Aldus readily agreed to the proposal, and invited Erasmus upon it to Venice. When Erasmus came, it was not till after some delay that he obtained admittance to the printer's closet, whose servants were not aware of the stranger's literary consequence. But Aldus no sooner knew that it was Erasmus who waited for him, than he hastened to receive his visitor with open arms. He did more: he stopped the progress of several important Greek and Latin works, which he had then in the press, to make room for the printing of the great collection of Erasmus with the desired expedition. Erasmus was, in the mean time, entertained in the house of Andrew d'Asola, father-in-law to Aldus, with whom Aldus and his wife appear, by Erasmus's account, to have lived. D'Asola was rich; yet his table was, even for that of an Italian family, parsimoniously served and Erasmus loved good cheer. The Dutchman made frequent remonstrances to his friend Aldus, against the thinness of the soups, the absence of solid animal food, the weakness and sourness of the wine, the general scantiness of the whole provisions. The Italians, whose climate and natural habits had taught them to live much more sparingly than was usual for the Dutch and Germans, were astonished and offended by his complaints. Some small additions, such as a fowl or two, and perhaps half a dozen eggs a week, were made on his account to the commons of the family. But these dainties were sometimes intercepted by the women in the kitchen, on their way to the table. On the table, they were devoured by the rest who sat at it still more eagerly than by Erasmus. And if he was not absolutely starved, he was assuredly a good deal mortified in his appetite for a glass of good wine and a mess of delicate and savoury meat, before he could see the printing of his "Adagia" entirely at an end. His humours and complaints made him at length a very unpleasant inmate to the family; while he was, on the other hand, dissatisfied still more, that his murmurs were not more complaisantly attended to. They parted with mutual dislike. Erasmus wrote afterwards his dialogue, which has the title of" Opulentia Sordida," in ridicule of the parsimonious spirit, and the scantily-served table of Andrea D'Asola. Aldus and his successors, whenever they, after this time, reprinted any work by Erasmus, avoided to mention his name, and gave him simply the appellation of "Transalpinus quidam homo."

Aldus, not thinking that he did enough for the interests of literature, in printing, for the first time, so many excellent books in the Latin, Greek, and Italian languages, gave, in his Latin grammar, in 1501, a short introduction. to the knowledge of the Hebrew tongue; and even proposed to give a beautiful edition of the original Hebrew of the sacred Scriptures, with the Septuagint and the Vulgate Latin versions. Of this, however, he was diverted from printing more than a specimen sheet. That sheet, now in the royal library at Paris, exhibits the text in the three different languages, each occupying one of three parallel columns on the same page. It is to be regretted that Aldus should have been hindered from completing a design so noble.

In 1500, Aldus married the daughter of the above-mentioned Andrew of Asola, who had been a printer of some reputation at Venice, and who soon after became his sonin-law's partner. The "Letters of Pliny," 1508, is the first book which marks this partnership, "in ædibus Aldi et Andreæ Asulani soceri." In 1506 Aldus was a great sufferer by the war which then raged in Italy, and his printing was so much interrupted, that he was not able to resume it until 1512. From that to 1515, he executed several works, and was proceeding with others when he died, nearly seventy years of age, in the last-mentioned

year.

The character of Aldus as a printer is so well known to every scholar, and to such only it can be interesting, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon it here. But he may be considered also as an original benefactor to the literature of the age. He published a Latin grammar of his own composition; and in 1515, after his death, was published by his friend Marcus Musurus, a Greek grammar, which Aldus had compiled with great research and industry. He wrote likewise a treatise "de metris Horatianis," which is reprinted in Dr. Combe's edition of that poet. He produced a Greek dictionary, printed by himself, in folio, 1497, and reprinted by Francis D'Asola in 1524. He was likewise the author of many of the Latin translations of the classics, wrote many letters, some of which have been published, and for some years after be settled at Venice, gave a course of lectures on the best Greek and Roman authors, which was attended by a great number of students. Aldus, however, has not escaped the censures of criticism.

Urceus Codrus, the learned professor of Bologna, complained, that he suffered many errors to escape uncorrected, in his editions of the Greek authors; that he sold his copies too dear; and printed them with an useless and unsuitable width of margin. Later critics have not been sparing of remarks somewhat similar. Ernesti, in his notes on the Letters of Pliny, blames Aidus for excessive boldness of conjectural criticism. In the preface to his Tacitus, the same critic remarks, that Aidus rarely made on the second and subsequent editions of the works be printed, any alterations but such as consisted in neglected errors of the press. It is indeed true, that the editions of Greek works printed by Aldus, are not always so correct as his Latin and Italian editions. But their defects are owing to the disadvantages of Aldus's situation, much rather than to negligence, or inability in himself, as a printer and a man of letters. He bad not always a sufficient number of manuscripts to collate: and sometimes be could not have the benefit of the judgment of a sufficient number of the learned upon the difficulties which occurred to him. After beginning to print any particular work, he often had not leisure to pause for a sufficient length of time, over the difficulties occurring in the progress of the edition. He might, in some instances, also, print a manuscript which he did not approve, lest it should otherwise have been lost to posterity.1

