The monastery is there described as—­“et vetustate et dignitate nulli e Germaniae monasteriis secundum.”  Rudbertus is supposed to have been its founder:—­“repertis edificiis basilicam in honore SANCTI PETRI construxit:”  Chronicon Norimberg. fol. cliii.; edit. 1493.  But this took place towards the end of the sixth century.  From Godfred’s Chronicon Gotvvicense, 1732, folio, pt. i. pp. 37, 39, 52—­the library of this Monastery, there called “antiquissima,” seems to have had some very ancient and valuable MSS.  In Stengelius’s time, (1620) the monastery appears to have been in a very flourishing condition.

[86] As it is just possible the reader may not have a very distinct
    recollection of this worthy old gentleman, and ambulatory abbot—­it
    may be acceptable to him to know, that, in the Thanatologia of
    Budaeus (incorporated in the Tres Selecti Scriptores Rerum
    Germanicarum, 1707, folio, p. 27, &c.) the said Neander is
    described as a native of Sorau, in Bohemia, and as dying in his 70th
    year, A.D. 1595, having been forty-five years Principal of the
    monastery of St. Ildefonso.  A list of his works, and a laudatory Greek
    epigram, by Budaeus, “UPON HIS EFFIGY,” follow.

[87] For the sake of juxta-position I here lay before the reader a short
    history of the issue, or progress of the books in question to their
    present receptacle, in St. James’s Place.  A few days after reaching
    Vienna, I received the following “pithy and pleasant” epistle
    from the worthy librarian, “Mon tres-reverend Pasteur.  En esperant que
    vous etes arrive a Vienne, a bon port, j’ai l’honneur de declarer a
    vous, que le prix fixe des livres, que vous avez choisi, et dont la
    table est ajoutee, est 40 louis d’or, ou 440 florins.  Agreez
    l’assurance, &c.”

    [Autographs]

I wrote to my worthy friend Mr. Nockher at Munich to settle this subject immediately; who informed me, in reply, that the good monks would not part with a single volume till they had received “the money upon the nail,”—­“l’argent comptant.”  That dexterous negotiator quickly supplied them with the same; received the case of books; and sent them down the Rhine to Holland, from thence to England:  where they arrived in safe and perfect condition.  They are all described in the second volume of the AEdes Athorpianae; together with a beautiful fac-simile of an illuminated head, or portrait, of Gaietanus de Tienis, who published a most elegantly printed work upon Aristotle’s four books of Meteors, printed by Maufer, in 1476, folio; and of which the copy in the Salzburg library was adorned by the head (just mentioned) of the Editor. AEd. Althorp. vol. ii. p. 134.  Among the books purchased, were two exquisite copies, filled with wood cuts, relating to the AEsopian Fables:  a copy of one of