better than the best edition?' 'Many things', replies the thorough bred bibliographer,

you want the first*, the prince of edi

* Perhaps among the rarest of the rare editiones principes in Italian literature, are the sonnets of Petrarch, 1470, and the Theseid of Boccacio, 1475. See Bibl. Smith, fol. CCCLXII-LXIII. Bibl. Askev. No. 684. This latter, the Theseid, was sold at the Doctor's sale, under the appellation of an unique copy, for £85. I dare not venture to affirm what it would now bring; and still less dare I pronounce judgment on the price of the Petrarch; of which, however, Mr. Beloe has given us some account in his 'Anecdotes of scarce books.' A celebrated literary character once informed me, that a bibliographical virtuoso sat off in a postchaise and four, from Dublin to London, to obtain this edition of Petrarch; but that he arrived too late, and was with difficulty kept from fainting away! Had he been a Roman, I suppose he would of course have laid violent hands on himself.

In Greek and Roman literature, among the rarest of the editiones principes are the Milan editions of Æsop and Isocrates, 1480-1493: the Florentine edit. of Lucian, 1496; the Roman edit. of Virgil printed before 1470; the Lucretius of 1473, printed by Ferrandus; and the Cæsar of 1469. Of all these libri longè rarissimi' I do not presume to indulge the reader with the prices.

In English literature I will mention only two very rare first editions: they are my Lord Bacon's Essays

tions, copy

a large-paper*, or an illustrated hinc iter ad astra !'

What are

of 1579; and Master William Shakspeare's Plays, collected for the first time into a folio volume of the date of 1623 a perfect copy of this latter is worth -but I am entrenching on the trade.

* Take one example only, gentle reader, of the value of large paper copies. The Grenville Homer, (with three engravings, not to be found in the common copies) has brought at a sale £ 99 15s. To be sure, it is among the finest specimens of Greek typography in the world! The small paper affords no idea of the splendour of the large. Sometimes books are printed on paper of three or four different sizes; and a little volume of pretty anecdotes might be compiled concerning these variations in size. Woe betide the collector who finds he has the third, when he thought he possessed the fourth and largest size! Imperial is nothing, while Atlas or Elephant is to be obtained.

+ An illustrated copy is the insertion of prints or drawings into a work, not originally published with it, illustrative of the persons or things therein treated of. I take this to be a guarded, legal-like, definition.

Of the various modes which taste has suggested, or caprice invented, for the embellishment of typography, none surely is more pleasing or useful than this of illustration. I could mention illustrated copies of Grainger, (a biographical history of England, selling

the Royal and London Institution Libraries compared with those, containing books where a rivulet of text meanders through a meadow of margin'--where the red, or blue, or green lines encompass and adorn the subject-matter, as the jeweller's gems do the artist's miniature--and where a duodecimo page is struck off or inlaid upon an imperial folio, like a little Indian prince mounted on an elephant's

for under £2.) which have been estimated at 1500 and 2000 guineas! Boswell's life of Johnson, and Nichols's Anecdotes of Bowyer the Printer, are good subjects for this purpose-though I am not aware of any very famous illustrated copy of either of these amusing works.

* Of the art of inlaying upon a larger size paper, a great deal might be said-but I shall be concise. I believe the usual charge is three pence a leaf or 2 pages, exclusively of the vellum paper to which it is attached. The most curious instance I know of a small page of text being surrounded by an ample margin, like a cockboat sailing in the open ocean, is an edition of Bacon's Essays, printed by Bensley at the close of the last century, in the Cracherode Collection-of which, I understand, only four copies were taken off!

back? Besides are you indifferent to exterior splendour-has Binding no charms for you? What is natural beauty without appropriate dress?'

The greater part of this attack of the thorough bred Bibliographer, is extremely vulnerable; but, in one respect, I agree with him. Book Binding not only forms a test of the refinement and wealth of an age, but it engages a great number of poor and deserving fellow creatures, in a creditable and sometimes lucrative employment. I speak here of the labourers and journeymen. Master-binders are, in general, men of ingenuity, talent, and property.

Ir is only in an advanced period of civilization that all the foregoing bibliographical luxuries can be enjoyed. Let us change places with our ancestors, under Alfred, and into what a chaos should we be plunged?-roaming in wildernesses to seek for masters to teach us our A B C, and treasuring our horn-books with more

jealousy even than we now do our copies on vellum * !

Ir may not be amiss to present my readers with the opinion of a very celebrated modern historian on the subject of book-binding-for this forms a material feature in all Bibliographiana.'

'A taste for the exterior decoration of books has lately arisen in this country— in the gratification of which no small share of ingenuity has been displayed: but if we are to judge of the present predilection for learning by the degree of expense thus incurred, we must consider

I really wish some bibliographer would collect all the anecdotes about vellum copies. Perhaps we can boast of possessing in this country the most valuable one in the world. I allude to the first edition of LIVY, reposing in Pall Mall, within about twenty steps of the splendid repository of Mr. T. Payne. The only thing perhaps to put in competition with it is, a vellum copy of the MOZARABIC MISSAL; of which an eminent and noble bibliographer is said to be in possession. For an account of this latter work consult the Harleian Catalogue, Vol. iii. No. 1528.