copy of Foppens' rare edition of Petrarch's "Le Sage Resolu contre l'une et l'autre Fortune," which once belonged to Sir Hudson Lowe, the gaoler of Napoleon, and may have fortified, by its stoieal maxims, the soul of one who knew the extremes of either fortune, the captive of St. Helena. But the best example of a book, which is also a relic, is the "Imitatio Christi," which belonged to J. J. Rous

seau.

Let M. Tenant de Latour, lately the owner of this possession, tell his own story of his treasure: It was in 1827 that M. de Latour was walking on the quai of the Louvre. Among the volumes in a shop, he noticed a shabby little copy of the "Imitatio Christi." M. de Latour, like other bibliophiles, was not in the habit of examining stray copies of this work, except when they were of the Elzevir size, for the Elzevirs published a famous undated copy of the "Imitatio," a book which brings considerable prices. However, by some lucky chance, some Socratic dæmon whispering, maybe, in his ear, he picked up the little dingy volume of the last century. It was of a Paris edition, 1751, but what was the name on the fly-leaf. M. de Latour read a J. J. Rousseau. There was no mistake about it, the good bibliophile knew Rousseau's handwriting perfectly well; to make still more sure he paid his seventyfive centimes for the book, and walked across the Pont des Arts, to his bookbinder's, where he had a copy of Rousseau's works, with a facsimile of his handwriting. As he walked, M. de Latour read in his book, and found notes of Rousseau's on the margin. The facsimile proved the inscription was genuine. The happy de Latour now inade for the public office in which he was a functionary, and rushed into the bureau of his friend the Marquis de V. The Marquis, a man of great strength of character, recognized the signature of Rousseau, with but little display of emotion. M. de Latour now noticed some withered flowers among the sacred pages; but it was reserved for a friend to discover in the faded petals Rousseau's favourite flower, the periwinkle. Like a true Frenchman, like Rousseau himself in his younger days, M. de Latour had not recognized the periwinkle when he saw it. That night, so excited was M. de Latour, he never closed an eye! puzzled him was that he could not remember, in all Rousseau's works a single allusion to the "Imitatio Christi." Time went on, the old book was not rebound, but kept piously in a case of Russia leather. M. de Latour did not suppose that "dans ce bas monde it fut permis aux joies du bibliophile d'aller encore plus loin." He imagined that the delights of the amateur could only go further, in heaven. It chanced, however, one day that he was turning over the "Oeuvres Inedites" of Rousseau, when he found a letter, in which Jean Jacques, writing in 1673, asked Motiers-Travers to send him the "Imitatio Christi." Now the date 1764 is memorable, in Rousseau's "Confessions," for a burst of sentiment over a peri. winkle, the first he had noticed particularly since his residence at Les Charmettes, where the flower had been remarked by Madame de Warens. Thus M. Tenant de Latour had recovered the very identical periwinkle, which caused the tear of sensibility to moisten the fine eyes of Jean Jacques Rousseau.

What

We cannot all be adorers of Rousseau. But M. de Latour was an enthusiast, and this little anecdote of his explains the sentimental side of the bibliophile's pursuit. Yes, it is sentiment that makes us feel a lively affection for the books that seem to con

nect us with great poets and students long ago dead. Their hands grasp ours across the ages.

