-In civitate Babenbergn. per magistrum Johannem Sensenschmidt, prefate civitatis incolam, et Heinr. Petzensteiner. This privilege was first noticed by Panzer, in his History of the Nuremberg editions of the Bible, and afterwards by Mr. Am Ende, in Meusel's Collection for enlarging Historical Knowledge. The latter says, "One may readily believe that this bishop was not the inventor of such privileges, and that they are consequently of much greater antiquity than has hitherto been supposed." Mr. Am Ende mentions also a privilege of the year 1491, to a work called Hortus Sanitatis, typis Iacobi Meydenbach...... Impressum autem est hoc ipsum in incl. civ. Moguntina... sub Archipraesulatu rever. et benigniss. principis et D. D. Bertholdi, archiep. Moguntinensis ac princ. elector. cujus felicissimo auspicio graditur, recipitur et auctorisatur. This, says Mr. Am Ende, may allude to a privilege, and perhaps not. For my part, I conjecture that it refers only to a permission to print, granted in consequence of the institution of book-censors by the archbishop Berthold, in the year 1486.

The oldest Venetian privilege at present known, is of the year 1491, found by M. Pütter to the following work: Foenix Magistri Petri memoriae Ravennatis. The Colophon is Bernardinus de Choris de Cremona impressor delectus impressit. Venetias die X Ianuarii MCCCCXCI. The book is in quarto, and has the privilege on both the last pages. There is a Venetian privilege also of the year 1492, to Seneca Tragediæ cum commento.... Cum privilegio ne quis audeat hoc opus cum hoc commento imprimere, sub pena in eo contenta, Venetiis per Lazarum Issarda de Saliviano 1492, die XII. Decembris.

The oldest Papal privilege hitherto known is of the year 1505, to Hervei Britonis in IV Petri Lombardi Sententiarum volumina, scripta subtilissima.

In the year 1495, Aldus published the works of Aristotle, at the end of the first part of which we find the following notice: "Concessum est eidem Aldo inventori ab illustrissimo senatu Veneto, ne quis queat imprimere neque hunc librum, neque caeteros quos is ipse impresserit ; neque ejus uti invento." The last words allude to the Greek types which were employed in printing the Aldine editions of the Greek classics.

The following among other early privileges are quoted by Pütter1 and Hoffmann 2.

1495. A Milanese, by duke Louis Sforza, to Michael Ferner and Eustachius Silber for I. A. Campani Opera. 1501. Privilegium sodalitatis Celticæ a senatu Romani imperii impetratum, to Conrade Celtes' edition of the works of Hroswitha.

1506. A papal, of pope Julius II., to Evangelista Tosino the bookseller, for Ptolomaei Geographia.

1507. A French, of Louis XII. to Antoine Verard. 1510. The first Imperial, to Lectura aurea semper Domini abbatis antiqui.

1512. An Imperial, to Rosslin's Swangere Frauwen Rosegarten. 1527. A privilege from the duke of Saxony to the edition of the New Testament by Emser.

Anderson remarks on the year 1590, that the first exclusive patent, for printing a book in England, which occurs in Rymer's Fœdera', was granted in the above year by queen Elizabeth, to Richard Weight of Oxford, for a Translation of Tacitus. I am much astonished that Anderson, who was so often obliged to use Rymer's Fœdera, and who seems indeed to have consulted it with attention, should have overlooked the oldest patents which are to be found in that collection. In that laborious work, so important to those who wish to be acquainted with the history of British literature, Ames' Typographical Antiquities, there are privileges of still greater antiquity. The oldest which I observed in this work are the following :—

1510. The history of king Boccus.... printed at London by Thomas Godfry. Cum privilegio regali. 1518. Oratio Richardi Pacei... Impressa per Richardum Pynson, regium impressorem, cum privilegio a rege indulto, ne quis hanc orationem intra biennium in regno Angliæ imprimat, aut alibi impressam et importatam in eodem regno Angliæ vendat.

Other works printed cum gratia et privilegio occur 1520, 1521, 1525, 1528, 1530, &c.

In the year 1483, when the well-known act was made

1 Der Büchernachdruck nach ächten Grundsätzen des Rechts geprüft. 2 Von denen altesten kayserlichen und landesherrlichen Bücherdruckoder Verlag-privilegien, 1777, 8vo. 3 Vol. xvi. p. 96.

against foreign merchants, foreigners however were permitted to import books and manuscripts, and also to print them in the kingdom; but this liberty was afterwards revoked by Henry VIII., in the year 1533, by an order which may be found in Ames. In 1538, Henry issued an order respecting the printing of bibles; and in 1542, he gave a bookseller an exclusive privilege during four years for that purpose'.

1 [Exclusive privileges for printing the English Bible and Prayer have been granted by the Crown at different periods up to the present time, with the exception of the period of the Commonwealth, during which they were abolished. In the 27th year of Charles II. a Royal patent was granted to Thomas Newcomb and Henry Hills. In the 12th of Anne to Benjamin Tooke and John Barber; in the 22nd of George I. to John Basket. Then came John Reeves, who received his patent from George III. in the 39th year of his reign, and in association with George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, printed the many editions of the Bible and Prayer described as Reeves' editions. The present patent was conferred by George IV upon Andrew Strahan, George Eyre, and Andrew Spottiswoode, for a term of thirty years, which commenced January 21, 1830, and consequently ceases in 1860. By this last patent every one but the patentees is prohibited fron. printing in England any Bible or New Testament in the English tongue. of any translation, with or without notes; or any Prayers, Rites, or Ceremonies of the United Church of England and Ireland; or any books com manded to be used by the Crown; nor can either of the above be importea from abroad, if printed in English, or in English mixed with any other tongue. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge also enjoy the right o printing Bibles, &c., in common with the patentees; but in their case it i a simple affair of permission, they having no power to prohibit or prosecute. The present patentees, it may be here observed, have not of late years attempted to enforce their rights, and Bibles are now printed almost aa libitum.

