s of a once glowing fire. In the same cabinet is seen another and
altogether different production of this royal author--namely, the
dedication copy of the "Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus
Martinum Luther," written in Latin by Henry VIII. in defence of the
seven Roman Catholic Sacraments against Luther, and sent to Leo X.,
with the original presentation address and royal autograph. The book
is a good thick octavo volume, printed in London, in clear type, on
vellum, with a broad margin. Only two copies are in existence, one in
the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the other in the Vatican. For this
theological dissertation Henry VIII. received from the Pope the title
of "Defender of the Faith," which has descended to the Protestant
monarchs of England ever since, and is now inscribed on our coinage.
Luther, several of whose manuscripts are in the Library, published a
vigorous reply, in which he treated his royal opponent with scant
ceremony. The author himself had no scruple in setting it aside when
his personal passions were aroused. And Rome has put this inconsistent
book beside the letters to Anne Boleyn, as it were in the pillory here
for the condemnation of the world.

But deeply interesting as were these literary curiosities, I soon
turned from them and became engrossed with the priceless manuscript of
the Greek Scriptures. I had very little time to inspect it, for I was
afraid to exhaust the patience of the librarian. In appearance the
manuscript is a quarto volume bound in red morocco; each of the pages
being about eleven inches long, and the same in breadth. This is the
usual size of the greater number of ancient manuscripts, very few
being in folio or octavo, and in this particular resembling printed
books. Each page has three columns, containing seventeen or eighteen
letters in a line. It is supposed that this arrangement of the writing
was borrowed directly from the most primitive scrolls, whose leaves
were joined together lengthwise, so that their contents always
appeared in parallel columns, as we see in the papyrus rolls that have
recently been discovered. This peculiarity in the two or three
manuscripts which possess it, is regarded as a proof of their very
high antiquity. The writing on almost every page is so clear and
distinct that it can be read with the greatest ease.

What astonishes one most is the admirable preservation of this Codex,
notwithstanding that it must be nearly sixteen hundred yea