Such is our apology for book-collecting. But the best defence of the taste would be a list of the great collectors, a "vision of mighty book-hunters." Let us say nothing of Seth and Noah, for their reputation as amateurs is only based on the authority of the tract De Bibliothecis Antediluvianis. The library of Assurbanipal I pass over, for its volumes were made, as Pliny says, of coctiles laterculi, of baked tiles, which have been deciphered by the late George Smith. Philosopher as well as immemorial kings, Pharaohs and Ptolemys, are on our side. It was objected to Plato, by persons answering to the cheap scribblers of to-day, that he, though a sage, gave a hundred minae (£360) for three treatises of Philolaus, while Aristotle paid nearly thrice the sum for a few books that had been in the library of Speusippus. Did not a Latin philosopher go great lengths in a laudable anxiety to purchase an Odyssey “as old as Homer," and what would not Cicero, that great eollector, have given for the Ascraean editio princeps of Hesiod, scratched on mouldy old plates of lead? Perhaps Dr. Schliemann may find an original edition of the "Iliad" at Orchomenos; but of all early copies none seems so attractive as that engraved on the leaden plates which Pausanias saw at Ascra. Then, in modern times, what "great allies" has the collector, what brethren in book-hunting? The names are like the catalogue with which Villon fills his "Ballade des Seigneurs du Temps Jadis'. A collector was "le preux Charlemaigne" and our English Alfred. The Kings of Hungary, as Mathias Corvinus; the Kings of France, and their queens, and their mistresses, and their lords, were all amateurs. So was our Henry VIII., and James I., who "wished he could be chained to a shelf in the Bodleian." The middle age gives us Richard de Bury, among ecclesiastics, and the Renaissance boasts Sir Thomas More, with that "pretty fardle of books, in the small type of Aldus," which he carried for a freight to the people of Utopia. Men of the world, like Bussy Rabutin, queens like our Elizabeth; popes like Innocent X.; financiers like Colbert (who made the Grand Turk send him Levant morocco for bindings); men of letters like Scott and Southey, Janin and Nodier, and Paul Lacroix; warriors like Junot and Prince Eugene; these are only leaders of companies in the great army of lovers of books, in which it is honorable enough to be a private soldier.

In view of the interest at present manifested in indexes a glance at some of the early workers in this department of literary helpfulness may prove of some interest. In this connection the name of Samuel Ayscough, as a laborious worker deserves mention. Samuel Ayscough was a clergyman, born in 1745, and for about twenty years assistant librarian in the British Museum.

In 1783 Mr. Ayscough published, Remarks on the Letters of an American Farmer, or a Detection of the Errors of Mr. J. Hector St. John, &c. Charles Lamb refers to the work reviewed in a letter in 1805:

"Oh! tell Hazlitt not to forget to send me the American Farmer. I dare say it is not so good a book as he fancies; but a book's a book."

Catalogue of the MSS. Preserved in the British

Museum, hitherto undescribed, consisting of 5000 volumes, &c., London, 1782.

"This elaborate catalogue is upon a new plan, for the excellence of which an appeal may safely be made to every visitor of the Museum since the date of its publication."-CHALMERS.

Mr. Ayscough, Dr. Maty and Mr. Harper each contributed a third of the labor in the preparation of Catalogues Librorum Impressorum, qui in Museo Britannico ad servantur, 2 vols. folio, 1787.

In 1790, Mr. Stockdale published a new edition of the works of Shakespeare, with a "Copious Index to the remarkable Passages and Words," by Mr. Ayscough. The first octavo edition of the great bard in one volume was put forth by Mr. Stockdale in 1784. Some objected to the bulk of the volume, ard in the above edition a second title-page was printed for the convenience of those who chose to bind the work in two volumes.

"But the most valuable circumstance attending this edition is the extensive index to Shakespeare, which occupies nearly 700 pages. Indices, useful in general, or still more so in the case of such authors as Shakespeare, whose language has in many places become obsolete and obscure from time. An in

dex, like the present, will often be found to throw more light on a dificult passage of our celebrated bard, than all his commentators put together. -London Monthly Review.

We need hardly say that Mr. Ayscough's index, and all other works of a similar character, have been entirely superseded by the invaluable Concordance to Shakespeare of Mrs. Mary Cowden Clarke. Mr. Ayscough also compiled indexes for the Monthly Review, The British Critic, the first 56 yearly volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine, &c.

"His labors in literature were of the most useful cast, and manifested a patience and assiduity seldom to be met with; and his laborious exertions in the vast library of the British Museum, form a striking instance of his zeal and indefatigable attention. He soon acquired that slight degree of knowledge in several languages, and that technical knowledge of old books and of their authors, and particularly that skill in decyphering difficult writing, which amply answered the most useful purposes of the librarian as well as the visiting scholar."-CHALMERS.

Mr. Ayscough died at his apartments in the British Museum, Oct. 30, 1804. We avail ourselves of this opportunity to recommend to all authors and publishers the adoption, in all cases where books are of any permanent value, of a copious index. Which of our readers of a literary turn has not, perhaps a dozen times in a day, replaced a book on its shelf, in disappointment and disgust, knowing that some passage was there to which he wished to refer, but which, after an exhaustion of time and patience, he was unable to find from the want of a good index? It is well remarked by the London Monthly Review: "The compilation of an index is one of those useful labors for which the public, commonly better pleased with entertainment than with real service, are rarely so forward to express their gratitude as we think they ought to be. It has been considered as a task fit only for the plodding and the dull; but with more truth it may be said that this is the judgment of the shailow. The value of anything, it has been observed, is best known by the want of it. Agreeably to this idea, we, who have often experienced great inconveniences from the want of indices, entertain the highest sense of their worth and importance. We know that, in the construction of a good index, there is far more scope for the exercise of judgment and abilities, than is commonly supposed. We feel the merits of the compiler of such an index, and we are ever ready to testify our thankfulness for his exertions."

