hick octavo volume, written in Latin, and printed in the year
1501, in London, on vellum. The type is clear, with a broad margin, and
at the beginning is the original presentation addressed to Leo X., as
follows, subscribed by the royal autograph--

'Anglorum Rex Henricus Leo Decime mittit
Hoc opus, et fidei testis et amicitiae.'

The whole work--in the preface of which the writer descants on his
humble talents and his modesty--would seem, as far as I was able to
judge by turning over the pages hastily, to be composed in a remarkably
clear style, and to abound with naive phrases and genuine expressions of
the king himself, wrought into the mass and substance of a prolix
theological dissertation, that no doubt was prepared and digested for
the purpose by the divines of the period. With regard to the
correspondence with Anne Boleyn, which places the royal author
altogether in a different point of view before the public, the latter
consists of a considerable number of original letters, of which those
written by the king are for the most part in French and the remainder in
English, and those of Anne Boleyn written all in French. The documents
are all in excellent preservation, and the handwriting perfectly
legible; from the difference of the character at the period in question,
and owing to the abbreviations, somewhat difficult to decipher; not so
much so, however, but that even an unpractised person, with sufficient
time and leisure, might make them out without much difficulty. Visitors
are relieved from the labor of the experiment; and fair copies, made in
a clear round hand, are placed, each copy side by side with the
original, and all are stitched together in a portfolio, where they may
be perused with the utmost facility. The letters, which to those
inclined to ponder on the anatomy of the human heart afford a melancholy
moral, are chiefly remarkable for the boisterous eager tone of the
king's passion towards his lady-love, which, expressed in terms that
would hardly be considered proper now-a-days, verges on the grotesque."

7. _Casanata Library, Rome._--This library, founded by Cardinal Girolamo
Casanata in the year 1700, is said to contain a greater number of
printed books exclusively, in contradistinction to manuscripts, than any
other in Rome, not excepting the Vatican. "The library," says Sir George
Head, "is a very beautifully-proportioned chamber, upwards of fifty feet
in breadth, and long in propor