the globe:  nor am I sure, after all, that what Bodoni, Bensley, and Bulmer have done, collectively, has redounded more to the credit of their countries than what Didot has achieved for France.  In ancient classical literature, however, Bodoni has a right to claim an exception and a superiority.  The elder, Pierre Didot, is Printer to his Majesty.  But when Pierre Didot l’aine chose to adopt his own fount of letter—­how exquisitely does his skill appear in the folio Virgil of 1798, and yet more, perhaps, in the folio Horace of 1799!?  These are books which never have been, and never can be, eclipsed.  Yet I own that the Horace, from the enchanting vignettes of Percier, engraved by Girardais, is to my taste the preferable volume.[146]

FIRMIN DIDOT now manages the press in the Rue Jacob; and if he had never executed any thing but the Lusiad of Camoens, his name would be worthy to go down to posterity by the side of that of his uncle.  The number of books printed and published by the Didots is almost incredible; especially of publications in the Latin and French languages.  Of course I include the Stereotype productions:  which are very neat and very commodious—­but perhaps the page has rather too dazzling an effect.  I paid a visit the other day to the office of Firmin Didot; who is a letter founder “as well as a printer.[147] To a question which I asked the nephew, (I think) respecting the number of copies and sizes, of the famous Lusiad just mentioned, he answered, that there were only two hundred copies, and those only of one size.  Let that suffice to comfort those who are in terror of having the small paper, and to silence such as try to depreciate the value of the book, from the supposed additional number of copies struck off.

I wished to know the costs and charges of printing, &c.—­from which the comparative price of labour in the two countries might be estimated.  M. Didot told me that the entire charges for printing, and pulling, one thousand copies of a full octavo size volume—­containing thirty lines in a page, in a middle-size-letter—­including every thing but paper—­was thirty-five francs per sheet.  I am persuaded that such a thing could not be done at home under very little short of double the price:—­whether it be that our printers, including the most respectable, are absolutely more extravagant in their charges, or that the wages of the compositors are double those which are given in France.

After Didot, comes CRAPELET—­in business, skill, and celebrity.  He is himself a very pleasant, unaffected man; scarcely thirty-six; and likely, in consequence, to become the richest printer in Paris.  I have visited him frequently, and dined with him once—­when he was pleased to invite some agreeable, well-informed, and gentlemanly guests to meet me.  Among them was a M. REY, who has written