In Scotland, prior to 1700, various persons held concurrent licenses, consequently it is very difficult to say who were king's printers and who were not. On July 6, 1716, George I. granted a patent to John Basket, the English patentee, and Agnes Campbell, jointly for forty-one years. To them succeeded Alexander Kincaird, whose patent dates from June 21, 1749; and then James Hunter Blair and John Bruce, whose patent commenced in 1798 and expired in the hands of their heirs, Sir D. H. Blair and Miss Bruce. In 1833 the patent ceased, and has never been renewed. Unlike either England or Ireland, the four Scotch Universities have never participated in this monopoly.

In Ireland, George III. in 1766 granted a Bible patent to Boulter Grierson for forty years. He was succeeded by his son George Grierson, who, in 1811, obtained a renewal, and is still with Mr. Keene, the Irish patentee. Trinity College, Dublin, has also a concurrent right, but both Oxford and Cambridge are, by the Irish printers' own patent, permitted to import their Bibles into Ireland.-Dr. Campbell's Letters on the Bible Monopoly.]

With a view of finding the oldest Spanish privilege, I consulted a variety of works, and among others Specimen Bi bliothecae Hispano-Majansianae, but I met with none older than that to the following book: Aelii Antonii Nebrissensis Introductiones in Latinam Grammaticen. Logronii Cantabrorum Vasconum urbe nobilissima; anno salutis millesimo quingentesimo decimo. fol. That privileges to books were usual in Poland, has been shown by Am Ende, in Meusel's Collections before mentioned.

CATALOGUES OF BOOKS.

THE first printers printed books at their own expense, and sold them themselves. It was necessary therefore that they should have large capitals. Paper and all other materials, as well as labour, were in the infancy of the art exceedingly dear for those periods; and on the other hand the purchasers of books were few, partly because the price of them was too high, and partly because, knowledge being less widely diffused, they were not so generally read as at present. For these reasons many of the principal printers, notwithstanding their learning and ingenuity, became poor'. In this manner my countrymen Conrade Sweynheim and Arnold Pannarz, who were the first, and for a long time the only printers at Rome, a city which on many accounts, particularly in the sixteenth century, might be called the first in Christendom, were obliged, after the number of the volumes in their warehouses amounted to 12,475, to solicit support from the pope2. the course of time this profession was divided, and there arose booksellers. It appears that the printers themselves first gave up the bookselling part of the business, and retained only that of printing; at least this is said to have been the case

In

1 Several of them were editors, printers, and proprietors of the books which they sold.

2 Their lamentable petition of the year 1472 has been inserted by Fa bricius in his Bibliotheca Latina. Hamburghi, 1772, 8vo, iii. p. 898. See also Pütter von Büchernachdruck, p. 29.

with that well-known bookseller John Rainmann, who was born at Oehringen, and resided at Augsburg. He was at first a printer and letter-founder, and from him Aldus purchased his types. Books of his printing may be found from the year 1508 to 1524; and in many he is styled the celebrated German bookseller. About the same period lived the booksellers Jos. Burglin and George Diemar. Sometimes there were rich people of all conditions, particularly eminent merchants, who caused books which they sold to be printed at their own expense. In this manner that learned man Henry Stephens was printer at Paris to Ulric Fugger at Augsburg, from whom he received a salary for printing the many manuscripts which he purchased. In some editions, from the year 1558 to 1567, he subscribes himself Henricus Stephanus, illustris viri Hulderici Fuggeri typographus. In the like manner also, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, a society of learned and rich citizens of Augsburg, at the head of whom was Marx Welser, the city-steward, printed a great nuinber of books, which had commonly at the end these words, ad insigne pinus. Printing therefore thus gave rise to a new and important branch of trade, that of bookselling, which was established in Germany, chiefly at Frankfort on the Maine, where, particularly at the time of the fairs, there were several large bookseller's shops in that street which still retains the name of Book-street.

George Willer, whom some improperly call Viller, and others Walter, a bookseller at Augsburg, who kept a very large shop, and frequented the Frankfort fairs, first fell upon the plan of publishing every fair a catalogue of all the new books, adding the size, and publishing names. Le Mire, better known under the name of Miræus, says, that catalogues were first printed in the year 1554; but Labbes, Reimann, and Heumann', who took their information from Le Mire, make the year, perhaps erroneously, to be 1564.

1 Von Stetten, Kunst-geschichte von Augsburg, p. 43.

2 Le Mire, a Catholic clergyman, who was born in 1598, and died in 1640, wrote a work De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis Sæculi xvi., which is printed in Fabricii Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica, Hamburgi 1718, fol. The passage to which I allude may be found p. 232; but perhaps 1564 has been given in Fabricius instead of 1554 by an error of the press.

3 Labbe Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum, Lips. 1682, 12mo, p. 112. Hist. Lit. i. p. 203. 5 Conspectus Reip. Litter, c. vi. § 2, p. 316.