JOSEPH BURTT.

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ADVERSARIA

Printers' Couplets.

It may not perhaps be generally known that the early printers were
accustomed to place devices or verses along with their names at the end
of the books which they gave to the public. Vigneul-Marville, in his
_Mélanges d'Histoire et de Littérature_, relates that he found the two
following lines at the end of the "Decrees of Basle and Bourges,"
published under the title of "Pragmatic Sanction," with a Commentary by
Côme Guymier,--Andre Brocard's Paris edition, 1507:--

"Stet liber hic, donec fluctus formica marinos
Ebibat et totum testudo perambulet orbem."

The printers, it would appear, not only introduced their own names into
these verses, but also the names of the correctors of the press, as may
be seen in the work entitled, _Commentariis Andreæ de Ysernia super
constitutionibus Siciliæ_, printed by Sixtus Riffingerus at Naples in
1472:--

"Sixtus hoc impressit: sed bis tamen ante revisit
Egregius doctor Petrus Oliverius.
At tu quisque emis, lector studiose, libellum
Lætus emas; mendis nam caret istud opus."