effectually-renovated powers of body and mind, are hardly sufficient to come to any satisfactory conclusion upon the subject. How can I, therefore, after the fatigues of the whole of yesterday, and

bibliographical brochure are said to have been executed. We will now take leave of the PRELUM WALPOLIANUM by subjoining a copy of the most elegant title-page vignette which ever issued from it.

Before the reader's eyes are finally turned from a contemplation of this elegant device-and as connected with the subject of PRIVATE PRESSES-let me inform him that the Marquis of Bute is in possession of a thin folio volume, exhibiting paintings, upon vellum, of the various devices used by Pope Sixtus V. in the frontispieces of the several works which issued from the APOSTOLICAL PRESS, while he filled the Papal Chair. To a tasteful bibliomaniac, few volumes would afford so much delight as a contemplation of the present one. It is quite a keimelion in its way!

with barely seven hours of daylight yet to follow, pretend to enter upon it? No: I will here only barely mention TRITHEMIUS*-who might have been numbered among the patriarchal bibliogra-. phers we noticed when discoursing in our friend's CABINET as an author from whom considerable assistance has been received respecting early typographical researches. Indeed, Trithemius merits a more marked distinction in the annals of Literature than many are supposed to grant him: at any rate, I wish his labors were better known to our own countrymen.

LIS. I will set his works down among my literary desiderata. But proceed.

LYSAND. With what? Am I to talk for ever?

We are indebted to the ABBÉ TRITHEMIUS, who was a diligent chronicler and indefatigable visitor of old Libraries, for a great deal of curious and interesting intelligence; and however Scioppius (De Orig. domûs Austriac.) Brower (Vit. Fortunat. Pictav. p. 18.) and Possevinus (Apparat. sacr, p. 945.) may carp at his simplicity and want of judgment, yet, as Baillet (from whom I have borrowed the foregoing authorities) has justly re marked since the time of Trithemius there bave been many libraries, particularly in Germany, which have been pillaged or burnt in the destruction of monasteries: so that the books which he describes as having seen in many places, purposely visited by him for inspection, may have been destroyed in the conflagration of religious houses.' Jugemens des

Savans; vol. ii. pt.i. p.71, edit. 12mo.

It is from Trithemius, after all, that we have the only direct evidence concerning the origin of printing with metal types; and the bibliographical world is much indebted to Chevillier (L'Origine de l'Imprimerie de Paris, 1691, 4to. p. 3-6.) for having been the first to adduce the positive evidence of this writer; who tells us, in his valuable Chronicon Hirsaugiense, (1690, 2 vols. folio) that he received his testimony from the mouth of Fust's son-in-law-'ex ore Petri Opilionis audivi.'-that Gutenburg was the author of the invention. The historical works of Trithemius were collected and published in 1601, in folio, two parts:

and

BELIN. While you discourse so much to the purpose, you may surely not object to a continuance of this conversation. I wish only to be informed whether bibliomaniacs are indisputably known by the prevalence of all, or of any, of the symptoms which you have just described?

ALMAN. Is there any other passion, or fancy, in the book-way, from which we may judge of Bibliomaniacism?

in 1789.

and his other works are minutely detailed in the 9th volume of the Dictionnaire Historique, published at Caen Of these, one of the most curious is his Polygraphia; being first printed at Paris, in 1518, in a beautiful folio volume; and presenting us, in the frontispiece, with a portrait of the abbé; which is probably the first, if not the only legitimate, print of him extant. Whether it be copied from a figure on his tomb-as it has a good deal of the monumental character-I have no means of ascertaining. For the gratification of all tasteful bibliomaniacs, an admirable facsimile is here annexed:

The Polygraphia of Trithemius was translated into French, and published in 1601, folio. His work De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis, Colon, 1546, 4to. with two appendices, contains much valuable mat

ter.

The author died in his 55th year, A. D. 1516; according to the inscription upon his tomb in the monastery of the Benedictines at Wirtzburg. His Life has been written by Busæus, a Jesuit. See La Monnoye's note in the Jugemens des Savans; ibid.

LYSAND. Let me consider. Yes; there is one other characteristic of the book-madman that may as well be noticed. It is, an ardent desire to collect ALL THE EDITIONS of a work which have been published. Not only the FIRST-whether uncut, upon large paper, in the black-letter, unique, tall, or illustrated-but ALL the editions.*

BELIN. Strange-but true I warrant!

LYSAND. Most true; but, in my humble opinion, most ridiculous: for what can a sensible man desire beyond the earliest and best edition of a work?

Be it also noticed that these works are sometimes very capricious and extraordinary. Thus: BAPTISTA is wretched unless he possess every edition of our early grammarians, Holt, Stanbridge, and Whittinton: a re-impression, or a new edition, is matter of almost equal indifference: for his slumbers are broken and oppressive unless all the dear Wynkyns and Pynsons are found within his closet!-Up starts FLORIZEL, and blows his bugle, at the annunciation of any work, new or old, upon the diversions of Hawking, Hunting, or Fishing! + Carry

* I frankly confess that I was, myself, once desperately afflicted with this eleventh symptom of The Bibliomania; having collected not fewer than seventy-five editions of the GREEK Testament—but time has cooled my ardor, and mended my judgment. I have discarded seventy, and retain only five; which are R. Steevens's of 1550, The Elzevir of 1624, Mill's of 1717, Westein's of 1750, and Griesbach's of 1810—as beautifully and accurately reprinted at Oxford.

+ Some superficial notes, accompanied by an interesting wood-cut of a man carrying hawks for sale, in my edition of Robinson's translation of More's

Utopia,

him through CAMILLO's cabinet of Dutch pictures, and you will see how instinctively, as it were, his eyes are fixed upon a sporting piece by Wouvermans. The hooded hawk, in his estimation, hath more charms than Guido's Madonna:-how he envies every rider upon his white horse!-how he burns to bestride the foremost steed, and to mingle in the fair throng, who turn their blue eyes to the scarcely bluer expanse of heaven! Here he recognises Gervase Markham, spurring his courser; and there he fancies himself lifting Dame Juliana from her horse! Happy deception! dear fiction! says Florizel-while he throws his eyes in an

Utopia, kindled, in the breast of Mr. Joseph Haslewood, a prodigious ardor to pursue the subjects above-mentioned to their farthest possible limits. Not Eolus himself excited greater commotion in the Mediterranean waves, than did my bibliomaniacal friend in agitating the blackletter ocean-a sedibus imis'-for the discovering of every volume which had been published upon these delectable pursuits. Accordingly there appeared in due time-[post] magni procedere menses'—some very ingenious and elaborate disquisitions upon Hunting and Hawking and Fishing, in the ninth and tenth volumes of The Censura Literaria; which, with such additions as his enlarged experience has subsequently obtained, might be thought an interesting work if reprinted in a duodecimo volume. But Mr. Haslewood's mind, as was to be expected, could not rest satisfied with what he considered as mere nuclei productions: accordingly, it became clothed with larger wings, and meditated a bolder flight; and after soaring in a hawk-like manner, to mark the object of its prey, it pounced upon the book of Hawking, Hunting, Fishing, &c. which had been reprinted by W. de Worde, from the original edition published in the abbey of St. Albans. Prefixed to the republication of this curious volume, the reader will discover a great deal of laborious and successful research connected with the book and its author. And yet I question whether, in the midst of all the wood-cuts with which it abounds, there be found any thing more suitable to the high and mounting spirit'