Authors and editors are often deterred from making an index by the fear of labor; but this is no excuse; if the book be worth publishing, it is worth an index, and the labor can be much reduced by system. "A youth of 18 has transcribed the whole of Xenophon's Cyri Expeditio, in order to an Index; and has

entered upon Thucydides for the same purpose. Another young man here has attacked Harduin's folio edition of Themistius; and the senior youths of Magdalen School in Oxford are jointly composing an Index to the first volume of Dr Battie's Isocrates. Give me leave to observe to you that experience has shown us a way of saving much time (perhaps more than half of the whole time required) in transcribing an Author for an Index, by first transcribing all the words of a page, and then getting down the number of the page and line after each word of the page, instead of adding the number immediately as each word is written.' (The learned M. Merrick in a letter to Dr. Wharton.) -Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, vol. iv.

The greatest example of zeal in this line on record -the first index-maker in the world-is the British House of Commons! In 1778 there were paid for compiling indexes to the Journals of the House of Commons, the following sums: To Mr. Ed. Moore, £6,400 as a final compensation for thirteen years' labor; Rev. Mr. Forster, £3,000 for nine years' ditto; Rev. Dr. Roger Flaxman, £3,000 for nine years' ditto; and to Mr. Cunningham, £500 in part for ditto; making a total of £12,900! Nor is this the end thereof. For we may say with Nestor-in an other senseIn such indexes, although small

To their subsequent volumes, there is seen,
The baby figure of the giant mass

Of things to come, at large."-Troilus and Cres-
sida.

Pope, too, tells us

"How index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail." Dunciad, B. 2.

But we doubt if much harm was ever done in this way. The very ambition thus censured may lead to real acquisition, and often has. Watts appreciated a good index so highly, that he tells his reader,

"If a book has no index or good table of contents, 'tis very useful to make one as you are reading it."

Gruter's great work on Inscriptions-Inscriptiones antiquæ totius orbis romani in absolutissimum corpus redactæ, (1st edition, Heidelberg, 1602)—was not only greatly aided by Scaliger, but so anxious was this eminent scholar that the work should be complete, that he devoted ten months to writing an index of 24 classes.

"If it appears surprising that so great a man should undertake so laborious a task, and which seemed so much below him, we ought to consider that such Indexes cannot be made but by a very able man. To succeed in that task, it is necessary to understand perfectly the inscriptions, and know how to distinguish what is peculiar from what is common; and sometimes to illustrate them by some remarks, and explain the remain not only of words, of which there but one or two syllables, but even of single letters."LE CLERC.

sense,

After finishing his Index, Scaliger wrote the following epigram:

Si quem dura manet sententia Judicis, olim
Dainnatum ærumnis suppliciisque caput;
Hunc neque fabrili lassent Ergastula massa,
Nec rigidas vexent fossa mettalla manus.
Lexica contexat: nam cætera quid moror? om-

nes

Poenarum facies his labor unus habet."

Le Clerc truly hints that it is not every man that can write, who is capable of making an Index: we have an amusing instance of the evils resulting from carelessness in this matter, in the case of

The writer who drew up the Index to Delechamp's Athenæus, who says that Euripides lost in one day, his wife, two sons, and a daughter, and refers us to page 60, where nothing like this is found: but we find in page 61, that Euripides going to Icaria, wrote an epigram on a disaster that happened at a peasant's house, where a woman, with her two sons and a daughter, died by eating of mushrooms. Judge, from this in- ' stance, what hazard those run who rely on Index-makers."-BAYLE.

This only proves that we must have good Indexmakers, not that we must do without such aids.

PU BLIC LIBRARIES OF PHILADELPHIA.

By Lloyd P. Smith.

