The time, thus allowed, was not dedicated altogether to private enjoyment, most probably quite the reverse. Panizzi went abroad with the intention of visiting the leading libraries of Germany, taking on his way to Vienna, Stuttgart, where the famous Psalter[I] of 1457 was said to be for sale. It had been discovered in 1842 in the Library of the Collegiatstift, at Eichstädt, in Bavaria, by the antiquarian, J. Hess, through whose interest it was transferred, in 1843, to Stuttgart in exchange for another rare volume, the “Acta Sanctorum.” The Keeper of the Printed Books was, as it may easily be imagined, eager to purchase the volume, and on the 11th of June he wrote the following report:—“Mr. Panizzi has the honour to report that a copy of the First Psalter (1457) not long since discovered, and now in the Royal Library of Stuttgart, may be obtained for the British Museum, if what Mr. Panizzi has heard may be relied upon. It is said that the Government of Würtemberg might be disposed to part with it to a _Public Library_, but to no one else. Mr. Panizzi intends visiting Stuttgart partly for the purpose of seeing this volume—the most important by far, as well as the rarest of all early monuments of typography.” ----- Footnote I: The book is of great importance. It was printed in Mentz, by Fast and Schœffer. It is the first printed Psalter; the first book printed with a date; and containing the first specimens of printing in colours, as shown in the initial letters. A copy, bequeathed by Mr. Grenville, is now to be seen in the King’s Library, British Museum. ----- The recommendation of Panizzi was that the sum of six hundred guineas should be offered, for, to use his own words: “The copy now in the Royal Library at Paris, _wanting six leaves_, sold by auction in 1817, for 12,000 francs, or £480. It is made up of two copies, and is otherwise objectionable. The funds of the Royal Library at Paris being then low, Louis XVIII. himself paid the above price, and presented the volume to that institution.” It is hardly necessary, though the volume did not find its way to the British Museum, to say that the Trustees did not hesitate a moment to sanction the purchase for the sum recommended.