We might have imagined that, a bell-ringer being sometimes equivalent to a sacristan, and the sacristan being often responsible for the choir-books, the commission to print this Breviary was given by Palares only in the name of the chapter. We are, however, so distinctly informed that he caused the book to be printed “propriis expensis” (at his own cost), that no such explanation is tenable, and we must imagine either that the bell-ringer was actuated by very creditable motives, or else that he saw his way to dispose of the books. On either view of the case, this bell-ringer’s edition may, perhaps, rank for strangeness with that of the poems of Gasparo Visconti, printed to the number of a thousand copies by Franciscus Corniger, a Milanese poet, to whom he presumably stood in the relation of a patron. [Illustration: Gasparo Visconti. Rithmi. Milan: Ant. Zarotus, 1493.] Ne elegantissimi operis lepos mellifluus temporis edacis iniuria tibi, lector optime, aliquando periret, aut illustrissimi auctoris inclyta memoria aeuo obliteraretur, ne etiam posteritas, hac delectatione defraudata, cupidineis lusibus careret, Franciscus Tantius Corniger, poeta Mediolanensis, hos rithmos Gasparis Vicecomitis lingua uernacula compositos, quanquam inuito domino, in mille exempla imprimi iussit, Mediolani anno a salutifero Virginis partu M.cccc.lxxxxiii. Quarto Calendas Martias. Finis. Lest to your loss, excellent reader, the honeyed grace of a most elegant book should some day perish by the wrongs of devouring time, or the noble memory of the most illustrious author be blotted out by age, lest also posterity, defrauded of their pleasure, should lack amorous toys, Franciscus Tantius Corniger, a Milanese poet, ordered these Rhythms of Gasparo Visconti, written in the vernacular tongue, to be printed, against their master’s will, in an edition of a thousand copies, at Milan, in the year from the Virgin’s salvation-bringing delivery 1493, on February 26th. Finis. No doubt Gasparo Visconti duly repaid the admiration thus shown for his poems; but though the admiring friend or patron was not without his uses in the fifteenth century, and even now is occasionally indispensable, when all is said and done the success of a book depends on the reception it meets from an unbiased public, and it is to the public, therefore, that its appeal must finally be made. Colophons recognize this in different ways—sometimes, as we have seen, by praising the book, sometimes by drawing attention to its cheapness, very often by the care with which they give the exact address of the publisher at whose shop it can be bought. Vérard’s colophons are particularly notable in this respect. What could be more precise than the oft-repeated directions which we may quote from his edition of “Le Journal Spirituel” because of the careful arrangement of its lines?