Thanks be to God, Amen. The work of Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman. 1471. It will be noticed that the second colophon is shorter than the first, and it should be mentioned that in yet another book of the same kind, the “Gloria Mulierum,” Jenson did not trouble to put his name at all, doubtless thinking, according to the view propounded in our first chapter, that these little vernacular books of devotion would bring him no particular credit. If we look now at the book with the misprinted date, “Una opera la quale si chiama Decor Puellarum, zoe Honore de le Donzelle: la quale da regola forma e modo al stato de le honeste donzelle,” we find this colophon: [Illustration: Decor Puellarum. Venice: N. Jenson, 1461 for 1471.] Anno a Christi Incarnatione MCCCCLXI per Magistrum Nicolaum Ienson hoc opus quod Puellarum Decor dicitur feliciter impressum est. Laus Deo. In the year from Christ’s Incarnation 1461, by Master Nicolas Jenson, this book, which is called Maidens’ Honor, was happily printed. Thanks be to God. Just as the subjects of all the books are of the same class, and just as they are all printed in the same types and the same size, so we find a general agreement in the colophons (as compared with those used by Jenson in the books issued in 1470), tempered with modifications which seem to fall into an orderly sequence. In subject the “Pianto de Christiani” and “Parole devote de l’anima inamorata” seem to pair best together, and the “Decor Puellarum” (regola de le honeste donzelle) with the “Palma Virtutum” (regola a qualunque persona). The first two are exactly dated within three days of each other, the second pair have only the date of the year. Probably there were two sets of compositors, one of whom printed the first pair, the other the second, and we see them starting by calling Jenson a “most famous engraver of books,” dropping these flowers in the “Decor Puellarum,” and quickly getting down to the curt formula of the “Palma Virtutum.” The typographical evidence, without further corroboration, would entitle us to feel sure that the omission of a second X in the date MCCCCLXI was purely accidental,[4] but it is satisfactory to find that the form of the colophon itself makes it impossible to separate it from its fellows and unreasonable to place it earlier than the fuller and more boastful form used in the “Pianto de Christiani.” Though the colophons of his vernacular books were thus already tending to curtness in 1471, Jenson still paid some attention to those of his Latin publications. Thus, in an edition of Suetonius’s “Lives of the Caesars” of that year we find the quatrain: Hoc ego Nicoleos Gallus cognomine Ienson Impressi: mirae quis neget artis opus? At tibi dum legitur docili Suetonius ore Artificis nomen fac, rogo, lector ames. M.CCCC.LXXI.