A literary curiosity exists in England in the shape of "A Wordless Book," so called because, after the title page, it contains not a single word. It is a religious allegory devised by a religious enthusiast, and the thought is in the symbolic color of its leaves, of which two are black, two crimson, two pure white, two pure gold. The black symbolizes the unregenerate heart of man; the crimson, the blessed redemption; the white, the purity of the soul "washed in the blood of the Lamb;" the gold, the radiant joy of eternal felicity.
The edition of this Bible contains a plate by John Wierix, representing the feast of Dives, with Lazarus at his door. In the rich man's banqueting room there is a dwarf playing with a monkey, to contribute to the merriment of the company, according to the custom among people of rank in the sixteenth century.
There was a French Bible printed in Paris in 1538, by Anthony Bonnemere, wherein is related "that the ashes of the golden calf which Moses caused to be burnt, and mixed with the water that was drank by the Israelites, stuck to the beards of such as had fallen down before it, by which they appeared with gilt beards, as a peculiar mark to distinguish those who had worshipped the calf." This idle story is actually interwoven with the 32d chapter of Exodus.
Bede speaks of a magnificent copy of the Gospels in letters of the purest gold, upon leaves of purple parchment.
Amongst the rare and costly relics in the library of the Vatican, is the magnificent Latin Bible of the Duke of Urbino. It consists of two large folios, embellished by numerous figures and landscapes, in the ancient arabesque.
In the British Museum there are two copies of the Scriptures which are peculiarly calculated to interest the pious visitors, from the circumstances under which they were transcribed. The elder manuscript contains "The Old and New Testaments, in short hand, in 1686," which were copied, during many a wakeful night, by a zealous Protestant, in the reign of James II., who feared that the attempts of that monarch to re-establish Popery would terminate in the suppression of the sacred Scriptures.
The other manuscript contains the book of Psalms and the New Testament, in 15 volumes, folio, written in characters an inch long, with white ink, on black paper manufactured for the purpose. This perfectly unique copy was written in 1745, at the cost of a Mr. Harries, a London tradesman. His sight having failed with age so as to prevent his reading the Scriptures, though printed in the largest type, he incurred the expense of this transcription that he might enjoy those sources of comfort which "are more to be desired than gold, yea, than much fine gold."