COLOPHON, a final paragraph in some manuscripts and many early printed books (see BooK), giving particulars as to authorship, date and place of production, and sometimes express ing the thankfulness of the author, scribe or printer on the com pletion of his task. Thus the Guillermus, who made a famous col lection of sermons on the gospels for Sundays and saints' days, records its completion in 1437 and submits it to the correction of charitable readers, and Sir Thomas Malory notes that his Morte d'Arthur "was ended in the ix yere of the reygne of Kyng Edward the fourth," and bids his readers "praye for me whyle I am on lyue that God sende me good delyuerance, and whan I am deed I praye you all praye for my soule." The earliest printed paragraph of this kind is that which Fust and Schoeffer printed at the end of their famous psalter of 1457 in red ink: Presens spalmorum (sic for psalmorum) codex venustate capitalium decoratus Rubrica tionibusque sufficienter distinctus, Adinuentione artificiosa im primendi ac caracterizandi absque calami vlla exaracione sic effi giatus, Et ad eusebiam dei industrie est consummatus, Per lohan nem lust ciuem maguntinum, Et Petrum Scha ffer de Gernszheim Anno domini Millesimo. cccc. lvii. in vigilia Assumpcionis. In the Vienna copy of this and in their Latin Bible of 1462 they added a device of two shields at the end of the paragraph, and this addition was widely copied. When a leaf or page was added to the title of a book at its beginning the importance of these final para graphs slowly diminished, and the information they gave was gradually transferred to the title-page. Complete title-pages bear ing the date and name of the publishers are found in most books printed after 152o, and the final paragraph, if retained at all, was gradually reduced to information as to the printer and date. From the use of the word in the sense of a "finishing stroke" (from the story that the final charge of the cavalry of Colophon was always decisive) such a final paragraph as has been described is called by bibliographers a "colophon," but this name for it is quite possi bly not earlier than the i8th century. (A. W. P.)