The day following this adventure, I received a note informing me that a person, practising physic, but also a collector and seller of old books, would be glad to see me in an adjoining street.  He had, in particular, some “RARE OLD BIBLES.”  Another equally stimulant provocative!  I went, saw, and... returned—­with scarcely a single trophy.  Old Bibles there were—­but all of too recent a date:  and all in the Latin language.  Yet I know not how it was, but I suffered myself to be prevailed upon to give some twenty florins for a doubtfully-printed Avicenna, and a Biblia Historica Moralisata.  Had I yielded to further importunities, or listened to further information, I might have filled the large room in which I am now sitting—­and which is by much the handsomest in the hotel[70]—­with oak-bound folios, vellum-clad quartos, and innumerable broadsides.  But I resisted every entreaty:  I had done sufficient—­at least for the first visit to the capital of Bavaria.

And doubtless I have good reason to be satisfied with these Bavarian book-treasures.  There they all lie; within as many strides of me as Mr. Stoeger took across the room; while, more immediately within reach, and eyed with a more frequent and anxious look, repose the Greek Hours, the first Horace, the Mentelin German Bible, and the Polish Protestant Bible; all—­ALL destined for the cabinet of which Mr. Stoeger made such enthusiastic mention.

A truce now to books, and a word or two about society.  I arrived here at a season when Munich is considered to be perfectly empty.  None of the noblesse; no public gaieties; no Charge d’Affaires—­all were flown, upon the wings of curiosity or of pleasure towards the confines of Italy.  But as my business was rather with Books and bookmen, I sought chiefly the society of the latter, nor was I disappointed.  I shall introduce them one by one.  First therefore for the BARON VON MOLL; one of the most vivacious and colloquial of gentlemen; and who perhaps has had more to do with books than any one of his degree in Bavaria.  I know not even if he have not had two or more monastic libraries to dispose of—­which descended to him as ancestral property.  I am sure he talked to me of more than one chateau, or country villa, completely filled with books; of which he meditated the disposal by public or private sale.  And this, too—­after he had treated with the British Museum through the negotiation of our friend the Rev. Mr. Baber, for two or three thousand pounds worth of books, comprehending, chiefly, a very valuable theological collection.  The Baron talked of twenty thousand volumes being here and there, with as much sang-froid and certainty as Bonaparte used to talk of disposing of the same number of soldiers in certain directions.