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"A bibliognoste, from the Greek, is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in editions; the place and year when printed; the presses whence issued; and all the minutiæ of a book." "A bibliographe is a describer of books and other literary arrangements." "A bibliomane is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blunders faster than he buys, cock-brained and purse-heavy."
But the printers of the 15th century and later, often used complications of letters, dictated by caprice rather than by any fixed principles, so that it is sometimes difficult to interpret certain dates in the colophons or title-pages of books, without collateral aid of some kind, usually supplied to the librarian by bibliographies.
Besides being numerically imperfect, the leaves of the Codex Alexandrinus have suffered from the clipping of the outer edges by the binder, and several of its priceless pages have been otherwise spoiled and mutilated. The MS. is austere in its simplicity, being totally unadorned, save for the red ink used in the opening lines of each book, and occasionally in superscriptions and colophons.
There are two colophons; in the one we have a date, namely, the "first day of the fourth month of the twelfth year of Pharaoh Alexander, the son of Alexander," i.e., B.C. 311, and in the other the name of the priest who either had the papyrus written, or appropriated it, namely, Nes-Menu, or Nes-Amsu.
In his audacious design of compiling a history of printing he mangled and mutilated about 25,000 volumes, tearing out the title pages and colophons and shaving the margins even of such priceless jewels of bibliography as the Bible of Gutenberg and those of 'Polyglott' Cardinal Ximènes.
As a consequence we are frequently unable to determine more than their general contents. The colophons generally are missing, at least in those hymns hitherto published, so that we are left in the dark as to the special occasion for which the hymn was composed. Without this knowledge it is quite impossible to assign to it any definite date except upon internal evidence.
Matthew, a Psalter and the completion of the Corpus Suidas which his fellow-countryman Emmanuel had begun. In one of his colophons he specifies Reading Abbey as his place of abode; for the others he merely says Reading.
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