LACTANTII OPERA. Printed in the Soubiaco Monastery. 1465.  Folio.  Here are two copies of this earliest production of the Italian press.  That which is in blue morocco binding, is infinitely the worse of the two.  The other, in the original binding of wood, is, with the exception of Mr. Grenville’s copy, the finest which I have ever seen.  This however is slightly stained, by water, at top.

——­ Printed at Rostock. 1476.  Folio.  A copy UPON VELLUM—­which I had never seen before.  The vellum is thin and beautiful, but this is not a comfortable book in respect to binding.  A few leaves at the beginning are stained.  Upon the whole, however, it is a singularly rare and most desirable volume.[120]

MISSALE MOZARABICUM. 1500.  Folio.  First Edition.  A book of exceedingly great scarcity, and of which I have before endeavoured to give a pretty full and correct history.[121] The present is a beautiful clean copy, bound in blue morocco, apparently by De Seuil—­from the red morocco lining within:  but this copy is not so large as the one in St. James’s Place.  The MOZARABIC BREVIARY, its companion, which is bound in red morocco, has been cruelly cropt.

MISSALE HERBIPOLENSE.  Folio:  with the date of 1479 in the prefatory admonition.  This precious book is UPON VELLUM; and a more beautiful and desirable volume can hardly be found.  There is a copper-plate of coat-armour, in outline, beneath the prefatory admonition; and M. Bartsch, who was by the side of me when I was examining the book, referred me to his Peintre Graveur, vol. x. p. 57. where this early copper-plate is noticed.

PSALTERIUM.  Latine. Printed by Fust and Schoeffher. 1457.  Folio.  EDITIO PRINCEPS.  If there be ONE book, more than another, which should induce an ardent bibliographer to make a pilgrimage to Vienna, THIS is assuredly the volume in question!  And yet, although I could not refrain from doing, what a score of admiring votaries had probably done before me—­namely, bestowing a sort of oscular benediction upon the first leaf of the text—­yet, I say, it may be questionable whether this copy be as large and fair as that in our Royal Collection!?  Doubtless, however, this is a very fine and almost invaluable copy of the FIRST BOOK printed with metal types, with a date subjoined.  You will give me credit for having asked for a sight of it, the very first thing on my entrance into the room where it is kept.  It is, however, preserved in rather a loose and shabby binding, and should certainly be protected by every effort of the bibliopegistic art.  The truth is, as M. Kopitar told me, that every body—­old and young, ignorant and learned—­asks for a sight of this marvellous volume; and it is, in consequence, rarely kept in a state of quiescence one week throughout the year:  excepting during the holidays.