TERENTIUS. Printed by Mentelin, without date. Folio. Editio Princeps. Of exceedingly great rarity. The present copy, which is in boards--but which richly deserves a russia or morocco binding--is a very good, sound, and desirable copy.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS. Printed by Schoeffher. 1472. Fol. UPON VELLUM; a charming, sound copy. This book is not very uncommon upon vellum.
VIRGILIUS. Printed by Mentelin. Without date. Folio. Perhaps the rarest of all the early Mentelin classics; and probably the second edition of the author. The present is a beautiful, white, sound copy, and yet probably somewhat cropt. It is in red morocco binding. Next to the very extraordinary copy of this edition, in the possession of Mr. George Hibbert, I should say that this was the finest I had ever seen.
---- Printed by V. de Spira. 1470. Folio. It is difficult to find a thoroughly beautiful copy of this very rare book. The present is tolerably fair and rather large, but I suspect washed. The beginning is brown, and the end very brown.
---- Printed by the Same. 1471. Folio. This copy is perhaps the most beautiful in the world of the edition in question. It has the old ms. signatures in the corner, which proves how important the preservation of these witnesses is to the confirmation of the size and genuineness of a copy of an old book. No wonder the French got possession of this matchless volume on their memorable visit to Vienna in 1805 or 1809. It was bound in France, in red morocco, and is honestly bound. This is, in short, a perfect book.
---- Printed by Jenson. 1475. Folio. A very fine, crackling copy, in the old wooden binding; but the beginning and end are somewhat stained.
MISCELLANEOUS LATIN.[125]
ÆNEAS SYLVIUS DE DUOBUS AMANTIBUS. Without date. Quarto. This is the only copy which I have seen, of probably what may be considered the FIRST EDITION of this interesting work. It has twenty-three lines in a full page, and is printed in the large and early roman type of Gering, Crantz, and Friburger. Cæsar and Stoll doubtless reprinted this edition. In the whole, there are forty-four leaves. The present is a fair sound copy.
ALEXANDER GALLUS: vulgò 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 SECONDÆ. 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.