The idea, first carried out in New England, of free libraries supported at Municipal expen se, has not yet penetrated to Philadelphia. All the public libraries in this city are supported by the contributions of individuals. They are however, nearly or quite all accessible, without charge, to the public for consultation, and from most of them the books may be borrowed on payment of a small sum. The remark recently made by D. Daniel Wilson, that "in no country in the world are public and private libraries and collections made available to the scientific inquirer with the same untrestrained freedom as in the United States," is eminently true of the libraries of Philadelphia.

There is no one of them that in itself approaches to completeness; but as several are devoted to special sub

ican, British, and French patent publications; the University has 8,000 volumes on political economy and 5,000 on engineering; and the Historical Society has an invaluable treasure in the Penn Papers, while its collection of colonial and revolutionary manuscripts, local histories, books relating to the French Revolution' and curiosities, is mportant and rapidly increasing. It will be seen that these separate collections virtually supplement each other.

The first in point of antiquity is The Library Company, it possesses many books of value, including specimens of the work of the earliest printers in Germany, England, Venice and Rome, that invaluable work, the photographs of the antiquities in the British Museum, complete set of many Philadelphia newspapers, forming continuous files from the first num ber of the first paper published in this city (1719) to the

jects, thus supplementing each other, they together form a group of great value and usefulness. The Philadelphia Library, including the Loganian collection under the same roof, and accessible to the members, is rich in early printed books, works relating to America, newspapers, periodicals, and standard English literature; the Law Library is a fine collection of reports, statutes, and other legal works; the Library of the Hospital and that of the College of Physicians are medical collections which, together, are of the first rank; the Library of Academy of Natural Science is very rich in works on natural history, and that of the Philosophical Society in the transactions of Learned Societies; the Mercantile Library is strong in bibliography, and, possessing already 125,000 volumes well adapted to a circulating library, it grows and prospers marvelously; the Franklin Institute has a complete set of the Amer

present time. The library also possesses Du Simitiere's collection of books, pamphlets, and broadsides relating to the Revolution, a complete set of congressional and of Pennsylvania State documents, and nearly everything relating to Philadelphia, including all the important maps from 1682 to the present time.

Through the kindness of Mr. Eaton, Commissioner of Education, we present this cut of the Apprentices' Library of Philadelphia. This is a free library founded in 1820, and containing about 21,000 volumes. It is used by 2,000 boys and girls. Persons over twenty-one years make a deposit of $2. The library increases at the rate of about 1,000 volumes a year. It is supported by voluntary contributions.

Special Report Public Libraries of the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education Washington, D. C.

THE READING HABIT. Charles F. Richardson.

There are some persons who are so fortunate as to be unable to tell when they formed the habit of reading; who find it a constant and ever-increasing advantage and pleasure, their whole lives long and who will not lay it down so long as they live. There are women and men in the world whose youth and whose old age are so bound up in the reading habit that, if questioned as to its first inception and probable end, they could only reply, like Dimple-chin and Grizzled-face, in Mr. Stedman's pretty poem of "Toujours Amour." "Ask some younger lass than I;" "Ask some older sage than I." Happy are those whose early surroundings thus permit them to form the reading habit unconsciously; whose parents and friends surround them with good books and periodicals; and whose time is so apportioned, in childhood and youth, as to permit them to give a fair share of it to reading, as well as to study in school, on the one hand, and physical labor, on the other.

Of the necessity of making attractive the beginnings of reading, Edward Everett Hale says: "In the first place, we must make the business agreeable. Whichever avenue we take into the maze must be one of the pleasant avenues, or else, in a world which the good God has made very beautiful, the young people will go a-skating, or a-fishing, or aswimming, or a-voyaging, and not a-reading, and no blame to them." How much can be done by others in making the literary path pleasant, is known to the full by those whose first steps were guided therein by a wise father, or mother, or teacher, or friend. How strongly the lack of the helpful hand is felt none who have missed it will need to be told.

