ALEXANDER GALLUS:  vulgo DE VILLA DEI:  DOCTRINALE. Without date. Folio.  There are few books which I had so much wished to see as the present.  The bibliographers of the old school had a great notion of the typographical antiquity of this work if not of this edition of it:  but I have very little hesitation, in the first place, of attributing it to the press of Vindelin de Spira—­and, in the second place, of assigning no higher antiquity to it than that of the year 1471.  It is however a book of some intrinsic curiosity, and of unquestionably great rarity.  I saw it here for the first time.  The present copy is a decidedly much-cropt folio; but in most excellent condition.

AQUINAS THOMAS.  SECUNDA SECONDAE. Printed by Schoeffher. 1467.  Folio.  A fine, large copy, printed UPON VELLUM:  the vellum is rather too yellow; but this is a magnificent book, and exceedingly rare in such a state.  It is bound in red morocco.

——­ OPUS QUARTISCRIPTUM. Printed by Schoeffher. 1469.  Folio.  We have here another magnificent specimen of the early Mentz press, struck off UPON VELLUM, and executed in the smallest gothic type of the printer.  This is a gloriously genuine copy; having the old pieces of vellum pasted to the edges of the leaves, by way of facilitating the references to the body of the text.  There is a duplicate copy of this edition, upon paper, wanting some of the earlier leaves, and which had formerly belonged to Prince Eugene.  It is, in other respects, fair and desirable.

——­ IN EVANG.  MATTH.  ET MARC. Printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz. 1470.  Folio.  A fine, large, white, and crackling copy; but somewhat cut; and not quite free from the usual foxy tint of the books executed by these earliest Roman printers.

BARTHOLUS.  LECTURA. Printed by V. de Spira..1471, Folio.  One of the finest specimens imaginable of the press of V. de Spira.  It is a thick folio, executed in double columns.  The first page of this copy is elegantly illuminated with portraits, &c.; but the arms at bottom prove that some portion of the margin has been cut away—­even of this magnificent copy.  At the end—­just before the date, and the four colophonic verses of the printer—­we read:  “Finis primi ptis lecture dni Bartoli super ffto nouo.”

BELLOVACENSIS (P.) SPECULUM HISTORIALE, Folio.  The four volumes in ONE!—­of eight inches in thickness, including the binding.  The present copy of this extraordinary performance of Peter de Beauvais is as pure and white as possible.  The type is a doubtful gothic letter:  doubtful, as to the assigning to it its proper printer.

CATHOLICON. 1460.  Folio. 2 vols.  A tolerably fair good copy; in red morocco binding.

——­ 1469. Printed by Gunther Zeiner. 2 vols.  Folio.  This copy is UPON VELLUM, of a fair and sound quality.  I suspect that it has been somewhat diminished in size, and may not be larger than the similar copy at Goettwic Monastery.  In calf binding.