I shall conclude the account of the rarer books, which it was my chance to
examine in the Public Library of Stuttgart, with what ought perhaps, more
correctly, to have formed the earliest articles in this partial
catalogue:--I mean, the _Block Books_. Here is a remarkably beautiful, and
uncoloured copy of the first Latin edition of the _Speculum Humanæ
Salvationis_. It _has_ been bound--although it be now unbound, and has been
unmercifully cut. As far as I can trust to my memory, the impressions of
the cuts in this copy are sharper and clearer than any which I have seen.
Of the _Apocalypse_, there is a copy of the second edition, wanting a leaf.
It is sound and clean, but coloured and cut. Unbound, but formerly bound.
Here is a late German edition of the _Ars Moriendi_, having thirty-four
lines on the first page. Of the _Historia Beatæ Virginis_, here is a copy
of what I should consider to be the second Latin edition; precisely like a
German edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_, with the express date of
1470,--which is also here. The similarity is in the style of art and
character of the type, which latter has much of a _Bamberg_ cast about it.
But of the _Latin Biblia Pauperum_ here is a copy of the first edition,
very imperfect, and in wretched condition. And thus much, or rather thus
little, for _Block Books._

A word or two now for the MANUSCRIPTS--which, indeed, according to the
order usually observed in these Letters, should have preceded the
description of the printed books. I will begin with a _Psalter,_ in small
folio, which I should have almost the hardihood to pronounce of the
_tenth_--but certainly of the early part of the _eleventh_--century. The
text is executed in lower-case roman letters, large and round. It abounds
with illuminations, of about two inches in height, and six in
length--running horizontally, and embedded as it were in the text. The
figures are, therefore, necessarily small. Most of these illuminations,