THE PENTATEUCH:  in Hebrew. Printed in 1491. Folio.  A very fine copy, printed UPON VELLUM.  The press work has a rich and black appearance; but the vellum is rather soiled.  One leaf presents us with the recto covered by ms. of a brown tint—­and the reverse covered by printed text.  The last page is certainly ms.  This however is a rare and costly tome.

TRACTS PRINTED BY PFISTER, at Bamberg; Folio.  This is really a matchless volume, on the score of rarity and curiosity.  It begins with a tract, or moral treatise, upon death.  The wood cuts, five in number, are very large, filling nearly the whole page.  One of them presents us with death upon a white horse; and the other was immediately recognised by me, as being the identical subject of which a fac-simile of a portion is given to the public in Lord Spencer’s Catalogue[55]—­but which, at that time, I was unable to appropriate.  This tract contains twenty-four leaves, having twenty-eight lines in a full page.  In all probability it was the first of the tracts printed by Pfister in the present volume.  The FOUR HISTORIES, so fully detailed in the work just referred to, immediately follow.  This is of the date of 1462.  Then the BIBLIA PAUPERUM, also fully described in the same work.  This treatise is without date, and contains seventeen leaves; with a profusion of wood cuts, of which fac-similes have been given by me to the public.  These three copies are in remarkably fine preservation; and this volume will be always highly treasured in the estimation of the typographical antiquary.  The Latin Bible, by Pfister, has been just described to you.  There was a yet MORE PRECIOUS typographical gem ... in this very library; by the same printer—­with very curious wood cuts,—­of one of which Heineken has indulged us with a fac-simile.  I mean the FABLES ... with the express date of 1461.  But recent events have caused it to be restored to its original quarters.[56]

LACTANTII INSTITUTIONES, &C. Printed in the Soubiaco Monastery. 1465.  Folio.  This was Lord Oxford’s copy, and may be called almost uncut.  You are to learn, that copies of this beautifully printed book are by no means very uncommon—­although formerly, if I remember rightly, De Bure knew but of one copy in France—­but copies in a fine state, and of such dimensions as are Mr. Grenville’s and the one now before me, must be considered as of extremely rare occurrence.  This copy measures thirteen inches, one-eighth, and one-sixteenth—­by very nearly nine inches one-eighth.  You will smile at this particularity; but depend upon it there are ruler-carrying collectors who will thank me heartily for such a rigidly minute measurement.