From Librarians, revert we to books:  to the books in the PUBLIC LIBRARY of Caen.  The oldest printed volume contained in it, and which had been bound with a MS, on the supposition of its being a manuscript also, is Numeister’s impression of Aretinus de Bella adversus Gothos, 1470, folio; the first book from the press of the printer.  I undeceived M. Hebert, who had supposed it to be a MS. The lettering is covered with horn, and the book is bound in boards; “all proper.”  The oldest Latin Bible they possess, is of the date of 1485; but there is preserved one volume of Sweynheym and Pannartz’s impression of De Lyra’s Commentary upon the Bible, of the date of 1471-2, which luckily contains the list of books printed by those printers in their memorable supplicatory letter to Pope Sixtus IV.  The earliest Latin Classic appears to be the Juvenal of 1474, with the Commentary of Calderinus, printed at Rome; unless a dateless impression of Lucan, in the earliest type of Gering, with the verses placed at a considerable distance from each other, claim chronological precedence.  There is also a Valerius Maximus of 1475, by Caesaris and Stol, but without their names.  It is a large copy, soiled at the beginning.  Of the same date is Gering’s impression of the Legenda Sanctorum; and among the Fifteeners I almost coveted a very elegant specimen of Jehan du Pre’s printing (with a device used by him never before seen by me,) of an edition of La Vie des Peres, 1494, folio, in its original binding.  I collected, from the written catalogue, that they had only FORTY-FIVE works printed in the FIFTEENTH CENTURY; and of these, none were of first-rate quality.

Among the MSS., I was much struck with the beautiful penmanship of a work, in three folio volumes, of the middle of the sixteenth century, entitled; Divertissemens touchant le faict de la guerre, extraits des livres de Polybe, Frontin, Vegece, Cornazzan, Machiavel, et autres bons autheurs." It has no illuminations, but the scription is beautiful.  A Breviary of the Church Service of Lisieux, of the fifteenth century, has some pretty but common illuminations.  It is not however free from injury.  Of more intrinsic worth is a MS. entitled Du Costentin, (a district not far from Caen,) with the following prefix in the hand-writing of Moysant.  “Ces memoires sont de M. Toustaint de Billy, cure du Mesnil au-parc, qui avoit travaille toute sa vie a l’histoire du Cotentin.  Ils sont rares et m’ont ete accordes par M. Jourdan, Notaire, auquel ils appartenoient.  Le p. (Pere) le Long et Mons. Teriet de fontette ne les out pas connu.  Moysantz.”  It is a small folio, in a neat hand-writing.  Another MS., or rather a compound of ms. and printed leaves, of yet considerably more importance, in 3 folio volumes, is entitled Le Moreri des Normans, par Joseph Andrie Guiat de Rouen: on the reverse of the title, we