Specimens of some of the tremendous cuts which are crowded into this thin folio will be seen in the second volume of the new edition of the Typographical Antiquities. However, that the reader's curiosity may not here be disappointed, he is presented with a similar specimen, on a smaller scale, of one of the infernal tortures above described. It is taken from a book whose title conveys something less terrific; and describes a punishment which is said to be revealed by the Almighty to St. Bridget against those who have "ornamenta indecentia in capitibus et pedibus, et reliquis membris, ad provocandum luxuriam et irritandum deum, in strictis vestibus, ostensione mamillarum, unctionibus," &c. Revelaciones sancte Birgitte; edit. Koeberger, 1521, fol., sign. q., 7, rev.

[288] See many of the cuts in that scarce and highly coveted volume, entitled, "Idée Generale d'une Collection complètte d'Estampes." Leips. 1771, 8vo.

Lis. This is, at least, an original idea; and has escaped the sagacity of every commentator in the last twenty-one volume edition of the works of our bard.

Lysand. But to return to Henry. I should imagine that his mind was not much affected by the perusal of this description of books: but rather that he was constantly meditating upon some old arithmetical work—the prototype of Cocker—which, in the desolation of the ensuing half century, has unfortunately perished. Yet, if this monarch be accused of avaricious propensities—if, in consequence of speculating deeply in large paper and vellum copies, he made his coffers to run over with gold—it must be remembered that he was, at the same time, a patron as well as judge of architectural artists; and while the completion of the structure of King's college Chapel, Cambridge, and the building of his own magnificent chapel[289] at Westminster (in which latter, I suspect, he had a curiously-carved gothic closet for the preservation of choice copies from Caxton's neighbouring press), afford decisive proofs of Henry's skill in matters of taste, the rivalship of printers and of book-buyers shews that the example of the monarch was greatly favourable to the propagation of the Bibliomania. Indeed, such was the progress of the book-disease that, in the very year of Henry's death, appeared, for the first time in this country, an edition of The Ship of Fools—in which work, ostentatious and ignorant book-collectors[290] are, amongst other characters, severely satirized.

[289] Harpsfield speaks with becoming truth and spirit of Henry's great attention to ecclesiastical establishments: "Splendidum etiam illud sacellum westmonasterij, magno sumptu atque magnificentia ab eodem est conditum. In quod cœnobium valde fuit liberalis et munificus. Nullumque fere fuit in tota Anglia monachorum, aut fratrum cœnobium, nullum collegium, cujus preces, ad animam ipsius Deo post obitum commendandam, sedulo non expetierat. Legavit autem singulorum præfectis sex solidos et octo denarios, singulis autem eorundem presbyteris, tres solidos et quatuor denarios: ceteris non presbyteris viginti denarios." Hist. Eccles. Anglic., p. 606, edit. 1622, fol.

[290] The reader is here introduced to his old acquaintance, who appeared in the title-page to my first "Bibliomania:"—

I am the firste fole of all the hole navy
To kepe the pompe, the helme, and eke the sayle:
For this is my mynde, this one pleasoure have I—
Of bokes to haue great plenty and aparayle.
I take no wysdome by them: nor yet avayle
Nor them perceyve nat: And then I them despyse.
Thus am I a foole, and all that serue that guyse.
Shyp of Folys, &c., Pynson's edit., 1509, fol.

We have now reached the threshhold of the reign of Henry VIII.—and of the era of the Reformation. An era in every respect most important, but, in proportion to its importance, equally difficult to describe—as it operates upon the history of the Bibliomania. Now blazed forth, but blazed for a short period, the exquisite talents of Wyatt, Surrey, Vaux, Fischer, More, and, when he made his abode with us, the incomparable Erasmus. But these in their turn.