But those who must be their own helper need not be one whit discouraged. The history of the world is full of bright examples of the value of self-training, as shown by the subsequent success won as readers, and writers, and workers in every department of life by those who apparently lack both books to read and time to read them, or even the candle wherewith to light the printed page. It would be easy to fill this whole series of chapters with accounts of the way in which the reading habit has been acquired and followed in the face of every obstacle. But a single bit of personal reminiscence may be taken as the type of thousands; not only because of its touching beauty and its telling force, but because it is the latest to be told. To-morrow some other man of eminence will add no less strong testimony to the possibility of self-education. It is the story told by the Rev. Robert Collyer, who worked his way from the anvil in a little English town, up to a commanding position among American preachers and writers. "Do you want to know," he asked, "how I manage to talk to you in this simple Saxon? I will tell you. I read Bunyan, Crusoe, and Goldsmith when I was a boy, morning, noon, and night. All the rest was task work; these were my delight, with the stories in the Bible, and with Shakespeare when at last the mighty master came within our doors. The rest were as senna to me. These were like a well of water, and this is the first step I seem to have taken of my own free will toward the pulpit.

From the days when we used to spell out Crusoe and old Bunyan there had grown up in me a devouring hunger to read books. It made small matter what they were, so they were books. Half a volume of an old encyclopædia came along-the first I had ever

seen. How many times I went through that I cannot even guess. I remember that I read some old reports of the Missionary Society with the greatest delight. There were chapters in them about China and Labrador. Yet I think it is in reading as it is eating, when the first hunger is over you begin to be a little critical, and will by no means take to garbage if you are of a wholesome nature. And I remember this because it touches this beautiful valley of the Hudson. I could not go home for the Christmas of 1839, and was feeling very sad about it all, for I was only a boy; and sitting by the fire an old farmer came in and said: 'I notice thou's fond o' reading, so I brought thee summat to read.' I went at it, and was 'as them that dream.' No such delight had, touched me since the days of Crusoe. I saw the Hudson and the Catskills, took poor Rip at once into my heart, as everybody has, pitied Ichabod while I laughed at him, thought the old Dutch feast a most admirable thing, and long before I was through, all regret at my lost Christmas had gone down the wind, and I had found out there are books and books. That vast hunger to read never left me. If there was no candle, I poked my head down to the fire; read while I was eating, blowing the bellows, or walking from one place to another. I could read and walk four miles an hour. The world centred in books. There as no thought in my mind of any good to come out of it; the good lay in the reading. I had no more idea of being a minister than you elder men who were boys then, in this town, had that I should be here tonight to tell this story. Now, give a boy a passion like this for anything, books or business, painting or farming, mechanism or music, and you give him thereby a lever to lift his world, and a patent of nobility, if the thing he does is noble. There were two or three of my mind about books. We became companions, and gave roughs a wide berth. The books did their work, too, about that drink, and fought the devil with a finer fire. I remember while I was yet a lad reading Macaulay's great essay on Bacon, and I could grasp its wonderful beauty. There has been no time when I have not felt sad that there should have been no chance for me at a good education and training. I miss it every day, but such chances as were left lay in that everlasting hunger to still be reading. I was tough as leather, and could do the double stint, and so it was that, all unknown to myself, I was as one that soweth good seed in his field."

With young or old, there is no such helper toward the reading habit as the cultivation of this warm and undying feeling of the friendliness of books. If a parent, or a teacher, or a book seems but a taskmaster; if their rules are those of a statute-book and their society like that of an officer of the law, there is small hope that their help can be made either serviceable or profitable. But with the growth of the friendly feeling comes a state of mind which renders all things possible. When one book has become a friend and fellow, the world has grown that much broader and more beautiful."

"In my study," quaintly said Sir William Waller, "I am sure to converse with none but wise men; but abroad it is impossible for me to avoid the society of fools." He who cultivates the reading habit can not only have the best of friends ever at hand, but can at length say with all modesty, if he read aright and remembers well: "My mind to me a kingdom is."

DER BLUTIGE SCHAU-PLATZ ODER MARTYRE

SPIEGEL.

By Samuel W. Pennypacker.

