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 florin acquisitions: the preceding were paid for in heavy metal of a golden hue. It is not fair to betray all that took place upon this Cockerian transaction; but there may be no harm in mentioning that my purse was lightened by upwards of 100 louis d'or. My spirits were lightened in the same proportion. Neither venders nor vendee grieved at the result. Professor May was most joyous; and although the Rector Beyschlag was sonorous in voice, restless in action, and determined in manner--about fixing an alarmingly high price upon the first Horace--yet, by degrees, he subsided into a softer note, and into a calmer action--and the Horace became mine by a sort of contre-projet proposition.
Nothing would please Professor May but that I must go home with him, and try my luck in purchasing a few similar rarities out of his own collection. I did so. Madame Francs' supplemental supply became gradually diminished, and I began to think that if I went on in this manner I should not only never reach Vienna, but not even Munich. This doubt was frankly stated to my book-guardians; and my ducats were immediately commuted into paper. The result will doubtless prove the honour of the purchaser; for I have drawn upon a quarter which I had exclusively in view when I made the bargain, and which was never known to fail me. "Surely," thought I to myself as I returned to my hotel, "Messrs. Beyschlag and May are among the most obliging and the most enlightened of their fraternity."
I returned to the Public Library the next morning, as well to conclude a bargain for an exchange of books for certain recent bibliographical publications, as to take a list of a few of the more rare, fine, and curious volumes, in their own collection, which were destined always to retain their situations.
They have, very properly, the FIRST BOOK PRINTED AT AUGSBOURG: namely, Aurbach's Meditations upon the Life of Christ, of the date of 1468, printed by Gunther Zainer. But one of the most uncommon books examined by me was "Augustinus Ypponensis Episcopus De Consensu Evangelistarum: In ciuitate Langingen. Impressus. anno a partu virginis salutifero. Millesimoquadringentesimoseptuagesimotercio. Pridie Idus. Aprilis." The type is very singular; half gothic and half roman. Of the printer and place I know nothing; except that I learnt from the librarians that "Langingen" is situated about ten leagues from Augsbourg, upon the Danube. I made every effort--as well by the ducat as by the exchange method--to prevail upon them to part with this book; but to no purpose. The blood-freezing reply of Professor Veesenmeyer was here repeated--"ça reste, à ... Augsbourg." This book is unbound. Another volume, of the same equivocal but tempting description, was called "Alcuinus de Trinitate:--IMPRESSUM IN UTTIPURRHA Monasterio Sacto4 marty4, Alexadri et Theodri. Ordiis Scti Bndicti. Anno Sesquimillesimo KL. septembris [Hebrew]." It is printed in a rude gothic letter; and a kind of fly leaf contains a wood-cut portrait of Alcuin. The monastery, where this volume was printed, is now suppressed. A pretty little volume--"as fresh as a daisy" (so says my ms. note taken upon the spot) of the "Hortulus Rosarium de valle lachrymarum" (to which a Latin ode by S. Brandt is prefixed), printed by I. de Olpe, in 1499, in the original wooden binding--closed my researches among the volumes executed in the fifteenth century.
As I descended into the sixteenth century, the choice was less, although the variety was doubtless greater. A fine genuine copy of Geyler's Navicula Fatuorum, 1511, 4to. in its original binding, was quickly noted down, and as quickly secured. It was a duplicate, and a ducat made it my own. It is one of the commonest books upon the continent-- although there was a time when certain bibliomaniacal madcaps, with us, pushed the bidding for this volume up to the monstrously insane sum of £42:[37]--and all, because it was coated in a Grolier binding! Among the theological books, of especial curiosity, my guides directed my attention to the following: "Altera hæc pars Testam i. veteris emendata est iuxta censuras Inquisitionis Hispanicæ ano 79. Nouu testam. recusandu omnino est; rejicienduq. propter plurimos errores qui illius scholiis sunt inserti." This was nothing else than the younger R. Stephen's edition of the vulgate Bible of 1556, folio, of which the New Testament was absolutely SEALED UP. It had belonged to the library of the Jesuits. There was a copy of Erasmus, "Expurgatus iuxta censuram Academiæ Louaniæ ano 79." The name of the printer--which in the preceding Bible had been tried to be cancelled--was here uniformly erased: but it was doubtless the Basil edition of Erasmus by good old honest Froben and his sons-in-law.[38]
What think you of undoubted proofs of STEREOTYPE PRINTING in the middle of the sixteenth century? It is even so. What adds to the whimsical puzzle is, that these pieces of metal, of which the surface is composed of types, fixed and immoveable, are sometimes inserted in wooden blocks, and introduced as titles, mottoes, or descriptions of the subjects cut upon the blocks. Professor May begged my acceptance of a specimen or two of the types, thus fixed upon plates of the same metal. They rarely exceeded the height of four or five lines of text, by about four or five inches in length. I carried away, with his permission, two proofs (not long ago pulled) of the same block containing this intermixture of stereotype and block-wood printing.
I believe I have now told you all that appears worthy of being told, (as far as my own opportunities of observation have led me) of the CITY OF AUGSBOURG. I shall leave it (to-morrow) with regret; since a longer residence would, I am persuaded, have introduced me to very pleasant society, and made me acquainted with antiquities, of all kinds, well deserving of some record, however trivial. As it is, I must be content with what the shortness of my time, and the more immediately pressing nature of my pursuits, have brought me in contact. A sight of the Crucifixion by Hans Burgmair, and the possession of the most genuine copy of the editio princeps of Horace, have richly repaid all the toil and expense of the journey from Stuttgart. The Horace, and the Protestant Polish Bible of 1563, will be my travelling companions--at least as far as Munich--from whence my next despatch will be dated.[39] I hope, indeed, to dine at that renowned city ere "the set of to-morrow's sun." In the mean while, adieu.
LETTER V.
MUNICH. CHURCHES. ROYAL PALACE. PICTURE GALLERY. PUBLIC LIBRARY.
Munich; Hôtel of the Black Eagle; Aug. 16, 1818.