Discoverer was discussing with the theologians of Spain; while, covering the same period, the editions of the Bible alone, and the parts thereof, in many languages and countries, will sum up not far less than one thousand, and the most of these of the largest and costliest kind.

We have been endeavouring for the last quarter of a century or more to compile as complete a list of printed Bibles and Parts of Bibles as possible from the earliest period to the present time, and the remarkable result is a table of some 30,000 titles, representing about 35,000 volumes. By throwing all this vast store of Biblical bibliography into one strictly chronological list, we see at a glance what Biblical work was going on in every part of the world under each year, or any given year, and comparatively how the production of the Holy Scriptures in one country or language ranged with those of another. We see, for instance, that all the earliest printed Bibles were in the Latin Vulgate, the first complete edition of the Septuagint not having been issued from the press of Aldus till the year 1518, the very year of the 14th German Bible.

The earliest printed Bibles in the modern European languages were the first and second German Bibles by Mentelin and Eggesteyn, of Strasburg, of rather uncertain date, but certainly not later than 1466. In 1471 appeared at Venice two translations into Italian-the one by Malermi, printed by Vindelin de Spira, and the other by Nicolas Jenson. In 1477 was printed the first New Testament in French by Buyer, at Lyons, and the same year appeared the first edition of the Old Testament in Dutch, printed at Delft by Jacob Jacobs zoen and Mauritius Yemants zoen. In 1480 was published the splendid Bible in the Saxon or Low German language, from the press of Heinrich Quentel, of Cologne, followed by a second edition in 1491, and a third in 1494. The Psalms, in Dutch, first came out in 1480, in small octavo, and in Greek and Latin in 1481, while the first Hebrew Pentateuch appeared in 1482. The entire Bible done into French paraphrase was published by Guyard de Moulins in 1487. A full translation appeared in the Bohemian language, printed at Prague in 1488. The same year appeared the entire Old Testament in Hebrew from the press of Abraham ben Chayim de' Tintori, at Soncino.

This chronological arrangement shows us also many noteworthy points, such as that nearly all the earliest Bibles were huge folios; that the first Bibles printed at Rome and Venice appeared in 1471, and that the sixth

German Bible by G. Zainer, in 1475, at Augsburg, was the first with the leaves folioed or numbered; that the first quarto Bible appeared in 1475, printed by John Peter de Ferratis at Placentia, which was also the first book printed at Placentia; that the first of Coburger's celebrated Bibles appeared in Nuremberg in 1475, and that by the end of the century no less than thirteen large folio Bibles had come from this house alone; that the four splendid Bibles printed in 1476 all bear the printers' signatures, though it is difficult to say with certainty which was the first -viz., that of Moravus at Naples, Jenson at Venice, Gering, Crantz, and Friburger at Paris, or that of F. de Hailbrun and N. de Frankfordia at Venice; that the first Bible with a distinct title-page was printed at Venice, by George de Ravabenis in 1487, in small quarto; and that the first Bible in small octavo, or the poor man's Bible," was the earliest, or among the earliest books, from the press of Johann Froben, of Basle, in 1491, and is certainly one of the neatest and tidiest Bibles in our Collection. This splendidly illuminated and bound copy is lent us from the Bodleian Library.

Prior to the discovery of America no less than twelve grand patriarchal editions of the entire Bible, being of several different translations, appeared from time to time in the German language; to which add the two editions by the Otmars of Augsburg of 1507 and 1518, and we have the total number of no less than fourteen distinct large folio preReformation, or ante-Lutheran Bibles. No other language except the Latin can boast of anything like this number.

As the discovery of America was the greatest of all discoveries, so the invention of the Art of Printing may be called the greatest of all inventions. But no sooner had Columbus reported his grand discovery through the press than the Pope assumed the whole property in the unknown parts of the earth, and divided it all at once between the two little Powers in the Peninsula, wholly disregarding the rights and titles of the other nations of Europe. The same little game of assumption has been tried, from time to time, with regard to this great invention, but the press has a protective power within itself, which the Church can smother only with ignorance and mental darkness.

From this rapid survey it will be apparent that our earliest Bibles, many of them printed most sumptuously on vellum, must have each cost

the price of a farm. Later they could be had for a cow, but now a morning's milking of a cow will procure for a farmer a first-class well-bound Bible in his own language.

At this late day it is difficult to arrive at the precise dates of several of the earliest and most important printed Bibles, most of the dates having been first assumed by bibliographers without sufficient authority, and subsequently followed by others without inquiry. From an inscription by one Cremer, the illuminator and binder of the Gutenberg Bible, now in the National Library of Paris, we know positively that the book was printed before August, 1456. From another inscription in a copy of Pfister's Bible, also in the Paris Library, the work is assigned to Bamberg, before 1461, but the church register of Bamberg shows that this Bible was printed prior to March, 1460. More recently it has been announced and confirmed that the copy of the first of Mentelin's Latin Bibles, in the Library of Freiburg in Breisgau, bears an inscription by the rubricator showing that these important volumes had been printed prior to 1460 and 1461.

