prefixes.  It came originally from the library of Petrus Victorius, from which indeed there are many books in this collection, and was bought by the King of Bavaria at Rome.  What was curious, M. Bernhard shewed me a minute valuation of this very rare volume, which he had estimated at 1100 florins—­somewhere about L20. below the price given by Lord Spencer for his copy, of which four leaves are supplied by ms.  Here is a magnificent copy of the Dante of 1481, with XX CUTS; the twentieth being precisely similar to that of which a fac-simile appears in the B.S.  This copy was demanded by the library at Paris, and xix. cuts only were specified in the demand; the twentieth cut was therefore secreted, from another copy—­which other copy has a duplicate of the first cut, pasted at the end of the preface.  The impressions of the cuts, in the copy under description, are worthy of the condition of the text and of the amplitude of the margins.  It is a noble book, in every point of view.

I was shewn a great curiosity by this able bibliographer; nothing less than a sheet, or broadside, containing specimens of types from Ratdolf’s press.  This sheet is in beautiful preservation, and is executed in double columns.  The first ten specimens are in the gothic letter, with a gradually diminishing type.  The last is thus: 

Hunc adeas mira quicunq:  volumina queris Arte uel ex animo pressa fuisse tuo Seruiet iste tibi:  nobis (sic) iure sorores Incolumem seruet vsq:  rogare licet.

This is succeeded by three gradually diminishing specimens of the printer’s roman letter.  Then, four lines of Greek, in the Jensonian or Venetian character:  next, in large black letter, as below.[62]

But a still greater curiosity, in my estimation, was a small leaf; by way of advertisement, containing a list of publications issuing from the press of a printer whose name has not yet been discovered, and attached apparently to a copy of the Fortalitium Fidei; in which it was found.  Luckily there was a duplicate of this little broadside—­or advertisement—­and I prevailed upon the curators, or rather upon M. Bernhard (whose exclusive property it was) to part with this Sibylline leaf, containing only nineteen lines, for a copy of the AEdes Althorpianae—­ as soon as that work should be published.[63] Of course, this is secured for the library in St. James’s Place.

I am now hastening to the close of this catalogue of the Munich book-treasures.  You remember my having mentioned a sort of oblong cabinet, where they keep the books PRINTED UPON VELLUM—­together with block books, and a few of the more ancient and highly illuminated MSS.  I visited this cabinet the first thing on entering—­and the last thing on leaving—­the Public Library.  “Where are your Vellum Alduses, good Mr. Bernhard?” said I to my willing and instructive guide.  “You shall see only two of