PRINTERS COUPLETS

It may not perhaps be generally known that the early printers were accustomed to place devices or verses along with their names at the end of the books which they gave to the public. Vigneul-Marville, in his *Mélanges d'Histoire et de Littérature*, relates that he found the two following lines at the end of the "Decrees of Basle and Bourges," published under the title of "Pragmatic Sanction," with a Commentary by Côme Guymier,—Andre Brocard's Paris edition, 1507:— "Stet liber hic, donec fluctus formica marinos Ebibat et totum testudo perambulet orbem." The printers, it would appear, not only i…