It is just as if it had come fresh from the press of Vindelin de Spira, its printer.  Some of the capital letters are illuminated in the sweetest manner possible.  The leaves are white, unstained, and crackling; and the binding is of wood.  Of the October impression, the copy is unequal:  that is to say, the first volume is cruelly cut, but the second is fine and tall.  It is in blue morocco binding.  I must however add, in this biblical department, that they possess a copy of our Walton’s Polyglott with the original dedication to King Charles II.; of the extreme rarity of which M. Le Bret was ignorant.[8]

I now come to the CLASSICS.  Of course the two Virgils of 1471 were the first objects of my examination.  The Roman edition was badly bound in red morocco; that of Adam was in its original binding of wood.  When I opened the latter, it was impossible to conceal my gratification.  I turned to M. Le Bret, and then to the book—­and to the Head Librarian, and to the book—­again and again!  “How now, Mons. Le Bibliographe?” (exclaimed the professor—­for M. Le Bret is a Professor of belles-lettres), “I observe that you are perfectly enchanted with what is before you?” There was no denying the truth of the remark—­and I could plainly discern that the worthy Head Librarian was secretly enjoying the attestations of my transport.  “The more I look at these two volumes (replied I, very leisurely and gravely,) the more I am persuaded that they will become the property of Earl Spencer.”  M. Le Bret laughed aloud at the strangeness of this reply.  I proceeded to take a particular account of them.[9]

Here is an imperfect copy of an edition of Terence, by Reisinger, in folio; having only 130 leaves, and twenty-two lines in a full page.[10] It is the first copy of this edition which I ever saw; and I am much deceived if it be exceeded by any edition of the same author in rarity:  and when I say this, I am not unmindful of the Editio Princeps of it by Mentelin—­which happens not to be here.  There is, however, a beautifully white copy of this latter printer’s Editio Princeps of Valerius Maximus; but not so tall as the largest of the two copies of this same edition which I saw at Strasbourg.  Of the Offices of Cicero, of 1466, there is rather a fine tall copy (within a quarter of an inch of ten inches high) UPON VELLUM; in the original wooden binding.  The first two or three leaves have undergone a little martyrdom, by being scribbled upon.  Of J. de Spira’s edition of the Epistles of Cicero, of 1469—­having the colophon on the recto of the last leaf—­here is a fine, broad-margined copy, which however ought to be cleansed from the stains which disfigure it.  I was grieved to see so indifferent a copy of the Edit.  Prin. of Tacitus:  but rejoiced at beholding so large and beautiful a one (in its original wooden binding) of the Lucan of 1475, with the Commentary of Omnibonus; printed as I conceive, by I. de Colonia and M. de Gherretzem.[11]