With these new data, and a new scrutiny by the light of recent bibliography, and new comparisons of our undated Bibles with books of positive dates and known printers, brought together, like the present Caxton Memorial Collection, to say nothing of the great aid derived from our recent photo-bibliography, or means of safely comparing books in one library with those of another, it is to be hoped that the day of more exact bibliography is at hand. It will not surprise us to find that the order of printing of the first seven of the great German Bibles, all of which are without dates, may be hereafter somewhat modified, or that our new scrutiny may even yet develop new or unrecognized editions in every department of Biblical research.

We therefore, for the extraordinary opportunity afforded us for comparing and collating rare Bibles and other valuable books in this unique Caxton Memorial Collection, tender herewith our warmest thanks to each and all of our contributors, and more especially to Her Majesty the Queen, His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl Spencer, Earl of Jersey, Earl of Leicester, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Curators of the Bodleian Library, the University Library, Cambridge, the University Library, Edinburgh, Sion College, the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Advocates'

Library, Edinburgh, the Signet Library, Edinburgh, Mr. W. Amhurst Tyssen-Amhurst, Mr. Francis Fry, Mr. David Laing, Mr. Thomas Longman, Mrs. Jolyffe, the Rev. Dr. Gott, Vicar of Leeds, the Dean of St. Paul's, Mr. Henry White, Rev. Dr. Ginsburg, Mr. M. Ridgway, Mr. E. S. Kowie, Mr. C. D. Sherborn, Mr. J. Mathers, Mr. George Tawse, Rev. L. B. Kaspar, Sir Charles Reed, Mr. H. Cleaver, the University Press, Cambridge, the University Press, Oxford, Mr. Thomas Stapleton, Mr. A. Gardyner, Messrs. Bagster and Sons, Messrs. Spottiswoode and Co., and others; but still more are our thanks due to Mr. Henry J. Atkinson, who has liberally lent us above four hundred editions of the Bible in all languages. Some of these editions are of very considerable rarity and value, while others, though not of the choicest or rarest kind, are, very many of them, of the middle class of Biblical Bibliography, which are so difficult to meet with and which are of such immense importance to the student in arriving at a clear history of editions, versions, and translations. Scores of these editions are not in our national library, and we know not where else to lay our hands upon them.

Our collection boasts of nearly all the earliest and most famous Bibles and Psalters, together with representative editions of the later revisions, translations, versions, and languages down to the present time, to the extraordinary number of above one thousand editions. This unexpected and overwhelming liberality of our patrons has very nearly overwhelmed and buried the arranger and cataloguer, but he trusts that great bibliographical good will eventually result from this rare opportunity of comparison, collation, and scrutiny. Rare Bibles, early New Testaments, the Psalms, and other parts of the Scriptures are, it is well known, scattered all over the country; and we trust that people who possess them will bring or send up these lost children, and have them identified and properly registered. We shall willingly undertake this additional labour for the sake of the opportunity of discovering new and hitherto undescribed editions.

The famous collection of Bibles in the Royal Library of Stuttgard is said to exceed eight thousand editions; but by comparison of the catalogue of our present Caxton Celebration Collection with the catalogue by Adler, printed in 1787, the patient and curious reader will see that more than one-half of our collection is not represented at Stuttgard. So

likewise of the extraordinarily rich collection of some five thousand titles of Bibles in the library of Wolfenbüttel. The collection of Bibles and parts thereof in the Lenox Library of New York in all languages, is probably unsurpassed in rare and valuable editions, especially in the English language, by any library, public or private. Mr. Francis Fry, of Bristol, the indefatigable collector, has succeeded in bringing together above one thousand editions of the English Bible, Testaments, Psalms, &c., most of them prior to 1700, to say nothing of above one hundred editions in ancient and foreign languages. The Rev. Dr. Ginsburg, of Wokingham, possesses a unique collection, astonishingly rich in early and rare Latin, German and Hebrew Bibles and parts thereof, including, we believe, the whole fourteen pre-Reformation German Bibles, and almost every edition of Luther's early Bibles and parts, the genuine as well as the counterfeit editions. Besides these his collection contains many other editions in other languages, both ancient and modern, to the extent, in all, of between two and three thousand editions; and, what is of infinite importance to Bible and bibliographical students, the Doctor makes his collection as free to them as to himself. But the Library of the British Museum to-day contains probably by far the richest collection of Bibles and Parts thereof in the world, numbering at present above sixteen thousand titles; but even this our Caxton Celebration Collection, so hastily brought together, contains very many editions not to be found in our national library.

Notwithstanding the active research of many eminent scholars for the last three centuries, Biblical Bibliography is even now but in its infancy. The subject is so vast that no general bibliographer can more than indicate certain special and prominent editions. It is now more than one hundred and fifty years since Le Long published in Latin the last edition of his bibliography of the Bible. The work was excellent in its day, but very imperfect in many departments, especially English. About a century ago Masch re-edited and vastly improved certain parts of Le Long, especially the editions of the Bible in the ancient languages. He left the work, however, unfinished; so that for Bibles in most of the modern languages we have still to refer to Le Long.

In this brief sketch of the History of Printing, as illustrated by the reproduction of the Bible by moveable types, we have left ourselves