this no where appears. They rubbed them with oil of cedar; and the very quotations, which he introduces to prove his position, mean this and

no more:

Speramus carmina fingi

Posse linenda cedro.

HORACE.

Cedro nunc licet ambules perunctus.

A specimen of the sort of Scrinium, in which they actually deposited these things, may be seen in Maffei, No. 131. The statue there represented, is undoubtedly that of Trajan.

2. Historia Sancta Johannis Evangelistæ ejusque Visiones Apocalypticæ.

There is also a copy of this in the Royal Library, but it is the fifth edition, and wants the 36th and 37th plates.

One of the blocks, from which this typographical specimen was printed, was in the possession of the late Mr. Astle. It was given by him to Lord Spencer. See his Book on the Origin and Progress of Writing, first edition, p.

215.

in

The reader will find it particularly described

De Bure, No. 116.

Gaignat, No. 115.

Maittaire, V. 1. p. 17 and 18.

Heineken, p. 334.

Crevenna, P. 1. p. 31.

Meerman,

Meerman, V. 1. p. 234.

Panzer, V. 4. p. 141.

Gaignat's copy was purchased for 400 livres, There was a copy in the Valliere Library, which also was purchased for the King of France, for 799 livres.

3. Historia seu Providentia Virginis Mariæ ex Cantico Canticorum.

This is the work announced in the commencement of this article, and is preserved in the Cracherode Collection.

It consists of sixteen plates, printed only on one side, but each plate represents two distinct subjects. Scrolls, consisting of passages from Solomon's Song, are interspersed in all.

This performance has more of the Gothic character, than the two which precede. The figures, as Heineken observes, very much resemble the sculptures in churches.

This is perhaps the scarcest of them all. I know of no other than the Cracherode copy, and that which is in the Bodleian at Oxford.

4. Historia Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, ex Evangelistis et Patribus excerpta, et per figuras de

monstrata.

There is no copy of this work, that I know of, in this country. Heineken mentions one in the cabinet of Mr. Girardot de Prefond, at Paris.

It is described by Gaignat, in his first volume, No. 119, p. 36, 37. It sold for 352 livres.

This

This commences with the following sentence from Saint Gregory.

Ausculta o amator beatissime dei genetricis : mira et stupēda a mudi philosophis concessa, et admirare virginem concepisse a Spiritu Sancto: atque immaculatam illorum insaniam parvipensa qui hoc negent de potencia dei immensa qd concedere non veretur de avium et aliorum animalium communi natura qualiter iter apes sine patribus. fetus matrum corporibus tantumoda

crescunt.

Of these four productions, the Royal Library and the Hunterian Museum possess the first and the second. The third is in the Cracherode Collection. Lord Spencer has also a copy of the second and of the third,

In the same library is also preserved a copy of the Ars Mariendi, mentioned by Heineken as a mere modern publication. This has fifteen plates, which are coloured, and appear to be so, with oil colour. Instead of scrolls from the mouths of the personages represented, there are whole pages, but evidently cut on blocks, and not with moveable types. This letter press, if it may so be denominated, is in Latin.

In the same library there is also another publication, executed in the same form, but which I do not find mentioned by any of the Biblios graphers. This may be called Signa extremi

Judicn

Judicii. It consists of fifteen plates, with scrolls in German.

The following is copied from the Apocalypse in Hunter's Museum, and from the Doctor's own hand writing.

The most particular account of the work, which I have seen, is in p. 334, &c. by the anonymous author of the Idee Generale d'une Collection complete d'Estampes avec une Dissertation sur l'Origine de la Gravure, et sur les premiers Livres d'Images. a Leipsic et Vienne, chez Paul Kraus, 1771. 8vo.

He supports his opinion with strong arguments, that card stamping gave birth to printing. In the 15th Century, card-making employed a number of hands, not only in Venice, but in Germany, where they were made for exportation. From cutting on wood, and stamping cards, they proceeded to images, plain and coloured, and thence to Bible histories, such as this, which he believes to be a German, not a Haarlem work.

Printing in metal types produced first the fine Bible, from 1450 to 1452, and the Pope's Letters of Indulgence in 1454, by Fust and Guttenburg; in 1457, the Psalter, by Fust and Schoeffer, with wooden capitals,

The Biblia Pauperum, which is in Hunter's Museum, is very imperfect, and wants several plates. This copy is not coloured,

I am

I am informed that the most perfect collection of these rare specimens of Typography is in the possession of Lord Pembroke.

Palmer, in his History of Printing, is obviously mistaken. He makes no mention of the rarest, which I believe to be the Historia Virginis ex Cantico Canticorum; nor of the Historia Virginis ex Evangeliis. The Biblia Pauperum he ranks as the third in order, and the Ars Moriendi, the first. He decidedly pronounces that they are not of Coster's execution, but gives the credit to Guttenberg.

FICHETUS.

Gulielmi Ficheti Artium et Theologia Doctoris Rhetoricorum Libri 111. accedit ejusdem Ficheti Panegyricus Rob. Gaguino versibus Compositus. In Parisiorum Sorboná, per Ulricum Gering Martinum Crantz et Mich. Friburger Ann. 1471 in 4to.

THIS is a book of extraordinary rarity, and very much sought after by the curious. It is generally considered as the first book which was

printed