HARTLIEB’S BOOK OF CHIROMANCY. Supposed to have been printed with wooden blocks.  Folio.  You may remember the amusement which you said was afforded you by the account of, and the fac-similes from, this very strange and bizarre production—­in the Bibliographical Decameron.  The copy before me is much larger and finer than that in Lord Spencer’s collection.  The figure of the Doctor and of the Princess Anna are also much clearer in their respective impressions; and the latter has really no very remote resemblance to what is given in the Bibl.  Spenceriana[58] of one of the Queens of Hungary.  If so, perhaps the period of its execution may not be quite so remote as is generally imagined:  for the Hungarian Chronicle, from which that regal figure was taken, is of the date of 1485.

HISTORIA BEATAE VIRGINIS. Without date.  This is doubtless rather an extraordinary volume.  The text is printed only on one side of the leaf:  so as to leave, alternately, the reverses and rectos blank—­facing each other.  But this alone is no proof of its antiquity; for, from the character both of the wood cuts and the type, I am quite persuaded that this volume could not have been executed much before the year 1480.  It is not improbable that this book might have been printed at Ulm.  It is a very beautiful copy, and bound in blue morocco.

VIRGILIUS. Printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz. 1469.  Folio.  EDITIO PRINCEPS.  The enormous worth and rarity of this exceedingly precious volume may be estimated from this very copy having been purchased, at the sale of the Duke de la Valliere’s library, in 1783, for four thousand one hundred and one livres.  The first leaf of the Bucolics, of which the margin of the page is surrounded by an ancient illumination, gives unfortunate evidence of the binding of Chamot.[59] In other words, this copy, although in other respects white and sound, has been too much cropt.  It measures eleven inches and six eighths, by nearly seven inches and five eighths.

VIRGILIUS. Printed by Vindelin de Spira. 1470.  Here are not fewer than two delicious copies of this exceedingly rare impression—­and the most delicious happens to be UPON VELLUM.  “O rare felicity!... (you exclaim) to spend so many hours within scarcely more than an arm’s length of such cherished and long-sought after treasures!” But it is true nevertheless.  The vellum copy demands our more immediate attention.  It is very rarely, indeed, that this volume can be obtained in any state, whether upon vellum or paper;[60] but in the condition in which it is here found, it is a very precious acquisition.  Some few leaves are a little tawny or foxy, and the top of the very first page makes it manifest that the volume has suffered a slight degree of amputation.  But such defects are only as specks upon the sun’s disk.  This copy, bound in old yellow morocco binding of the Gaignat period, measures very nearly twelve inches and three quarters, by eight inches and five eighths.