his voyage to Cythera. As to the designs in wood, quaint in their
vigorous effort to be classical, they have been attributed to
Mantegna, to Bellini, and other artists. Jean Cousin is said to
have executed the imitations, in the Paris editions of 1546, 1556,
and 1561.

The "Hypnerotomachia" seems to deserve notice, because it is the
very type of the books that are dear to collectors, as distinct from
the books that, in any shape, are for ever valuable to the world. A
cheap Tauchnitz copy of the Iliad and Odyssey, or a Globe
Shakespeare, are, from the point of view of literature, worth a
wilderness of "Hypnerotomachiae." But a clean copy of the
"Hypnerotomachia," especially on VELLUM, is one of the jewels of
bibliography. It has all the right qualities; it is very rare, it
is very beautiful as a work of art, it is curious and even bizarre,
it is the record of a strange time, and a strange passion; it is a
relic, lastly, of its printer, the great and good Aldus Manutius.

Next to the old woodcuts and engravings, executed in times when
artists were versatile and did not disdain even to draw a book-plate
(as Durer did for Pirckheimer), the designs of the French "little
masters," are at present in most demand. The book illustrations of
the seventeenth century are curious enough, and invaluable as
authorities on manners and costume. But the attitudes of the
figures are too often stiff and ungainly; while the composition is
frequently left to chance. England could show nothing much better
than Ogilby's translations of Homer, illustrated with big florid
engravings in sham antique style. The years between 1730 and 1820,
saw the French "little masters" in their perfection. The dress of
the middle of the eighteenth century, of the age of Watteau, was