I shall now give you the result of my examination of a few of the rarer and early-printed books in the PUBLIC LIBRARY of Landshut.  And first of MANUSCRIPTS.  An Evangelistarium, probably of the tenth century, is worth particular notice; if it be only on the score of its scription—­which is perfectly beautiful:  the most so of any, of such a remote period, which I have ever seen.  It is a folio volume, bound in wood, with a stamped parchment cover of about the end of the fifteenth century.  They possess a copy of the oldest written Laws of Bavaria; possibly of the twelfth—­but certainly of the thirteenth century.  It is a duodecimo MS. inlaid in a quarto form.  No other MS. particularly struck my fancy, in the absence of all that was Greek or Roman:  but a very splendid Polish Missal, in 8vo. which belonged to Sigismund, King of Poland, in the sixteenth century, seemed worthy of especial notice.  The letters are graceful and elegant; but the style of art is heavy, although not devoid of effect.  The binding is crimson velvet, with brass knobs, and a central metallic ornament—­apparently more ancient than the book itself.  This latter may have been possibly taken from another volume.

Of the Printed Books—­after the treasures of this kind seen (as the Professor intimated) at Paris and Munich—­there was comparatively very little which claimed attention.  They have a cropt and stained copy of Mentelin’s German Bible, but quite perfect:  two copies of the supposed first German Bible, for one of which I proposed an exchange in a copy of the B.S. and of the AEdes Althorpianae as soon as this latter work should be published.  The proposition was acceded to on the part of the Head Librarian, and it will be forwarded to the honest and respectable firm of John and Arthur Arch, booksellers; who, previously to my leaving England, had requested me to make something like a similar purchase for them—­should a fine copy of this German Bible present itself for sale.[81]

Here I saw Mentelin’s edition of the De Civitate Dei of St. Austin:  and a good sound copy of the very rare edition of Mammotrectus, printed by Helias de Helie, in 1470:  a beautiful copy of Martin Brand’s Psalter of 1486, printed at Leipsic, in 4to. in a large square gothic type; and a duplicate copy of the Leipsic Psalter of the preceding year, printed by Conrad Kachelovez, in 4to. which latter I obtained for the library in St. James’s Place.  There were at least ten copies of the early Block Books; of which the Ars Memorandi and the Anti-Christ (with extracts inserted in the latter from the B.S.) appeared to be the more ancient and interesting.  But I must not forget to mention a very indifferent and imperfect copy of the Latin Bible of Fust, of 1462, UPON VELLUM.  A few leaves in each volume are wanting.  Here too I saw the Pfarzival of 1477 (as at Strasbourg) printed in a metrical form.