The Elzevirs, following the example set a century and a half earlier by Aldus, but since that time very generally lost sight of by the later publishers, initiated a number of series of books in small and convenient forms, twelvemo and sixteenmo, which were offered to book-buyers at prices considerably lower than those they had been in the habit of paying for similar material printed in folio, quarto, or octavo. For volumes of classics printed in twelvemo, such as the _Virgil_ of 1636, the _Pliny_ of 1640, and the _Cicero_ of 1642, volumes containing an average of five hundred pages, the catalogue price was one florin, the equivalent in currency of about forty-three cents. _Quintus Curtius_, published in 1633, is catalogued at sixteen sous, the equivalent of thirty-five cents. _Sallust_, _Terence_, and _Florus_, sold at fifteen sous; and _Livy_, in three volumes, at four florins ten sous. These well edited, carefully printed, and low priced editions of the classics won for the Elzevirs the cordial appreciation of scholars and of students throughout Europe. Matthew Berneggerus, professor of Strasburg, in the preface to his translation of Galileo’s _System of the Universe_, speaks of the Elzevirs as unquestionably the first typographers of the world, _Elzevirios Leydenses typographus, artis nobilissime facile princeps universio de studiis præclare meritos_. The professor was writing in 1635, only six years after the appearance of the earliest of the noteworthy specimens of the Elzevir typography, which gives the impression that, notwithstanding all the general obstacles and the special hindrances of war times, the diffusion of information concerning new publications, at least in the university centres, must have been fairly prompt. A few years later, Galileo (who died in 1642) himself gave testimony to the excellence of the work done by his Dutch publishers.[140] I do not find record of the arrangements entered into by Galileo for the publication of the translation of his treatise, but it is evident that he considered the undertaking a desirable one. The approval on the part of the scholars of these smaller and more economical editions of the Elzevirs was, however, not unanimous. The scholar, De Put (Erycius Puteanus), writing to Heinsius, in 1629, to acknowledge the receipt of the new _Horace_, says: “The Elzevirs are certainly great typographers. I can but think, however, that their reputation will suffer in connection with these trifling little volumes with such slender type. An author like Horace deserves to be produced in a dignified form, with a certain majesty of appearance, and not to have his thoughts buried in shabby little type like this.” It was not unnatural that the long-time association of great authors with big volumes should have brought about the impression, not easily to be outgrown, that the size of the book should be in direct proportion to the literary importance of its contents.