DEPARTMENT OF PRINTED BOOKS. 19 



the first edition of Le Macon's French translation of the 

 Decameron, Paris, 1545, 



The past year has also been remarkable for acquisitions 

 of celebrated Bibles, including the EgenolfF German Bible, 

 Frankfort, 1534, of great rarity, and especially interesting 

 from being adorned with the woodcuts from which the illus- 

 trations of the Coverdale Bible of 1535 were imitated ; and 

 the Acts and Canonical Epistles, and the Psalter, translated 

 into White Eussian, and printed at Wilna in 1525. With the 

 exception of some portions of the Old Testament previously 

 published by Skorina at Prague, and perhaps a version of 

 St. Luke, these are the first translations of the Scriptures into 

 Russian ; they are also the first Russian books printed within 

 the present limits of the Empire. To these are to be added an 

 unique copy of an edition of Calvin's New Testament, printed 

 at Geneva in 1551; a vellum copy, unique in this state, of Luther's 

 translation of the Psalms, Leipsic, 1540 ; the New Testament 

 in the Ober Engadine dialect of Romansch, 1560 ; the Malagasy 

 Bible, Antananarivo, 1830-35. perfect copies of which are exceed- 

 ingly scarce, the greater part of the impression having been 

 destroyed in the persecution, and the few copies which escaped 

 having been divided into small portions for more effectual 

 concealment ; Daniel Elzevir's family Bible, with entries of 

 births, marriages, and deaths, on large paper, and splendidly 

 bound by Magnus ; Coverdale's version of the Psalms, 

 printed by James Nycolson before 1538 ; his New Testament, 

 probably printed about the same time ; and " The Bokes of 

 Solomon," including Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, printed by 

 William Copland in 1550. The Psalter is unique. 



Among other important Liturgies have been acquired 

 the rare Aquileia Breviary of 1481 ; a superb Carthusian 

 Missal, printed at Ferrara in 1503; the Prague Missal of 

 1498, printed at Leipsic by Conrad Kachelof en ; the Missale 

 Parvum of the Diocese of Cambray, 1507; the Bremen Missal 

 of 1511 ; the Lyons Missal of 1551; the Expositio Hymnorum 

 secundum usum Sarum, H. Quentell, Cologne, 1496 ; the 

 Salisbury Horae, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1523, 

 of which only one other copy is known, in the library 

 of Salisbury Cathedral ; and the first edition of the revised 

 Liturgy of the American Episcopal Church, 1790, containing 

 the alterations necessitated by the adoption of the Constitution 

 of the United States. 



Purchases of valuable foreign works in other classes of 

 literature have been numerous and important. They comprise, 

 among others : the " Hedwig's Legende," a book famous 

 both for its text and its illustrations, probably printed at 

 Breslau about the end of the fifteenth century ; the statutes 

 of the Suabian League, 1488, a splendid volume, printed 

 privately for the confederates, and probably one of the 

 earliest examples of such printing ; the second edition of the 

 German translation of the Belial of Jacobus de Theramo, 

 Augsburg, about 1472 ; the only known copy of the first 



0.81. B 2 ' edition 



