[Alchemy] Ten printer's specimens, copies of curious alchemical woodblock engravings from the 'Hortus Sanitatis' and other early sources, with captioned title and price.

On one side each of two leaves of thin laid paper (quality of tissue). Both leaves are good: lightly creased and spotted on aged paper. The first leaf (roughly 19 x 18 cm) carries six illustrations, arranged 2 x 3, and with the captions reading: 'Price 2s/6d | a way of purifying sea water'; 'Price 1s/6d | preparation Acid Sulphuric'; 'Price of block | 1s/- | Physician Galenical School'; 'Price 1/- | cold still'; 'Price 1/- | Pelican'; '2s/6d | distillation'. Printers blue pencil around third woodcut. The second leaf (roughly 24 x 18.5 cm) carries four illustrations, arranged 2 x 2, the largest two being roughly 8 x 6 cm. The captions read: 'Bufonites' (from the 'Hortus Sanitatis' of 1497, showing a man extracting a bezoar stone from the head of a frog); 'preparation medicinal earths'; 'obtaining draconites' and 'Hippocrates sleeve'. Along one margin: 'Please return specimens'. The 'Bufonites' engraving is certainly a skillful copy, and it may be that the cuts were originally produced for a Roxburghe-Club-type publication, before joining the printer's stock.…