and curious volumes.  In one compartment of this cabinet-like retreat are contained the books printed at Augsbourg in the infancy of the press of this town:[35] a collection, extremely creditable in itself and in its object; and from which, no consideration, whether of money, or of exchange for other books, would induce the curators to withdraw a volume.  Of course I speak not of duplicates of the early Augsbourg press.  Two comparatively long rooms, running in parallel lines, contain the greater part of the volumes of the public library; and amongst them I witnessed so many genuine, fair, and original conditioned copies of literary works, of the early period of the Reformation, that I almost sighed to possess them—­except that I knew they could not possibly pay the expenses of conveyance.

But for the “well directed fire” above alluded to.  It produced a capitulation respecting the following articles—­which were selected by myself from the boudoir just mentioned, and about which neither mystery was observed nor secrecy enjoined.  In fact, the contract, of the venders was to be submitted to, and sanctioned by, the supreme magistracy of the place.  The Rector Beyschlag hath much of merriment and of wit in his composition.  “Now, Sir,”—­observed he—­“bring those treasures forward which we can spare, and let us afterwards settle about their value:  ourselves affixing a price.”  I desired nothing better.  In consequence forth came the first (quarto) Horace, without date or place, fair, sound, and perfect:  the Familiar Epistles of Cicero of the date of 1469, by S. and Pannartz, in a condition perfectly unparalleled in every respect; the Latin Bible of Frisner and Sensenschmidt of 1475, in an equally desirable and pristine condition;[36] the Polish Protestant Bible of 1563, with its first rough-edged margins and in wooden binding; St. Jerom’s Epistles, printed at Parma, by A. de Portilia—­most captivating to the eye; with a curious black-letter broadside, in Latin sapphics, pasted in the interior of the cover; the History of Bohemia, by Pope Pius II, of 1475, as fresh and crackling as if it had just come from the printer:  Schuzler’s edition of the Hexameron of Ambrosius, 1472:  the Hungarian Chronicle of 1485....  “Ohe jam satis est....” for one bargain, at least,—­methinks I hear you remark.

It may be so; but the measure must be fuller.  Accordingly, after having shot off my great guns, I brought my howitzers into play.  Then commenced a pleasant and not unprofitable parley respecting little grammatical tracts, devotional manuals, travels, philology, &c.  When lo!—­up sprung a delightful crop of Lilies, Donatuses, Mandevilles, Turrecrematas, Brandts, Matthews of Cracow—­in vellum surcoats, white in colour, firm in substance, and most talkative in turning over their leaves!  These were mere