buildings. Imagine me, my dear friend, as writing this upon one of the seats of the glorious Amphitheatre where the once masters of the world were seated. Form to yourself the idea of a perfect ellipse, whose longest axis from east to west is upwards of 400 feet; its shortest more than 300. To an eye placed in the arena, and looking up around the 32 rows of seats rising over each other, which held the spectators, computed at about 20,000, the various party-coloured dresses, different attitudes, &c. which such a numerous and mixed assembly must have produced, create a tout-ensemble that beggars all description, and exceeds all the idea that the imagination of a modern can conceive; as no spectacle from which to form an analogy now exists on the face of the globe. One of the largest, if not the largest, theatres in Europe, is the opera-house at Paris, which yet does not contain 3000 persons. This Amphitheatre was built by the Romans, in the time of Antoninus Pius, to decorate a provincial city, far from their capital, and at an expense which a nation now could scarcely bear. The external is formed ín two rows of columns, of the Tuscan order, opened with two rows of arcades, sixty in a row, which gives such an air of lightness to a building of such amazing extent as is almost inconceivable. Four great arcades give access to the arena and internal part of the building: these arcades are exactly opposed to the four cardinal points, of which the north appears to have been the principal, having a grand pediment over it. These lead to the staircases, which end in three ranges of vomitoria, that conducted the spectators to their seats: the lower range is totally destroyed; of the second, little remains; but of the third, almost the whole. On entering the theatre from the upper range of vomitories, the coup d'ail is most astonishing. The entire wall of more than three fourths of the building is complete: the rows of seats are differently broken in different places; in one they are complete, as far as to 17: there were originally 32. An author of character, who has written a book purposely on the curiosities of Nismes, has calculated the number of possible spectators at something more than 17,000; by allowing 20 inches of seat to each person, he seats that number very commodiously. I measured out 20 inches upon one of the seats, and found I did not nearly occupy it; seventeen were sufficient for me, sitting at my ease: and I incline to believe, that in crowded assemblies fourteen inches are as much space as each person, on an average, can separately occupy. I have therefore little difficulty in supposing that 20,000,

which is generally given as the round number, might be very commodiously seated within this Amphitheatre. The seats are of a very convenient height, from 18 to 22 inches: they are solid, square, or rather parallelogramic blocks of stone of immense size, and were probably covered for the accommodation of the higher ranks of people. I measured four of the stones in the second row of arcades, and found several upwards of 17 feet in length; breadth and thickness proportional. They are laid without the smallest quantity of cement, and the whole construction is simple to a degree that is almost inconceivable; yet in some places the junction is scarcely perceptible, but the whole wall appears, as it were, one solid block, with the fissures almost obliterated. The arches are turned of solid wedge-shaped blocks, placed side by side, and thus the incumbent weight enormous as it was, only pressed the wedges closer together. Instead of cement, they fastened the stones with large cramps of iron, four or five inches broad, and two inches deep; but though they rejected the use of mortar from those parts of the building which were exposed to the open air, yet in the internal parts a great quantity is found, but not of that friable kind in use at this day, and which crumbles to dust between the fingers. The Roman mortar of this building is as hard as the stone itself, and seems to be composed of pieces of marble, pulverised stones, all connected by a gluten, and now scarcely to be broken with a hammer. Large broad, flat surfaces, accurately fitted to each other, and touching exactly in all points, supported enormous weights in ancient building; and in a late addition to an ancient work at the Pont du Garde, (another glorious remain of ancient grandeur} I remarked, that, to occupy the same surface in similar buildings, where the ancients made use of two stones, the moderus employ nine, and sometimes twelve. Nothing but the extreme difficulty, perhaps, of taking such a pile to pieces, has preserved it to the present time, considering the number of rude shocks it has undergone from savage hands. Marks of fire appear in several parts of the building. The ornaments of this building are various; among these one of the most conspicuous is the Roman eagle; and on several of the pillars of the Amphitheatre are sculptured those species, which howsoever indelicate in modern times, one would almost be led to conjecture, were intended, at least in many instances, rather as symbols of population and the strength of a state. All the ornaments are greatly mutilated, and the Roman eagles are all decapitated. The savage conquerors that

triumphed over the Roman power, insulted the vanquished by disgracing and destroying their arms.-I now take my leave, shortly to quit the shores of the Mediterranean, and depart for Italy.

Mar. 22, 1778. 1778, May.

Yours, &c.

XLVII. On the date of a book said to have been printed in 1454.`

IT has been affirmed by contemporary writers, and is now generally agreed to (except by some Dutchmen too much prejudiced in favour of their country) that the art of printing in Europe was first attempted by certain persons at Mentz, between the years 1440 and 1450, and some few years after, during which time many fruitless trials were made, and perfected in that city, by John Fust and Peter Schoeffer de Gernsheim. The first book we meet with printed by them, with separate metal types, that has a date to it, is the Psalmorum Codex, which came from their press in 1457: but one, with a supposed earlier date, having lately been taken notice of by the learned, I beg leave on that account to make a few remarks on it.

This book, which was in the possession of the late Rev.