MANUTIUS (PAUL), the son of the preceding, was born at Venice in 1512. After his father's death, he lived with his mother and her other children at Asola, at some distance from Venice, while the business of the printing esablishment at Venice was carried on, for the general benefit of the family, by his grandfather, Andrea D'Asola, and the Torresani, his maternal uncles. At Asola Paul made but small progress in letters; he was, however, removed when very young to Venice, where he had every advantage of instruction and encouragement to study; Bembo, Sadolet, Bonamicus, Reginald Pole, and especially Rambertus and Gasp. Contarinus, who had been his father's friends, took a pleasure to excite and direct him in his literary pursuits. Under their tuition he applied to his studies with such zeal and assiduity as even to

1 Renouard's "Annales de l'Imprimerie des Aldes ou Histoire des trois Ma, nuce," 1803, 2 vols. 8vo, translated and abridged in the Month. Mag.

injure his health, but he suffered more from the disputes that took place respecting the partition of the estates of his father and his maternal grandfather, between himself and the other heirs. His uncles and himse! could not agree in the management of the printing-house, and in 1529 it was shut up; but in 1533, having arrived at the age of twenty-one, he again opened it, and renewed the business in the names, and for the common benefit, of the heirs of Aldus, and Andrea D'Asola, In 1540, however, this partnership was dissolved; and from this period, the business was continued in the names of the sous of Aldus only.

Paul became now indefatigable in the uagement of the printing establishment, and as the most valuable re mains of Grecian literature were already in print, determined to give new editions of the best Latin authors. As his admiration had been principally directed to the style and eloquence of Cicero, the first work he printed was that author's treatises on Oratory, which appeared fro a his press in 1533, and the same year he published Cicero's Familiar Letters He printed also at this time the fifth Decade of Livy, Il Cortegiano, by Castiglione, Il Petrarca, and Pontani Carmina, tom. I. In the following year the number of Italian and Latin books which he published was very considerable. His first Greek publication was Themistius, which was speedily followed by Isocrates and Aetius Amidenus. In these publications he availed himself of the literary assistance of various learned friends, whose attention and corrections gave that decided superiority to the Aldine editions which his father had endeavoured to establish.

In 1535 he accepted an invitation to Rome, upon the promise of an opulent and eligible situation; but, not being received with respect or attention, he returned to Venice, and resumed his studies and employment. Having, however, attained no degree of opulence, he engaged in the business of education, took twelve young men of family into his house, and superintended their education for three years. Of these, two were Matth. Senarega, who translaced Cicero's Letters to Atticus into Italian, and Paul Coutarinus. In 1538 he went on an excursion to examine the manuscripts in certain old libraries, particularly the library of the Franciscans in Cesena, which contained some MSS. left to their convent by Malatesta Novellus;

and such was his reputation at this time, that he was invited to fill the chair of the professor of eloquence at Venice, and had the offer of a similar situation at Padua, vacant by the death of Bonamicus. But his ill health, and his predilection for his business, induced him to devote his whole time to the printing-house, from which a great number of the classics issued.

After a second journey to Rome, in 1546, he married Margarita, the daughter of Jerome Odonus. His eldest son, Aldus, the subject of our next article, was the firstfruit of this marriage: he had also two other sons, who died young, and a daughter, who is often mentioned in his letters, and was married in 1573. In 1556 an academy was established at Venice, in the house of Frederick Badoarus, one of the principal senators of the republic, which was composed of about an hundred members, who endeavoured to unite every species of literary and scientific excellence. Belonging to this academy was a printing-house, in which it was proposed to print good editions of all books and manuscripts already known to exist, as well as the original writings of the academicians. Over this establishment, Paul was appointed to preside, and it was completely furnished with new founts of his own types, and he had under him several other skilful printers, particularly Dominick Bevilacqua. In 1558 and 1559, fifteen different books were printed in this house, none very large, but intended as a prelude to greater undertakings, of which a catalogue was published both in Italian and Latin, and may be seen in Renouard's "Annales de l'Imprimerie des Aldes," vol. I. The books printed in this academy were all executed with admirable correctness and beauty, and are become exceeding scarce, and valuable. Paul was farther honoured with the professorship of eloquence in this academy, which, however, did not exist long. It was probably thought to have been an engine in Badoarus's hands, by which he might have become dangerous to the state; or perhaps its expences might exceed his resources, and drive him to pecuniary shifts of the discreditable kind. In August 1562, however, the academy was dissolved by a public decree.

In 1561 Paul had been invited by Pius IV. upon terms of great honour and advantage, to repair to Rome, and engage in printing the Holy Scriptures and the works of the fathers of the church. He accordingly undertook this