execution.  It is written in double columns, in a secretary gothic hand, upon paper.  The heads of the Polypheme tribe are ludicrously horrible.  Third:—­Herren Duke of Brunswick, or the Chevalier au Lion,—­a MS. relating to this hero, of the date of 1470.  A lion accompanies him every where.  Among the embellishments, there is a good one of this animal leaping upon a tomb and licking it—­as containing the mortal remains of his master.  Fourth:  a series of German stanzas, sung by birds, each bird being represented, in outline, before the stanza appropriated to it.  In the whole, only three leaves.

The “last and not least” of the MSS. which I deem it worthy to mention, is an highly illuminated one of St. Austin upon the Psalms.  This was the first book which I remembered to have seen, upon the continent, from the library of the famous Corvinus King of Hungary, about which certain pages have discoursed largely.  It was also an absolutely beautiful book:  exhibiting one of the finest specimens of art of the latter end of the XVth century.  The commentary of the Saint begins on the recto of the second leaf, within such a rich, lovely, and exquisitely executed border—­as almost made me forget the embellishments in the Sforziada in the Royal Library of France.[15] The border in question is a union of pearls and arabesque ornaments quite standing out of the background ... which latter has the effect of velvet.  The arms, below, are within a double border of pearls, each pair of pearls being within a gold circle upon an ultramarine ground.  The heads and figures have not escaped injury, but other portions of this magical illumination have been rubbed or partly obliterated.

A ms. note, prefixed by M. Le Bret, informs us, in the opinion of its writer, that this illumination was the work of one “Actavantes de Actavantibus of Florence,—­who lived towards the end of the XVth century,” and who really seems to have done a great deal for Corvinus.  The initial letters, throughout this volume, delicately cross-barred in gold, with little flowers and arabesques, &c. precisely resemble those in the MS. of Mr. Hibbert.[16] Such a white, snowy page, as the one just in part described, can scarcely be imagined by the uninitiated in ancient illuminated MSS.  The binding, in boards covered with leather, has the original ornaments, of the time of Corvinus, which are now much faded.  The fore-edges of the leaves preserve their former gilt-stamped ornaments.  Upon the whole—­an ALMOST MATCHLESS book!

Such, my good friend, are the treasures, both in MS. and in print, which a couple of morning’s application, in the Public Library of Stuttgart, have enabled me to bring forward for your notice.  A word or two, now, for the treasures of the ROYAL LIBRARY, and then for a little respite.  The Library of his Majesty is in one of the side wings, or rather appurtenances, of the Palace:  to the right, on looking at the