* John Gensfleisch, surnamed Guttemberg, John Fust, and John Meydenbach. It was long a controverted question, whether Guttemberg or Fust was the inventor of that art, the first ideas of which, it is supposed, were conceived about the year 1440, till happily the original instrument was found, whereby it appears, that the former only associated the others with him for the sake of their purses, he not being able to succeed without, on account of the great expences attending the cutting of the blocks of wood, which, after they were once printed from, became entirely useless for any other work. This instrument, which is dated Nov. 6, 1455, is decisive in favour of Guttemberg. But the honour of the discovery of single types, made of metal, is ascribed to Fust, wherein he received great assistance from his servant Peter Schoeffer, who devised the puncheons, matrices, and moulds, for casting them, on which account he was taken into partnership by his master, after his (Fust's) quarrel with Guttemberg, and their separation in 1455. Those who have asserted that Fust was the first inventor of printing, have given for a reason, that they have never seen any book with Guttemberg's name to it; without considering, that their first essays in printing both by blocks and moveable types, being sold for manuscripts, were anonymous, the invention being by them intended to be kept secret, nor was it divulged till their disagreement, by which time Fust had made himself master of that art, and Guttemberg was not able to proceed in it alone, for the reason abovementioned,

Mr. Calamy, is mentioned in the catalogue of such part of his library as after his decease was sold, and is there inserted, page 36, under the following title, Engbartus da Leydis de arte dictandi libri tres. Tractatus de Elegantia Compositione et Dignitate, per Enghelbertum. Gerardus Leeu impressit 1454;' to which is subjoined this note, 'Est primus liber impressus. Maittaire, Mead, &c. nunquam viderunt.' These words are the occasion of the present observations, which I make, to shew that it is far from being the first printed book, the date being that of its publication when in manuscript, and not of its impression,

Some gentlemen have imagined the date in question to have been falsified by the printer, either by design or mis. take; but for this there was no occasion, as will appear by giving a due attention to the subscription, which is at the end of the treatise De arte dictandi, in the following words:

De arte dictandi tres libri expliciunt, editi a magistro Engbarto de Leydis, ut ei in mentem Verba venere Anno Dni Millessimo quadrigentesimo quinquagesimo quarto, sextadecima die mensis Aprilis.

At the end of the other treatise is Gerardus Leeu impressit, but no mention of the time when, or the place where printed.

،

Others who have supposed this book to have been really printed in 1454, have been misled by mistaking the meaning of the word editi,' in regard to which, Palmer, (in his History of Printing) observes from M. de la Monnoye, that the phrase of 'libri editi' was used long before the invention of printing, and signified only books published and dis persed abroad, in some considerable number, in opposition to those that were written fair to be set up in libraries, which were called 'libri scripti.' This observation he proves by a quotation from Philelphus, who, speaking of his ten books of Latin Odes (of which the first five were not sent to the press until the year 1497) expresses himself as follows: Carminum libri editi quinque versuum quinque millibus: nam alteri quinque qui tantundem versus complectentur partim scripti sunt, non editi, partim ne scripti quidem.' And, upon looking into the classic authors, I find that phrase so frequently occurring, that to the above testimony I could, if necessary, add many more, but as the recital of them would be tiresome to the reader, I shall only just mention the following: Nam aliquid est hoc tempore edendum. Piin. Epist. L. i. Ep. 2. Ut annales suos emendem et edan. Cic. Att. ii. 16. Ne praecipitetur editio. Quintil. ad bibliopolam.

Palmer observes further, that the custom of putting the dates of printed books at the end of them was taken up in imitation of many of the manuscripts of the middle age, and that, as many of these dates have been printed verbatim from the manuscripts, gentlemen should be cautious least they be led into error by them, and not, from the ob scurity of the subscription, take them for the time of the impression.

That learned antiquary, Mr. Strype, was, as Dr. Middleton observes, led into such an error concerning a piece of rhetoric, written by Laurentius Gulielmus de Saona, and printed at St. Alban's, in 1480, which he imagined, from the words Compilatum in Universitate Cantabrigiae 1478,' to have been printed at that time, and in that University. So the first edition of the Stypnerotomachia Poliphili, printed at Venice, by Aldus in 1499, has been supposed to be printed at Treviso in 1467, on account of these words in it: Tarvisii, cum decorissimis Poliæ amore lorulis distineretur misellus Poliphilus. M.CCCC.LXVII. Kalendis Maii.' This has been mistaken by many* for the year when the book was printed, whereas the words only shew the time when it was finished by its author Francisco Colonna. If any should doubt this assertion, I refer them to the learned Mr. Maittaire, in his Typographical Annals, and to Orlandi in his Origine e progressi della Stampa, or rather to the book itself, when it can be met with, being very scarce; there is a leaf at the end, containing the errata, and concluding thus, Venetiis mense Decembris MID. (in ædibus Aldi Manutii accuratissimé.)

If the book under consideration was not printed so early as 1454, it may now perhaps be expected that I should shew when it was; to this I can only say, that it is not possible to point out the very year of its impression, the book itself having no date; a circumstance common in many of the works of those who printed towards the close of the fifteenth century; it is a short thin folio, and not a quarto, as by mistake it is called in Mr. Calamy's catalogue; the leaves are not paged, but have the signatures, or letters of the alphabet, placed at the bottom of the page, for the direction of the binder, an improvement not practised at soonest before the year 1470. Gerard de Leeu, from whose press it came, is well known to have printed at Gouda from

* See Catalogus Bibliothecæ Meadianæ, p. 174, and in several other catalogues, not drawn up by booksellers, but by men of learning.