[82] On consulting the Typog. Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 510, I found my conjectures confirmed. The reader will there see the full title of the work--beginning thus: "Eruditissimi Viri Guilelmi Rossei opus elegans, doctum, festiuum, pium, quo pulcherrime retegit, ac refellit, insanas Lutheri calumnias," &c. It is a volume of considerable rarity.
[83] The charges were moderate. A bottle of the best red ordinary wine (usually--the best in every respect) was somewhere about 1s. 6d. Our lodgings, two good rooms, including the charge of three wax candles, were about four shillings per day. The bread was excellent, and the cuisine far from despicable.
[84] We learn from Pez (Austriacar. Rer. vol. ii. col. 185, taken from the Chronicle of the famous Admont Monastery,) that, in the year 1128, the cathedral and the whole city of Salzburg were destroyed by fire." So, that the antiquity of this, and of other relics, must not be pushed to too remote a period.
[85] Before the reader commences the above account of a visit to this monastery, he may as well be informed that the SUBJOINED bird's-eye view of it, together with an abridged history (compiled from Trithemius, and previous chroniclers) appears in the Monasteriologia of Stengelius, published in 1619, folio.
The monastery is there described as--"et vetustate et dignitate nulli è Germaniæ monasteriis secundum." Rudbertus is supposed to have been its founder:--"repertis edificiis basilicam in honore SANCTI PETRI construxit:" Chronicon Norimberg. fol. cliii.; edit. 1493. But this took place towards the end of the sixth century. From Godfred's Chronicon Gotvvicense, 1732, folio, pt. i. pp. 37, 39, 52--the library of this Monastery, there called "antiquissima," seems to have had some very ancient and valuable MSS. In Stengelius's time, (1620) the monastery appears to have been in a very flourishing condition.
[86] As it is just possible the reader may not have a very distinct recollection of this worthy old gentleman, and ambulatory abbot--it may be acceptable to him to know, that, in the Thanatologia of Budæus (incorporated in the Tres Selecti Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, 1707, folio, p. 27, &c.) the said Neander is described as a native of Sorau, in Bohemia, and as dying in his 70th year, A.D. 1595, having been forty-five years Principal of the monastery of St. Ildefonso. A list of his works, and a laudatory Greek epigram, by Budæus, "UPON HIS EFFIGY," follow.
[87] For the sake of juxta-position I here lay before the reader a short history of the issue, or progress of the books in question to their present receptacle, in St. James's Place. A few days after reaching Vienna, I received the following "pithy and pleasant" epistle from the worthy librarian, "Mon très-revérend Pasteur. En esperant que vous êtes arrivé à Vienne, à bon port, j'ai l'honneur de declarer à vous, que le prix fixé des livres, que vous avez choisi, et dont la table est ajoutée, est 40 louis d'or, ou 440 florins. Agréez l'assurance, &c.
I wrote to my worthy friend Mr. Nockher at Munich to settle this subject immediately; who informed me, in reply, that the good monks would not part with a single volume till they had received "the money upon the nail,"--"l'argent comptant." That dexterous negotiator quickly supplied them with the same; received the case of books; and sent them down the Rhine to Holland, from thence to England: where they arrived in safe and perfect condition. They are all described in the second volume of the Ædes Athorpianæ; together with a beautiful fac-simile of an illuminated head, or portrait, of Gaietanus de Tienis, who published a most elegantly printed work upon Aristotle's four books of Meteors, printed by Maufer, in 1476, folio; and of which the copy in the Salzburg library was adorned by the head (just mentioned) of the Editor. Æd. Althorp. vol. ii. p. 134. Among the books purchased, were two exquisite copies, filled with wood cuts, relating to the Æsopian Fables: a copy of one of which, entitled Æsopus Moralisatus, was, I think, sold at the sale of the Duke of Marlborough's books, in 1819, for somewhere about 13l.