IOO 
HMW 
0f Caricature 
and 
Grotqfjue 
d'Artois, a manufcript of the fifteenth century, We cannot fail to 
recognife an attempt at turning to ridicule the contemporary faihions in 
drefs. The hat is only an exaggerated form of one which appears to 
have been commonly ufed in France in the latter half of the fifteenth 
century, and which appears frequently in illuminated manufcripts 
executed in Burgundy; and the boot alfo belongs to the fame period. 
The latter reappeared at different times, until at length it became 
developed into the modern top-boots. In cut No. 66, from the fame 
manufcript, where it forms the letter T, We have the fame form of 
hat, {till more exaggerated, and combined at the fame time with 
grotefque faces. 
Caricatures on coftume are by no means uncommon among the 
artiitic remains of the middle ages, and are not confined to illuminated 
manufcripts. The fafhionable dreifes of thofe days went into far more 
ridiculous exceH'es of {hape than anything we fee in our times-at leaft, 
fo far as we can believe the drawings in the rnanufcripts; but thefe, 
however feriouily intended, were conftantly degenerating into caricature, 
from circumilances which are eafily explained, and which have, in fail, 
been explained already in their influence on other parts of our fubject. 
The mediaeval artiits in general were not very good delineators of form, 
and their outlines are much inferior to their finilh. Confcious of this, 
though perhaps unknowingly, they fought to remedy the defe6t in a fpirit 
which has always been adopted in the early Gages of art-progrefs-they 
aimed at making themfelves underftood by giving a fpecial prominence to 
 the 
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