaic character was as strictly pre-served as was possible, no antiquarian had ever thought of attempting more thanan approximate representation of the form of the monuments he was studying.But the drawings always possessed the character which prevailed at the timewhen the artist lived; and we who look upon ourselves as being so scrupulous inthis respect, may, perhaps, hereafter be accused of the same fault in a lesserdegree. Our architect of the thirteenth century was not more to blame in givingso mediaeval a character to a monument of antiquity, than Montfaucon, Gori, andso many others were in presenting to the public representations of Greek,Egyptian, Byzantine, Roman, or Erankish figures, with the air and attitudesof the time of Louis XIV .

We are of opinion that in this picture, traced from a somewhat faded remem-brance, Wilars de Honecort has introduced unwittingly the forms of some dip-tychs which he, whose active mind examined everything, must assuredly haveinspected. We may suppose that his intention was to give the likeness of one ofthose two-storied tombs which were more commonly employed by the Gallo-Romans than by the other nations of the Roman empire. The principal personageis seated, with a flowered sceptre in his hand, just as Philip Augustus himself