Receiving the "N. & Q." only in monthly parts, I was, till last week, unacquainted with the article of your correspondent U. U., from Baltimore. This ignorance, however, has been attended with the advantage of the very decisive information on the matter of inquiry by B. B., as far as the Bodleian Library, Oxford, is concerned. I am relieved by it from the necessity of describing more particularly the copy of the first, and Roman, Expurgatory of 1607; for the copy in my possession agrees exactly in title with that of the Bodleian. Of the genuineness of the latter, the proof is as demonstrative as anything historical can be. I have the same assurance of the genuineness of mine. It was in the possession of the celebrated and intelligent collector, J. G. Michiels, as his autograph, with the year 1755 attached, testifies. The title, as given in my Literary Policy, has indeed a trifling error in punctuation, whether my own or the printer's, but from simple oversight, as in some cases fas est obrepere somnum. There was, however, and could be, no error as to the meaning of Brasichellen., of which Catalani, besides others, had given me information sufficiently correct in his De Magistro S. Pal.
These observations will not, however, satisfy the want of your transatlantic correspondent so completely as I trust I am enabled, and shall be much pleased to do; for I have likewise the celebrated counterfeit, of which I have given an ample account in my forecited volume; and the difference between it and the original is sensibly evident on a synoptical comparison. But other marks, where this is impracticable, may be adduced; and in the title itself, without depending upon the minutiæ of punctuation, and without any reference to the figures in the frontispiece, which are plainly not the same impression, in both copies, the last line, SVPERIORVM PERMISSV, which, in the genuine book measures 2-1/2 inches, in the counterfeit measures 2-1/5; therefore, shorter by 3/10. In the body of the work, in the counterfeit the letter-press occupies more space than the genuine. Taken at a venture (and a right-hand page is preferred, because the number of the page, and the catchword, come in one perpendicular line), I examined p. 163. The height in the genuine is 5-1/5 inches; in the counterfeit 5-4/5; the increase, 3/5. The width of the page appears to be in proportion. In the preliminary matter of the genuine copy the De Correctione ends with the line, "eos corrigere, atque purgare." The counterfeit varies. The last unnumbered page, indeed, the terminating line, of what is prefatory, is, "Palatio Apostolico anno salutis 1607." The counterfeit here likewise varies.
I have another volume closely identical; of which, because it is far from common, I will give the title entire. It is well known, but not easily detected:
"INDEX
LIBRORUM
EXPURGANDORUM,
In quo
Quinquaginta Authorum Libri præ
cæteris desiderati emendantur.
Per