JOANNES KOBERGER ...  SEIN.  ALTR. xxxx:  that is, John Koberger, in the fortieth year of his age.  The head, singularly enough, is laureated; and in the upper part of it are two capital letters, of which the top parts resemble a B or D—­and F or E. It is a fine solid piece of workmanship, and is full of individuality of character.  From an old ms. inscription at the back, the original should appear to have died in 1522.  I was of course too much interested in the history of the Kobergers, not to ask permission, to examine the premises from which so much learning and piety had once issued to the public; and I could not help being struck with at least the space which these premises occupied.  At the end of a yard, was a small chapel, which formerly was, doubtless, the printing office or drying room of the Kobergers.  The interior of the house was now so completely devoted to other uses, that one could identify nothing.  The church of St. Giles, in this place, is scarcely little more than a century old; as a print of it, of the date of 1689, represents the building to be not yet complete.

I shall now conduct the reader at once to the PUBLIC LIBRARY; premising, that it occupies the very situation which it has held since the first book was deposited in it.  This is very rarely the case abroad.  It is, in fact, a small gothic quadrangle, with the windows modernised; and was formerly a convent of Dominicans.  M. RANNER, the public librarian, (with whom—­as he was unable to speak French, and myself equally unable to speak his own language—­I conversed in the Latin tongue) assured me that there was anciently a printing press here—­conducted by the Dominicans—­who were resolved to print no book but what was the production of one of their own order.  I have great doubts about this fact, and expressed the same to M. Ranner; adding, that I had never seen a book so printed; The librarian, however, reiterated his assertion, and said that the monastery was built in the eleventh century.  There is certainly no visible portion of it older than the beginning of the fifteenth century.  The library itself is on the first floor, and fills two rooms, running parallel with each other; both of them sufficiently dismal and uninviting.  It is said to contain 45,000 volumes; but I much question whether there be half that number.  There are some precious MSS. of which M. Ranner has published a catalogue in two octavo volumes, in the Latin language, in a manner extremely creditable to himself, and such as to render De Murr’s labour upon the same subjects almost useless.  Among these MSS.  I was shewn one in the Hebrew language—­of the eleventh or twelfth century—­with very singular marginal illuminations, as grotesques or capriccios; in which the figures, whether human beings, monsters, or animals, were made out by lines composed of Hebrew characters, considered to be a gloss upon the text.