Up to the present time the noblest specimen of American colonial bibliography has remained utterly unknown to the most learned of our bibliophiles. There is no reference to it in the appendix to Thomas on Printing, published by the Amer. Antiquarian Society whose purpose was to give all the pre-revolutionary publications of America. It is to call the attention of those who love our literature to this very remarkable work that this article is printed. This book is a gradual culmination of the research and literary labors of many authors. In his first edition Van Braght gives a list of 356 books he had consulted. It is the great Historical work of the Mennonites and the most durable monument of that sect. It traces the histories of those Christians, who, from the time of the Apostles, were opposed to the baptism of infants and to warfare, including the Lyonists, Petro-busians and Waldenses; details the persecutions of the Mennonites by the Spaniards in the Netherlands, and the Calvinists in Switzerland, together with the individual sufferings of many hundreds who were burned, drowned, beheaded, or otherwise maltreated; and contains the confessions of faith adopted by the different communities. The relations between the Quakers, who arose much later, and the Mennonites were close and intimate; their views upon most points of belief and church government were identical and where they met welded together naturally and without a flaw. Penn along with others of the early Quakers went to Holland and Germany, to preach to, and make converts among the Mennonites, and he invited them pressingly to settle in his province. Many families came settling in Germantown, Pa., branching from there out to Skippack, and also in Lancaster county, where are still to be found the largest communities of the sect in America, and where the people still turn to the pages of Van Braght to read the lives of their forefathers.

Many copies of the book were brought to America, but they were in Dutch. No German translation existed and much the larger portion of those here who were interested in it could read only that language. It was not long before a desire for a German edition was manifested. Where could a trustworthy translator be found? Who was the printer, in the forest of Pennsylvania, who could undertake the expense for a publication of such magnitude?

At Ephrata, in Lancaster county was, and still exists, a community of mystical Dunkers who practiced celibacy, and held their lands and goods in common. About 1745, they procured a hand printing press, now in possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, on which they printed over fifty books, which are among the scarcest and most sought after of American imprints. In the Brinley library, perhaps the most complete collection of Americana that has ever been sold, there was but a single book from the Ephrata press. Some of the Ephrata hymns have been rendered into English verse by Whittier. The Chronicle of the Cloister says: "Shortly before the time the mill was burned down the Mennonites in Pennsylvania united together to have their great martyr book, which was in the Dutch language translated and printed in German. For this work there was no body in the whole country considered better fitted than the brotherhood in

Ephrata, since they had a new printing office and paper mill and moreover could place hands enough upon the work. The agreement was a most advantageous one for the said Mennonites, since it was determined upon both sides that the brethren should translate and print the book, but the Mennonites should afterwards be at liberty to purchase or not. But scarcely was this agreement known before it began to be everywhere feared lest the good brethren should heap up a Mammon for them selves. Yes, even letters of warning were written by friends in Germany because of it. But the good God had other views therein of which the brethren themselves were unconscious until they were so far progressed with it that they could no longer withdraw. The Vorsteher who was the abettor of this work never let it come to a standstill or rest, and took every opportunity to keep all those under his direction in constant action, so that no one might again be satisfied in this life and be forgetful of the trust from above, for which purpore this martyr book served admirably, as will be further mentioned in this place."

"After the building of the mill was completed, the printing of the martyr book was taken in hand, for which important work fifteen brethren were selected, of whom nine had their task in the printing office viz., a corrector who was also a translator, four compositors, four pressmen. The others worked in the paper mill. Three years were spent upon this book but the work was not continuous because often the supply of paper was deficient. And since in the meantime there was very little other business on hand, the brethren got deeply into debt, but through the great demand for the book this was soon liquidated. It was printed in large folio, using sixteen quires of paper, and making an edition of thirteen hundred copies. In a council held with the Mennonites, the price for a single copy was fixed at twentyshillings, from which it can be seen that the reasons for printing it were very different from a hope for profit. The Vorsteher who had put the work in motion had other reasons for it than gain."

In this rather remarkable way have been preserved the particulars concerning the publication of the Ephrata martyr book. The Vorsteher referred to in the chronicle was Conrad Beissel, the founder of the Cloister, who among the brethren was known as Vater Friedsam. The greater part of the literary work upon it was done by the learned prior, Peter Miller, who later at the request of Congress, according to Watson the annalist, translated the Declaration of Independence into seven different European languages. The publication of the first part was completed in 1748 and the second in 1749. It is a massive folio of fifteen hundred and twelve pages, printed upon strong thick paper, in large type, in order, as is said in the preface, 'that it may suit the eyes of all." The binding is solid and ponderous, consisting of boards covered with leather, with mountings of brass on the corners, and two brass clasps. The back is further protected by strips of leather studded with brass nails. Some of the copies when they were issued were illustrated with a frontispiece engraved upon copper, but they were comparatively few, and the book iscomplete without this plate. The plate referred to represented John the Baptist immersing Christ in the river Jordon. Historical and Biographical sketches, R. A. Tripple, Philadelphia.