20 ACCOUNTS, ETC., Oi^' THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



edition is in Earl Spencer's library : three fragments on 

 vellum of the Doctrinale Puerorum of Alexander Gallus, 

 belonging to that class of Dutch "prototypographic" literature 

 whose date has been the subject of so much controversy ; an 

 unique copy of the earliest extant German book of divination 

 by cards, printed at Strasburg, probably about 1510 ; " Ghedicht 

 von den dictmerschen," Lubeck, about 1497, of which only 

 two other copies are known ; Catharinae de Suecia Canoni- 

 zationis Relatio, a very rare book, of which no copy is known 

 to exist in Sweden ; " Flores Ciceronis," select phrases with 

 renderings into Italian, probably printed at Florence about 

 1480, and unknown to bibliographers ; an unique vellum copy 

 of Renouard's edition of Eutropius, 1796 ; Boccaccio's De- 

 cameron, Florence, 1516, the first edition with the three 

 spurious Novelle ; the poetical romance of Tristan, by Niccolo 

 Agostini, Venice, 1520 and 1521 ; Rosario della Gloriosa Vergine 

 Maria, Venice, 1534, with numerous beautiful woodcuts ; 

 Desconsuelo del illuminado Doctor Raimundo Lullio, Palma, 

 1540, one of the first books printed in Majorca; Constitutioni 

 della patria di friuoli, XJdine, 1484; Simonii Lucensis summa 

 religio, by Marcello Squarcialupi, Cracoviae, 1588, extremely 

 rare ; Capo di Ferro, Gran Simulacro dell' Arte della 

 Scherma, Siena, 1611, a beautiful copy of a beautiful book ; 

 Buhez Sante Barba dre rym, a Breton miracle play on the 

 life of Saint Barbara, Paris, 1557, unique in this edition,— the 

 second and only other early edition is also only extant in a 

 single copy ; Pope Paul the Second's bull proclaiming the 

 celebration of the Jubilee, Ulrich Han, Rome, 1470 ; Bref de 

 N. S. P. le Pape a M. le M[arechal] Daun, a satirical pamphlet 

 written by Frederick the Great after the battle of Hochkirchen, 

 so rare that the Academy of Berlin was obliged to have re- 

 course to a reprint when publishing it among Frederick's 

 collected works. 



In English literature, the fortunate acquisition of William 

 Blake's first work, the Poetical Sketches, 1783, has made good 

 one of the most mortifying deficiencies in the Library, pointed 

 out as such by Blake's biographer Gilchrist nearly thirty 

 years ago, but, from the excessive rarity of the book, never 

 remedied till now. A similar acquisition has been made in a 

 complete copy of the " Gownsman," one of the two magazines 

 conducted by Thackeray when an undergraduate at Cam- 

 bridge ; its companion, the " Snob," has long been in the 

 Museum. Rarer still are complete sets of the " Mite," " Elf," 

 and " Fairy," miniature magazines chiefly written by Sir A. 

 Panizzi and Lord Langdale, and printed at the latter's private 

 press at Roehampton. Only two such sets are believed to 

 exist ; the one now obtained was Lord Langdale's own, and 

 has a MS. key in his handwriting. Interesting acquisitions 

 of like character are the original edition of Gibbon's " Memoire 

 Justificatif " for Great Britain against France in the American 

 War, and the first edition of Emerson's Nature, Boston, 1836. 



In early English literature, besides the rare versions of 



Scripture 



