[Illustration: FIG. 1.] Of Maundevile we have already made mention. It would be manifestly undesirable to dwell at the length that the ample materials to hand would permit. We will mention but one or two other books as samples of the bulk. Munster’s “Cosmography” is a book that all bibliophiles whose tastes incline in this direction should see. Sebastian Munster, the learned author, died of the plague at Basel in the year 1552, at the comparatively early age of sixty-three, almost immediately after he had completed his book. The copy before us we see was published at Basel in the year of his death. Everyone consulting such a book should always begin at the very beginning, as the old titles, as we have already indicated, are often full of interest and beauty. In the instance before us the centre of the page is filled up with the title, given with that elaborate fulness that is so characteristic of early books. The upper part of the page is devoted to the secular and spiritual princes of the Roman Empire, the former crowned, the latter wearing their mitres, and each having a shield of arms. Amongst the secular princes we find those of Cyprus, Ungar, Sicilia, Bohem, Neapol and Polon. The sides of the page are taken up with panels containing the rulers of Turkey, Tartary and such-like outlandish places, and at the bottom is a very comprehensive picture indeed. In the foreground, resting against a tree, is a man in grievous extremity, naked and forlorn, and to him advances a warlike savage with bow and arrow and, worse still, a manifest inclination to use them to the detriment of the traveller. Behind the prostrate figure is an elephant, while in rear of the savage are three trees, marked respectively Piper, Muscata and Gariofili. In the background is a river, or arm of the sea, from which dolphins emerge, and on the further shore are two towns and a range of mountains. The book is very freely illustrated with maps, portraits, pictures of towns, animals, plants, and so forth. Some of the figures are really very good; there is one of the Moufflon, for instance, that is full of character and truth, while others are hopelessly wrong. The same pictures come over and over again at intervals in the text, thus a man with a great sword going to chop off the head of a man kneeling before him, stands for martyrdom or the doom of the traitor, and reappears impartially on all occasions where the text suggests such ideas. The same battle-scene often crops up to illustrate the various conflicts described, and there is a standard figure of a bishop with mitre and pastoral crook that serves as a portrait of divers ecclesiastics. The same lantern tower that does duty for Lucerne reappears for Alexandria. It argues a quaint simplicity all round when the author could gravely furnish and his readers as gravely accept these few stock illustrations for all the varying conditions.